Unseen. Part 4

"Yeah. First thing this morning."

"I'm sorry to hear that, man. How are you taking it?"

"I don't know. I'm still in shock."

"I bet." He held the loaf out to Jake, "Want some comfort bread?"

Jake swiped it away. "Are you emotionally stunted?" he said, only half joking.

Dan's face drooped as he poked a piece sheepishly into his own mouth.

"I don't know how I'm going to tell Jenna. Things are already tense between us, she's been dropping hints about marriage and kids and stuff. I'm just not ready for that."

"Have you been down to the job center?"

"Yeah. I grabbed a business card with their website on it. I guess you can file online now."

"Do you want to do that right now?"

"No. I need more time to process." He shook his head. "This has been the weirdest day ever."

"What do you mean, weird?"

"I mean like Twilight Zone, weird."

"Is this before or after you lost your job?"

"I'm not having a psychological break, if that's what you're implying."

"No. I'm just saying, stress does crazy things to the mind."

"I don't know why I'm even telling you this."

"Look," he said, jutting his hands out toward Jake, "just tell me what happened. I'll shut my mouth and listen. I promise."

This was possibly the biggest mistake in the history of mistakes, but Jake didn't know who else he could tell. Dan was the closest friend he had, besides Jenna, and there was no way he was telling Jenna.

"All right, I'll tell you. But if you breathe a word of this to Jenna, or anyone else for that matter, it will be open season on all the skeletons in your closest."

"My lips are Fort Knox," Dan said, pretending to lock his lips with a key.

Jake took a deep breath, then let it all out. He told about the old woman and the flower, his encounters with the children on his way to work, and ended with the boy on the elevator. Dan listened intently, making no reaction. When Jake finished, he leaned back in his chair, and said, "Now tell me that's not weird."

Dan rubbed his unshaven chin. "It's weird. I'll give you that."

"So you believe me?"

His face soured. "Are you kidding? Mr. Goody Two-Shoes? I think you're genetically incapable of doing wrong. Heck, you can't even indulge in a tasty loaf of bread without feeling guilty."

"Cut it out. I'm far from perfect."

"You're like a nun trapped in a man's body."

"Look, this is serious. Something really freaky is going on."

"I'm sorry, you're right, I shouldn't joke. Clearly, this whole thing is rattling you. I'd be messed up too if some old woman visited me and then ghost-children started showing up."

"You think they could be ghosts?"

"Well, I don't know why I said that. I've never heard of ghosts walking around outside in broad daylight. I would think that kind of thing would draw some media attention."

"But they didn't look like ghosts. They looked real."

"Did you touch any of them?"

"No."

"Did anyone else see any of this stuff?"

"No- I don't know. It seemed like just me, I think."

"Maybe you're hallucinating. What have you had to eat today? Or maybe someone slipped something in your drink?"

"No. It's not drugs. I don't feel any different than I normally do."

Dan brought a web browser up onto his projected screen.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm Googling it."

"Googling what?"

"I don't know, phantom children, daytime ghosts, creepy old ladies with flowers."

"Seriously?"

"Why not? This is the digital age. If you had this experience, maybe someone else had it too."

Jake's phone buzzed in his pocket. He slid it out and looked at the caller I.D.

"It's my mom. I have to take it."

Dan acknowledged him and went back to his search.

Jake took the phone into the kitchen and flipped it open. "h.e.l.lo?"

There was silence on the other end.

"Mom?"

"Jacob." His mother's voice sounded frail and vulnerable. He had heard this tone before, many times, usually when she was about to shatter his world-again.

Jake was the older of two unwanted children, the product of a drug-addict mom who was too wasted most of the time to remember to use protection. His little sister Holly was the other, but not the second. The second had died during child-birth in the cellar of some guy his mother had known only a month. That guy turned out to be Jake's second step-dad. But after his mom had caught him cheating on her, twice, she had taken Jake and Holly, and moved to Maine.

At nine years of age, Jake had thought his life would have new birth in the city of Sunbury, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, but his mother had not changed her ways. She fell right back into drugs, and the list of male companions grew longer than Jake cared to keep track of.

The last five years had been the most stable his life had ever been, mostly because he was no longer under his mother's roof, but partly because she had made a real effort to change. She had managed to stay with the same man for five years and had, as far as Jake knew, stopped using drugs. He'd even started calling her Mom again.

But hearing her voice like this and remembering the many times she'd let him down before... A flood of emotion came back to the surface. "Mom." His voice grew cold. "I really can't do this right now."

"Jacob," she said again, in that familiar voice of weakness, "...something's happened."

He dreaded to hear her next words. What would it be this time? What crisis could she come up with to affect him now that he was no longer dependent upon her to take care of him? He didn't know, but if there was a way to make this day any worse...

"Something's happened to Gabe."

Her words drove a knife into his gut. Why did it have to be Gabe? If there was still a tender place left in his heart for family, that place was strictly reserved for his little nephew.

