“Maybe I’ll work on writing letters to myself,” I say.
“I think that’s just journaling, Ms. Griffin. But I highly recommend that, too. It’s always good to get your feelings out when you don’t have to worry about what someone else is going to think or say.”
“Have a good day, Pastor,” I say.
“You, too.” I start out of the room, but his voice stops me. “I meant to ask. Have you reached out to Eva Francis’s father?”
“Her father?” I ask, turning around to look at him again. “He’s in jail.”
“No,” the pastor says, shaking his head. “He came by the church about three weeks ago asking about his parents and Eva.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“How could Janet and Paul not tell us their son was out of jail?” I ask. “Does no one tell the truth anymore?”
I stalk through the parking lot and toss myself into the passenger seat. Sam gets in beside me and cranks the engine.
“It’s possible they don’t know,” he offers.
“How could they not know?”
“They had to deal with all the trouble he has caused and worry about their granddaughter. Do you really think he doesn’t know how worried his parents would be if they knew he was back out and looking for his daughter? They adore that little girl, and they’ve obviously been doing a fantastic job raising her. They wouldn’t do anything to put her at risk. If he was out, they would do everything they could to protect Eva,” he says. “If that really was Eva’s father who came here looking for her, his parents don’t know he’s out.”
“Then we need to find him.”
We drive out of the parking lot, and Sam looks over at me.
“Why did you want to go talk to the pastor?” he asks, a slightly prying note in his voice.
“I told you. Spiritual guidance.”
“There’s one more place I want to stop before we go to the station.”
“Sure. Hopefully that means by the time we get there, they’ll be done processing everything into custody, and we can dig in,” I say.
It doesn’t take long for us to get to our next destination. We park and walk through huge glass sliding doors into a marble-floored room. To one side, an art installation looks like a waterfall with a constant stream running down between two panes of glass. Sam hits the button for the elevator, and I take a breath as we glide up through the floors of the building. The doors open to a large, quiet network of hallways and rooms. A woman looks up at us from a desk and gives a slight smile. We walk past the desk and along two hallways to get to a partially closed door at the end. Sam knocks on it lightly, then pushes it open so we can step inside.
Kendra Donahue looks up at us from the side of the bed. She looks like she’s been sitting there without moving since yesterday.
“Can we come in?” Sam asks.
She nods and wipes tears away from her cheeks. Her other hand rests on the bed, turned up, so Caleb’s rests in her palm. An IV taped to his skin pumps fluids continuously through him, while tubes in his nostrils deliver oxygen to help his damaged lungs. He looks so small in the bed, a handmade blanket that looks heavily loved draped over him. But his chest is moving. Rising and falling. Each breath separating him from the brink he hovered on less than twenty-four hours ago.
“How is he?” I ask.
Kendra nods, looking down at him and stroking her thumb across the back of his hand.
“Doing better. He still hasn’t woken up, but the doctors say they expect that soon. He got so overheated his body shut down. It needs the rest to repair itself. They’re planning on doing some scans later to check for any brain damage.”
“Good,” I say.
She sets her son’s hand down gently and stands up.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything,” Sam tells her.
“I do. Just thank you. Thank you so much for finding him. You saved my baby. The doctors say the cage being suspended in the car like that gave it enough air circulation to help him last longer. But even still, he wouldn’t have lasted for much longer if you hadn’t found him. If it wasn’t for you, he would still be out there in that car.”
“But he’s not,” I tell her. “He’s here. And he’ll pull through. He’s a strong boy.”
Kendra gathers me in a hug, and I give it back, for the first time since seeing Caleb curled up in that horrible little cage, his skin wet with sweat and his body limp, really feeling relief.
“Have you found out anything?” she asks as she steps back.
“Not yet,” Sam tells her.
“But we’re working on it. We won’t stop until we get him. Just trust us,” I say.
“I do.”
She goes and sits back down, picking up Caleb’s hand and kissing it. He’s not out of the woods yet. We don’t know how long he was in that engine compartment or what might have happened to him before he was put there. The damage done to his brain and body could be extensive, and the doctors won’t really know the full extent until they do scans, and he wakes up. All anyone can do now is wait.
* * *
By the time we get to the station and wait while the evidence taken from Vincent’s house is boxed, I don’t want to sit around here anymore. It feels like eyes are constantly on me, waiting for my next move, and I want to get away from it. Taking the boxes of notebooks and papers with us, Sam and I go back to my house. A few things have changed since I got here. I’ve taken down some of the art put up by the management company and shifted the arrangement of the furniture in a couple of the rooms. The kitchen cabinets are full, and the house now smells like coffee and soap and life.
“Are you hungry?” Sam asks as he sets down one of the crates in the living room.
This has been the one room we’ve occupied together other than briefly in the kitchen. It’s easy stepping right into the house and turning into this room, letting us almost create a neutral space.
“No,” I tell him.
“You have to eat something. I haven’t seen you eat at all today. How about I order a pizza? Graziano’s is still open.”
“Meatball and onions?” I ask.
“Would I order anything else?”
I relent to the memories. Nothing compares to the pizza Sam and I used to eat together when we were younger. I’ve spent my adult years longing for it and trying to find something, anything that comes anywhere close. But I’ve never been able to.
“What should we look through first?” I ask, kicking off my shoes and folding myself into the corner of the couch. “There’s a lot here.”
“I don’t even know what we’re looking for,” he says.
“Anything. If Vincent really is creating those clues himself, there might be something in these to prove it. Even when things seem like they are so carefully thought out, people tend to make really ridiculous mistakes. They plan taking a hostage for three years, but then leave a receipt sitting on the counter that has the rope and plastic container right there on it. Sometimes when someone goes through the effort of being elaborate and complex, they miss the simplest of details. It’s just our job to find it.”
“Inspiring,” Sam says, taking the chair positioned diagonally from me and taking a stack into his lap.
After an hour of reading through the first few notebooks, I reach for a new folder, then look at Sam.
“Do you have anything over there in Valerie’s handwriting?” I ask.
“Um,” he looks at his lap and at the papers strewn across it and the table in front of him. “Yes. Here.”