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“At least Tyler’s with his mother,” Kara said. “She won’t let Vinnie hurt him. She’ll... she’ll make sure he’s okay.”
“The last time Tyler was with his mother, she damn near killed him,” Jimmy said, his tone grim. “Not every female is kind to children, Kara. I know it’s hard for you to comprehend, but the maternal instinct isn’t universal. Some animals eat their young. If she was hard up, I don’t have any doubt she’d trade Tyler for a line of coke. He’s not safe, not with her. He never was.”
She tried to hide the horror from her eyes as she drove them back to the house. And then it was shoved to the back of her mind when she arrived there.
“Good Lord, look at all this.”
There were vehicles lining both sides of the street. Unmarked sedans, police cars and SUVs with bubble lights, vans marked with official seals. There was yellow tape strung so haphazardly it looked like a Halloween prank the day after, though she was sure the men who’d put it up had some sort of rhyme and reason.
There was nowhere to park the car, so she had to drive past. It was a solid thirty yards before she found a spot along the roadside to pull over. And she was concerned about Jim’s ability to walk all the way back to the house.
Sighing, she shut the truck off and opened the door. Jim’s hand on her shoulder stopped her from jumping down, and she turned to meet his steady gaze. “I’m sorry I hurt you, Kara.”
She shook her head. “You shouldn’t be thinking about anything now except Tyler. The rest... the rest can wait”
She got out, then hurried around to his side of the vehicle, intending to help him. He was already out, though. And, putting an arm around her shoulders, he walked back to the house as if he wasn’t hurting with every step.
There were police everywhere. Some were flicking brushes over the railing on the front steps and the doorknob. Others were taking plaster impressions of tire marks from the driveway. Another was photographing something on the ground, and it was only when they got closer that Kara saw what it was. A blood trail, where something had clearly been dragged. And that something, she realized with a sickening feeling, had been Jimmy.
“They never touched the door or the railing,” Jim said, moving right into the throng. “You won’t find any prints.” He pointed. “I came out this door, walked with Angela to her car—a late model Ford Taurus, dark blue—there.” He moved to the new spot, watching the ground, careful of where he stepped. “I was facing her, talking to her, when he came up behind me. I spun around, and he clubbed me with something. I’m pretty sure it was a tire iron.”
“God,” Kara whispered, clutching her stomach. She wasn’t close enough to Jimmy anymore to be heard, but someone heard. Hands clutched her shoulders, and she turned. It was Edie, and Selene stood beside her. “It’s too awful,” Kara whispered, and though she fought it, a sob racked her chest
Her sisters held her, then drew her farther away from the police. She glimpsed Wes speaking intently to Chief Wheatly. She saw a van creeping along the road looking for a spot to stop. It had a TV news logo on the side and a satellite dish on top.
“The press.” Then she sniffed and nodded. “But that’s a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Come on, Kara. Jim’s tied up with the police right now anyway, and we have to talk.”
Kara frowned up at Edie but didn’t argue as her sister tugged her away from the crowd to a small grove of trees where Alex and Mel waited. The others were still with Jim, trying to be of help.
“Okay,” Alex said. “Here’s what we know. The police aren’t releasing any of the intimate details to the press, just your standard Amber Alert—Tyler’s photo and description, along with the names and descriptions of his abductors and the suspect vehicle. The last thing they want is a P.I. snooping around, but I was here before them, so I got the freshest information. Turns out Billy Turner drove by here this morning and saw a strange car in the driveway. Dark blue, late-model Ford, Illinois plates.”
“That’s the same car Jim described,” she said. “I don’t suppose he got the plate number.”
“No. But it shouldn’t be too tough to track them down. Neither of them have any personal link to our area, so it stands to reason—”
“Wait a minute. How do you know they don’t have any connections here?”
Alex shot a look at Mel. Mel pursed her lips, lowered her eyes. “I was concerned about you, hon. I...we started to run a background check on Jim.”
Kara blinked, stunned. “Mel, you shouldn’t have done that.”
“The hell I shouldn’t. You’re my sister. And clearly I was right in my assumption that he had a few skeletons in his closet.”
Kara shook her head. “You’re like a bulldozer, you know that? It was my business, my call. You should have asked me.”
Mel sighed. “I’m not used to asking permission to protect my family. Anyway, we turned up the marriage, the maiden name of his ex. So we went ahead and ran a check on her, as well. The woman’s a train wreck.”
“Yeah, that much I know. We all do—Jim was honest about that”
“Eventually,” Mel muttered.
Alex shot her a quelling look. “She’s had numerous arrests, including minor drug offenses, prostitution, but nothing to suggest any friends or relatives in Oklahoma.”
“So what good does that do us?” Kara asked.
“They have to be staying somewhere,” Alex said. “If we work on the assumption that Vinnie has no connections here either, that leaves a hotel, motel, something like that Those kinds of places take license plate numbers down when people check in. So do campgrounds. We can start checking anyone who checked in with Illinois plates. In fact, we’ve already started—Maya’s making calls from the house.”