At seventeen, Jake had been there when Gabe took his first breaths and opened his big beautiful eyes for the first time. Jake had changed his diapers and taught him to walk, while his sister was busy rebuilding her reputation with her high school entourage. It had been a couple years since he had seen him for more than a few brief moments, but his love for Gabe had never diminished.

"What happened?"

She could barely get it out. "He's been taken."

Jake's heart constricted. "What? Wh-what do you mean? By who?"

"That killer on the television, the one who takes children."

"Are you kidding? In Sunbury?"

"Your sister called me this morning in a panic, talking about his bed was empty and she couldn't find him."

"Where is she now?"

"At her place, with the police."

"I'll head over."

"I don't know if they'll let you in. They're calling it a crime scene, like he's already dead." Her voice broke. "I told Holly I would try to find a way to get there. I feel so..." She struggled to keep her voice. "Jacob... Do something..."

"I'm heading over now. I'll call you."

She couldn't respond.

And Jake had no words left to say.

Chapter 7.

Holly Paris sat curled up on her couch, cradling a cup of mocha iced coffee that one of the police officers had brought in for her. Her gaze sat fixed on the cup. The room had been cleared except for her and the ever-intrusive Agent Grant. Holly wanted to see the gift as an act of kindness, but she knew better. These people had rules and regulations for everything. Everything was by the book. Somewhere, in some government big-wig's filing cabinet was a list of procedures for every possible circ.u.mstance. What to do if the killer calls. What to do if they find something dangerous. What to do if the phone rings and it's the pizza guy. There was a process for handling every conceivable situation. There was even a procedure for handling people. They didn't care about her or her son. They were just doing their job, and their job, at the moment, was to befriend her, break down her walls, and extract information. What better way to do that than with a cup of mocha iced coffee with cream on top?

She gripped the plastic cup and let the cold sink into her fingers. It was painful to the touch, but feeling something was better than not feeling anything at all. The shock and helplessness had emptied her insides, leaving a dark hole of deadened nerves. But she had to fight the numbness, she had to let the pain in, or her son was as good as dead.

She rolled the thought around in her head. If he intended to kill her son, why had he not done it already? Why show her a video and draw things out? Did he get some kind of sick pleasure from it?

"Why is he doing this?" She spoke in a low voice without raising her eyes.

Angela Grant looked up from her laptop. Holly could feel her eyes probing her as she searched for the calculated response. "Why is he doing what?"

"This," said Holly, still looking at the cup.

"He is a disturbed individual. We don't know why he is doing this."

Holly looked up. "No. I mean-he already has my son, why doesn't he just kill him? What is he waiting for? Didn't he kill the first two right away?"

The subtle hesitation and slight stiffening of Agent Grant's posture revealed her unwillingness to answer the question. It probably went against some rule in some handbook somewhere.

"This isn't productive," she said in her gentle yet commanding way, dismissing the line of thought as one might discard a poorly chosen blouse. "Let's focus our energies on finding your son."

Holly resented the way they all protected her like mother hens, as if it was anything more than another procedure. The agent did an impeccable job of hiding it behind her friendly smile, but Holly knew her mind was busy figuring out the next acceptable move in their elaborate game. Even her concern for Holly's emotional well being was a ch.o.r.eographed play. Agent Grant was merely an actress playing her part. Her lovely angelic face set Holly at ease, but she detested her calculated mind with its rules and processes.

Holly glared. "Why won't you answer my question? It's a simple question. Why doesn't he kill my son like he did the first two?"

Agent Grant's eyes rested on Holly, the clickety click of her mind was almost audible. What was she allowed to say? Would she get in trouble for talking about the deaths of the other children with the distraught mother she was instructed to keep calm? She looked at her laptop screen, then casually at Holly. "How about we go over his mannerisms again and see if we can find a match. Can you think of anyone who has come into your life in the past year?"

Angela Grant was a machine. Holly was sure of it.

"I already told you. There's no one. No one talks like him. No one walks like him. Why won't you answer my question? This creep has my son. I want to know why he's doing this."

Angela remained silent.

"Is he toying with me? Does he get some kind of sick pleasure out of watching me suffer? Or is there..." She stopped herself.

Angela's eyes leveled on Holly. "Is there what, Holly? Hope?" Her eyes grew warm. "There's always hope."

Holly pressed her back into the couch cus.h.i.+on. "I just want to know if my son is different from the others."

"This man never strikes the same way twice. He leaves the children's blocks as a calling card, and in each case there is a video, but beyond that there is no pattern. We have leads we're following, and we have a ton of data on this guy. But now it's up to you; you can help us fill in the blanks. What you know will help us take this guy down, and rescue your son."

Holly almost believed her.

"You need to tell us who you know, and how they might have access to your apartment. Your son was not bound or in distress. That leads us to believe that he's had contact with this man in the recent past."