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“Could be. Maybe the mother knows something.” Cooper stuck the handkerchief in his back pocket and adjusted his hat. “We’ll work her as soon as we can get in to see her.”
“That’ll be tomorrow morning.” Samuel had made the call to the correctional facility. “Daniel should be in on that interview. He knows her. They’re putting together a record of her visitors for us. You’ll be able to pick it up when you see her.”
“Fine. Daniel and I’ll take a ride in the morning.” Cooper studied the ground for a few seconds, then raised his gaze to Ray. “I need you to stand down on the other case until we know how long the little girl’s body’s been here and what the COD is.”
“You calling me a suspect?” Ray looked half amused.
“I’m not calling you anything—yet. I’m just saying I have to do this by the book.” Cooper adjusted his hat again. “No one gets special treatment—not even a homicide detective. I’m asking you to understand that and put up with it until I round up a real suspect.”
“I’ve lived here for five years. I’ll eat my hat if that skeleton has been out there less than that.”
“We’ll see about that,” Cooper said. “I’m just asking you to sit tight and bear with me. The forensic anthropologist will make that determination. We need a COD, identification, and particularly, how long she’s been dead. That will take time.”
Daniel’s hands balled into fists again. He tried to shake them out. Couldn’t. His stomach lurched. Cooper looked blurry around the edges. “In the meantime a kid who’s very alive has been kidnapped.”
“I know that. We’ve already started with the guests. Maybe somebody saw the guy. Saw his vehicle.” Cooper’s gruff voice softened. “Have you contacted CPS?”
“I spoke with Benny’s caseworker, Joanna Thigpen.” Thigpen hadn’t been happy at Daniel’s recap of the day’s events. “She’s on her way out here. She’s very concerned, of course, but I doubt there’s a whole lot she can tell us. She’s got thirty-five, forty other cases. Benny’s a drop in the bucket for her.”
“Let me know when she gets here. Right now we’ve got more interviews to do.” Cooper didn’t drop his gaze this time. “Except for you.”
“Why?” The guy was nuts if he thought Daniel would stand around and watch him work. “I do witness interviews all the time.”
“Not when it’s your kid. I need objective officers doing this. I wouldn’t even let your buddies here help if I weren’t so short-handed. Besides, you look like you’re about to drop in your tracks.”
“He’s right, Daniel,” Samuel intervened. “You’re weaving all over the place. I heard you’re running a fever. The way you look right now, you’d probably scare them to death. Go rest in Ray’s guest bedroom. That’s an order.”
“You’re not my boss.” Daniel’s stomach rocked. He had to grit his teeth to keep from vomiting in front of the other men. “I want in on the interviews.”
“Thirty minutes, Daniel.” Samuel had that big brother look in his eye. “You have to get that fever down or you’re no good to any of us. Go or I’ll call the women.”
Hardball. If Samuel got the women involved in this, they’d have Daniel slurpingcaldoand chained to his bed with them hovering over him for the next three days. “Fifteen minutes and I talk to Mrs. Thigpen.”
“Twenty and you get the interview with the caseworker.”
Feeling like a kid who’d been sent to his room, Daniel stomped into the house. The hallway to Ray’s guest bedroom seemed interminably long. The pain reliever Nicole had given him earlier wasn’t do a thing for his headache. He put one hand on the wall to steady himself and teetered the rest of the way. The silence closed around him in a suffocating blanket. He laid his Glock on the nightstand, and eased his head onto the pillow.
He wouldn’t sleep. He’d close his eyes long enough to make Samuel happy. Daniel was forty-three years old, and his brother still thought he was in charge of the family. Nicole had been very close to the mark when she said he was the little brother always fighting to prove himself. Growing up in the shadow of a guy like Samuel, who seemed larger than life in everything he did, hadn’t been easy. When their father died, Samuel had stepped into his role without missing a beat. If the responsibility ever got to him, he never let his siblings see it.
Daniel fought fatigue that numbed him to the bone. He needed to get back out there, find Benny. This was one battle he planned to lead. Samuel could follow.
The long cement walkway in front of the apartment was dark. Daniel shivered in a frigid wind that sliced through his heavy coat. Benny wore shorts and a T-shirt, no shoes or socks. His body shook as he told Daniel that the man he was looking for wasn’t home. He jabbered about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and how the guy liked those PBJs. Daniel knelt next to him, taking in the bruises on his arms and legs, his emaciated body, the dirt on his face and the nose that needed to be wiped. He dropped quarters into the child’s outstretched hand, telling him to call if he ever needed help.
An explosion of sound ripped the balcony, causing it to sway. Benny’s hands flew up into the air. His feet lifted from the ground. The coins were falling, falling, spinning, the light bouncing off them in a crazy pattern on the wall behind them. Blood splashed everywhere. Frantic, Daniel fought to staunch it with his hands, but there was so much. So much pouring out, all around him.
Benny’s eyes widened with fear and pain. Daniel scrambled to reach him, but the boy fell away from him, crimson spreading across the white T-shirt covering his thin chest. “No, no, Benny, no,” he screamed as he tried to get to him. The walkway was slippery with blood. Benny’s blood. Daniel was falling. “Benny, Benny!”
“Daniel, wake up! It’s just a dream. Come on, wake up. It’s a nightmare.”
Hands shook Daniel. He jerked up, struggling, reaching for the nightstand and his weapon. “What, what?”
“Easy, it’s just a dream.”
“Nikki?” He pulled her to him. She felt different. Thinner. His eyelids popped up. “Nicole?” Not Nicole. Deborah. Confused, he pushed back and stared at her face. Her long blonde hair hung across her cheeks but he could see emotions at war on her face.
“You were having a bad dream.” Her voice was soft, strained. “I was just trying to wake you up.”
“Daniel?”
