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At least, that was Ramsey’s take on the situation. “What are you guy’s doing today?” he asked now, avoiding the pile of paperwork on his desk—two cold-case records that had been his evening fun the night before.
“Mom’s doing the dishes right now and then we’ll be heading over to Louisville for their leaf festival. You know how she loves the colors.”
“And you like the fudge,” Ramsey said, figuring his dad must have been right—his mother had to still be hanging in there if she was cognizant enough to do the dishes before seven in the morning.
“Yep
. I get to sample all the flavors. Only thing that would make it better was if you were here to go with us, son.”
“I know, Dad. I’ll try to get some time off soon.”
How long had it been since he’d been back to his Southern Kentucky home? One year? Two?
“We’d love to have you here for Thanksgiving, Ramsey. Your mother’s cooking.”
“Mom doesn’t need me around giving her more work to do.” Reminding her of the daughter she’d lost because of him.
“She needs you, son.”
Every time he’d been home in the thirteen years since his sister’s death—a tragedy due to Ramsey’s negligence—his mother had had an emotional relapse.
“I’ll see what I can do.” He eyed the papers in front of him again. Two more missing-children cold cases that had fallen to him. Little girls, less than two years of age. Both from the Boston area. Both disappearing in August 2000.
Nothing else about them was similar. Not race or parentage, not neighborhood, doctors, schools, hospitals. Their lives had been opposites: one rich, one poor, one had a nanny, one didn’t. Their parents had never met or worked in a place where they could have known the same person.
One had been taken at a mall. The other from a park by her home. Neither had been unsupervised for more than a minute.
Both had disappeared without a trace.
Ramsey was certain the abductions were connected to each other somehow, but, thank God, they were not connected to Peter Walters—a pedophile and murderer who was currently incarcerated, apprehended by Ramsey and who Ramsey was going to see in hell. The Boston girls’ DNA had been tested and they were not connected to items removed from Walters’s home.
“…that little place down by the corner.” Ramsey blinked. He’d missed the entire gist of what his father had been saying. “They say they’re going to put up apartments, but I don’t see why. Can you imagine who in this town would fill up an apartment building?”
Ramsey couldn’t. “Maybe they’re hoping more young people will move to Vienna if they build housing for them,” he said.
“There’s no jobs for them,” Earl said. “And without jobs how are they gonna pay their rent?”
The little town Ramsey had grown up in had been thriving once, back when the tobacco industry had still supported much of rural Kentucky. Today it was mostly inhabited by people like his folks who just wouldn’t leave.
“Who’s the developer?” Ramsey asked, hoping that his father hadn’t already told him.
“Same guy who built the big-box store outside of town.”
“So maybe he’s providing housing for all the people who got jobs when the store came to town.”
“Maybe. It wouldn’t be a bad thing,” Earl continued. “Kind of exciting, watching the thing go up from scratch. They dig down first, then pour the foundation and…”
Earl went on to give Ramsey a blow-by-blow of the beginning of an apartment construction project, and Ramsey listened. Because Earl was his father. And he deserved to be listened to.
“Sounds like you’re getting to know these guys,” he said when his father finally paused.
“I offered to help out,” Earl said. “You know, odd jobs, if they need anything. I know just about everything about everything around here…?.”
His father sure didn’t need any extra cash. The farmer had done well for himself and his family. Well enough to be able to retire in comfort when no one wanted to buy tobacco anymore.
“Maybe it’s time you get to know someplace new,” Ramsey said, knowing he was wasting his breath.
“This is our home, son, mine and your mom’s. It’s familiar to her.”
