Ink and Bone(22)

Finley and Jones had shared a few moments early on when she’d first moved to The Hollows, one where he told her that she was driving her bike too fast, that the consequences for careless behavior were often unforgiving. Coming from anyone else, she’d have blown it off. But after his warning, she’d slowed down for the sake of her grandmother, if not for herself. At least in town, where every-thing she did was promptly reported back to Eloise.

As she poured her coffee and put slices of bread in the toaster, the sound ceased. It took her a second to realize that Jones Cooper was the reason it was gone. She also became aware that neither Eloise nor Jones had said a word since she entered, that Jones was looking at his cup, and Eloise was watching Finley.

“Squeak-clink?” she asked her grandmother.

“Maybe,” said Eloise easily. “It’s been quiet since he got here. For me anyway.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Jones. The way he asked it suggested that he wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

“Jones has had a visit from a young mother looking for her missing daughter,” Eloise said, ignoring his question. “You might remember; it was in the news last year. The family vacationing from the city?”

“I thought it was the father,” said Finley. She came to sit at the table with them, her curiosity piqued. “That he’d disappeared with both kids. Custody thing.”

“No,” said Jones.

He opened the file, revealing a swath of papers that looked like printed articles from the web.

“You’re thinking of another case about eighteen months prior to the Gleason girl abduction,” he said. He leafed through the pages and pulled out an article. “The Fitzpatrick family moved here from Manhattan back in 2013, and within a year, they were going through an ugly divorce and custody battle. The husband came to take the kids—a girl Eliza, age nine, and a boy Joshua, age fourteen—for his scheduled visit and didn’t bring them home. It was treated as a parental abduction. I did some research last night. The case is still open, no sign of the husband or the children—which I find odd. It’s really hard for anyone to disappear these days, especially with two children.”

Eloise made a confirming noise and looked down at the article.

“There was no criminal history, domestic violence,” said Jones. “There were no allegations of abuse or neglect. Their passports weren’t used, so they didn’t flee overseas.”

Finley looked at the poor-quality image of the children with their father, obviously on some kind of outdoorsy adventure, since they were all wearing backpacks and leaning on walking sticks. They looked beautiful and marked for some ill fate. But wasn’t that always true of the photographs of the missing?

“There are similarities between the two cases,” Jones went on when Finley and Eloise stayed quiet. “Namely that Betty Fitzpatrick, the mother, said that the children and their father were planning a hike. Which is the circumstance under which the Gleason girl was abducted.

Still nothing from Eloise.

“I’m not saying that the cases are connected necessarily,” said Jones. “But I do know that The Hollows PD took another look at the Fitzpatrick case when Abbey Gleason disappeared.”

Eloise leafed through the articles, pushing her glasses up on her nose. The expression on her face had gone from lovingly benign to tightly focused on the work in front of her. She was a stranger to Finley for a moment, someone distant and untouchable.

“The woman who came to see me last night, Merri Gleason,” Jones went on. “Her daughter Abbey disappeared ten months ago when the family was up here vacationing at a lake house.”

“I remember,” said Eloise. Even her voice sounded different, grim and soft. “I kept waiting to get something. I never did.”

Jones shifted back in his chair, and it groaned beneath his weight. He folded his big arms around his chest, kept his storm cloud eyes on Eloise. Were they blue or hazel or a kind of misty gray, those eyes that missed nothing, Finley wondered.

“There was a big police effort, of course,” said Jones. He coughed to clear his throat. “Lots of media. Weeks passed, then months. Leads went cold. I was one of the volunteers who searched the woods where she went missing.”

Finley remembered but only vaguely. She’d still been in Seattle living with her mother, hadn’t she? She hadn’t been thinking or paying much attention to anything but the drama in her own life. It’s not the Finley Show, her mother used to chide. It’s not just about you.

“The girl’s brother and father were both shot; she was taken,” said Jones. “Hours passed before the park ranger came out looking for them.”

“Right,” said Eloise. She took off her glasses and pushed the papers away. “There were two men. One man shot Wolf Gleason and his son, then took the girl as they watched, helpless. But he couldn’t see their faces, couldn’t identify them afterwards.”

Jones nodded, took a sip of coffee.

“And allegedly the other man stayed behind with a knife while the older man disappeared with Abbey Gleason.”

“A nightmare,” said Eloise.

“Must have been,” said Jones. He said it oddly, not cold exactly, but with the acceptance of one too accustomed to the unfolding of nightmare scenarios.

Finley didn’t have anything to add, just watched the interplay between them. It was easy, respectful. Eloise and Jones worked a number of cases together, always to good success, their talents balancing and complementing each other’s. There was something powerful about their energy, as if there was no case they couldn’t solve.