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  Caleb had proved as impossible and stubborn as his father. Elisa had been terribly hurt by Caleb and missed him, too, but she was angry with him on Nelson’s behalf. She saw Nelson’s attempts to befriend him and his rejection of Nelson, and felt disappointed in her son.

  Nelson tried to make her life as comfortable as possible. She had needed someone to lean on after Richard’s death and all her other losses. Nelson loved helping her to embrace life again. She was an amazing woman, much stronger than some supposed.

  He loved her, and he was convinced that she loved him. Or loved the man she believed him to be. That would all change now.

  If he committed suicide, she would have his fortune at least. He felt the sea breeze, the warmth of the sun on his face. Not yet, he thought. Not yet.

  He’d wait until he was sure Dexter was right. He had waited so long to be with Elisa, he would wait a little longer to let go.

  CHAPTER 50

  Tuesday, May 2

  8:15 P.M.

  SAN BERNARDINO MOUNTAINS

  “GENIE,” her dad said, “Cleo and I are going to go outside for a little while. Boys, go upstairs and brush your teeth and get in your pajamas. I’ll come back in to tuck you in soon.”

  The boys glanced at Genie, who gave a small nod, and they went upstairs. She turned to see Cleo watching her. She smiled and said, “Thank you for letting us stay at your cabin, Cousin Cleo.”

  “You’re welcome, Genie.” Genie thought she might say more, but Cleo seemed to change her mind, and went to a closet to gather a warm coat, mittens, and a wool cap.

  When they were out of the house, Genie felt a sense of relief. She felt sure that Cousin Cleo was a liar. Genie had made a point of mentioning Carrie several times, and could see that Cleo didn’t like that. She hoped that meant that Carrie was with Ms. Kelly, or maybe Carrie was already meeting her real father. She found it hard to think about the idea of Carrie maybe not coming back to live with them.

  Cleo also didn’t like it when Aaron cried and said he wanted Mommy. She gave Aaron a mean look that made him cry harder. Genie had quickly comforted and distracted him, and he stopped. Genie had to admit that Cleo hadn’t said or done anything to him, but that look… that look was scary.

  Dad seemed not to even notice they were there. You had to say his name a bunch of times to get him to pay any attention to you. Two minutes later it seemed as if he hadn’t heard anything you said to him, or had forgotten you were there. Since Cleo got here, it was even worse. Dad was willing to do whatever Cleo said.

  Even before they got here, Dad didn’t seem to be himself. On the way to the mountains, when they stopped to buy gas, Genie asked if she could ride up front with Dad, and he had said yes. He ignored the boys’ protests. He told them they could come into the convenience mart with him while Genie watched the SUV.

  When he came back, she discovered he had bought each of them a bag of chips. They never ate junk food — Mom did not allow it. The boys had delighted in this new experience, but Genie decided to save her chips for later.

  Genie had a feeling that something was going wrong, really wrong, and she didn’t think it had to do with Carrie. There was some other trouble, and no one was telling the kids about it. She hated when that happened.

  When they got here, Dad made everyone wait in the SUV, even though the boys had to go to the bathroom really bad. It was just past noon, but he took a flashlight with him, putting it in his jacket pocket. He went to the door, which used a keypad instead of a key, but didn’t go inside. He then went around to the back of the cabin. When he returned, his clothes were dirty.

  The cabin was the only one at the end of a long road. There were trees and boulders all around it at the front. Dad pulled the SUV into a garage, and once the boys had gone to the bathroom, for a time they were busy moving things from the car into the cabin.

  Dad called it a cabin, but it was big enough to be called a house. There was a steep slope at the back. A small deck was built out over this, with a telescope on it, and if you held it just right, you could see the glint of a few other windows and roofs, and a stretch of the main road. It was pretty here, but Genie felt too worried to enjoy the view.

