Dying for Love (29 page)

She grabbed a knife from the counter and ripped the canvas into pieces. Shaking with rage, she took the strongest cleaner she could find and began to scrub the walls. The red paint faded and spread like blood.

Someone wanted her to think she was going crazy, but she wasn’t. She remembered the truth now—she had delivered a child and John had been there, but not to calm her and love her as her partner. He might have even taken her child and given him to someone else.

Because she knew for sure that he’d held her hostage for Arthur Blackwood.

Pain shot through her. How could she have let down her guard and trusted him? How could she have taken him to bed?

A knock sounded, and she wiped her hands on her smock, then tossed the cleaning rag into the sink and hurried to answer it.

Hoping it was Sadie with little Ben and Ayla, she swung open the door. But Helen Gray stood on the other side, her features strained as she shivered in the wind.

“Helen, come in out of the cold.”

The wind swept the woman’s hair around her face, and she brushed it back. “Thank you, we need to talk.”

Amelia’s heart picked up a beat. “Of course. Do you have more news for me?” She waved her in and offered her tea. Helen accepted, her gaze sweeping the studio and lingering on the painting of Sadie and Ben.

A frown marred her face when she noticed the smeared red paint on the wall.

“What happened?”

Amelia ushered her toward the kitchen, away from the mess. “Someone broke into my house and left a crude message on the wall.”

Helen’s face paled. “Has it happened before?”

Amelia nodded. “Ever since I started looking for my baby, I’ve had break-ins and threats.”

“I’m so sorry,” Helen said, sympathy in her eyes.

Amelia put the teakettle on, then turned to her while the water heated. “But no one is going to deter me.”

Helen claimed a seat and folded her hands on the table. “That’s the reason I’m here.”

Amelia studied her for a moment, wondering what she meant. She gathered tea cups, sugar, and milk and set them on the table.

The woman looked nervous. Did she have bad news for her?

The teakettle whistled, and Amelia grabbed it and poured them both tea. Her heart hammered as she joined her guest.

“What is it, Helen? You have news?”

“Not exactly. I saw you on the news pleading for the little Bayler boy.” She traced a finger along the edge of her cup while she blew on the hot tea. “I should have spoken up sooner, but I wasn’t sure about him and I was afraid.”

Amelia sipped her tea. “I don’t understand.”

“You’re going to hate me when I tell you who I am, and what I’ve done, but it’s time.” She fiddled with the sugar packet, then ripped it open and dumped it in her cup.

“Please, just tell me, Helen. Do you know where Mark is?”

Helen shook her head, a sadness flickering in her eyes. “No, but I am afraid for him.”

Amelia folded a napkin on the table. “Go on.”

Helen inhaled a shaky breath. “I . . . was at the hospital when you gave birth.”

Amelia gasped. “Why were you there?”

She hesitated. “Because I knew Arthur Blackwood. I’d become suspicious about what was happening at the hospital. Little things just didn’t add up.

“One day I was snooping around Arthur’s office and found a file. It was about the CHIMES project.” Her voice cracked. “I was so shocked, I wanted to tell someone. But he found me with the file. I told him I was going to go to the police. But he threatened me and my son.”

Amelia frowned, trying to follow her. “So you stayed quiet.”

“Yes. You have to understand. I didn’t care if he killed me, but I didn’t want my child to suffer.”

“You said you were there when I gave birth?

She nodded. “Arthur wanted to put your baby in an experiment, but I took him from one of the nurses and ran.”

Shock squeezed the air from Amelia’s lungs. “You took my baby? Who did you give him to? Where is he?”

“I don’t know where he is,” Helen said. “That’s the reason I joined the social services agency. I’ve been looking for him myself.”

The boat rocked and swayed, making Zack so dizzy he could barely see. Zack heard the other boy’s voice in his head again. He was scared.

“It’s time you think about whether you want to live or die.”

“I don’t want to die,” the boy cried.

Who was the boy talking to him? And where was he?

Was he on the boat, too?

Zack dragged himself up. He gripped the windowsill and stood on tiptoe to see out the tiny window. Surely the boat would stop soon. They had to get to wherever they were going.

But all he could see was water. Miles and miles of ocean. Waves crashing. Sleet slashing down from the sky.

He’d heard one of the guards say they were going to an island. One nobody knew about.

A place where no one would ever find him.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

J
ohn spread the photos of the missing children across the table in the interrogation room, watching Axelrod’s face for a reaction. Axelrod and Sonny James were one and the same. The man who’d worked with the Ellingtons, the one who’d called the school and dental office with phony information so he could snag Danny Kritz.

