The Children's Cop Read online

  “The message. Is it something about Angel?”

  “No. I’m sorry. It’s…” The telltale heat of a blush crept into her cheeks and she shoved the pager into her pocket. She thought of a dozen different explanations she could have offered, but every one of them would have been a lie, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that she’d have a hard time lying to this man—even for a good cause.

  “It’s my plumber,” she finally admitted. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  He must have been as surprised as she was because he didn’t try to stop her when she opened the door. But as she walked away, punching numbers on her cell phone to keep him from following her, Lucy had the sinking feeling that keeping her emotions in check around Jackson Davis wasn’t going to be easy.

  HOPING TO AVOID REPORTERS, Lucy kept her head down and moved quickly toward her parking spot as the press conference came to an end. The Avila case was officially a homicide now. Out of Lucy’s hands. After promising not to rest until Tomas’s abductor was brought to justice, now she was expected to just walk away.

  How could she explain that to Maria Avila? She wasn’t certain she understood it herself and she sure wasn’t ready to just quietly accept it. Though she hadn’t found a moment to approach Nick with her request, she hadn’t given up on the idea of working with the homicide team. For the public, however, she had to play the role she’d been assigned.

  Swatting a mosquito that landed on her arm, she slipped around the edge of the crowd. Usually they dealt with the press at police headquarters, but today, in an attempt to accommodate the grieving family, they’d come back to the church that had served as command center during the search. She could hear Nick and his superior, Captain Dunning, dodging questions from persistent reporters as they moved away from the microphones, but nobody, thank God, seemed to notice her.

  A noise on her right drew her attention to Maria Avila, who sobbed into her hands and leaned heavily on the arms of her grim-faced brother. Mrs. Avila looked so small. So forlorn.

  Lucy’s heart twisted painfully, and the tears that had been so close to the surface all day stung her eyes. The urge to go to her came over Lucy, but she ignored it. There was nothing she could do to help. Nothing she could say.

  Averting her gaze, she slipped into the shadows of a tree. Someday, Maria would realize that they’d done everything humanly possible to save her son. Someday. Maybe then Lucy could tell her how deeply losing Tomas had affected her, how much she wished they could have saved him. Maybe then Mrs. Avila would believe her.

  When she finally reached her parking spot and saw a muddy pickup truck parked just inches from her car, she growled in frustration. This definitely was not her day. She’d never be able to open the door far enough to get inside.

  Pressing Unlock on her keyless entry, she headed for the passenger-side door. A gust of wind brought with it the keening sound of Maria Avila’s grief, and Lucy felt a piercing urgency to distance herself from it before it worked even further into her psyche and made it harder to do her job.

  “Hey! Lucy!”

  The shout turned her around as Gavin Mossburg, a reporter from the Chronicle, strode toward her. With his short-cropped brown hair and pale eyes protected by a pair of wire-rimmed glasses, Gavin had a studious look that seemed perfectly suited to his profession. She’d met him the first year she’d worked Domestic Violence, and though he wasn’t her type—she suspected the feeling was mutual—they had indulged in a mild flirtation for the past three years. Neither ever took it seriously, and neither had ever let down their professional guard.

  “Rough case,” Gavin said when he drew close enough.

  “Every one that ends badly is rough,” Lucy said, resting one arm on the roof of her car. The Eclipse had been sitting too long in the sun and the metal burned her skin. Pulling away sharply, she swore under her breath and gingerly touched the sore spot. “What’s up, Gavin? Why aren’t you over there trying to pry answers out of Nick?”

  “I can talk to Nick anytime. I’d rather talk to you.”

  Lucy lowered her hand and frowned up at him. “Why?”

  “You were there last night?”

  “You know I was. My name is in the press release.”

  “You want to talk about it?”