  Before Cleo showed up, Genie had snooped through the cabin, and in the desk, which had a strange panel of LED lights next to it, she found some things she thought she might be able to use — envelopes and stamps. She took one stamp and an envelope. She had brought paper and pens and a few art supplies, and she planned to use them to mail a letter. She’d noticed that there was a mailbox at the end of the long dirt road that led back to this cabin.

  The biggest temptation in the house was a television set. It was hooked up to a satellite dish. But Dad unplugged it as soon as they came in.

  While she was snooping, Genie also saw three guns. Dad didn’t keep guns at home, but Grandfather had taught all the children rules about them: If you see a gun, don’t touch it, get an adult. So she hadn’t touched them, and told Dad about the one in the closet and the one in the kitchen, because she was afraid the boys might find them. She had to do a lot of hinting to get him to discover the one in the desk and even pretended that she was looking in it for the first time, because if she had just said, “I was snooping around and found one there,” she’d have been in trouble.

  He sighed when she showed him the first gun. “Leave it to Cleo not to even have the safety on.” She watched how he removed the thing that held the ammunition — he said it was a magazine — in each of the guns. He answered her question about the safety and showed her about keeping guns pointed down and away from anyone. “You might think this gun is safe now, but it isn’t — you must always treat every gun as if it is loaded, and never pull the trigger to find out if it has a bullet in it. Watch.” He showed her that a round was already chambered, and ejected that one. He did this with each gun, and searched the closet and found several boxes of ammunition.

  He locked all the ammunition, including the magazines, away in the rear cargo hold of the SUV. She told him he should probably make sure there weren’t others, and even said, “In the bedrooms or something,” but he didn’t look. Mostly, he just sat around looking sad.

  There was a lot of food in the pantry, so that was good, and Dad had brought a lot of food in the ice chest, so they wouldn’t have to worry about that. In payment for the stamp and the envelope she had taken, she left the bag of chips in the pantry.

  She found Dad’s notebook in his jacket and read through the most recent page. Her eyes widened at the word booby trap, and she read those instructions carefully. She had a good memory, so she didn’t need to take the page out of the notebook. She replaced it in the jacket pocket.

  There was a strange bedroom at the end of the upstairs hall that had a lot of mirrors on the walls and ceiling. It was the biggest of the bedrooms. The bathroom was big, too — it had a fancy shower in it. A look around the bathroom, even under the toilet-tank lid, did not reveal any hidden weapons.

  Genie went back out into the mirrored bedroom. She saw the big bed and recalled how her mom hid things between the mattress and the box spring of her bed at home. She tried one side, then the other. On the second side, her hand touched something metal, and she drew out a fourth gun. She removed the magazine by pushing the button she’d seen her dad push on the other guns, which were identical to this one, and pocketed the ammunition. She ejected the chambered round as well.

  Near the bed was another panel with some LED lights on it, identical to the one next to the desk downstairs. The green ones were lit now, but there was a row of red ones, too. She thought it might be the alarm system for the house.

  She searched the nightstands on either side of the bed, then looked through the closet and the dresser drawers. Mostly it was the usual sort of thing grown-ups kept in such places, although Cleo’s clothing wasn’t much like Mom’s. In one of the nightstands she only found condoms — the same brand Dad kept hidden in his desk at home — and a local phone book.

  Genie
spent a few minutes making strange faces in the mirrors and looking at reflections of reflections. But after a few minutes, she decided the room was creepy. Later she was relieved when Dad didn’t put his things in there.

  When they first arrived, they had played outside in the snow. That had been fun. After the long drive the boys needed to expend some energy. They built a snowman, and Genie used Carrie’s camera to take a picture of Troy and Aaron standing next to it. She would get it developed and send it to Carrie. She had tried to stop worrying about Carrie, but she couldn’t. Maybe Mom had found out and was punishing her. She didn’t like to think about that.

  After Cleo came to the cabin — Genie still wasn’t sure how she got there, since she hadn’t arrived in a car — they all had to stay inside. Cleo said some people who wanted to steal them away from Dad might be looking for them. They had heard about people wanting to steal them before, but somehow, when she said it, it made them all believe it could happen at any minute.

