“Huh,” he said. His sun-browned fingers were covered in dark hair with a smattering of gray that made them look like fat caterpillars crawling to the nail beds.
“I hope I’m wrong,” Danielle rushed to say.
“I have less than five weeks until I retire,” Chief Hardesty said. He closed the box and shuffled it aside, reaching for another. “I’d like to finish up this case myself.”
Danielle bit her lip as she opened the heat-softened cardboard. Because he wanted the glory of closing the case? Or because he didn’t trust anyone else to complete it?
Danielle pondered what little she knew of Chief Hardesty’s motivations, studying him surreptitiously as she worked through another box. His face reminded her of modeling clay left in the sun too long. Except that it was age, not heat, that had caused the skin to blur and sag. He seemed a decent sort—hardworking, intelligent, maybe even empathetic. Danielle understood why Nancy had trusted him. She hoped she could, too.
In the next box, she found the photograph. The ugly brass frame was still shoved face down on top of some of Jonathan’s clothes. She remembered her frantic movements after her mother caught her in the attic, the corners of which were thick with shadows and cobwebs. It didn’t surprise Danielle; her mother hated dusting, especially places she rarely visited.
Nothing had changed up here—well, maybe more dust and cobwebs. While the rest of her life continued to march inexorably onward, the attic remained consistent in its secrets and grime. The warped plywood decking groaned under her feet. Danielle glanced up at the six A-framed joints overhead, thinking how fragile a house was, how fragile life was.
Rolling her head on her stiff neck, she wondered if helping Chief Hardesty was a good idea. Maybe she should just let the past be that . . . past.
She swiped at the thick film of dust covering the glass and tipped the frame to get a clearer view in the moldering light. Her eyes kept returning to Jonathan’s young beaming face above that bright orange shirt.
They, Jonathan and she, looked nothing alike. That might have been the one thing that kept Nancy able to function. Well, sort of. Nancy didn’t have to look at the face of her dead child every day once she’d packed away his things.
Danielle thought about Kevin, so grown up at eight. Reid, at six, shared the same eyes though not the same hair color or skin tone. With just one glance at her boys’ hazel eyes fringed with the thick, dark lashes, anyone could see they were brothers, their father’s sons.
Danielle set the photo to the side and continued to work her way through the box. Nothing worthwhile in it. She tipped the box and read the single word in black marker on the side: Attic.
She nibbled her lip. The last time her parents moved was into this house, nearly thirty years before. From the look of it, this box was put in the attic then and ignored since.
She glanced over at Chief Hardesty as he shoved a box to the side, and she shuffled on her butt to the next box nearest her, opening it. Danielle pulled out a newspaper clipping that had fallen loose from what looked like a scrapbook.
A 10-year-old Boy is Missing
Danielle continued to read past the headline. Yes, some of the details were like Jonathan’s kidnapping. Words jumped out: Chevy pickup truck. Kidnapped. Knife wounds.
Danielle flipped to the next newspaper cutout, scanned, exhaled, flipped, and read, eyes burning across the page, breath leaping out of her chest. So many of them.
Danielle shook the box. Her stomach roiled, and her heart beat painfully, loudly as more aged newsprint pages fluttered to the warped plywood at her jean-clad knee. Her eyes were already skimming over the words as she stooped to pick up the clippings. Hank’s name was near the bottom of the piece.
Hank Foster, Esq., whose son was abducted and murdered in 1983, contacted the Bethel family to offer his condolences and support during this time.
Foster’s organization, the Agency for Missing, Exploited, and Abused Children (AMEAC) is based in Dallas, Texas. It works with families across the country to help find missing children. The group has an educational arm that works with local communities, especially rural ones, to explain the importance of proper civilian vigilance, not only by parents but also by the community-at-large.
AMEAC is currently working with fifty-six towns and police departments to educate parents and teachers on how to spot an abused child or a potential child predator. Hays is on a waiting list to become an AMEAC-sponsored town.
The book—a journal like the ones her mother used to write in—lay beneath the clipping. She pulled it out with shaking hands. Flipping through the slightly yellowed, stiff pages, she found a table. A column of dates. Writing to the left. She scooped up the clippings. Yes, they matched. 1977 was the first. Entry: “Unknown. A possibility.”
Jesus. No wonder her mother hadn’t liked her digging through these boxes.
The next was 1980. “Hank at a conference in Little Rock June 17-23.”
Danielle frowned, not understanding why Nancy made note of this.
The next entry was dated 1983—the date of Jonathan’s death. “Hank stated he was in his office. Secretary can confirm he went in at 3:45. No one saw him again until 7:15 p.m. when he arrived home. He did not answer his phone at all that evening. Never admitted to having an affair with his secretary either.”
Danielle’s vision blurred as she continued to stare at the page. Affair with his secretary? Well, that wasn’t new. Hank seemed to like to screw his secretaries. He’d gone through . . . how many was it at AMEAC now? Six, maybe more.
She touched the page, running her forefinger over the words, trying to grasp their meaning.
But . . . none of this made sense.
Her mom couldn’t believe…it would mean Hank had hurt his own child.