Children of the Fog (9 page)

She told Jay.

"Did you see anyone there who didn't seem to fit?" he asked.

She shook her head. "It was mostly parents, mothers. Oh, and there was one fath—" She looked up and gasped. "There was a man in a car. I thought he was one of the fathers."

"Can you describe him?"

She winced. "I don't know. He was sitting in his car and he had a hat and sunglasses on. I didn't get a clear look at him. I think he was in his mid-thirties, early forties." She wasn't exactly lying.

"Did you get a look at the car?"

"I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention. It was dark—gray or black. Four doors. That's all I remember." Before Jay could ask, she said, "And I never saw the license plate."

"Do you know the make or model?"

"Sadie can't tell a sedan from a sports car," Philip said dryly.

She sent him a look that made his mouth snap shut.

Jay jotted down a few notes. "What about the birthday party?"

"Just friends of Sam's, no strangers," she said.

"Let's get some background info," Jay said, turning to a fresh page in his notebook.

Within minutes, he had a blow-by-blow of their whole life—routines, friends and every person who had stepped into their house. He admitted that the clown was the strongest lead, since they had found the shoe in Sam's room. They were also checking into the delivery guy.

Sadie and Philip were separated for about half an hour and questioned individually. Then they were free to go.

She grabbed Jay's arm as they walked out of his office. "How long do you think before we get Sam back?"

The detective flicked an uneasy glance at her husband. Philip was standing a few yards away, glancing at his watch as if he had somewhere better to be.

"That depends on who took him, Ms. O'Connell," Jay said.

"You told me the first three days were critical. What happens after that?"

"We keep looking. You've given us lots of leads to check out."

"What if it
was
The Fog?" she persisted.

Jay's mouth thinned. "We haven't found any of the kids he's taken. But that could be a good thing. It's very possible they're all still alive. Including Sam." He looked at Philip again. "But that's
if
The Fog has taken him. Without witnesses or a description, we don't have much to go on, but we're looking into all possibilities."

'Without witnesses or a description…'

The detective's words made her flinch, and she hurried around the hall corner, anxious to escape the police station. As she neared the waiting area, she skidded to a stop.

Thick-lashed blue eyes met hers.

Sam!

He was sitting in a chair, crying. When he saw her, he smiled and motioned her to come closer.

Ecstatic and relieved, she turned to Jay. "You found him!"

"What?"

"Sam!" She spun around, pointing toward the chair. "He's—"

The chair was vacant.

Her mind went numb. She had seen him. He had smiled at her, waved at her.

Philip grabbed her arm, leading her out of the station. "That wasn't funny, Sadie."

"It wasn't meant to be," she snapped. "I thought…oh, never mind."

Not a word was said on the drive home. Or as Philip pulled the Mercedes into the garage. When she entered the house, she kicked off her shoes, dropped her purse on the floor and plodded upstairs. Two painkillers and a sleeping pill later, she climbed into bed.

It wasn't quite six o'clock.

9

Sadie awoke slowly, rubbing her weary eyes. They felt dry, as if someone had coated them with flour and rubbed it in for good measure. Most likely a side effect of the pills she had taken the night before.

She blinked.

It was day two and a piece of her was missing.

Sam.

She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. A low moan boiled in the pit of her stomach, slithering upward, a coiled snake ready to strike. It burned between her ribs, up to her throat and then erupted from her mouth in a keening wail.

"Sam!"

Wherever he was, he was scared. She knew that without a doubt and she wanted to comfort him, take away his fear. He should have been getting ready to go to school, just as he did every Tuesday morning. Instead, he was with…

The devil.

"Oh God. Why'd you let him take my baby?" She pounded the mattress. "Why?"

Swatting back tears, she reached for the phone.

"It's Sadie O'Connell," she said when Jay Lucas picked up.

"I was going to call you. Can you come to the downtown station?"

"Why? Have you found Sam?"