  Not even if her life depended on it. “There’s nothing to talk about,” she said stiffly. “Anything I know, you’ve already heard.” The department had procedures for dealing with the press, and the Elizabeth Smart case had left every cop in the nation aware of the media’s power. Lucy wasn’t about to create tension for the department with reporters, but neither did she want to give away her continued interest in the case before she had a chance to talk to Nick.

  “I’m sorry for the Avilas’ loss,” she said, carefully putting a lid on her own emotions. “We did everything humanly possible to find Tomas and bring him home safely.”

  “The Avilas don’t seem to agree.”

  “They’re understandably upset. Anyone would be in their shoes. But I’m sure that when the shock and horror wear off a little, and they have time to reflect on the investigation, they’ll be able to see that there was nothing more we could have done.”

  Gavin nodded, let his gaze travel toward the family cluster, and then looked back at her with a tight smile. “So what about this new case you’ve got?”

  “Which new case?”

  “Angelina Beckett. I got a call from her uncle about an hour ago. He wants us to cover the story, but I’m hearing rumors that the girl is just a runaway.”

  “Just a runaway?” Ignoring the guilty twinge that his assessment so closely mirrored her own, Lucy pocketed her keys and leaned against the inside of the car door. “That’s kind of a cynical attitude, isn’t it?”

  “Come on, Luce. You know what I mean. You got an abduction, I’ll do a story, but we don’t have room in the paper to cover every teenage kid who gets mad at their parents and takes a walk. So what’s with the Beckett kid?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’m looking into it.”

  “She disappeared this morning?”

  “As far as we know.”

  “No sign of forced entry?”

  “None.”

  “I guess that means you won’t be issuing an Amber Alert?”

  He sounded almost disappointed, and on a professional level he probably was. No human with a conscience wanted to hear about a child being taken out of her own home, but there was no question that an abduction would make an exciting news story.

  “If the evidence shows that she walked out the door on her own, then of course we won’t. You know the drill, Gavin. To issue an alert, we need proof that she’s been abducted and reason to believe her life is in imminent danger. We also need enough information about the abductor to help the public find them. I don’t have any of those things right now.” She ran another glance across the thinning crowd, noticed that the Avilas had moved away, and breathed a sigh of relief. “Have you talked to anybody about her disappearance?”

  “Not yet, but I might check with a few neighbors if I get time. The uncle was pretty adamant.”

  Yes, she could imagine Jackson would be. “I’ve talked with a few of them, but nobody seems to know much about her except that she’s alone a lot.”

  Gavin smiled halfheartedly. “Well, that’s not unusual.”

  He had a point. The world had changed since Lucy was a kid. Too many middle-and lower-class working parents were left with little choice when it came to child care. Children of seven, eight and nine, and in some cases even younger, were being left at home alone or in charge of younger siblings. Five-year-old latchkey kids came home to empty houses after kindergarten. Though Lucy’s personal sensors went off at the thought of leaving a fourteenyear-old alone so much, Angel had a good life compared to some of the kids she’d encountered.

  The familiar knot began forming in her chest, but she pushed it away. She’d walked too close to the line with Tomas Avila; she couldn’t let herself becom
e emotionally wrapped up in the Beckett case. “If you hear anything,” she said, “you’ll let me know, right?”

  Gavin grinned. “Sure. I probably won’t spend much time on it unless I have a slow day, but sure. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

  That was a deal she intended to take advantage of once she was back at work finding Tomas Avila’s killer. She managed a nonchalant grin, hoping it matched his. “You bet. I’ll personally make sure you get an invitation to every press conference we hold.”

  The smile slipped from Gavin’s face and an expression of mock annoyance replaced it. “Funny, Montalvo.”

  Managing a laugh, she pulled out her keys and slid into the car. “What can I say? You’re my favorite reporter on the beat.”

  Suddenly serious, Gavin leaned into the open door. “Look, I know the Avila case was rough on you. It got to all of us.”

  The abrupt change of subject gouged painfully at Lucy’s self-control. “No child deserves what happened to Tomas,” she said, hating that her voice came out high and thick with emotion.

