Chapter 59

“What’s a gray cat bank?” Eli asked.

“It’s a piggy bank, except it’s a shaped like a cat instead of a pig,” Lydia explained. “Carl bought it for Anna. She’s been putting stray change in it ever since. She loves going into the rooms after guests have left, hoping to find a dropped penny or two.”

“Do you think she took it with her?” Bertha asked. “It had a good bit of change the last time she showed it to me. It can’t be all that light.”

“She must have overheard us talking about the ransom money and whether the bishops would decide to provide it,” Lydia said.

“Anna can’t grasp the concept of money values,” Bertha explained to Eli. “She doesn’t know the difference in value between a penny and a quarter and a hundred-dollar bill.”

“But she likes to count things,” Lydia added. “Yesterday she took all the money out of her bank and told me she had two hundred monies.”

“So, to Anna,” Eli said, “a piggy bank filled with pennies could seem as valuable as a million dollars.”

“She went to ransom Bobby!” Bertha exclaimed. “But where?”

“Anna is a special child of God,” Eli said. “He will look after her. He will not allow any harm to come to her.”

“This has been an awful day,” Bertha said, wringing her hands. “Bobby kidnapped, Anna missing… If only daylight would come.”

As Rachel and George followed Carl and Shadow, she wondered if they were going on a wild-goose chase. Could this ex-prisoner possibly hold the key to finding Bobby? She’d been a cop for way too long to get her hopes up.

On the other hand, as a cop she’d seen a few incredible strokes of luck lead to important captures. It would be incredibly lucky if Carl had happened upon Ezra earlier in the day. Of course, Bertha would attribute it to God’s mercy rather than luck, and Rachel was okay with that too. She didn’t care who or what got the credit as long as she got her son back.

Carl was right about one thing: someone who survived twenty years as a prisoner had well-honed instincts about people. Some got practically psychic in their ability to read people’s facial expressions and body language. When it was a matter of life or death, one got really good at it or one got dead.

It could be that Carl was that good. Or he could be leading her on for spite or even just for the fun of it. She figured one outcome was about as possible as the other. She didn’t trust him, but she had no choice. They had to check this out.

Up ahead Shadow was eager, pulling at the leash as though wanting to drag Carl down the trail. The man held firmly to the leash—well in control. Working two jobs must be agreeing with him. For a man in his sixties, he was in good shape. Without her gun, she would be no match for him and that dog if Carl tried to harm her.

Her heart ached to hold her son again. She wondered whether he was remembering the night when she had promised Bobby that if he ever ran away or got lost, she would find him If he was on the highest mountain, she would come for him. If he swam the deepest ocean, she would get a boat and go to him.

He had giggled and tried to come up with impossible situations, but she had meant it. She would do anything to get him back. Even if it meant following her father’s killer down a dark path. If she didn’t do everything she could and something happened to Bobby that she could have prevented, she would never forgive herself.

Bobby had no idea whether he could wiggle his way through that cat door. He was growing so fast that he had little sense of what size his body was. He thought he could do it, but he wasn’t sure. The faint rustles his small body made as he shoved his head and shoulders through—one arm at a time—did not awaken his captors, although Greta’s very fat cat did come in from the bedroom to investigate the person invading its personal doorway. Bobby heard it hop off the bed and then felt it stepping over his legs as he struggled to squirm through the hole.

Half in and half out, Bobby was terrified to hear the cat give a harsh meow. It sounded loud enough to awaken the household, and the fear gave him added strength to pull and push his way through. It would take a few seconds for Greta and her brother to wake up and get to the door to unlock it. That delay would give him time to run, and Bobby intended to run very fast.

The moment he felt his body clear the pet door, he jumped to his feet and ran. He did not wait to hear whether anyone was coming after him. He just ran and ran and ran, over the long grass and into the woods, until he tripped over a log and lay quiet, catching his breath, listening. He did not hear Greta or Junior coming after him yet. All he heard were his own gasps as he tried to suck in enough air to keep running, and then he ran some more even though the woods were very dark and very frightening.

He tried not to think about what things might be out in the woods that might want to eat him.

Finally, when Bobby could run no more, he slowed to a walk. The minute he did, something soft flew past him, brushing his legs, and he stifled a scream. Then it came back and began to twine around his legs, and he realized it was Greta’s cat. At first Bobby was annoyed that it had followed him, but then he decided he was happy to have something following along that wouldn’t try to eat him.

The next thing he had to do was get help. Before, when he and his first mommy had gone shopping in the city, she’d taught him that if he ever got lost or separated from her, he was supposed to talk to the first police officer he could find. She had worked with him until he memorized his name and phone number.

Thinking about his mommy brought tears to his eyes. He missed her so much, although he loved Rachel too. His daddy had told him that was okay, that it wasn’t wrong to love Rachel and still love Mommy too. Then Daddy told him a secret—he felt the same way as Bobby. That made Bobby feel a lot better. If Daddy did something or felt something or said something, he knew it was right.

He wished Daddy were here now. Or Mommy. But most of all, he wished Rachel were here. Rachel carried a gun and arrested bad guys and put them in jail. That’s what Bobby needed now, not someone to teach him his name or make him memorize his phone number. He didn’t even need a daddy who could pitch and hit and catch a ball better than anyone in the world. He needed Rachel because he knew where some bad people were, and he wanted very much for her to put them in jail.

He had no idea where to find Rachel or which way to walk, except to continue going far, far away from the house where they had been keeping him. That house was a dangerous place.

Then he heard a bark and grew afraid again. When he had lived in LA, there had been a mean dog next door. He had seen that dog kill a baby rabbit with its big teeth. The dog he was hearing could be mean. He dropped to the ground again, behind a tree. He would be very still and hope the dog hadn’t already heard him or smelled him.