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“No. She was unconscious for most of it,” Sandra said.
Nevada was irritated with himself for not picking up on the signs Macy had seen. He was also frustrated with Bennett because she’d not confided in him.
Matt came out the front door with his backpack slung over his shoulder. As Sullivan stepped forward, Macy asked Nevada, “Do you mind if I drive them?”
Nevada studied her a moment and then handed his keys to her. “Sure.”
She smiled at the boy. “Matt, I’m Agent Crow. I’ll run you and your grandmother over to Mr. Greene’s.”
He tightened his grip on the strap of his pack and walked toward her. Nevada patted him on the back and told him it would all be fine. Sandra grabbed her purse, and she and Matt climbed into Nevada’s vehicle.
Macy slid behind the wheel, adjusted the seat and mirrors. “Nevada’s a tad taller than me,” she said, trying to put him at ease.
Matt hooked his seat belt. “You don’t look like FBI.”
“I’ve heard that a few times lately.” She started the engine and pulled away from the scene.
“Do you really think my mom is going to be okay?” Matt asked.
“As long as Nevada and I have a say in it, Matt.”
He tightened his grip on the armrest and stared ahead. His lips were tight and he blinked back tears. “She loves her job.”
“I know she does.” She handed him her phone so he could read out directions. “Which way to Mr. Greene’s?”
“Get on I-81 south,” Matt said.
“I can do that.”
The silence was broken only by more directions from the boy, which had them arriving at Mr. Greene’s house a half hour later. She parked, and he got out with his grandmother.
“My daughter is worried that she’s not good enough for the new work promotion,” Sandra said.
“She said that?” Macy asked.
“To me,” Sandra said.
“She’s very good, but I’ve worked these kinds of cases longer.” She looked at them both. “I’m not the bad guy here. I want to help.”
“We know that.” Sandra laid her hand on her grandson’s shoulder.
“Matt, think back to when your mom was in your room. What did she say?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Close your eyes. Tell me what you remember.”
“That’s weird,” he said.
“Humor me. You saw your mom downstairs and then got into bed. Did you fall asleep quickly?”
The boy closed his eyes. “Yeah. I was beat. But I could hear her pacing downstairs.”
“And then she came to your room?”
“Yeah.”
The boy closed his eyes again. “I was in bed asleep. The clock in the hallway was ticking.”
“Your mom must have said something to you? Or did she kiss you on the cheek maybe?”
He opened his eyes. “She said something about ancestry.”
“Ancestry?”
“She rubbed the inside of my cheek.”
“With a cotton swab?”
“Yeah. I guess that’s what it was.”
Macy exchanged glances with Sandra and then said, “Wait right here.” She opened the back of the vehicle, rummaged through Nevada’s very neat boxes, and found what she was looking for. She held up a buccal swab. “Did it look like this?”
“I guess.”
Macy pulled on gloves and unfastened the sealed top. “Did she ask you to open wide?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Can I take a swab?” Macy asked.
Sandra frowned. “Why?”
Both Bennett and Sandra were afraid that a monster had fathered the child they loved so now. “It could help find Brooke.”
Sandra nodded and Matt opened his mouth. Macy quickly ran the cotton tip along the inside of his cheek and secured it back in the vial.
“What’s that all about?” Matt asked.
“It’s something I need to check on for your mom.”
Mr. Greene stepped out on his porch, and Matt ran to him and hugged him close. The former sheriff whispered something in his ear, and the boy nodded and then buried his face in the man’s chest. Finally, the boy pulled back and wiped a tear away with his hand.
Sandra hugged Greene. “Thank you for taking us in.”
“Of course. I’ve got fresh bagels inside. Go on in, and I’ll be right behind you.”
Sandra glanced back at Macy. “Find Brooke.”
“I will.”
When the front door closed behind the Bennetts, all traces of softness left Greene’s face. “What the hell is going on?”
“I don’t know. Is there something about Brooke Bennett that I need to know?”
“What do you mean?” Greene asked.
“She’s been tense through this entire investigation.”
“She’s a professional,” he countered.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” Macy said. “But she was very controlled and stoic when we spoke to the rape victims. It was almost as if she were trying to hold back on her own feelings. Her own experience. And then Tyler Wyatt makes a crack to Matt about his mother having her first sexual experience in the Wyatt barn.”
Greene’s jaw tightened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She dropped her voice a notch and asked, “Who is Matt’s father?”
He raised his chin. “She never said and I never asked.”
“Brooke was seventeen when Matt was born.”
“She made a mistake as a teenager. She wasn’t the first, and she won’t be the last.”
“My point is that she got pregnant about the time of the rapes. But then you suspected that, didn’t you?”
Greene shook his head. “You’re stirring things up with wild accusations.”
“I have Matt’s DNA. It’ll take a quick test to find out if he’s our offender’s offspring.”
“A boy doesn’t need that kind of burden. You should leave well enough alone.”
“That’s what you told Bennett, wasn’t it? You feared she’d confirm Matt’s paternity.”
“This is insane. Matt’s a good boy. A good kid. A monster like that couldn’t possibly be his father.”
Macy let the comment pass. “If you have any suspects, you need to tell me now. I think this guy took Bennett.”
Greene frowned. “If Brooke knew, she wouldn’t hide it.”
“I think she honestly doesn’t know who did this to her. But she’s trying to figure it out now. I need more information if I’m going to find her.”
“I can’t help you.”
“Why didn’t you run the DNA rape kits fifteen years ago? And don’t tell me you didn’t understand DNA. You have a solid record and were a good cop. I’d bet a paycheck you thought you might be protecting someone close to you.”
He shoved out a breath and his shoulders slumped a fraction. “My wife was sick that summer. It was consuming me, and I let a lot fall through the cracks. My plan was always to go back and catch up. When Tobi vanished, I honestly didn’t connect her case to the others. And then Sandra Bennett told me Brooke was pregnant. She also told me about what happened to her daughter.”
“Did you talk to Bennett?”
“Sandra begged me not to.” He ran a hand over his head. “I caught up to her at school. She didn’t want to talk to me at first, but finally admitted she was attacked at the bonfire. She swore she only had one drink and she didn’t remember what happened.”
“What did she say?” Macy asked.
“When she woke, she was in the woods, no clothes, with scratches on her body.”
“And you didn’t connect what happened to Bennett to the other girls?”
“I thought one of the guys at the bonfire did it.”
“Did you talk to any of them? The Dream Team members were regulars at the bonfires.”
“Those boys brought life and pride to this town. I knew they could be rowdy, but I never figured any one of them would hurt a
young girl. And Brooke wanted to be at the bonfire, and she did drink.”
Macy shoved down her anger, doing her best to remain calm. The goal was to get information, not to argue about his methods right now. “Neither of those implies sexual consent.”
“I figured she’d agreed to go into the woods with a boy and it got a little rough.”
“You didn’t talk to any of them, did you?” And when he didn’t respond, she shifted tactics. “Did Cindy Shaw report a problem to you?”
He shook his head. “That girl had all kinds of problems. She was always getting into scraps. I must have picked her up a dozen times for all kinds of infractions.”