  Gavin locked eyes with her before she could look away. “How are you handling it?”

  “I’m fine.” Maybe if she said it often enough, she would begin to believe it. “Are you asking everyone involved in the case that question, or just the ‘girls’?”

  His eyes narrowed slightly. “Lighten up, Lucy. I thought we were friends.”

  “Sure we are.”

  “Then don’t be so sensitive, okay?”

  Damn him! She didn’t need kindness right now. Or understanding. She needed… Aw, hell, she didn’t know what she needed. One thing she didn’t need was to lose control over her already shaky emotions.

  She cranked the key and shifted into Reverse, feeling a flicker of guilt over the hurt and confusion on Gavin’s face. “I’m not sensitive,” she growled. “I’m just busy.”

  “Right.” Without taking his eyes from her, Gavin stepped away from the car, but even then he didn’t back off. “If you need to talk, you know where to find me.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” She leaned across the seat and pulled the door shut. “I’ll let you know.”

  But they both knew she wouldn’t. There was only one thing that would make her feel better—finding the person responsible for Tomas Avila’s death. And she wouldn’t do that by talking.

  AT A FEW MINUTES BEFORE seven o’clock that evening, Lucy carried sodas and sandwiches from the corner deli through the darkened bull pen into the glass-walled office that belonged to her commanding officer.

  It had taken a while to shift gears after the press conference, but she’d finally been able to get her focus back on her current case. She’d spent the afternoon talking to Angelina Beckett’s neighbors, trying to find someone who knew where the girl had gone. No one admitted noticing anything suspicious. No one admitted noticing anything that wasn’t suspicious, either. In fact, nobody had paid much attention at all to the quiet young girl with the wide dark eyes.

  Nick looked up as she entered his office, grinned at the sight of food and motioned her toward a chair. All muscle and bulk, with a neck the size of a tree trunk, Nick was in his midforties, but he took pride in his ability to keep pace with men half his age. He accepted a sandwich and chips and leaned up in his chair to dig in.

  Lucy sat across the desk from him and kicked off her shoes. “I want to talk to you about Angelina Beckett.”

  Nick nodded, cracked open his Coke, and drank. “Fine. What have you found?”

  “Not a whole lot. The neighbor who reported her missing insists that she wouldn’t go off on her own, but there’s no sign of a forced entry at the house, nothing to make me believe she was taken against her will.”

  “Any word from her mother?”

  “No sign of her. Of course, there’s a possibility that Angelina could be with her….” Remembering her conversation with Jackson, she hesitated. “But I don’t think she is. I guess she may have gone with friends, but nobody knows who her friends are or where to find them. My guess is that we’re looking at a typical runaway.”

  Nick cocked one eyebrow. “Have you talked to anyone at her school?”

  “It’s Sunday.”

  “What about family? Any chance she’s with them?”

  “I was able to track down the grandparents on her mother’s side. They haven’t heard from her, but they’ll call if they do. She has an aunt in California. No contact there, either. Paternal grandfather is dead. Grandmother is out of the country, and her father dropped out of her life years ago. But she does have an uncle and a great-grandfather who seem concerned.”

  Nick looked interested at that. “Have you talked to them?”

  “The uncle is here in Houston. He came in to help search for her. He and the grandfather run a horse-breeding outfit near Nacogdoches.” Jackson’s wind-blown blond image filled her mind for half a second, but she shook it off. She had to admit to a certain amount of curiosity about him, but only because she felt sorry for him. Obviously, he cared about Angelina and wanted to find her, but he was definitely at a disadvantage.

  Nick tore open his bag of chips and poured some onto his sandwich wrapper. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re leading up to something?”

  With a frown, Lucy unwrapped her own sandwich. It was an opening. She might as well take it. “This is a simple case,” she said. “Anyone can handle it. I’d like to get back to work on the Avila case instead.”