  Genie could see that all of this was upsetting the boys and that if the boys were upset, Cleo got mad. Mom could be the same way, so Genie found herself in the accustomed role of taking care of her brothers, finding ways to entertain them. Now the task of making sure they brushed their teeth and got into bed fell to her. She tried not to think about the fact that she and Carrie always did this together.

  Fortunately, between the stresses of the day and the time they had spent playing in the snow, the boys were tired now, and she didn’t have any arguments from them as she tucked them in.

  She made up a story for them, about a girl who was a princess looking for her father the king, and although they at first objected to a story about a girl, when she was done they asked her to tell it again. They fell asleep before she got very far the second time around.

  She went to the room where Dad had told her she would sleep. Keeping the lights off, she carefully approached the window. Earlier, she had raised the blind, so she had to be careful not to be seen.

  Beneath the window, out in the moonlight, she saw Dad and Cleo. They were hugging. It gave her a kind of sick feeling, so she quickly stepped back and lowered the blind. Was Cleo going to be their new mom or something? That didn’t seem possible.

  She turned a bedside lamp on and sat at the side of the bed. It was a big bed. She was glad she had brought the big soft doll. It made the bed seem less empty.

  She felt lonely without Carrie and spent a little time looking through the few things she had brought along for her sister, thinking they were going to spend the day at Grandfather’s house. She had packed them both to fool Dad and in case things went wrong and Carrie ended up joining them. She picked up Carrie’s camera and thought back to the alternate plan they had made to take pictures of Carrie at Grandfather’s house and mail them to Ms. Kelly. Was that just this morning? This had been such a long and crazy day.

  She changed into her pajamas. She had realized several hours ago that the duffels were full of new clothes and pajamas and underwear, all in the right sizes. There was even one for Carrie. Any other time, she would have been excited about new clothes, but she couldn’t help wishing she had her own comfy pj’s on instead of these new scratchy ones. She decided to put her sleeping bag on top of the bedspread. At least it was something familiar.

  She got her drawing pad and colored pencils, as well as a flashlight she had found downstairs, and climbed into bed. She began writing her letter.

  Dear Ms. Kelly,

  I am Carla Ives’s sister. Please tell her we are at 14 Cold Creek Road in the San Bernardino Mountains. I think the nearest city is Big Bear Lake. We are at Cleo Fletcher’s house.

  Thank you.

  Yours truly,

  Genie

  P.S. Tell her I miss her a lot.

  She heard the front door open and hurriedly turned out the light. She hid the drawing pad and the pencils and flashlight beneath the new clothes in Carrie’s duffel bag and quietly got back into bed.

  She pretended to be asleep when her dad opened the door to her bedroom. She heard a strange metallic sound.

  “Cleo, wait!” Dad whispered from the doorway.

  “What the hell is that on the pillow next to her?” Cleo whispered back.

  “A doll,” he said in a low and shaky voice. “Just a doll.” He paused. “I think she misses Carrie. Please, put the knife away.”

  “I was only going to protect her,” Cleo said.

  “I know,” he said soothingly. “I know. You’re taking care of all of us.”

  Genie heard him close the door and walk toward the mirrored room. Cleo’s footsteps were much softer, but they followed his.

  Genie pulled the doll closer. She fell asleep whispering the words “Six Hundred Broadway, Las Piernas, California” over and over to the doll, because, according to a little piece of newsprint she had memorized this morning, that was the address for the Las Piernas News Express.

  CHAPTER 51

  Tuesday, May 2

  10:30 P.M.

  LAS PIERNAS

  QUESTIONS abounded. Whenever one question about the Fletchers seemed resolved, ten more took its place.

  We thought we knew who was missing from the house in Huntington Beach, until the Huntington Beach Police Department released photos of Roy Fletcher and his children. They discovered Roy’s digital camera, and fortunately, the last few photographs had not yet been deleted from its memory. The police blanketed the media with them.

