Next to them, the bedroom was empty, the child gone, their son, Cole, gone. Deputies from the sheriff’s office and men in FBI jackets were coming in and out of the suite with their faces torn. They too knew the possibility was there that the child had been taken, like last time, and couldn’t believe it either.
Something like this doesn’t happen twice. Not to the same people!
Mary continued to bite her nails. Reporters were gathered outside the hotel, just like last time. Only this time, they had been there faster. As soon as the name had been revealed, they had known there was a story. Many of them were there ten years ago when it happened the last time…when Maggie and Blake had been taken and killed. Mary recognized their faces as she went through the crowd earlier when coming in from searching for Cole. Sixty members of the staff and guests had been out looking for him, going through bushes and wilderness, searching in houses nearby to see if he might have hidden there. Hours had passed.
Nothing. Not one single sign of life.
He’s dead; I just know he is. Just like the two others! Oh, dear Lord!
“He could still be hiding somewhere,” the agent in charge had said several times to calm them.
But no one believed he was. They hoped, yes, they wanted to be wrong like never before, but deep down inside, they didn’t believe it. Mary sensed they all looked at her and Peter with that look in their eyes—compassionate, yet suspicious.
She couldn’t blame them.
“Peter, maybe we should go out there again…”
He exhaled. “We’ve been out there for hours and hours. We have to wait until it gets light again. The police are still out there with the dogs. There’s still a chance he might have wandered off, then fallen asleep in someone’s yard or under a bush somewhere.”
“But we can’t just leave him out there? There are alligators and snakes. This is Florida!” she said.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. His were red-rimmed like they were the last time. Only now, his eyes were older and had that brokenness to them. The hope had left them when they realized they never would get their children back. The life and hope in them had never returned. They had seen so much and gone through so much.
“What’s going on, Peter? I don’t understand. How can this be happening again?”
“You need to rest, Mary,” he said and helped her sit back down. “You haven’t slept at all. Take an hour or two, and I’m sure he’ll be found while you sleep. We’ll find him; do you hear me? It’s not like ten years ago. It’s not the same.”
She put her head on the pillow but didn’t close her eyes. Too much was going on inside of her. This was more than one heart could bear to carry.
“Why did we have to come here, Peter?” she whispered. “I told you I didn’t want to come. I didn’t even want to go on vacation, especially not to Florida.”
Chapter 12
The area was buzzing. He was enjoying that very much. They were running around confused and out of it, like frightened little chickens—scurrying around the resort and the houses nearby. They had search groups walking through the wilderness behind the resort, where there might be alligators and whatnot. Sniffer dogs were out running around, bustling through the area, while people everywhere were calling the boy’s name. People were gathering, so many questions unanswered, some were even crying, even though they didn’t know the boy.
It was a thing of pure beauty, and it was all because of him and what he had done, and boy, had he done it.
“It’s terrible about the little boy,” someone said to another man as he passed them outside the resort entrance.
“I feel awful for him…and for the parents, of course.”
The little pause that seemed so meaningless spoke louder than any words could. It told of the growing suspicion in people who had heard the story before. He especially enjoyed that lingering suspicion. That was the extra fun, the extra spice to it all. Everyone was starting to wonder, how is it possible that this could happen again? Didn’t the parents watch their children? Why did they leave their child alone again? After what happened. You don’t think that…?
No one dared to say so, but it was on all of their minds. What kind of parents were they dealing with here? Wasn’t something awfully wrong for it to happen twice?
“You don’t think that…?”
He heard them whisper with a small gasp in the hotel lobby as he walked by. Voices grew low as he passed them because they felt awful for even thinking this, and to say it out loud would be premature. No one dared to do so yet. But soon, they would say just that. And once the boy turned up dead, they would think the worst. They would know those parents had something to do with it. They would be certain of it, and no matter what they said to defend themselves, it would make them sound guilty. If they cried, they would be faking it; if they didn’t, they were cold as ice and most definitely guilty.
It was almost too easy.
Meanwhile, he went to the elevator, got in, and pressed the button for the fourth floor. He got out, walked down the hallway, put the keycard in the slider, and waited for the lamp to turn green, then entered the room. He let the door slam shut behind him before walking to the bed, where the boy was sleeping heavily, drugged out, and would be for hours. Below him, he could hear the voices from the Marshalls’ room, and it didn’t bother him one bit that they were being so loud.
The police had already searched the rooms. He had waited and brought the child in when they were done. Now, they wouldn’t come back here again. He had it all to himself and was able to listen in on the conversations downstairs.
He was waiting for them to start asking what everyone else was thinking: “What did you do to your child?”
That’s when the fun would start—when they turned their suspicion toward the parents and started asking them questions. And while the world turned their suspicion toward them, he would be alone with their son.
Right upstairs from them, where they could almost hear him scream.
Chapter 13
The resort was swarmed with reporters. I had to elbow my way through the crowd outside, Brad in front of me, pushing their microphones away from our faces.
“Why is the FBI involved?” one of them yelled.
I didn’t stop to tell him that the FBI would always initiate an investigation involving a possible kidnapping of a child of “tender years” —usually defined as twelve years and younger—even though there is no known interstate aspect. The idiot could do his own research. A simple Google search would tell him this.
“Do you have any demand for a ransom?” someone else yelled.
“Is it the mother? Did she hurt her child again?” someone yelled. “Is that why you’re here, Agent Wilson?”
That made me stop. I pivoted and faced the reporter who had asked. I recognized his face from ten years ago when he had also covered the case. He hadn’t aged by much, a few more grays on his head and in his stubble, but other than that, he looked very much the same. On his jacket, it said, USA Today. I knew him as Fischer back then.
“First of all, it’s Agent Thomas now. I’ve since been divorced. Second, Mrs. Marshall never hurt anyone.”