Who were her close friends? Who did she talk to on a regular basis?

  He didn’t think Kerry had any close friends. She used to, a year or two ago, but once Miles got sick, she hadn’t really mentioned going out or seeing anyone.

  Was she happy in the marriage? How often did they have sex? When was the last time they went on a date? Had he ever cheated on her?

  He had assumed she was happy. He didn’t know the last time they’d had sex, but it had been a while. They didn’t go on dates, because Kerry wouldn’t leave Miles with a sitter. And uh—yeah. He had cheated on her, but she’d never found out about it, so that wasn’t part of any of this.

  Meeko also seemed to think that he was a shitty dad, and maybe Meeko was a fucking encyclopedia of facts about his kid, but Kyle wasn’t. Kyle had been busy making sure that they had money in their account to pay the doctors, not find out what the doctor’s name was and how often Miles had seen him.

  When Kyle mentioned what he did know—the drawer full of medicine that Kerry had been hoarding—Meeko had brushed that off and referred back to Kyle’s comment that Miles had been getting better, before this most recent diagnosis.

  And Meeko had already requested a copy of Miles’s medical file, so Kyle didn’t know why it mattered if he knew the names of every medication he took or the dates of his seizures and surgeries.

  All that was what Kerry was for. If she were here, she would tell them. She would tell them what she always told Kyle—he was the best dad and husband and man in the world and she was so lucky and happy as his wife.

  He tried to remember if he’d ever said anything like that to her.

  He couldn’t think of a time, but he must have.

  He had to have.

  CHAPTER 68

  THE DETECTIVE

  The press conference was a joke. The chief took center stage, and Farah and Kevin stood like puppets on either side of him, silent and useless. It was probably for the best. Every reporter was a vulture in a suit, and the chief danced between their questions with a grace that Farah would never possess.

  As they left out the back, Anaïca fell in step with them and handed her mother a folder. “It’s a good thing Nora mentioned the cabin, because it would have taken us a month to find it on our own, if ever.”

  “Really?” Farah flipped open the folder. “Was it buried?”

  “Suspiciously deep,” Anaïca confirmed. “We’re talking three layers of entities and subentities, and at first glance, it looks like a vacant piece of land.”

  Farah’s steps slowed as she scanned the paperwork. “It was part of their parents’ estate,” she said for Kevin’s benefit. “A hundred and six acres in . . . where is this?”

  “Middle of nowhere,” Anaïca supplied. “Seven miles outside of the Mojave National Preserve. GPS puts it at an hour and twenty-two minutes away from here. I sent the address to both of your phones.”

  Farah and Kevin exchanged a glance. He looked at his watch. “It’s one thirty. We could be there by three and be back in time for dinner, assuming it doesn’t take long to search.”

  “The cabin’s smaller than my apartment,” Anaïca said. “Should be a quick event.”

  “Feel like a drive?” Farah asked Kevin.

  “I’m up for it.”

  “Then let’s hit the road.” Farah snapped the folder shut and kissed Anaïca on the cheek. “Thanks. Please run tech forensics on Nolan. We need to find a recent link between him and Trent, preferably communication or a money trail.”

  “I’ll hunt one down. Let me know what you find at the cabin. Hey, old-timer?” She lifted her chin to Kevin. “Drive safe.”

  He flashed her a thumbs-up and opened the driver’s door. Farah got in the other side and sighed as she shut the door. “Gonna be another long day,” she remarked.

  “But not boring.”

  Her phone chimed with a text from Ty, and she swiped to open it.

  Ty: Need me to bring you dinner tonight? I’m making lasagna and can bring plates for you and Anaïca to the station when it’s ready.

  Her stomach groaned in appreciation, and she quickly texted back.

  Farah: Yes. 100x yes. I don’t deserve you. Got enough for Kevin?

  Ty: You know it.

  She closed the text exchange and sent a silent thank-you up to heaven for blessing her with a husband who understood the job. Last night, when she had crawled in bed beside him, he had gathered her against his body and fallen right back asleep. When her alarm had gone off at six, he had already had coffee in the pot and eggs sizzling in the pan.

