Gone (3 page)

Kit grimaced. “Oh, Joe.” She thought for a couple of seconds.
“Yesterday was her birthday, wasn’t it? Goodness, has it really been two years?
I’m sorry, sweetheart. She still thinks she sees him everywhere?”

Joe shook his head. “No. Until yesterday, I hadn’t talked to
her or seen her in nearly a year. When she showed up at my door, she seemed
different. Not frantic. Not desperate. In fact she sounded pretty rational.”

“Is she on medication? Maybe her doctor convinced her to take
antidepressants.”

He smiled wryly. “No, that’s what I thought at first. But
however she did it, she seems to have pulled herself together pretty well. She
told me she saw a child in a car’s backseat and thought it was Joshua. But, Mom,
this time she got the car’s license plate, and she provided a very good
description of the woman driving.”

Kit stared at him. “She did? Wow. That’s a lot different than
the last time.”

“She’s doing it right this time. She didn’t jump out at the red
light and scream at the woman to give her back her baby. She didn’t scare anyone
half to death by stalking them all over the outdoor marketplace. She followed
the car, got the license tag and came to see me to see if I could run it for
her.”

“Joe, you’re not buying in to this, are you? I don’t think I
can stand to see you disappointed again.”

“It’s a chance, and I can’t afford not to take it. But no, I’m
not buying in to it again. I’m waiting for the license plate to be run, then I’m
going to do a background check on the woman, just like we do any suspected
abductor. We check for arrest records, any complaints against them, friends,
relatives, church, school, neighborhood. If I can’t verify that the child is not
Joshua, then we’ll make a visit to the woman’s house and request a DNA sample.
Usually at that point, if the child is an abductee, the abductor’s story breaks
down. Those are the successful cases.”

“And they’re what percentage of your entire caseload?” Kit
asked, her face suddenly pale and pinched.

“I’m not getting my hopes up, Kit, I promise.”
Liar.
Of course he was getting his hopes up. Marcie
was almost positive she’d seen their son.

“I have to go,” his mother said, still looking as though she’d
just heard awful news. She stepped forward and held out her arms for a hug. He
got up, bent down and hugged her, accepting her tight, warm embrace in return.
“I love you, Joe. You and Marcie. Please don’t get yourselves hurt again. When
you find out it’s not Joshua, be careful. Let Marcie down easily.”

“I love you, too, Kit.”

She pulled back and looked him square in the eyes. “If you need
anything—
anything
—you call me. Understand? And,
Joseph, it’s about time you started calling me Mom,” she admonished.

Before he could think up an answer to that, she’d slipped out
the door.

* * *

T
HE
PAST
TWO
YEARS
had been the happiest that Rhoda Sumner had
ever had in her life. Her little boy was beautiful and perfect. That
good-for-nothing mooch Howard, who still claimed he was going to marry her one
day
when his ship came in,
spent most of his days
over on Bayou Picou, fishing. Rhoda cared about Howard. He brought fish home and
cleaned them himself, and he handed over his disability check to her every
month. He was happy as a clam to have a woman, a place to live and money for
beer and bait. And he never said a word about the kid who’d showed up two years
ago. In fact, his usual practice was to pretend the kid didn’t exist.

Although Rhoda had never been blessed with a child, she’d told
everyone that Joshy was her grandson, and she was rearing him because her
daughter couldn’t stay off drugs. She took him to Sunday school, bought him
clothes at the Walmart in Hammond, and every morning from eight o’clock until
ten, she sat him in a little antique wooden school desk she’d found and played
educational games with him. He wasn’t yet three and he already knew how to count
to twenty and identify eight colors. He could get through
P
singing the alphabet song and she was starting to teach him that
each letter had a shape and a sound.

“Now which letter is this, Joshy?” she said, holding up a flash
card with a
B
on it.

“Bee!” he shouted.

“That’s right. You are such a smart boy.”

“I a smart boy,” he replied and held up three fingers. “I’n
three.”