Axelrod had the audacity to smile. “They were lost, but I saved them.”

“Is that what you really think?” John asked, struggling not to slam his fist into the man’s head and beat him senseless.

Axelrod lifted his head, the scar above his right eye distorted with his grin. “Yes. Those kids were stuck in homes where they were neglected. Tossed around like sacks of garbage. No one loved them or really cared about them.” He rubbed his bad leg and gestured toward it. “I know. I’ve been there.”

“So you took it on yourself to rescue them?”

“That’s right. I turned them into men, into people who’d make a difference. Now their names will be remembered.”

“But innocent people died in those bombings.”

“No one is innocent, not if they stand by and just let it happen. If they don’t do something to make the system work better. To stop teenage girls and hookers from having unwanted kids and stop the system from putting them in terrible homes where they starve and get beat.”

John’s head reeled. This guy was so warped that he really believed he was saving these kids and that he’d bring attention to his cause by using them as suicide bombers.

“There are right and wrong ways to go about making changes,” John said bluntly. “Using kids as killers sure as hell is not one of the right ways.” He gestured toward the string of
B’
s tattooed around the man’s wrist. “What does that stand for?”

“The Brotherhood,” Axelrod said. “We’ve bonded and created our own family.”

“Who are you working for?” John asked.

The man’s beady eyes flashed with an evil warning. “I’m not working for anyone. I’m the leader.”

“But you had help in the abductions?”

“I hired that buffoon Billingsly, but he was a moron. So I figured I’d best be on my own.”

John tapped the pictures one by one. “Where are the other boys?”

“That I will never tell you.”

“Then you have someone else working for you?”

Another sly grin slanted the man’s mouth, but he refused to speak.

John gripped the bastard by his shirt, choking him. “Tell me where the kids are. Where are you holding them?”

“They’re somewhere safe,” he growled. “Just waiting to take their turn for the cause. And when we finish and burn everything down, we’ll take over as leaders and everything will be different.”

This man needed psychiatric care. He was totally demented. “So you think beating boys into doing what you want is better than foster care?”

“I taught them to be strong, to be men, just as my mother taught me.”

John knew that abuse victims often became abusers. The cycle continued.

But this man was a killer, too. He shook him hard. “Do you have a little boy who belonged to Amelia Nettleton?”

“That crazy bitch from the sanitarium?”

John’s protective instincts roared to life. “She’s not crazy. Arthur Blackwood abducted her son. Do you have him?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Axelrod massaged his leg, leaning back in the chair with another chilling smile.

The bastard still thought he was winning. Playing a game and teaching the world a lesson.

John stood and exited the room before he shoved the barrel of his gun into the man’s mouth and made him eat it.

Ten minutes later, John texted photos of each of the perpetrators in the UT bombings to Arianna. Thanks to facial recognition software using age progression, she sent back their names and details about their abductions within half an hour.

The three they had in custody were—

Leonard Watts, the boy John had shot.

Jim Bluster, the teen with the bomb in the dining hall.

And Bailey Samuels, the boy Coulter had subdued.

“Find their families if they have any,” John said. Although judging from the victimology he didn’t expect much. “The young men have been brainwashed to obey orders and protect the group’s secrecy. Maybe someone from their past can reach them and convince them to talk.”

“I’m on it,” Arianna said.

Watts was in surgery to remove the bullet John had put in his shoulder. Coulter was interrogating Samuels, and Bluster was in a holding cell.

John studied the information on the last boy, hoping time in a cell would pressure him to talk, although the kid had probably endured worse.

A memory struck him, and he saw himself in the military, marching, saluting his Commander, raising his weapon to fire.

Holding someone in a cell.

Amelia.

God . . . was she right?

He saw the Commander’s face as if it were yesterday.
“Do as I say, son,” Blackwood said. “Do not disobey me or you’ll regret it.”

His pulse spiked. Could it be true?

No wonder he’d blocked out his past. No wonder he’d felt uncomfortable in church, as if he needed to pay penance. The Commander had been a monster, and so had he.

Nausea rolled through him.

Somehow he had to make things right for Amelia.

Finding out where the boys were being held might lead him to Amelia’s son.

She might hate him now, but if he found her little boy, at least she could have the family she wanted. The one she deserved.

He studied the file. Jim Bluster was seventeen now, but he’d been seven when he was kidnapped. Ten years he’d been missing, at the mercy of a madman. Ten years that madman had had to warp his mind.

No telling what he’d told the boy. Or what he’d done to him. Physical and psychological abuse. Possibly drug therapy or torture.

He read further. Jim used to like baseball. He’d played on a little-league team, and had been a leader. He hated spelling and English, but he’d liked math.

