Libby shook her head.
“Well, she’s the neighbor girl downhill a ways. Apparently this same guy attacked her and stole her dog.”
“What? He…why would he do that? Who’s the other boy?” she asked the room in general.
The smaller deputy on the couch said, “We’re not sure yet. From what the Winston girl and your hu…ex-husband have told us, we suspect he might have been another kidnap.”
Libby moved to the coffee table and plopped down on the edge of it, her hair flapping against her neck. “I can’t believe this.”
“Ms. Pullman,” said the bearded deputy whose name tag Libby had not yet bothered to read, “I know this is all a little much, but I have a couple of questions to ask you.”
“Me?” Libby looked at his name tag now. It read L. Willis. “What kinds of questions?”
Rather than answer, Willis said, “Have you been seeing anyone recently, Ms. Pullman?”
Libby gawked at him. “Have I…no, I haven’t. What’s that matter?”
“No one?” Willis asked. “No regular boyfriend?”
Libby thought of Marshall, who was most definitely not a regular boyfriend, who had started as a pity date and turned out to be a lecher. “No,” she told Willis. “There hasn’t been anyone since—” She trailed off and didn’t look at Mike.
“I see,” said Willis. “I only ask because sometimes, when there are divorced parents involved, a kidnapped child turns up with one of the two of them.”
“You think I have him?” Libby leaned to get up from the coffee table, but Mike put a steadying hand on her shoulder.
“Hold on a second,” he said. “I told you who took him. It was this guy with the boy.”
Willis ignored Mike. To Libby, he said, “You never mentioned something to, say, a friend? Maybe that you wished you saw more of your boy? Or that you didn’t like him being up here.”
Libby didn’t appreciate the way he’d said the word friend, wasn’t sure what, if anything, he was implying. “No.” She looked at the other deputy, who was writing on his pad again. “No, I never said anything like that.” Her fists clenched, and she forced her fingers to loosen.
“You don’t wish you saw more of your boy?” Willis asked.
“Well, of course I do. You’re twisting this all around. I love Trevor, but Mike is a good daddy to him, and I’d never try to take him away from here.”
Willis nodded. “Okay.” He turned to Mike, his attitude changing so suddenly he seemed to be a different person. He said, “We’ve got additional units heading up right now. They’ll search the woods around your property and between here and the Winston’s place. But I have to be honest with you both. Until this guy calls, there’s not a lot more we can do.”
“Calls?” Mike said. “What do you mean? Why would he call?”
“Ransom,” said Willis. “We should assume he might call wanting money.”
“We don’t have any money,” Libby said.
“And even if we did,” Mike added, “I don’t think he wants it. If he wanted a ransom, he wouldn’t have tried to kill me.”
“What?” Libby spun toward him.
Mike said, “I…got stabbed.”
Libby stared.
“It’s nothing bad,” he said quickly. “Doctor fixed me up right here, didn’t have to take me to the hospital or anything, just told me to watch it for infection.”
Libby’s head suddenly overflowed with questions. The first one to spill out was, “What doctor?”
“He’s gone,” Mike answered, and Libby could tell from the tone of his voice that he’d explain it all to her later, that they had more important things to discuss now.
“Well, then, you’re right,” said Libby. “He doesn’t want money.”
“We don’t know that,” Willis added. “And if this isn’t a ransom situation, we’re going to have a tougher time finding Trevor. We’ll do what we can, of course. Prints, blood work, all that, and we’ll get you down to the station tomorrow to look through some mug shots,” he said to Mike. “Of course, this could end up in the hands of the state police, or with the feds if we find out Trevor’s out of the state. Things could still get a lot messier. Best thing we can do right now is wait and see what happens.”
“That’s it?” Libby looked from man to man to man, saving Deputy Willis for last. “Can’t we bring in the dogs? Something like that?”
“The sheriff’s department doesn’t have any dogs. By the time we could coordinate with the police to get some up here, it’d be too late. It’s probably too late already. Our guy didn’t go far on foot, probably had transportation waiting somewhere nearby. I’d guess he was already on the road by the time you got to your phone,” he said and looked at Mike. “To get a search party up here would take hours and be more expensive than it was worth. We’d barely be getting here ourselves if we hadn’t already been practically next door.”
“That’s reassuring,” said Libby.
Willis said, “That’s just the truth. We’ve got a lot of area to cover up here and not a lot of deputies to cover it. It’s better for everyone if we keep things realistic. But I promise you I will personally do everything in my power to make sure we bring your son back. Okay?”
Libby wondered if Mike felt as helpless as she did. Trevor was gone. Again. And this time they wouldn’t find him in the restroom. If Libby had believed in fate, she might have thought she was meant to lose Trevor today. Except she didn’t, and fate hadn’t stabbed Mike and cut up a little girl and stolen two boys.
“Once we’ve finished collecting our evidence and gone,” said Willis, “I’d suggest you two get some sleep. For the next couple of days, you’re going to need all the rest you can get.”
Yeah right. You think I can curl up and take a nap while my baby is missing?
Mike returned to his seat on the sofa and fingered his bruised face. After eight years of marriage, Libby had learned to read his body language and often knew his thoughts without him saying a word. Right now, she guessed he was wondering the same thing she was: while they waited, what might be happening to their son?
TWENTY-SIX
In the back of the bouncing truck, Trevor lay against the whining dog, facing the other boy, Zach.
“Where’s he taking us?” Trevor asked.
Zach shook his head. He didn’t know.
“How long has he had you?”
Zach said, “Just since today. I was at home this morning.”
Trevor held the shirtsleeve to his forehead, trying to keep the button on the cuff from pressing into his wound. The dog’s tail wagged against his bare legs, his fur warm but the breeze from the movement chilly.
“How did he catch me? Did you see?” The last thing Trevor remembered was hiding in Daddy’s workshop. He’d decided to run for the house, get to his daddy so they could fight off the bad guy together. But one second he’d started to run and the next he’d found himself in the back of the truck with a dog and a boy he’d never seen before.
Zach looked at him a long time, so long Trevor thought he either didn’t know or didn’t want to answer, and finally he said, “He ran after you. He caught you and spun you around and busted you on the head with some stick.”
Trevor said, “He musta busted me good.” He shifted the pad a little and pressed down hard again.
“Yeah,” said the other boy.
The truck slowed, and Trevor heard the blinker. He tried to sit up, to see what lay ahead, but the motion of the turn sent him tumbling back to the truck’s bed before he could get his head up more than just a little.