“Yeah, but they were so boring. I want to see them in real life.”
“I really don’t…” Shannon said. “I can’t go anywhere where there are too many people.”
Her sister nodded, understanding what she meant. She couldn’t be recognized, and she certainly couldn’t risk anyone seeing her bruised face.
“I understand,” Kristi said. “You know what? Why don’t we take her? Let me and Jimmy take Angela on this trip. It would be a nice way for us to get to know each other as well, and give you a little time to yourself. I think you need to treat yourself to a day of relaxation.”
“I would love that!” Angela said, and looked at her mother with wide eyes. “Can I? Can I go on the boat trip and see the alligators, Mom?”
Shannon exhaled and looked into her daughter’s eyes begging for a yes. How she loved her dearly and wanted to see her happy. Besides, her sister was right. It would be great to have a day alone to try and figure out her life. She really needed that. She needed peace and quiet to think.
“Can I, Mom? Please? Pretty please?”
It was funny how her daughter always seemed to think the appearance of the word please was important, but it worked, almost every time.
“Okay, then. But you behave, young lady. You do everything your Aunt Kristi tells you to, all right?”
Angela saluted like a soldier. “Yes, Ma’am.”
Shannon smiled and kissed her sister on the cheek. “See you tomorrow then.”
“We’ll pick her up around nine tomorrow morning. How does that sound?” Kristi asked.
“Perfect,” Shannon said, and grabbed Angela’s hand. She looked exhausted. It had been a long and eventful day for her daughter. She took her in her arms and carried her to the car, then shut the door. Kristi and Jimmy came outside.
“So, does anyone know you’re here?” Kristi asked.
“So far, I’ve managed to keep it a secret. I hope to continue to keep it that way.”
“That’s good,” Kristi said with a worried face. “We don’t want this bastard to find you.” She touched Shannon’s bruised cheek gently with her finger. “You sure you don’t want to stay with us, though? We have room for the both of you.”
Shannon shook her head. “No, I’m fine at the motel. They’re very nice people. I don’t want to impose on you guys. Who knows? We might stay for a long time.” Shannon stopped. She thought about the officer that had pulled her over and whether he would be able to keep quiet. He had to. He simply had to. Shannon decided to not tell her sister about it; she would only worry.
“Well, I’d better get going before Angela falls asleep. See you tomorrow.”
“Be careful,” Kristi said, still with deep worried eyes that Shannon remembered from their childhood, growing up with a drunk mother with a failed career as a singer.
Chapter Sixty-One
February 2015
I was quiet in the car all the way to Melbourne Beach. I was worn out after a stressful morning of trying to get the twins ready on time. They had been arguing all morning, and it was a nightmare just to get them to get dressed. On top of it, we had overslept, so they missed the bus, and I had to drive them to school myself. Weasel, who had wanted to come with me to talk to the parents of Janelle Jackson, was very focused and pensive as we drove down A1A. We hit the city sign and turned right into a gated community. We showed our badges to the guard and told him they were expecting us.
“Strange to have a breaking and entering in a gated community, don’t you think?” I asked, as we were let through.
“It happens,” she said.
I had told her my theory at the office as soon as I had come in that morning, but she hadn’t quite bought into it yet. She still believed the judge was the target for the fire, and that we should focus on his murder instead of Melanie Schultz’s. But, she agreed to look into the angle of the cheating woman, and I arranged for us to meet with Janelle’s parents at their house.
“Finally, someone is listening to us,” the mother said, as soon as we had sat down in their kitchen. The house was impeccable, so clean I found no dust anywhere, and all surfaces had been wiped down recently. The house smelled of bleach.
Mrs. Jackson looked at her husband, who was sitting next to her holding her hand. They had that air of sadness about them. Their eyes met briefly. I hated to drag them through this, having to tell their story again, but I sensed they wanted to. They wanted us to take up the case again.
“We never believed it was a breaking and entering,” Mr. Jackson said.
Mrs. Jackson shook her head. She was small and dark-haired. She looked so fragile, so delicate, like fine china that could break any moment now.
“The reason why we’ve come today is we believe there might a connection to a recent murder committed in Cocoa Beach,” I said.
“Cocoa Beach?” Mrs. Jackson said.
“Yes. There seem to be similarities with our case and your daughter’s, and we want to know if there are others we can use in our investigation. We can’t promise you that our investigation will lead to anything, but we’ll do everything we can.”
Mrs. Jackson nodded again. “Thank you,” she said.
“So, tell us what happened,” Weasel said.
They looked at each other again, like they were deciding who should do the talking. Mrs. Jackson started out.
“It was in April of 2002. The seventh of April. We had been invited to our friends’ house; actually, they were our neighbors back then. Right across the street from us. We asked Janelle if she wanted to come with us, but she said she didn’t feel like it. You know how teenagers are. Everything their parents do is lame. So, we let her stay home. The police later explained to us that she was on the computer most of the night, playing Sims. It was her favorite game.”
Mrs. Jackson paused at the painful memory.
“The case file also states that she spoke with someone on the phone,” I said. I had been reading the file all morning, trying desperately to find something that I could use.