  Nick munched slowly, taking forever on one mouthful of chips. “We’ve turned everything over to Homicide,” he said after a long time. “There’s nothing for you to do.”

  “Nobody knows that case like I do. I could work with them. Liaise between the two departments…”

  Nick stirred potato chip crumbs with one finger. “I don’t think so, Lucy.”

  “At least hear me out,” she protested.

  Nick shook his head and mashed some of the crumbs. Lifting the finger, he stared at it for an annoyingly long time. “I need you on the Beckett case. It’s as simple as that.”

  “Come on, Nick. Let’s be honest. This case is a waste of my time and my energy. It’s a mistake to make too much of it.”

  That eyebrow winged upward again and his neck seemed to swell. “And I think we’d be wrong to make too little of it. Talk to her school tomorrow. See if she’s there. If not, maybe they can tell us who she hangs out with.”

  “Someone else can do that.”

  Nick leaned back in his seat and regarded her intently. “Why don’t you talk to me about Tomas Avila?”

  Lucy felt the blood drain from her face. “There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “He’s the first one you’ve lost, isn’t he?”

  She felt that traitorous burn behind her eyes. Horrified, she tried to will the tears away. “It was a tough case.”

  “You need some downtime?”

  “No!” She caught herself and tried again to shut down her emotions, but they remained close to the surface, just waiting to get the best of her. “I can handle my job, Nick.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first person to shut down after a tough case.”

  “I haven’t shut down. I just don’t think the Beckett case is the best use of my time and talents.”

  Nick tapped his fingers together beneath his chin. “You want my honest opinion?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Too bad. I’ll give it to you, anyway.” He shoved the sandwich out of his way and leaned both arms on the desktop. “I watched you with the Avila case, and I think you allowed yourself to become personally involved. I think losing Tomas was a direct hit, and I don’t think you’re in any condition to work it now that it’s a homicide.”

  Feeling as if she’d been hit, Lucy sat back hard in her chair. “But that’s ridiculous—”

  “Is it? You want me to call Darren in here so you can hear what he thinks?”

  Darren Brady had talked to her a couple of times about her growing emotional involvement during
the search for Tomas, but she’d never suspected that he’d taken his concerns to Nick. Her breath came in short gasps and her thoughts buzzed in disconnected circles. “But I—”

  “This is all new to you,” Nick said, his voice unbearably kind. “Losing a kid is enough to push anybody over the edge, and the first one is especially tough. What I want you to do is make an appointment to meet with Cecily Fontaine some time in the next couple of weeks. Let’s see what she thinks before we give you anything too taxing. In the meantime, you can keep one foot in the water by working the Beckett case.”

  “But I—” she began again, but this time she cut herself off. Equal measures of anger, shock and horror rolled through her, each so strong they robbed her of coherent speech. The idea of being sent to the department psychiatrist was so abhorrent to her, she could hardly think. “Nick,” she managed to say at last, “this isn’t right.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  “No. I’m fine. There’s nothing wrong with me.” She stood, horrified to find that her knees almost didn’t hold her upright. “I know I’ve been distracted today, but that’s because of the problems with my plumbing.”

  “Great. If that’s the case, Cecily will give you the all clear after just a few sessions.”

  Lucy had lost count of the number of times tears had threatened that day, and here they came again. Furious with herself, she strained against them, locking down every emotion she could identify.

  She imagined telling her parents that she’d been sent to a psychiatrist and felt the twist of her stomach that always came when she thought about disappointing them. She imagined the reactions of her co-workers, the teasing she’d endure, the trust she’d have to rebuild, and she wondered if she’d ever be able to fix this.

  “I’m fine,” she insisted again, but she could hear the hated catch in her voice, and she knew Nick heard it, too. She fought to sound normal, whatever that was. “Maybe I have had a rough day, and maybe I need a couple of days to get over the shock. But I don’t think that’s any reason to see a therapist.”

  “It’s standard procedure, Lucy. Don’t sweat it.”