  Granted, both of their incomes were barely enough to cover their expenses, but his job as a copywriter was one he could do from home, and that had allowed them to raise Ana with a steady homelife despite Farah’s crazy hours.

  As the SUV accelerated past traffic, she looked at Kevin. “Did you read over the statement from Kerry Pepper’s husband?”

  “Yeah.” He lifted a hand in passing to the lot security guard, who waved them through the parking lot exit. “Poor guy. A dead wife and a missing kid.”

  “A sick missing kid,” she amended. “I listened to the audio of the interview on my drive in. He sounds like he’s coming apart at the seams.”

  “Can’t say I’d be doing much better, in his shoes. Especially being out of town and all.”

  “Here’s the kicker. They found a tumor in the kid’s brain when he was three. They found out it was benign, but it still had to be removed. The kid gets better—then they find another brain tumor and the kid gets worse. He starts improving, the dad thinks they might be in the clear, and then—six months later, another one is found, and it is cancerous.”

  Kevin whistled. “Talk about a roller coaster.”

  “That itself was a roller coaster, and now this.” She shook her head, thinking of Ty and everything he had done to help raise Ana. He had stepped up to the plate, but Kyle Pepper didn’t have to juggle just being a single father—he also had to handle the medical care, something that he said Kerry had always done, and he was clueless about.

  Farah chewed on a hangnail that was starting to bleed. “Kyle was the one who made the Make-A-Wish application for Miles.”

  Kevin stayed silent.

  “So the application goes to Make-A-Wish, and Protect the Children reviews the queue and selects ones that they can fulfill. Nolan selects Miles’s application, reaches out to Kerry and Kyle, and organizes for Kerry and Miles to come to California.” She tapped his arm. “Cut across on Balboa.”

  “So Kerry and Miles come to California . . . ,” Kevin prompted.

  “Under protest,” Farah reminded him. “Kyle says she didn’t want to come, and her Facebook friend was telling her to get out of it.”

  “And somehow Trent finds out that this woman is here—”

  “Presumably from Nolan,” Kevin interjects.

  “—and gets her in his trunk, we’re assuming using drugs . . . and then drives her to Hugh’s house, where he ties her up, stabs her a bunch of times, and then shoots himself.”

  There was a moment of silence as they both absorbed the scenario.

  “It’s a mess,” Farah said. “Would never pass a jury.”

  “Potential second scenario,” Kevin proposed. “Trent’s hanging around the Protect the Children offices or talking to Nolan and somehow hears about Kerry. Becomes obsessed with her, maybe reaches out, and they develop some sort of a flirtation or relationship. He meets up with her while she is here, doesn’t want to take her to his place, so they go to Hugh’s house to party, get into a bad batch of drugs and Trent goes Ted Bundy on her, then starts to sober up, realizes what he’s done, and kills himself.”

  Farah turned it over and decided that she liked it a lot better than hers.

  “Though,” Kevin mused, “hard to imagine becoming interested in Kerry Pepper when you got Nora Kemp on your jock.”

  “Maybe he likes a normal girl,” she defended. “Not everyone likes staggering beauty. That’s got to be exhausting, to look at that level of perfection all the time. I mean, you wouldn’t trade Trish for a night with Nora, would you?”

  “I’m gonna plead the fifth on that one, and if you ever tell my wife I said that, I’ll piss in your coffee.”

  CHAPTER 69

  THE DETECTIVE

  As it turned out, Kerry Pepper was the most boring housewife on the planet. Farah fought a yawn as she scrolled through the photos that TID had uploaded to the file. Yet another photo of Kerry and Miles, cheek to cheek, smiling at the camera. This one was at a fast-food restaurant, with the sick kid holding up a french fry like it was an accomplishment.