“Almost. Now, what letter—?” Before she could finish her
sentence, she heard the front door slam. It was Howard. With a sniff of
irritation, she got up from the low chair where she sat in front of Joshy.

“Oh, no!” Joshy said. “Howarr. Oh, no. He yells.”

“I know, smart boy,” Rhoda said to him. “Let’s go into your
room. I’ll turn on the TV for you.” She walked with Joshy into his room and
turned the TV to a children’s channel. “Watch TV while I talk to Howard,
okay?”

“Okay, Gramma.”

When Rhoda came out of Joshy’s room and closed the door, Howard
was staring into the open refrigerator door. “Rhoda!” he shouted as she walked
into the kitchen.

“I’m right here,” she snapped.

“Why isn’t there ever anything to eat in here?”

“If I ever knew when you might show up, I could cook something
for you.”

“Whatcha got?” Howard asked, ignoring her admonishment.

“There’s ham and I’ve got plenty of eggs.”

“Got any Tabasco?”

Rhoda laughed. “When have I ever run out of Tabasco?”

Howard grunted. “Eggs and ham and lots of toast.”

She sighed. “Want coffee?”

“What do you think?” he grumbled. “Where’s the kid?”

That question surprised her. He’d seen her coming out of
Joshy’s room, so he had to know he was in there. And when had he started
acknowledging that the boy even existed? “He’s in his room,” she said as she
grabbed a plate of sliced ham and a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator.
“Why?”

Howard just grunted as he sat down at the kitchen table and
shook out the newspaper she’d carefully folded and set aside earlier, when she’d
finished reading the headlines and the comics. It took her less than ten minutes
to fix his breakfast. It took him less than five to wolf it down. He ate and
drank his coffee without ever looking up from the paper.

“What are you doing here this time of the morning, Howard?”

“Hungry,” he grunted.

“So your whoring ex-girlfriend don’t cook?”

He looked at her flatly. “
If
I ever
saw my whoring ex-girlfriend that lives over in Killian and has a sugar daddy,
she’d probably treat me way better than my
boring
girlfriend.”

Rhoda sniffed and nodded. “You’re a real comedian, Howard. A
real funny guy. I hope you’re not planning on sticking around. I’ve got a lot to
do today.”

Howard ignored her and kept reading and sipping coffee. After a
couple of minutes, he tapped the paper with his forefinger. “Here it is,” he
muttered, then folded the paper twice and pointed at an article.

“Here’s what?” she asked, running water into the sink and
squirting dishwashing liquid into it. Steam rose, mixed with a few stray bubbles
that escaped from the hot soapy water. “Is Kroger having a sale?”

“Look at this,” he said, tapping the paper again.

“I’m busy.”

“Look at it!” he shouted.

Rhoda slung water and soap off her fingers, dried them on her
apron and took the paper. She saw an article about a new fishing camp being
built near Killian. That was no news. The area was becoming more popular for
fishing every year. “What?” she asked. “I don’t see anything.”

“I don’t know how you find your glasses in the morning, woman.
Right there in the middle. The column titled Delancey something-or-other.”

Rhoda read the short article. Then she read it again, hoping
that she’d misread it somehow. But she hadn’t. She closed her eyes.

“You’re such an idiot, Rho. How in the hell, out of all the
kids in all the public places in a city as big as New Orleans, did you manage to
grab a Delancey?”

“Wait a minute. We don’t know for sure—”

“The hell we don’t.” Howard hauled his bulk up out of the
kitchen chair and walked to the back door and looked out. “You don’t think I
missed the name and telephone number sewed into that little shirt and taped to
the baby carrier, do you?”

Rhoda didn’t say anything. She was still staring at the
article, although after reading it six times, she could probably recite it by
heart.

