Dragged into Darkness (28 page)

Thoughts of Nicholas
Rooker
tempered his excitement.  That boy weighed heavily on his conscience.  Circumstances had worked against him, but he’d let Nicholas down.  He should have done better.  Now he had another chance.  If he failed, he doubted he’d get another.

No one ever blamed him for failing to catch the Piper.  No one faulted his methods, but the fact remained he’d worked every Piper kidnapping, and he’d never even gotten close to catching him.  That single fact affected him more than his stalled career.  Pride ate into him.  He’d closed a lot of high profile cases, but he’d lost to the Piper every time.  Statistics said he’d lose again, but he didn’t think so.  This time the Piper had screwed up.

He’d made it personal.

The Piper was a “for profit” kidnapper.  He kidnapped for the income his victims earned him.  He went after prominent Bay Area families who could rustle up a million or two without a second’s thought.  But Scott and Jane Fleetwood didn’t fall into that category.  They could bankrupt themselves and still not come close to the Piper’s usual ransom demand. 

But that wasn’t the point.

This was payback.  Scott Fleetwood had derailed the Nicholas
Rooker
kidnapping and now the Piper was dishing out a little retribution. 
Sheils
could relate.  He’d wanted some of that action himself.  If Scott hadn’t given
Redfern
his fifteen minutes, then the FBI wouldn’t have been sidetracked.  The Piper blamed Scott for botching the Nicholas
Rooker
kidnapping and so did
Sheils
.  If Mike
Redfern’s
bullshit hadn’t suckered Scott in, the Piper would have gotten his money and Nicholas
Rooker
would be alive. 

This was personal for the Piper, which was good.  Until now, the kidnapper had kept things business-like and detached.  But if he was making this personal, that made this kidnapping emotion driven.  That made him reckless.  Reckless people were easier to catch, but twice as dangerous.  Emotion would bring the Piper down.  His desire to destroy Scott would distract him from the business of kidnapping.

Thoughts of the Piper’s emotions turned him to his own.  He didn’t like to think he hated Scott, but he did.  His interference had killed Nicholas as sure as if he’d suffocated the boy himself.  Scott had brought this pain upon himself and he deserved every miserable minute of it. 
Sheils
’ bitterness drew him up short.  He couldn’t face the
Fleetwoods
with that attitude.  Regardless of how he felt about Scott, there was a frightened boy out there who needed him.  

While he took a moment to compose himself, his cell rang. 

“Have you spoken to the
Fleetwoods
yet?” Bill
Travillian
asked. 
Travillian
was the Special Agent in Charge of the San Francisco division and
Sheils
’ boss.

“No, I’m just about to.”

“Just take it easy on them.”

“You mean take it easy on Scott.  Bill, I can separate my personal feelings from my job.”

“I hope so, Tom.  I’m assigning you to the Piper because you know more about this prick than anyone and you’ve earned the right to bring him in, but I won’t if there are going to be problems.”

There weren’t going to be any problems.  His duty came way above his grudges.  He wanted Samuel Fleetwood back safe and sound, irrespective of who his father was.  Samuel was priority number one with the Piper’s apprehension a close second, but
Sheils
couldn’t deny he’d enjoy watching Fleetwood squirm during this case.

“You have nothing to fear.  I’m here for the Piper.”

Travillian
paused, mulling over
Sheils
’ response. 
Travillian
wasn’t a bureaucrat.  He was an old school agent who’d come up through the ranks and had twenty years of fieldwork under his nails.  He knew his stuff. 
Sheils
felt the man pick through his reply, analyzing it for its truth content.

“Okay, Tom. 
I’m trusting
you on this one.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me.  Just stop this bastard.”

Sheils
found the principal’s office and knocked on the door.

***

Scott’s stomach tightened when
Sheils
entered the office.  He never expected to cross paths with the FBI agent again.  After Nicholas
Rooker’s
death,
Sheils
had pushed for Scott’s arrest.  The charges ranged from wasting police time to accessory to murder, but
Sheils
’ pleas fell on deaf ears.  The denial only fueled
Sheils
’ contempt for him. 

The last eight years had taken their toll on
Sheils
‘ hair, skin and waistline, but not his resolve.  The agent burned with the same purpose he’d encountered eight years ago.

Sheils
introduced himself and said, “I won’t patronize you by asking how you’re holding up.”

“Thank you,” Jane said.

“Are you going to get Sammy back?” Peter asked.

Neither Scott nor Jane made any move to admonish their son for his question.  They needed the answer as much as he did.

“We’re going to do our very best to find your brother.”

“That doesn’t answer his question,” Jane said. 