Of course that was in first grade. Probably wouldn’t help much now.

His phone buzzed. Arianna. “Yeah?”

“Mrs. Bluster is on her way. She’s ecstatic that we found her son. Oh, and I told her to bring some family photographs, I thought you might want them to jog his memory.”

“That’s great, Arianna. Thanks. Did you tell her where we found him?”

“No, I thought I’d let you handle that.”

“How about the others?”

“The kid you shot, Leonard Watts, is an orphan. His parents were killed before he was abducted. He went through that home for kids, The Gateway House.”

Where Axelrod took him from the Ellingtons under the guise of placing him in a loving home. “And the third?”

“Bailey Samuels was in foster care because his mother was a drug addict. She overdosed three years ago.”

“What about his father?”

“Not in the picture. I found a grandmother. She’s on her way.”

He thanked her and disconnected. Another agent knocked on the office door, then poked his head in. “Mrs. Bluster is here to see you.”

John stood. “Show her in.”

The agent disappeared down the hall. Seconds later, John heard crying, and frowned as the woman rushed in.

“Agent Strong, I got a call. You found my son . . . ”

John nodded and coaxed her to sit down. “Yes, ma’am, we believe so.”

“Where is he? I need to see him.” She brushed away tears with a tissue, a hysterical sob escaping her. “It’s been so long . . . My god, I thought he was dead . . . I’d given up . . . ”

John squeezed her hand. “Mrs. Bluster, I know this is a shock, but we really need to talk.”

“What’s wrong?” She sniffled, worrying the zipper of her jacket with her fingers. “Is he all right? Where has he been all this time?”

“We’re still trying to determine that,” John said. “Now, I need you to stay calm.”

“Oh God, he’s hurt, isn’t he?” She lurched up from the chair. “Take me to him.”

“I can’t, not yet.” John urged her to sit back down and began to explain.

Her reaction was just as he expected. Shock mingled with anger and grief.

“You say he was going to set off a bomb?”

“Yes. We believe a group has kidnapped boys for years. They’re training the victims to become suicide bombers to make a statement about the sad state of families these days,” John said. “We caught three of them, your son included, at a protest rally, where they were wired with explosives.”

She dropped her head into her hands on a sob. “Oh Lord . . . no.”

“I’m sorry.” John’s heart ached for the woman. “Your son is here, but he won’t talk to the police. Unfortunately, there are more kids missing who we haven’t located yet.” John hesitated, letting his words sink in. “We will get your son therapy, Mrs. Bluster, but we also need to find this group’s base camp. Other lives depend on it.”

Turmoil strained her features as she lifted her head, and she ripped at the tissue in her hands. “And you want my help to find them?”

“Yes. But I have to warn you—your son has been brainwashed and may not remember you at this point. But I need you to try to talk to him anyway.”

“You’re going to put him in jail after all he’s suffered?” she cried.

John adopted a neutral expression. He needed her cooperation, even if he had to lie to get it. “He will be evaluated by a therapist and most likely be held in a facility where he can receive psychological treatment to help him reorient to society and to life in general. It may take some time to undo the damage done to him.”

Sorrow wrenched the woman’s face, making John hurt for her. She’d obviously suffered all these years her son had been missing.

“I’m so sorry, but it’s important we convince him to talk. The sooner we track down where he was kept, and the people who held him, the sooner he can start healing and we can reunite the others with their families.”

She nodded miserably.

“We have to work fast,” John said. “This group may be planning another attack any minute.”

“John tried to save you and the baby.”

Shock rolled through Amelia. “What? But he helped guard me.”

“At first, yes, but when he realized what was going on, he tried to save you and get you out of the hospital. Arthur fought with him. He had him subdued and threatened to kill him if either of us went to the police.”

“John tried to save me?”

“Yes. He told me to take the baby. He was adamant I get him away from Arthur. So I took the baby to a church and dropped him off. I thought they’d find him a good home. I knew they worked with The Gateway House. That’s the reason I was looking into them when I started at the agency.”

“You left the rosary beads?” Amelia asked.

Helen nodded. “It was the saddest day of my life, but I thought I was doing the right thing.”

Confusion clouded Amelia’s head as she tried to comprehend the string of events Helen was describing. “Did Commander Blackwood find him?”

“I . . . don’t know. All these years, I’d hoped he was adopted. But Arthur had far-reaching contacts and was ruthless. I wanted to follow up and find where the baby was placed, but he was watching me, and I didn’t want to lead him to your son.” She rubbed her hands together. “When the story broke about the project, I thought it was time to come out of hiding.”