LOCAL ATTORNEY’S CONNECTION WITH DELANCEYS SHOCKS NEW ORLEANS

Papers confiscated during the investigation into Senator Darby
Sills’s murder have revealed a startling connection between a local attorney,
Joseph Robert Powers, and the powerful and influential Delanceys of Chef Voleur
and New Orleans, Louisiana. Powers is the son of controversial French Quarter
celebrity Kit Powers, rumored to have been politician Con Delancey’s long-time
lover. A birth certificate confiscated from Sills’s house proves that Joseph
Powers is in fact the son of Con Delancey. The thirty-year-old Powers, who
established a satellite office of the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children in New Orleans after his own son, Joshua Joseph, disappeared in March
of 2012, could not be reached for comment. A representative for the Delanceys
informed us that they are unaware of any connection and have never met Powers or
his mother.

She’d never talked about where Joshy had come from, not even to
Howard. Not surprisingly, he’d never asked. Rhoda realized that she’d almost
bought in to her own lie. She’d almost told Howard that the article couldn’t be
true because Joshy was her daughter’s child. Her daughter that didn’t exist.

But no matter how much Rhoda wanted to deny it, the fact was,
little Joshy, who was her grandson in every way but flesh and blood, was the son
of Joseph Powers and the grandson of Con Delancey. She felt a sinking sensation
in her stomach. Nothing good could come of this.

“What do you think of that, Rho?” Howard asked. When she looked
at him he was sneering in the way he did when he knew he had the upper hand.

“I’m just going to have to be more careful. I won’t take him to
Sunday school anymore. After this article, everybody in the state is going to be
staring at every child his age, asking themselves if that boy, or that one or
that one, could be Con Delancey’s grandson.”

“You know what?” He thumped the paper. “This gives me an
idea.”

“What?” Rhoda didn’t like the sound of Howard’s voice or the
look on his face. “What idea could you possibly have that would help
anything?”

“Woman, if you’d listen to me for one minute, I’ll tell you.
That kid is a gold mine. All we gotta do is call the Delanceys and tell them
we’ve got their grandkid and we’ll be happy to give him back, for a price.”

“No!” Rhoda said, backing toward the hallway to the bedrooms.
She wanted to be between Howard and Joshy’s room. Not that she could stop Howard
if he decided to get to Joshy. “No. He is
not
a gold
mine. He is my grandson. He’s mine. He’s nothing to do with you or them.”

“If he’s worth money, he’s a
lot
to
do with me. You know how bad I been wanting to build me a building near a dock
where I could make a little money working on boat motors. We could build us a
nice house out there on Bayou Picou.”

“You listen to me, Howard Lelievre. I know things about you. I
know your secrets. You start messing with my little Joshy and I’ll get you in so
much trouble they’ll put you
under
the jail. Do you
understand me?”

Howard gaped at her. “Oh, yeah? Are you really that stupid,
woman? You know what I can do to you with one hand tied behind my back? You
won’t be able to tell nobody nothing once I get through with you.”

Rhoda laughed. “Big talker. All I need is two seconds to grab
my rifle. ’Cause I can put a slug through a rabbit’s eye at thirty yards. Your
big gigantic head’ll be a piece of cake. Actually more like a bowl of pudding,
and don’t you forget it.”

“Hell,” he said. “What’s the matter with you, woman? All I want
to do is fish. And maybe have a little store or bait shop where I can fix motors
and stuff. Don’t you want enough money so you don’t have to worry about
anything?”

Not as much as I want that little
boy.
Rhoda shook her head. “You’re an idiot, Howard,” she said,
pointing her finger at him. “Don’t forget what I said. You touch one single hair
on that child’s head and you’ll be answering to
me.
”

To her relief, Howard actually looked worried. He shrugged,
stuck his thumbs in the shoulder straps of his denim overalls and headed toward
the front door. Rhoda heard him cursing under his breath.

“Watch what you say, you foul-mouthed good-for-nothing,” she
called after him. “Little pitchers have big ears.”

His footsteps stopped. “Little pitchers can get
broken,
Rhoda.”

Chapter Three

Joe decided not to search for Marcie’s license plate using NCMEC resources, if only because it was connected to the New Orleans Police Department’s computer system. Now that his parentage was big news on page three of the
Times-Picayune,
he didn’t want his name showing up there, especially since there were Delanceys on the police force. So he called up a friend whose mother was a police dispatcher in the Baton Rouge area.

