Off the Deep End (35)

Every second mattered, and with each one that ticked away, it felt like we were losing valuable time and opportunity to get him back. Not being able to do anything was maddening. I pulled out my phone and loaded Safari, then stared at the blank page that opened. The cursor blinked at me from the empty search bar, but I was at a loss for what to type. I’d scoured almost everything I could find on the Dog Snatcher, combed through thousands of posts on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, watched hours of forensic videos on YouTube, and devoured countless other research sites on anything that might remotely connect to or help Isaac. Where else could I possibly look?

I pulled up the Moore County Court website and found the court docket index, but without a name or case number, it was impossible to find out if anyone at Samaritan House had a criminal record. The only thing I knew about Samaritan House was its address, and I wasn’t even supposed to know that. Nothing came up if you googled the facility. No name. No address. No contact information. I’d learned group homes were a lot like domestic violence shelters—cloaked in privacy. But I’d computed it to memory automatically when I’d seen one of the technicians writing it down last week: 256 Emory Street.

I let out a frustrated sigh.

The only thing I could do with an address was look it up on the sex offender registry. The police never said there was evidence of sexual assault on any of the boys, but you never knew what they weren’t telling us. I’d plugged our address in as soon as the FBI made the official announcement that there was a serial killer stalking adolescent boys. Thankfully, there wasn’t anyone on the list within two miles of us. I hadn’t given it a second thought since then.

I typed in the Samaritan House address instead of mine this time. The site took forever to load, and unlike the search with my address, this one came back with two results. My heart beat faster. I clicked on the first one.

JEREMY GUNKLE: Class II Felony: Cruel and Lascivious Acts with a minor

I dropped the phone like his face would jump out of the screen and attack me. It clattered loudly on the tile. They had to have heard it downstairs, but I didn’t care.

He’s there. In that house with her.

I reached down and slowly picked up my phone. I forced myself to look at him even though I didn’t want to. He looked like the creepy guy who used to sell tickets at the drive-in movie theater up north that we went to every summer when we visited my grandmother growing up.

“Stay away from Pete,” my mother would always hiss in my ear as we got out of the car. “He’ll try to peek up your skirt any chance he gets.”

Sneaky Pete. That’s what we called him, and Jeremy Gunkle looked just like him. Every part the pedophile. Even his name sounded like one.

Could Jules be innocent? What if she’d led Isaac right to a predator without knowing it? Was it possible Isaac had been visiting her, and Jeremy had spotted him? Where did they meet when they hung out? He’d always refused to tell me. Another one of the reasons we fought with him to put a stop to their relationship. Did they hang out in the group home together? Who else might’ve seen them? Been interested in Isaac? Fear balled heavy and slick in my stomach.

The investigators had to know about Jeremy. There was no way they didn’t, which meant they were keeping it from us for a reason. The fact that they had to send in some specialized forensic psychologist to interview Jules and that no one else could talk to her also meant something. It had to. They couldn’t just storm over there and search the group home. They had to do things a certain way and make sure everything was done by the book, but I wasn’t the police or the FBI. I was just a mother, and when it all came down to it, so was Jules. What if I just went there and spoke to her mother to mother? Pleaded with her straight from the heart. Would it work? Could I get through to her? I’d never considered reaching out to her myself.

The mother that she used to be was in there somewhere, buried underneath all the fractured pain, and maybe if I could reach her in that place, she’d tell me what she’d done with my son. That’s all I cared about. We could keep it a secret. No one would ever even have to know. I didn’t care whether she or whoever else was punished for taking him. I didn’t care if they got caught or brought to justice. All I wanted was my son back. My pulse quickened at the prospect.

I straightened up, then took a good hard look at myself in the mirror. My eyes were hollow and gaunt from days without sleep. My skin pasty and pale like I was sick. I’d never looked so weak and worn down, but none of that mattered. Not when it came to finding my son. It was time to leave the house. I rested my hands on the counter.

“You can do this,” I said to myself in the mirror.





ELEVEN


AMBER GREER


My insides shook as I reached for the door of Samaritan House. It looked like a regular run-of-the-mill apartment building from the outside, with its nondescript gray siding and identical windows lining all three floors. Besides it being a little beat up, you’d never suspect that the complex housed twenty-two adults with severe mental illness. It was a specialized group home, reserved only for those who were under conservatorship by the courts or a family member. I hadn’t even known places like this existed until they’d put Jules in it. Her husband had helped put her here. I’d overheard Detective Hawkins telling one of the detectives that a few days ago.

I took a deep breath and checked behind me again, making sure I wasn’t being followed. It’d taken me forever to lose the news trucks. I didn’t know how celebrities lived with the paparazzi following them everywhere. I couldn’t stand it. I understood why Britney Spears attacked one of them with an umbrella all those years ago. Thankfully, there was nobody behind me. I’d parked the car four blocks away and walked just in case.