When I finished the meal, I took a cab back home, sat down on the couch and waited. This was the worst part of the game, and as a reporter the most frustrating part of the job. The waiting.
So much of my work was dependent on sources getting back to me, but every moment that phone didn't ring there was a fear that the story was slipping through my fingers.
I worried that Curt's searches would turn up empty. That
Amanda would discover Patrick Reed was born in Idaho and not Hobbs County like I suspected. Not to mention cigarette boy Benjamin wandering the streets somewhere, and I had a little more anxiety at that moment than I liked.
I had to distract myself. Music, that would do it. Calm, soothing music.
I turned my computer on, opened iTunes and started to play Dylan's "Not Dark Yet." The melody calmed me.
I thought about Daniel Linwood, Michelle Oliveira.
Two children with their lives once laid out in front of them, yet forevermore they would be outcasts. They would always live with that stigma, never fitting in. The beauty of a child, the pain from a life stolen away.
And just while those lyrics had begun to burrow their way into my skull, my cell phone rang. If there was ever a time to be jostled out of morose thoughts.
The caller ID read "Amanda cell." I answered it without hesitating.
"Hey, wondering what happened to you."
"Seriously? It's been, like, fifteen minutes. What the hell do you expect?"
"Sorry, just a little antsy here. I feel like things are starting to become clearer."
"Well, your feelings might be real. Turns out that
Patrick Reed, son of Robert and Elaine Reed, was born on
May 29 four and a half years ago at Yardley Medical
Center in Hobbs County."
"You're shitting me."
"Nope. And I'll give you three guesses at to who signed the delivery certificate."
"I'll take Dmitri Petrovsky for one thousand, Alex."
"Ding ding ding. I'm actually out of cash, so I hope you'll take your winning either in an IOU or a Sweet'n
Low packet I just dug out of my jeans pocket."
"Amanda, you know what this means, right? The Reeds knew Petrovsky. Their son was born at the same hospital as Daniel Linwood and Michelle Oliveira. That's their link to Raymond Benjamin. Somehow he found out about these kids through Petrovsky."
"Wait," Amanda said. "Patrick Reed wasn't kidnapped, he's the Reeds' biological son. What gives?"
"Patrick isn't the issue, I just needed a connection so we could figure out how the Reeds came in contact with
Benjamin. Petrovsky is the middleman. Benjamin the facilitator. The Reeds-I'm not quite sure what they are."
"So we have three pieces to the puzzle, but the three pieces are blank right now."
"Yeah, pretty much. We need to find the Reeds. Petrovsky is dead and Benjamin will kill us before he talks." I heard a beeping sound on my phone. I looked at the display. It read "Curt cell."
"Amanda, Curt's on the other line. I need to take this."
"Call me right back."
"Will do." I hung up. My palms were sweating. This was all coming together. The bigger picture was still invisible, but it would come. Benjamin. Petrovsky. The
Reeds. What the hell were they all involved in?
"Hello?" I said, answering the call.
"Hey, man, I got a ton of info for you." It was Curt. He was talking fast. "We might have found your girl. Two weeks ago, Caroline Twomey, age nine, was taken from her parents' home in Tarrytown. She was reported missing the next day, but the Tarrytown PD haven't turned up any leads. I did a background check on Caroline's parents, a
Mr. and Mrs. Harold and Phyllis Twomey. Harold works construction but hasn't made more than thirty-five grand a year in his whole life. Phyllis is a part-time schoolteacher. And by part-time, I mean she hasn't worked in nearly five years."
"Really? Why is that?"
"Five years ago, Phyllis Twomey was arrested for shoplifting. The store decided to press charges, and
Phyllis was fined five hundred bucks and sentenced to fifty hours of community service. She hasn't worked a day since."
"What store did she rob?"
"A Healthwise pharmacy just three miles from their house. They caught her on the security camera, cops met her at her house fifteen minutes after it was called in."
"Curt," I said. "What did she steal?"
"Says here she tried to steal two dozen vials of insulin."
There it was. I knew the link. I knew why Benjamin had come to Petrovsky. I knew why Daniel Linwood, Michelle
Oliveira and Caroline Twomey had been chosen.
"Curt," I said. "Daniel Linwood is a diabetic. So is
Caroline Twomey. When I spoke to Michelle Oliveira's violin teacher, Delilah Lancaster, she mentioned noticing needle marks on the girl's skin. She thought it might have been drugs, but it was because Michelle is a diabetic.
They're all diabetic."
"So Dmitri Petrovsky was feeding Raymond Benjamin information about diabetic children that were born in his pediatric ward. For what purpose?"
"Diabetics are more susceptible to lower thiamine levels," I said. "If they don't get proper nutrition, it can result in both short-term and long-term brain damage. One of the side effects of short-term brain damage is Korsakoff syndrome, which prevents the brain from processing certain compounds, and prevents the brain from retaining long-term memory."
"That would explain why Michelle and Dan Linwood had no recollection of their years missing."
"Right," I said. "But whoever took Dan and Michelle, and now this Twomey girl, knew about their conditions.
And they were prepared for it. They didn't want to kill these children, they just needed to get them away from their families for a period of time."
"Why?" Curt asked.
"I don't know yet," I said. "But I'm sure the Reeds can answer that question for us."
"Well, that was my next piece of information. You owe me a steak dinner after all this, Henry."
"Come on, cough it up."
"You're lucky it's a slow day. I had a dozen cops calling every hotel and motel within a two-hundred-and-fiftymile radius of that house on Huntley Terrace. We got an affirmative for a Mr. Robert Reed at a Sheraton in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. About two hundred miles from
Hobbs County."
"Holy shit, Curt, you're a godsend." I checked my watch. It was six o'clock. With any luck I could be in Harrisburg by nine. "Listen, I need to call Amanda. I'm driving up there right now."
"Like hell you are," Curt said. "You have no idea what's up there. Hell, that's not even my jurisdiction."
"Lucky for me I don't have to worry about jurisdiction,"
I said. "News is interstate. Sorry about that, bro."
"You asshole," Curt said. "All right, screw it. I'm coming with you. You got a car, right?"
"Sure do."
"Then count me in. And I call shotgun."
"Bitch, please. You think there's any chance in hell you're riding shotgun over the girl I'm still in love with?"
Curt laughed. "No, guess not, but at least you finally admitted it."
"What do you want, a cookie? Meet me here in half an hour." I hung up. Called Amanda. Set the meeting time.
Wondered if somehow Robert and Elaine Reed expected some company.
34
"Hello, miss, are you still there?"
"Yes, Mr. Benjamin, I'm processing your information as we speak."
"Thanks a lot, dear. And just to be sure, you got that the car was loaned to a Mr. and Mrs. Robert Reed?"
"Yes, sir, I heard you the first three times. Now, can you give me Mr. Reed's date of birth and social security number?"