“She called her boyfriend at the time,” Mr. Jackson said. “His name was Alex. He was supposed to come over, but his parents had grounded him because he had been caught on the beach drinking beer. He was interrogated by the police, but there was no evidence to lead to his arrest.”
“Anyway,” Mrs. Jackson continued. “We got back around eleven-thirty and…” she stopped. The words seemed like they were stuck in her throat.
“We found her in the bathroom,” Mr. Jackson said. There was a light tremor to his voice as he continued. “Naked…her eyes staring into the ceiling. She was so pale. I knew right away she was dead, still I tried…you know, you’ve gotta try…can’t give up hope.”
“So you performed CPR?” I asked.
Mrs. Jackson put a hand on her husband’s shoulder. Tears were streaming across her cheeks now.
“You have to try, don’t you? I didn’t want to accept it…I couldn’t…”
The old memories were unpleasant for the couple, and we let them take their time to get through the pain.
“I’m a little interested in Janelle’s love life,” I said, after a short while of silence. “I know it’s not easy for you to talk about. And forgive me for the character of my question, but do you know if Janelle ever cheated on her boyfriend?”
The couple looked at one another, then back at me. “Yes, as a matter of fact she did. She cheated on her old boyfriend, the one before Alex. It was a year before she died. At a dance at the school, she kissed Alex when she was still going out with someone else,” Mrs. Jackson said. “How did you know?”
Weasel and I exchanged looks. Finally, something was adding up in this case.
“Where is Alex today?” I asked. “Do you know where we can find him?”
“You can’t. He…He was killed in a car accident four months later,” Mr. Jackson said.
Chapter Sixty-Two
February 2015
Kristi loved spending the day with her niece. Her husban
d Jimmy seemed to enjoy it just as much, if not more. It was bittersweet for Kristi to watch that sparkle in Jimmy’s eyes when he spoke to Angela. To know that she could never give him what he always wanted most in this world, even though he never said so in front of Kristi.
“Can I get an ice cream?” Angela asked, as they passed a small shop on their way to the airboat.
“Not now,” Kristi said. “We can’t take it on the boat. When we’re done, we can all get one. How does that sound?”
“Yay,” Angela said. “I want chocolate.”
She was such a pretty girl. She looked so much like her mother when she was that age. Kristi remembered her well. She had always loved her youngest sister the most, even though she always got them in trouble. She was the black sheep of the family, but sometimes the black sheep was also the one that was most loved. Shannon still had that ability. She could get herself into deep trouble and still be the most loved person in the world. Everybody adored her. The great country singer, the world-famous celebrity. Kristi couldn’t help being a little jealous of her sister every now and then. Especially when she read about her in the magazines in line at the grocery store. They always made her life seem so glamorous. So out of reach for ordinary people like Kristi. Back when it happened, she hadn’t known why Shannon suddenly cut her off. At times, she had thought her sister simply had become too big a name to be around her very ordinary sister. Being idolized by the entire world had to do something to you, didn’t it? At least that’s what Kristi had thought. But, when her sister suddenly showed up in her town telling her story, Kristi had felt ashamed of how she had been thinking about her. Shannon was nothing like she imagined, like she had read about in the magazines. She was still the same good old Shannon that Kristi loved dearly. She was still her baby sister.
“I’ll go buy the tickets,” Jimmy said, and left them.
Kristi felt Angela’s hand in hers and looked down. “I wish I had a sister,” Angela said. “I bet you and my mom had fun when you were kids.”
Kristi chuckled. “We did. We were quite the troublemakers, the two of us.”
“There were three girls, right?”
“Yes. There’s also Liz. She was the middle child. She lives in New York.”
“How come I haven’t been here to visit you before?” Angela asked.
Kristi exhaled. She spotted Jimmy with the tickets coming out of the shop. She smiled. “I don’t know, sweetie. You live very far away.”
“I wish I could live here,” she said. “It’s much more fun here.”
“Well, you can come visit anytime you want to. Will that do?” Kristi asked, as Jimmy caught up with them and they got in line for the boat.
“I’d like that,” Angela said and walked aboard.
They got earplugs to protect their ears from the noise of the boat, and soon they took off. Their guide was a guy in his thirties wearing a bandana. He found several alligators in the swamps and navigated the boat as close as possible, so they could all take pictures. It was a gorgeous trip, Kristi thought, and Angela was beyond excited.
This is what it feels like to be a real family.
They had thought about adopting, but never really gotten around to it. Kristi wasn’t sure she wanted to do it. She didn’t want some troubled kid. Who knows what a kid like that had been through?
They had never done anything but talk about adopting, and now it was getting too late for them. She was pushing forty and Jimmy forty-five. Did she regret it? Right now, she did. When holding Angela’s hand in hers and looking at the animals from the boat, she regretted it bitterly.
An hour later, they were back on land.
“What a great trip,” Jimmy said. “I’m so glad I took the day off for this.”
“Me too,” Kristi said.
“I need to pee,” Angela said.
“There’s a restroom right over there,” Jimmy said, and pointed at the red building.
