Page 45 of Tied Over

I explained from the beginning as Bodhi asked Luke which room was his, and when he pointed, the three of us went there. I didn’t miss the fact that the room we passed on the right had toys in it, a Wonder Woman and Little Mermaid backpack, and several Barbies scattered on the floor.

Bodhi had Luke sit on his bed with his hands in his lap before he pulled his phone from his back pocket and began making a video record of packing Luke up. He grabbed the rolling suitcase from the closet and started shoving things in. He wasn’t careful, just wrenched clothes off hangers, balled them up, and threw them in. Everything in the en-suite bathroom went into the plastic bags in the drawers and into the suitcase as well. Once that was done, Bodhi went to the nightstand, picked up Luke’s wallet, removed his driver’s license, paused the video to take a picture of it, and then started recording again. We needed the picture of the physical ID so we could add it to the file Sharpe was compiling. Always best to show the court, if needed, that we weren’t just going on what we saw on a screen but also what we had in front of us. Always best to have that extra layer of corroboration.

“You’re certain he didn’t…violate her,” Stella’s mother, Meredith Goldman—she’d gone back to her maiden name—asked me for the third time in minutes. She must’ve had a million horrors running through her mind, all of them worse than the ones before.

“He kissed her with an open mouth, he tickled her under her shirt, but that’s the extent of what occurred. And if you heard how Stella and I conversed, you’d understand she trusted me enough to relate it all to me.”

“Yes, I—she’s a keen judge of character.”

“Do you have joint custody?”

“Yes, but I have physical custody because she lives with me.”

“Okay.”

“I need to speak to my daughter, please, Jed.”

“Of course. My partner and I are walking Luke Stoker to the door, where Seattle PD will take him into custody, and I’ll give her the phone on my way there.”

Shuddering breath, and then I heard the soft sobs.

“She’s okay. I even teased her about her really frou-frou phone.”

She laughed then, and it was the second-best sound I’d heard all day.

“Ready?” I asked Bodhi.

Nod from him as he did a final sweep of the room, still recording, and then shut it off. I took the tissue he passed me, wrapped it around the handle of the rolling suitcase, and followed them back down the hall.

Back in the enormous great room, I realized that everyone was now inside. There was a man who I was guessing was Keith, Stella’s father, crouched down beside her, hugging her, and she had her head on his shoulder, hugging him back. A woman in a sequined pink bikini was standing behind him with a sheer wrap around her.

“Jed,” Stella announced, lifting her head up off her father’s shoulder, and beaming at me.

He stood up and offered me his hand. “Keith Burdine, Stella’s father.”

“I’ve only got one hand at the moment, sorry,” I told him, passing Stella back her phone. “Your mom wants to talk to you, okay?”

She nodded and answered cheerfully. “Hi, Mommy.”

I saw the defeat on her father’s face, knowing that his vacation with his daughter was over. Taking the hand he was still holding out, I startled him, and he looked quickly from Stella to me.

“Why didn’t she tell me?”

“I suspect she didn’t want to ruin your time with Vanessa,” I said, glancing at the young woman. “She’s a very considerate child.”

He turned to his girlfriend, who covered her face with her hands. “I just wanted some time alone with you. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“She didn’t,” I agreed. “And Stella’s a smart cookie, so she knew to find an adult, and once she saw the badge, she was good.”

The front door opened then, and two uniformed officers and one plainclothes one walked into the room. Bodhi lifted his hand to direct them, and they all reached us quickly.

“Deputy US Marshal Josiah Redeker,” I said, then tipped my head at Bodhi. “And Deputy US Marshal Bodhi Callahan, out of the Northern District of Illinois.”

The woman without the uniform introduced herself as Detective Naomi Dawes, and then the officers with her, Torres and Phelps. She pulled up paperwork on her tablet as Torres cuffed Luke. There was something about the cuffs going on that made me feel so much better. I would have to remember to pack mine going forward.

“Which one is the father?” Dawes asked.

I introduced her to Keith.