There was a brief pause. "No, but we do need to talk to you again."

"Should Philip come too?"

"No, just you."

She hung up and dressed quickly, distracted by her thoughts.

Why did Jay want to talk to her alone? Had he somehow guessed that she'd been lying? Did he suspect that she had seen the man who had taken her son?

After signing in at the front desk, she was escorted to a small office where she sat down uneasily. Jay entered the room, carrying a gray folder. He shook her hand, then sat down behind the desk.

"Ms. O'Connell," he began. "What I'm about to tell you is highly sensitive and cannot leave this room. I shouldn't even be discussing this, but it could be pertinent to Sam's case. A word of caution though. If you mention any of this to your husband or anyone else before it becomes public, we'll be forced to charge you with interfering in our case. Do you understand?"

"I-I…yes, I understand."

"Are you aware that your husband is being investigated for fraud and embezzlement?"

"What?" she sputtered. "What are you talking about?"

"Fraud division's been investigating him for the past year. I didn't see the connection at first because I had you both listed under the name of O'Connell, since you called it in. But when I amended your husband's last name, it was flagged."

"B-but that's impossible. Philip would never—"

"Your husband's associate Morris Saunders is under investigation too. We suspect that they've been siphoning their clients' funds into offshore accounts. About eight million dollars in total."

Eight million dollars?

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her husband—Mr. Defender of Justice—was an embezzler, a thief.

"Aren't people supposed to be presumed innocent?" she asked in alarm.

The aging detective gave her a rueful look. "Fraud had someone undercover. Someone who knows your husband quite well."

"Who?"

"I can't tell you right now. But you'll know soon enough."

Sadie was silent for a long moment.

"Ms. O'Connell?"

"I…I thought you wanted to talk to me about Sam. I thought maybe you had found—" Her voice broke and she slumped forward, her hands covering her face.

"I'm sorry, Ms. O'Connell."

"Please," she said into her hands. "Just call me Sadie."

"Look…Sadie. I know you don't need any more on your plate, but—"

Her head snapped up. "But what? Eight million dollars is more important than my son? Is that what you're trying to say?"

Jay reached a hand across the desk. "Please, hear me out for a minute. Most kidnappers are related to the victim. Often it's a spouse. Philip could have staged the kidnapping—"

"You think he took Sam? For what, ransom money?"

"He may have thought the bank would loan him money, or that he could get it from family or the law firm. If he thought he could get the money to pay them back and save himself, he could have taken Sam somewhere."

Sadie was outraged. "No! Philip would never do that!"

"Desperate people do desperate things, Ms. O'Con—Sadie."

Shoving her chair back, she jumped to her feet. "My husband may be a coward and a thief, but he would never put Sam's life in danger for money. Never!"

Jay shifted in his chair. "It's also possible that one of Philip's clients took Sam. Your husband took money from some very dangerous people. People who would do anything to get it back. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

She gaped at him. "You think they took Sam to get back at Philip?"

"It's possible."

"No! It was The Fog."

Sharp eyes pierced hers. "How do you know that?"

She opened her mouth, readying to tell him everything. But then the Fog's hoarse voice filled her ears.
"Little bloody pieces."

Her stomach twisted in knots.

Should she say something? Tell him what she knew?

"Mrs. O'Connell, if you know something—"

"No," she said, turning away. "I don't know anything that would help you find Sam."

"Then why are you so sure it was The Fog?" Jay repeated.

Careful, Sadie.

"I just know. Call it instinct." She paused in the doorway and gave the detective a hard look. "When you find The Fog, you'll find my son."

Afterward, Sadie drove to Gray Nuns Hospital. She'd been feeling a bit better as the day progressed, but she wanted to ensure that nothing was broken. Her ribs weren't so tender—until the technician asked her to flounder around like a fish out of water on the x-ray table. Turn on her right. Then on her left. Then on her back. She was in more pain when she left the hospital. She drove home and took a couple of Tylenols.