“I’ll take you,” Kristi said, and walked with Angela’s hand in hers towards the building. “I’ll wait out here,” she said, and let Angela go inside.
Jimmy signaled that he would get ice cream for all of them. When he returned, Angela still hadn’t come out.
“You think she’s all right in there?” he asked.
“I hope so. I’ll go in and check.”
Kristi opened the door and went inside. There were three stalls. “Angela?” she asked. “Are you all right?”
There was no answer. Kristi’s heart stopped. All of the doors were open. A back door to the building was ajar.
Oh, my God. She’s not here!
Chapter Sixty-Three
February 2015
“ANGELA IS MISSING!”
Shannon was almost screaming on the other end of the line. I looked at Weasel across my desk. There were papers everywhere. We had all the old boxes sent over from the case of Janelle Jackson, and we were going through every little detail.
Weasel caught my alarmed look.
“They don’t know where she is. Oh, Jack. You were the only one I could think of to call. Can you help me?”
“Calm down, Shannon. What happened?” I asked.
“My sister Kristi took Angela on an airboat ride. When they were done, she went to the restroom up there, and now they just called and told me they can’t find her. They’ve searched the entire area, but she’s not there. Oh, God, Jack. What if Joe has her? What will I do?”
“Where are you now?”
“I’m on my way to Lone Cabbage.”
“I’ll meet you up there.”
I hung up and looked at Weasel.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Missing child,” I said. “By the airboats in Lone Cabbage. “I have to get up there.”
Weasel smiled. “Well, what are you waiting for? She obviously means a lot to you. I think we’re done here for now anyway.”
I rushed to my car and drove towards Lone Cabbage. It was located around thirty miles from Cocoa Beach on the mainland where the river mouthed into a big lake. It took me less than twenty minutes to get there with blaring sirens. I arrived almost at the same time as Shannon.
“Jack. I’m so glad you came,” she said, approaching me. “I don’t know what to do. This is my sister, Kristi, and her husband, Jimmy.” I shook hands with all of them. Anxious eyes followed me as they showed Shannon and me to the restrooms where Angela had disappeared.
“She went in through the door and I waited for her out here. I didn’t know there was a back door,” Kristi said.
A local officer had been called to the scene. I greeted him and told him who I was. We were still in Brevard County, so I was still within my jurisdiction.
“We walked through the area by the boats, and they even sailed out on the water to look for her. We’ve been everywhere,” Jimmy said.
I looked around. There was a lot of dense forest surrounding the area. If she had run in there, it would be very difficult to find her. I remembered a year ago when a child got lost in woods like these and wasn’t found until three days later. It was a terrifying time for everyone. The animals living in there weren’t joking around.
“Is there any reason to believe she ran away?” I asked. “How was she before she went inside the restroom?”
Kristi shook her head. The shock on her face was visible. She couldn’t grasp how this could have happened. “She was good. She seemed happy. We were about to have ice cream. I…I don’t see why…”
“He has her,” Shannon said with a trembling voice. “I know he does. This has Joe written all over it.”
“I thought he didn’t know you were here?” I asked.
She shook her head and bit her lip. “He must have found out somehow. He does stuff like that. He knows people everywhere.”
“Have you tried to call him?” I asked.
“Constantly. But he’s not picking up,” Shannon said. “I’ll try again.” She pressed her phone frantically. I could tell she was having a hard time holding
it together. She had told me about her former drug abuse before she had Angela. I wondered if she craved a drink or a fix right now. I wished I could do more for her.
“Hello? Joe?”
I froze and looked at her. Her eyes sparkled with hope and desperation. “Joe? Joe? You bastard. Where is Angela?”
Chapter Sixty-Four
February 2015
“He says he doesn’t have her. Where is she, Jack?”
Shannon looked at me like she expected me to have an answer.
“I don’t know. I’ll start a search,” I said. “I’ll call in the Sheriff’s Department and we’ll look for her all night long if we have to. Don’t worry.”
Shannon put her head on my shoulder. I stroked her hair gently. Suddenly, I missed my kids like crazy.
“I still think he has her,” Shannon said. “I think he’s lying. It makes sense. Why would he tell me he has her? I would only demand to get her back.”
“I guess you’re right. But, he’s all the way back in Nashville, isn’t he?”
“He didn’t say. He hung up before I could ask.” Shannon sighed. “I have a feeling he’s around here somewhere.”
I didn’t want to say it out loud, but if he had Angela, he would probably be on the road by now…trying to get as far away from here as possible.
“I’ll make a few calls,” I said. “I’ll get the search started, have the dogs come out.”
I called Ron, and an hour later, all of my colleagues from the Sheriff’s Department arrived and started the search. There were dogs, helicopters, and lots of volunteers, who helped walk through the forest in search of Angela. I felt grateful for every one of them. So did Shannon.
But as nightfall came, they still hadn’t found her. Shannon was on the verge of breaking down, and I decided to take her back to the motel.
“But I want to stay here. In case she shows up,” she said.
“There are hundreds of people here,” I said. “If they find her, I promise you’ll be the first to know. You need to get some rest. I’m taking you back now.”