“It’s a Livingston Parish tag,” Joe told his friend Terry. Within two hours he knew that the vehicle was a 2003 Nissan hatchback, registered to a Hardison Sumner, of Killian, Louisiana.

“Interesting note,” Terry said. “Mom tells me that Hardison Sumner is deceased. Apparently it’s his wife who’s driving it.”

“Did Sumner or his wife have a police record?”

“Nothing Mom could chase down. The car is clean, too. No outstanding parking tickets or citations. Say, Joe, I saw the papers the other day. Is everything okay with you—”

Joe cut him off, saying he had to be in court, thanked him for the information and hung up. He’d decided about three seconds after his mother left yesterday that he wasn’t going to answer any questions about his mother, his
alleged
father or himself. He wasn’t going to mention it to Marcie, either, if she hadn’t read it in the paper already. One personal crisis at a time was all he could handle. Who his father might be meant nothing to him compared to the possibility that following this lead might bring his son back to him.

He drove up to Metairie, to the house where he and Marcie had lived until he’d moved out. He’d needed to separate himself from her sadness and overwhelming grief. But he’d also wanted to save her from the added pain of facing him every day and knowing that his neglect had cost them their child.

As he walked up to the front door, he heard music playing from inside the house. It was Mozart, which surprised him. Marcie only listened to Mozart when she was painting. As far as he knew, she hadn’t picked up a paintbrush since Joshua went missing. The fact that she was painting now shattered his heart, because he knew what it meant. She was pinning all her hopes on the license plate.

He knocked, and heard the sound echo through the house. The door’s sidelights gave a distorted, beveled-glass view of the large foyer. After a moment, he saw her hurrying toward the door and he could tell by the way she moved that she was barefoot. Without warning, his body tightened and lust stabbed him. He’d always thought she had the prettiest feet he’d ever seen. Watching her skip through the house barefoot had always been a huge turn-on for him. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath as she threw the lock and opened the door.

“Yes?” she said, her ponytail still swinging. “Oh, Joe.” Her face brightened and her cheeks turned pink. She smoothed stray hairs back from her face.

Facing her, he realized that despite the allure of her bare feet and the ponytail that revealed her beautiful face, he still resented her for using her body to persuade him.

“What are you doing here? Did you run the plate?”

“Yes,” he said ungraciously.

“Well, come in and tell me,” she said, standing aside and waving a hand. “I know it was a Livingston Parish plate. Where does the woman live? Did you find out anything about her? Does she have any children?”

Joe edged past her into the foyer of the home he was still paying for. He managed to avoid any physical contact. But he could still smell that damn melon-scented shampoo, mixed with the faint smell of oil paint. No,
resentment
was not the right word for what he felt toward her. He was
angry.

“I’ve got the information and I’m going to go out there and speak with her, but, Marcie, this is going to be a bust. You know that, right?” Her face fell and he immediately felt like a heel. Still, confronting the issue now, before he came back to her with the disappointing truth, was better. The longer she lived with the idea that the child she’d seen might be Joshua, the harder it was going to be for her to accept that she was wrong again.

“I’m going with you,” she said. “When—”

“Oh, hell, no, you’re not,” he snapped. “You’ll wait right here until I get back.”

Her cheeks flamed again but this time it wasn’t a pretty little blush. It was the spotty red flare of anger. “I’m the one who saw him. I’m the one who got the plate number. I should get to be there when—”

“I said no!” he thundered.

She froze and stared at him.

“I came here to let you know that I’m going to talk to the woman, not to take you with me. I will come back and tell you what I find out, but you know what the odds are. We’ve heard the experts talk about that so many times. They’ve studied—”

“
They
didn’t see him.
They
aren’t his mother.
They
just compile statistics.”

“Hon, it’s been two years. Have you considered what the odds are that you would just happen to drive up right next to a car carrying our child?”

“No. I haven’t considered the odds and I’m not going to. I don’t care what the odds are. They don’t matter. What matters is that I saw him and I didn’t panic or go off half-cocked. I stayed calm and got the license number and gave it to you. I did everything right.”

