Gone (Deadly Secrets #2)(47)

“And what about Mrs. Ramirez?”

“Food services at the local elementary school.”

He knocked, and they both waited as footsteps sounded inside. Seconds later, the door pulled open, and a Hispanic man in his early thirties with dark hair and eyes, wearing a blue long-sleeved shirt buttoned all the way to his throat, said, “Yes?”

Alec offered his hand. “Hi, Mr. Ramirez. I’m Alec McClane. We spoke earlier on the phone?”

Luis Ramirez nodded. “Sí. Uh, come on in.” He held the door open for them, closing it after they moved into the living room. “I’ll get my wife. She just got back from picking our son up from school.”

His English was choppy but clear. As he rounded a corner and disappeared down a small hallway, Raegan moved farther into the living area and sat on the couch. “This is nice. A lot nicer than the last place we visited.”

It was. The room was small but clean with whitewashed beadboard walls, a leather couch and two recliners, a small TV on the wall above the fireplace, and a crucifix hanging near the door.

Luis reappeared holding the hand of a small Hispanic woman, her dark hair pulled back in a neat tail, a nervous expression on her face. “This is my wife, Marie.”

“Hola.” Marie stepped forward and held out her hand. Alec rose and shook it. Raegan did the same.

“Thanks for meeting with us,” Alec said.

The woman turned toward her husband and said something in Spanish Alec didn’t catch. Seconds later, Luis looked their way. “Sorry. Uh, my wife’s English is not so good. She wants to know if you want something to drink?”

“No, we’re fine.” Alec smiled at the wife, then sat. Raegan lowered herself to the couch next to him. “Thanks for talking to us today about David. We know how hard this probably is for you.”

The Ramirezes exchanged nervous looks, then each sat in the recliners opposite the couch.

“It is,” Luis said. “But we agreed long ago if anyone, especially any reporters, wanted to talk to us, we would cooperate. We want to find our son.”

Alec’s chest tightened, but today he focused on the case, not his personal feelings. “David went missing twenty-nine months ago, is that correct?”

“Yes,” Luis answered. “We were living in Northeast Portland then. It was September. We’d taken him to the State Fair down in Salem. It was packed that day. Hot. Over a hundred degrees. Our older son, Miguel, was eight at the time. He’d wanted to go on the rides. I took him. Marie stayed with David and went to get food from one of the vendors.”

“How old was David then?” Alec asked.

“Barely two.”

Marie spoke rapidly in Spanish, and Luis nodded, then said, “He was walking then. Never wanted to sit still. She pushed the stroller to a food cart, took her eyes off of him to pay, and when she looked back, he was gone.”

Marie’s eyes angled downward, and she fiddled with her hands in her lap until her husband reached for her. Tattoos Alec couldn’t decipher stained the back of his hands.

“She looked everywhere for him,” Luis went on. “There was no sign of him. It was like he just vanished. She found a security guard, but her English wasn’t good, and he didn’t understand what she was trying to say. She came and found me so I could translate. We searched the entire fairgrounds. Security helped us look, but there were multiple entrances and exits. By the time the authorities got involved, he could have been anywhere.”

It was a parent’s worst nightmare, and Alec knew that nightmare well because he’d lived it. “What happened then?”

The Ramirezes exchanged looks again, and Luis said, “The police came. We told them what happened. They said they would look into it, but . . .”

“But what?” Raegan asked.

Luis glanced her way. “We were both in the States illegally then. And we weren’t married. I was also running with a gang in the city. The cops . . . they were sure whoever took David targeted him specifically because of the people we associated with. No one seemed interested in helping us. You are the first reporters who have ever asked about our son.”

Alec wasn’t surprised. Illegal immigrants, especially gang members, had very little voice. “You said you were living up in Portland. Was your son receiving help from the state? Health care, social services, that kind of thing?”

“Yes. Both of our boys were. They were both born here.”

“Do you ever remember a man named Conner Murray?” Raegan asked. “He would have been with Washington County Health and Human Services. He would have come out to your home to check on the boys. About five eight, round around the middle, with thinning hair?”

Luis turned to his wife and spoke in Spanish. They conversed back and forth a few minutes, then he looked at Raegan once more. “Yes. The name and description are familiar.”

Raegan glanced Alec’s way, and in her green eyes he saw the same thing he felt. A hint of hope.

“Do you have e-mail, Mr. Ramirez?” Alec asked.

“Yes.”

Alec pulled a business card from his pocket and handed it to the man. “Can you write down your address for me? I want to send you a photo of Conner Murray and see if it’s the same guy.”

“Okay.”

Footsteps sounded from the hallway while Luis jotted down his e-mail. A squeal echoed from a back bedroom, followed by a child speaking rapidly in Spanish.