Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(93)

“How old?” Josie asked.

“He’s twenty-six. I should have a driver’s license photo in a few minutes. We’ll see if it matches our suspect. He was found escaping Martin Lendhardt’s home at age nine, malnourished and scarred. Hadn’t been to school. Martin was arrested. Gideon was terrified of him and would never talk about him or anything that happened in the house. Martin’s defense was that Gideon’s mother was the one who beat and starved him. But she couldn’t be located.”

“How convenient for him,” Josie said.

Oaks continued, “They couldn’t prove it wasn’t her. The best they could do was charge him with child endangerment. One year in prison. Gideon was put into foster care—bounced around to a bunch of different homes—which is where he stayed until he aged out at eighteen.”

Gretchen said, “Natalie Oliver was a foster kid, too.”

“So now we know where they met,” Noah said.

“And we know that Amy-or-Tessa abandoned him. But we still don’t know where Lucy is. I’m going to talk to him.”





Sixty-Eight





Josie faced off against Gideon Lendhardt. From across the interrogation table, he stared at her, his eyes flashing angrily. There was no guarantee that he’d talk to her, but he hadn’t asked for a lawyer yet either, so Josie had to take her chances.

“Gideon,” she said. “Whose idea was it to find Tessa and make her pay? Yours or Natalie’s?”

He didn’t speak.

Josie went on. “I’m guessing it was your lifelong dream to make her pay, but that Natalie was the one who came up with an actual plan. You two met in foster care, right? I understand you were nine when they took you away from your father for good. So you bounce around from home to home. One day you meet Natalie and the two of you become good friends. Maybe even lovers later in life?”

She could tell by the flare in his eyes that she had hit on something. “You understood each other, didn’t you? Both foster kids? Both kicked out of a system that couldn’t care less about you as soon as you turned eighteen. Then somehow you find Tessa. You realize she’s living in Pennsylvania with her husband and daughter. You want to get back at her, but you don’t know how. Natalie sees an opportunity not just to get back at her but to make a little money as well. Natalie took care of the logistics, didn’t she? The planning. What was in it for her? Just to make you happy? Or she wanted the money? I know she had a taste of money before you two carried this out. She hit the lottery. She knew she could get money out of Tessa’s new husband, didn’t she? All you two had to do was get to know little Lucy for a few months before the kidnapping, right? Earn her trust, become her friends. Promise her something irresistible—maybe taking her to a butterfly sanctuary or something. Well, Natalie probably came up with that. You just wanted to grab her, didn’t you?”

“It would have been a lot less trouble,” he said.

“Yes, I imagine it would have. Your plan was pretty elaborate. Especially the carousel. No cameras in the park, that was smart. Who gave Lucy the signal? Was it you or Natalie? It was you, wasn’t it? Natalie was at the Ross home leaving the teddy bear with your secret message, wasn’t she?”

“That was a streak of genius if you ask me,” he said, smiling. “I just wish I could have been there to see Tessa’s face when she heard it.”

Josie felt ill seeing the glee on his face, but she forged ahead. “Where did you take Lucy?”

“You think I’m going to tell you? You’re not so smart, are you? Kind of like Tessa.”

Josie let the barb go. “Well, I know you moved around a lot. Camped out in the woods. Stayed at the mill for a while. Also smart—to keep moving.”

He didn’t respond.

“Gideon, what did you do with Lucy?”

He still didn’t speak.

Josie said, “Lucy doesn’t deserve this, you know. She’s innocent.”

“So was I,” he muttered.

“Yes, you were. It must have been very traumatic, what happened to you.”

“You don’t know a goddamn thing,” he growled.

“I know that you were taken from your father when you were nine years old. I also know that your father told child services that Tessa had given you all those scars. But if that were the case, they wouldn’t have taken you from him, would they?”

He didn’t answer. A vein bulged in his forehead.

“They never reunited you with your father. All those years and they never sent you back to him. We can’t view your foster care file, but I’m guessing the reason they never sent you home is because you were violent, just like your father.”

“I’m nothing like that bastard,” he snarled.

“Well, you’re not like your mother,” Josie replied. “She’s gentle and kind.”

He pushed back in his chair a little, the legs screeching on the tile. “That’s an act.”

“How do you know?” Josie asked.

“Because any bitch who leaves her kid with someone like my father can’t be kind. Any bitch who abandons her child without so much as batting an eyelash is not gentle or kind. Whatever she said to you to make you believe that, it’s all an act.”