Nancy was dying. Cancer nibbled away at her insides.
No more time.
She picked up the phone and called the detective who’d worked on the case all those years before.
“Chief Hardesty,” he rumbled into the phone.
“Arlen?” Nancy licked her lips. “This is—”
“Nancy,” he said, his voice softening. “I haven’t heard from you in years.”
“Probably ten, I’d guess. I wasn’t sure you were still there.”
He chuckled half-heartedly. “They haven’t gotten rid of me yet. Got about five more weeks till I’m outta here for good.”
“Oh.” She paused.
“What can I do for you, my dear?” His voice was softer still. He’d always tried to help her.
“I . . .” What to say? What to do?
“I wrote journals,” Nancy blurted, unsure about this call, about the decision she’d struggled to make for years.
“All right.” His voice stayed pleasant.
“I want . . . make sure Danielle gets them. Not Hank. Please.”
Chief Hardesty was silent for a long time. “Only way I can do that, Nancy, is for you to hand them over to my department or for them to be part of a search warrant.”
“In the attic. Boxed up in the back. Hank can’t have them. He’ll . . .” She blew out a breath. “He hired Trevor Dresden. He plans to put Trevor in the directorship for his foundation.”
“Hadn’t heard that,” Hardesty said, his voice contemplative.
“You need to talk to him.”
“Hank?”
“Trevor.”
“He was a little boy Nancy,” Hardesty said. His voice held a hint of pity, maybe even frustration. “The FBI did talk to him. I was there. He was so scared.”
Nancy clutched the phone. “I’m dying, Arlen. Soon. Trevor knew. He was there. Closer to the killer than I was even. Please. The journals. For Danielle—after you go through them . . . promise me.”
Chief Hardesty sighed in a long, drawn-out affair. She sensed that he wanted her to leave him alone. He must yearn for a time when the case of a kidnapped and murdered seven-year-old quit haunting him. At least that’s what Nancy supposed his sigh meant.
“You want me to reopen the case?” Arlen asked.
Nancy thought of Danielle, of her pretty green eyes and the worry she buried deep inside herself. The idea that came out, ever so softly over the years, that Danielle considered herself unlovable. Nancy’s fault for not being the mother her daughter deserved.
With each passing moment, Nancy’s mistakes piled higher, choking her. She leaned her head back against the recliner’s tufted pillow. The memory bubbled up, taking over her consciousness as it always did.
Nancy screamed his name. Danielle was pressed against Nancy’s heaving chest, clutched tight. Too tight. Nancy couldn’t make her arms loosen. Her heart beat so hard, her ribs ached with each pounding.
“Jonny, Jonathan!”
Danielle mewled into Nancy’s neck.
The street and park were empty; it didn’t matter how many times Nancy looked, how far she jogged up and down the road, clutching her daughter, yelling Jonny’s name.
Nancy’s breath broke as she stumbled over Jonny’s ball glove lying on a crack in the sidewalk. Just five feet from their station wagon.
Five feet.
“Yes,” she gasped, pulling herself, grief fresh, from the recollection.
“I’ll do what I can,” Arlen replied.
But Nancy heard the skepticism in his voice.
She’d waited too long.