  After seeing the photos, it seemed likely that the only person in the Roy Fletcher family who was using his or her legal name was Roy himself.

  A hunch I had based on the story Reggie Faroe’s mother had told me led to a check of Arizona records. They showed that Roy’s late wife, Bonnie, had legally married Roy there under her real name but apparently she stopped using it from then on. Now the fact that her previous boyfriend, Reggie Faroe, was found dead at the base of a cliff seemed even more suspicious. The man she ran off with died in the desert, her name changed, and she acquired not only her own daughter but also three other children.

  Bonnie’s body had been left in another desert, and although the circumstances strongly suggested Giles or Cleo had killed her, it was not clear that she had been murdered — even an autopsy might not be conclusive about whether she fell or was pushed down those stairs. Toxicology tests would take six weeks or more, but Carrie’s account indicated that Bonnie might have been drugged by Roy, another factor to be considered. Fingerprints, DNA, and firearms evidence had been collected from the desert scene and the bullet-riddled van — the fingerprints found in the BMW would be sent through IAFIS, the FBI fingerprint system; DNA would be compared to DNA found in the shoe left in Sheila Dolson’s backyard; the bullets would be compared to the one that killed her.

  Reed told me that Sheila’s DNA had matched that on the cigarettes found at the scene of Gerry Serre’s burial on the Sheffield Estate. That meant she had at least been present when he was buried.

  “Does any of the DNA on the cigarettes you found out there come from anyone else?” I asked.

  “No. All Sheila’s. Which make us think she could have carried this out alone. We’re going to try to figure out if she dated Gerry Serre before he died. We’re a long way from being certain she’s the one who murdered him.”

  The news stories about the children hadn’t yet aired on television when I talked to him. Once they did, local police departments began to take a different view of Roy Fletcher.

  I saw the photos of the children Roy was calling his own while I was in the newsroom working with Mark on the last few details of his story on the ongoing investigation into the Roy Fletcher family. I had already turned in a first-person account — from that point on, I was off the story as a reporter.

  Frank was sitting next to me, off duty from all roles other than protective husband. I have accepted the fact that he can’t help himself when it comes to that one, and would be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate it that evening. John Walters is fond of telling
me that he doesn’t want me to bring cops into his newsroom, but in truth, he likes Frank and enjoys talking to him. Over time he’s learned that I didn’t marry “Frank Harriman, Police Spy.” Despite the evidence, Frank’s employers still suspect he married “Irene Kelly, Newspaper Spy.”

  John told me he had uploaded the photos and sent them to my terminal. I was exhausted, really ready to go home, but my curiosity overcame all of that. I saw a photo of a boy, captioned as Troy Fletcher. Cute kid, but not one I recognized. The next one, labeled Aaron Fletcher, made me sit bolt upright.

  “My God — it’s Luke Serre.”

  “Luke Serre?” John said, as he crossed the room toward my desk. “The murdered man?”

  “No, that was Gerry Serre. This is his son. Didn’t you recognize him?” I called up the photos Jane Serre had given me a few days ago, when I interviewed her after her ex-husband’s body was found on the Sheffield Estate. I placed the photo of the boy now going by the name of Aaron Fletcher next to the most recent photo she had given me of her son.

  Only two years had gone by, and while Luke had gone from toddler to little boy in that time, the likeness was unmistakable.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” Frank said.

  “Better call your friends about it,” John said, but Frank already had his cell phone in hand and was calling Reed Collins.

  “Two of those four kids were kidnapped from Las Piernas,” John said, and barked for Mark not to go home.

  My phone rang. It was Caleb, calling from our house. He had stopped by earlier in the evening to visit Ethan. Ben was there, too — he had stopped by to work with Altair, and ended up waiting with Caleb and Ethan for word about my adventures in the high desert. Since I had to go to work before coming home, they ordered pizza and kept Ethan company.