The 6th Target - James Patterson [59]
“Did the child have a nanny?” I asked.
“Yes. Briana Kearny. She was at the dentist when Charlie was taken. Her alibi checks out. It’s a long shot, Boxer. Maybe the same party who kidnapped Madison Tyler is involved, maybe not.”
“We should interview the parents,” Conklin said.
“Like I could stop the two of you if I wanted to,” said Jacobi. “Pair of freakin’ attack dogs.”
Jacobi pushed two more sheets of paper over to our side of his desk — electronic airline tickets in my name and Conklin’s, San Francisco to LAX, round-trip.
“Listen,” Jacobi said, “until we learn otherwise, we’re treating this boy’s abduction as part of the Tyler case, so report back to Lieutenant Macklin. And keep me in the loop.” Jacobi looked at his watch. “It’s two fifteen. You could be in LA by four or so.”
Chapter 81
SQUAD CARS WERE PARKED on the one-lane street outside the Rays’ wood-frame cottage. It was one of several dozen similar houses butting up against one another, lining both sides of the street.
Cops were talking on the sidewalk. They greeted us when we flashed our badges. “The mother’s home,” a uniform told us.
Eileen Ray came to the door. She was white, early thirties, five nine, looked to be about eight months pregnant and terribly, terribly vulnerable. Her dark hair was banded up in a ponytail, and her face was raw and red from crying.
I introduced Conklin and myself, and Mrs. Ray invited us inside, where an FBI tech was wiring up the phone. “The police have been . . . wonderful, and we’re so grateful,” Mrs. Ray said, indicating a sofa and chair for us to sit on.
The living room was crammed with stenciled cabinets, baskets, birdhouses, and dried flowers, and folded-down cardboard boxes were stacked on the floor near the kitchen table. The pervasive fragrance of lavender added to the gift-shop effect of the Ray abode.
“We work at home,” Mrs. Ray said, answering my unasked question. “EBay.”
“Where is your husband now?” Conklin asked.
“Scotty and an FBI agent are driving around with Briana,” she told us. “My husband is hoping to God that he might see Charlie wandering out there, lost.
“Charlie must be terrified!” Eileen Ray cried out. “Oh, my God, what he must be going through! Who would take him?” she asked, her voice breaking. “And why?”
Conklin and I had no answers, but we lobbed questions at Mrs. Ray — about her movements, her relationship with her husband, and why the gate to the yard was open.
And we asked if anyone — family, friend, or stranger — had shown excessive or inappropriate attention to Charlie.
Nothing she told us lit up the board.
Eileen Ray was twisting a handkerchief in her hands when Scott Ray came home with the FBI agent and the nanny, a baby-faced young woman who was still in her teens.
Conklin and I split up, Conklin interviewing Scott in the child’s bedroom while I talked to Briana in the kitchen. Unlike the Westwood Registry’s European imports, Briana Kearny was a second-generation American, a local girl who lived three blocks away and looked after Charlie on a per-hour basis.
In other words, Briana was a babysitter.
Briana cried deep, heart-wrenching sobs as I pressed her, asking about her friendships, about her boyfriend, and if anyone had questioned her about the Rays and their habits.
Conklin and I finally closed our notebooks and said our good-byes, leaving the homey little cottage right as the electric candles in the windows came on.
“That girl had nothing to do with the child being snatched,” I said.
“I didn’t get anything bad off the husband, either,” my partner told me. “This feels like a ‘pedophile lures the kid into a van’ thing.”
“Yeah. It’s just too fricking easy to steal a child. Perv says, ‘Want to see my puppy?’ Kid toddles over. Perv drags the kid inside and takes off. No witness. No evidence. And now,” I said, “the long wait for a phone call . . . that never comes.”
Chapter 82
SIX-YEAR-OLD CHARLIE RAY had been abducted more than seven hours