He felt bad for having yelled at her. “You did do everything right,” he said gently. “Now you’ve asked me to help. I am. I’m going to handle this part of it. I’ll come straight back here and tell you what happened.”

“No, Joe. I can’t just sit here and wait. I want to go. Please. I might be able to get a glimpse of Joshua. I might be able to call out to him—” She paused. “Joe?” she said, a tinge of apprehension in her voice. “Do you think he’ll recognize my voice? Or was he too young? Oh, Joe, he’s not going to remember us, is he?”

“Stop it, hon,” Joe said, catching her arm. “You’re getting upset. You can’t think about that. If we—
when
we find him, we’ll worry about that then. For now I’ll take care of everything. I promise.”

“Will you at least tell me where he is? Is he in Hammond? Are the people nice? Do they have any other children?”

“Absolutely not. I will not tell you anything else.” He stepped toward the door. “I need to go. I have some work to do at the office,” he said, but Marcie hadn’t stopped staring at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked her.

“You’re optimistic, aren’t you?” she said as her lip started to quiver. “You’re a little bit optimistic that she has Joshua.”

He pushed past her without answering, grimacing when his arm brushed the firm softness of her breast. Once he was out the door and about to head down the sidewalk, he turned back. He cleared his throat and kicked a stone away with the toe of his shoe. Then he looked up at her. “Yeah, I guess I am. A little.”

* * *

O
N
THE
DRIVE
out to the town of Killian, on the west side of Lake Maurepas, above New Orleans, Joe wished for companionship. He knew it would have been a disaster to bring Marcie, but her presence would have made the drive less boring and less nerve-wracking. Joe had never realized that something could be both boring and nerve-wracking at the same time. But the anticipation of seeing the woman and the child was torture, even though he didn’t believe for one moment that the boy was his Joshua. At least he didn’t think he did.

He spent most of the drive going over his plan in his head—once he had a plan. He would ask her if she’d noticed anyone suspicious lurking around her little boy. If she questioned him, he’d try to convince her that he was a government official.

Past Killian’s tiny downtown area, the roads became little more than asphalt poured down over old shells and rocks. The asphalt dropped off to nothing at the shoulder, and when he met another vehicle, both of them ended up dangerously close to a small drop-off that was deep enough to bend the driveshaft.

When he found the Sumner house, it was set back off the road with what looked like three feet of crawl space under it. Much taller and it could almost be considered a stilt house. Although the ground around the house was dry and sported some fairly nice-looking grass, Joe knew that the area must flood, or the house wouldn’t be built up like that.

He turned on a dirt road that was not more than a dirt path. He drove slowly and carefully, following the deep grooves that looked as though they were made by two vehicles that regularly traveled the area. Then he came upon a white plank house. There was an old green pickup and a Nissan hatchback in the front yard. The license plate of the Nissan matched exactly the number Marcie had given him.

So, this was the Sumner house and the vehicle was the same one that Marcie had seen. Although he knew the information he’d gotten was correct, the idea of being this close to the child who could be his son sent his pulse racing. Even being 99 percent sure that Marcie was wrong didn’t stop a small sting of anticipation from pricking his chest and allowing hope to bloom.

The heavy, dreadful emptiness that had weighed on him since the moment he’d looked down to find the baby carrier, which he’d set at his feet, gone, came over him. It couldn’t be Joshua. The odds were too high against it.

He eased past the Nissan until he had a good clear view of the front door. He pulled out his cell phone and turned it off. He didn’t want anything to distract him.

Then he killed the engine and got out, remaining in the arc of the driver’s side door, giving whoever was in the house plenty of time to look him over, check out his car and make up their mind that he was harmless.

He feigned looking around the yard and the house. Lying beside the concrete stoop, in the shade of the house, was a black-and-white spotted hound dog, resting. He wasn’t asleep, because Joe had seen his head raise a couple of inches as his car approached. But he’d obviously decided neither the car nor the driver was worth getting up and barking at. Joe hoped the inhabitants of the house thought him as harmless as the hound did.