With nothing else to do, she waited.

And waited some more.

When Philip returned home that evening, he retreated to his office. Sadie stared after him as fury boiled in the pit of her stomach. She was infuriated that the police weren't looking for The Fog and stunned by the revelations of her husband's criminal activities.

She knocked, then opened the door. "Philip, I need to talk—"

The words caught in the back of her throat.

The office was in absolute chaos. It looked and smelled like a bachelor pad. The sofa along one wall was covered with twisted sheets and blankets, while a pile of Philip's clothes had been kicked into the corner. It was impossible to tell if they were clean or dirty. Empty pizza boxes and other take-out containers covered a table by the window, and two Fleming Warner coffee mugs, half-filled with congealed week-old coffee, sat on the oak desk. One of them had left a coffee ring on the wood surface.

But what shocked her even more was Philip.

He had a gun.

"What are you doing?" she asked slowly.

Philip calmly wiped the weapon with a cloth and placed it in a cedar box. "Don't worry, Sadie. It's just for show."

"Show for who?" she sputtered. "Are you crazy? We can't have a gun in the house. Not with Sam—" She broke off and glanced at the floor.

"It's not loaded," he said, like that made any difference.

"It's
illegal
. How'd you get it in the first place?"

She watched as he pushed away from the desk, strode toward the closet and nudged the box onto the top shelf.

"Someone got it for me," he said. "He owed me a favor."

"And you think you need it—a gun."

She looked at him closely, wondering why he was so nervous, why a man who had followed every law—except fidelity—had a weapon that was meant for one purpose. To kill.

Her mouth thinned. "You're afraid of whoever you took the money from, aren't you?"

Philip looked shocked. "They contacted you?"

"No, the police did. They told me everything."

"That's impossible," he said with false bravado. "They don't know everything." He sat down at his desk.

"They know enough to drag me into the station and threaten to charge me if I told you they talked to me."

"Then why are you telling me?"

She sank into the chair across from him. "The police think that Sam's disappearance is related."

"It isn't," he said, shaking his head firmly. "My associates wouldn't take him. They would've taken me for a ride instead, maybe slashed my tires as a warning. There's no way they took Sam." He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself of this.

"I believe you, Philip. But we don't need the police wasting time on your associates when they should be out looking for The Fog. That's who took Sam. I'm certain of it." She frowned. "Wait! How did
you
know about the investigation? The police said it was an undercover operation."

Philip massaged his temple. "I got a call from one of the investors. He has some connections in the police department and found out that Morris and I were being investigated. He threatened to kill me if I said anything about his business transactions. And believe me, he'd do that way before he snatched a kid."

"Who
are
these people you stole from?"

He shrugged. "Drug dealers mostly."

She gritted her teeth, resisting the temptation to reach across the desk and slap him. "Jesus, Philip! Did you honestly think they'd let you steal their money?"

"I was desperate. We've got a heavy mortgage, bills that just keep adding up and you always need money for—"

"Don't make excuses," she snapped, jumping to her feet. "And don't you dare lay this on me.
You
stole the money.
You
messed with the wrong people."

A million questions filled the prolonged silence.

Then Philip said, "What do you want from me? Blood?"

"I don't want anything
from you," she said tightly, before stalking out of the room.

Finally, she had the last word.

The next day there was still no sign of Sam.

Frustrated by the police department's lack of progress, she made up posters with Sam's face on them. She was careful not to mention The Fog. She taped the posters on postal boxes, bank windows, grocery store bulletin boards and any other place she could think of. Then she delivered them to every house in a five-block radius, hoping that someone had seen something. A license plate, a car…Sam. Anything.

Twice, she picked up the phone to call Matthew Bornyk, the father of the latest missing girl. But what could she possibly say to him?

Hi, you don't know me, but we have something in common. Both of our kids were taken by an insane maniac, and I saw him and spoke to him, but didn't tell the police.