Sheils
squirmed under the intensity of Jane’s stare and turned back to Peter.  He put out his hand to the boy.  “You have my word as an FBI agent that I’ll bring your brother home safe and sound.”

Peter shook
Sheils
’ hand and smiled.

“I would like to get Samuel’s picture on the evening news.”

“Sammy,” Jane corrected.

“Yes. 
Right.
  Sammy.”

“I can get you a photo.  We have them of all the children,” the principal said and left her office to get it.

“Peter, I’d like talk to you about what happened.  Would that be okay?”

The question was directed at Scott and Jane more than Peter.  They gave their permission and everyone sat down. 
Sheils
dragged over a chair and pulled it in front of the boy.  He sat forward in the chair so that he met Peter at eye level and spoke in a calm and soothing tone. 

His questions were open, friendly and non-accusatory.  Peter answered as best he could, but the answers were vague and uninformed.  They were those of a frightened eight-year-old who’d witnessed his twin brother’s abduction. 
Sheils
re-asked his questions, rephrasing them in the hopes of getting an answer.  This worked against the agent.  He crowded Peter and Peter retreated into himself.  His replies went from simple sentences to one-word answers to shrugs.

Scott felt time getting away from them.  As soon as the Piper reached the freeway, he could be hitting sixty miles-an-hour.  That was a mile a minute.  For every minute they wasted, Sammy was another mile further away from them.  The bastard would have Sammy out of the Bay Area in the next twenty minutes.  Once free of the congestion, his escape velocity would increase.  But while distance was Scott’s enemy, it was also his friend.  While the Piper was at the wheel, he couldn’t hurt Sammy.  Scott shut the image forming in his head out and willed the bastard to keep driving.

“Let’s take a break from the questions,” he said.

Peter sagged,
then
clutched his mother.

“Can I have minute alone with my family?”

Sheils
nodded and left the room.

Scott knelt before his son.  “Peter, we need to know everything that happened, okay?”

Peter jerked his head up and down.

“It doesn’t matter what you tell us.  You aren’t in trouble.  Sammy isn’t in trouble.  The man who took him is the one in trouble.  Okay?”

“Okay,” Peter said in a quiet voice.

Scott called
Sheils
back in. 

“I want to try something different, Peter,”
Sheils
said. 
“If that’s okay with you?”

Peter nodded.

Sheils
asked Peter to reenact his final steps leading up to Sammy’s abduction.  Peter took them to his classroom.

“The bell rang for you to go,” he said.  “What happened from there?”

Peter seemed to put his fears aside.  Holding onto Scott and Jane’s hands, he ran through the school, calling out what he and Sammy had done.  He led them down the school steps towards the main gate and stopped at the sidewalk.

“This is where we spoke to him.”

“We?”
Sheils
asked.  “You spoke to the man who took Sammy?”

Peter’s expansive mood dried up.

“C’mon, Peter.  This is really important,” Jane said.  “Did you speak to this man?”

Peter backed away.  Scott saw they were losing him again.  His boys might have been twins, but their personalities were very different.  Peter was the timid one of the two. 

Scott knelt down in front of his son.  “I know we told you not to talk to strangers, but it’s okay if you did.  Agent
Sheils
just needs to know.”

“No.  Sammy did.”

Scott smiled at Peter to let him know everything was okay.

Sheils
ventured towards Peter.  “So what happened?”

“We were waiting for mommy.”

“Waiting?” Scott asked.  Jane got off work in time to be outside the school before the bell.  He turned to her.  “Why were you late?”

“Flat tire.
  A strip of wood with nails through it was placed under my wheel and I backed over it.”  

“The Piper wanted you out of the way,”
Sheils
remarked and turned back to Peter.  “Okay, your mom was late.  So you waited for her?”

“Yeah.
  We waited here.”  Peter pointed to the spot where he was standing.  “A car pulled up in front of us.”

Sheils
interrupted.  “It was a car, not a van or SUV?” 

“No, not a car, a minivan.
 
A blue one.”

“Good boy,” Jane said and hugged Peter.

“Did you get a license plate?  Do you know if the minivan was a Dodge or Honda or anything?”
Sheils
asked.

Peter shook his head.

“That’s okay,” he said.  “What about the driver?  Did you get a good look at him?”

Peter scrunched his face up.  “Not really.  He was wearing a red
hoodie
with the hood up.” 

“Could you see whether he was white, black, Hispanic?”
Sheils
asked.

After seven kidnappings, thousands of FBI man-hours and six surviving victims, no one had ever seen the Piper’s face.

“White.
  I saw his hands.”

“That’s great,”
Sheils
said. 
“How about age?
 
Young?
  Old?”

Peter hemmed and hawed.  “Old,” he replied, but sounded uncertain.