Still moving slowly, Joe closed the driver’s door and walked slowly and deliberately toward the house. He saw a curtain flutter on the front window, then heard footsteps clattering on hardwood and the muffled sound of a female voice. He couldn’t tell what she said.

About the time he stepped onto the sidewalk that started from nothing about forty feet from the stoop, the front door swung open and a small, slender woman in jeans and a T-shirt and a long gray braid came out, holding a twenty-two rifle in a way that told Joe she’d shot it before—lots of times before.

“What do you want?” she called out.

“My name is Joe Powers—” he began.

“I didn’t ask you who you are. I asked you what do you want!” she yelled, lifting the barrel of the rifle about two inches.

“I’m a caseworker for the state,” he said, using generic words that he hoped would sound unthreatening. “I want to talk to you about your child.” Joe heard a voice from inside the house. It was a small voice—a child’s voice, muffled by distance and the screen door. There was no way he could recognize it, or even tell if it were a little girl or a little boy. His heart began pounding so loudly that he wanted to muffle it with his palm.

“Hush, honey,” the woman said, her tone kind and indulgent. “Go back to your room.”

The child protested.

“No!” the woman said. “Go to your room.” She lifted the rifle’s barrel another two inches. “Now, you,” she said to Joe. “Caseworker for what?”

“Ma’am. I wanted to ask you if you’ve seen anyone suspicious hanging around you or any friends of yours who have small children. It could happen close to home or when you’re out shopping.”

“Suspicious? The only suspicious person I see is you. What are you? A cop?”

Joe shook his head and spread his hands, palms out. “No, ma’am. I am not.”

“Step out of the shade so I can get a look at you.”

“May I just come inside for a minute?” Joe asked, not moving.

“Hell, no, you can’t. Don’t come any closer. Step sideways.”

He stepped out of the shadow of a big pine tree that smelled like turpentine. “There,” he said. “Ma’am, we’re concerned about a man who has been reported at several malls and near some houses, watching women with small children.”

“Shut up a minute,” the woman commanded him. “Let me get a look at you.”

Joe waited.

“Whereabouts?” she said as she lifted one hand to shade her eyes.

“Excuse me?” Joe asked. He’d heard what she said, but he needed a couple of seconds to sort out what she meant. He finally got that she was talking about where the suspicious character had been spotted. “In Hammond.”

“What’d you say your name was?” she cried out, taking hold of the rifle with both hands again. “Where are you from?”

“I’ll be happy to explain everything to you once we get inside. I’d like you to look at some pictures.” Joe was afraid he was losing her. Was she more interested in him than in the safety of her child, or—?

Suddenly, with a pang in his stomach that felt like an ulcer, he knew why she was questioning him. A picture had been included with the article that had run in the
Times-Picayune.
It wasn’t a good one, and it was a few years old, but still, he’d been recognizable.

Joe made a show of looking at his watch. “I’m afraid I’ve taken up too much of your time, ma’am. I probably ought to go. I’ve got other people to see. I appreciate you letting me talk to you.”

“Gramma?”

There was the voice again. And unless he was horribly mistaken, the voice had said
Gramma.

The woman’s head snapped around toward the inside of the house. “What did I tell you, J—?” She cut herself off abruptly but Joe hadn’t missed that she’d almost slipped and said the child’s name. It started with a
J.

His heart kicked into overdrive and his eyes began to sting.

“Gramma,” the child called again, and Joe saw the screen door start to open. He strained to catch a glimpse of the child whose small fingers were reaching around the edge of the door, but Ms. Sumner glanced backward. “If you don’t mind me right now, I will tan your hide! Now go to your room.” She raised her rifle to her shoulder and sighted down the barrel. “And if you don’t get out of here, I’m gonna shoot out your tires and then I’m going to shoot you. Coming around here making up stories to get inside my house. Now, you got to the count of three to get in that car and go! And don’t you ever come back here!” She raised the gun to her shoulder. “One. Two—”