  They were almost to the cabin’s address, and Farah had spent most of the drive catching up on the search team’s investigation. The missing kid was another piece of the puzzle that just didn’t fit into any normal murder investigation. She’d called Officer Sam Meeko on speakerphone, and the missing-persons cop sounded as tired as she felt.

  “. . . and so that’s what we’re trying to figure out.” Meeko paused, and Farah jumped in before he started another monologue.

  “Where’s the husband now? Still at the station?”

  “Yep. He’s itching in his skin. Wants to go out and search for the kid, like we’ve got a big field to cover or something. Guy doesn’t realize that his son could be out of the country by now.”

  “And the tip line? Nothing there?” Farah asked.

  “We’ve got hundreds of tips, but none that are matching each other. I’ve got everything from him in a mall in San Francisco to a motel parking lot in San Diego, and no way to tell the good from the garbage.”

  Kevin leaned closer to the speaker. “What do you hear on the street? Any rumblings from UCs or CIs? No little sick kids showing up anywhere?”

  “Nothing so far, but it’s not like there’s going to be an auction for him. We’ve ruled out ransom, given the circumstances. What we’re trying to figure out is if the kidnapping is a result of the murder or vice versa. I was hoping you could help me with that.”

  Farah looked at Kevin, and this line of thinking was one that they had yet to go down. Her frustration grew, along with her embarrassment. It felt like they were constantly a step behind, and she wasn’t used to feeling so inept.

  “Hello?” Meeko called out. “You guys still there?”

  “Okay, let’s walk down these paths,” Kevin said. “Option one—someone wants the kid, so they take the mom and then torture information out of her and then kill her. Take the kid and disappear.”

  Farah made a face. “It’s messy. There are easier ways to grab a kid. And no offense, but the kid isn’t exactly the ideal candidate for a kidnapping. We’re talking about a potentially terminally ill child.”

  “Maybe the mom wanted to get rid of him,” Kevin suggested. “Like you said, he’s expensive. A lot of work. Maybe the mom was selling him. Maybe sold him to Trent.”

  Maybe Trent wasn’t obsessed with Kerry. Maybe he was obsessed with Miles. The thought was too dark to consider, but she flagged it for discussion with Kevin after they ended the call.

  “I don’t think so,” Meeko interjected. “By all accounts the mom was glued to this kid. I’ve heard that from the husband, the grandmother, and the sister.”

  “What about friends?” Farah asked. “You talked to any of her friends?”

  “Husband says she doesn’t have any, other than this Bonnie lady who blocked him on Facebook. She used to, a few years ago, but got off social media and stopped going out about a year ago.”

  A year ago. Farah flipped screens, from the photos log to Kerry’s social media profile. She scrolled down Kerry’s feed, which was active and set to public. “She didn’t get off it. It looks like she just stopped posting.”

  “Yeah, and she unfriended everyone, including her husband. Apparently she’s in just one Facebook group. A quilting one. Her husband says that it’s weird. Says she used to be really into social media. He’s wanting us to look into it, but obviously the kid’s search is taking priority.”

  The husband was right. This was strange. Kerry had been posting two, three times a day for what looked like years—then stopped entirely. There was a reason for that. Why?

  “Meeko, can you find one of her friends that she stopped talking to? We need to know why she changed. Something had to have happened. Her husband had an affair or she got sick. Something. The husband doesn’t know what it could be?”

  “He said he didn’t know she got off social media until yesterday, when he went on her page to see pictures from their trip. Honestly, he doesn’t seem like the most observant spouse. We’re asking him a lot of questions, but he doesn’t have a lot of answers.”

  “Does he seem loyal?” Farah asked. “Think he has another Cornhusker on the side?”

  “That’s Nebraska,” Kevin muttered. “They’re in Wisconsin.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him,” Meeko said. “But he’s distraught over the kid. He also said she’s been hoarding medication. Maybe hasn’t been giving the kid his.”

  “Munchausen potential?” Kevin asked and Farah nodded in agreement. Munchausen by proxy wasn’t common, but the mental condition—one where a parent faked a child’s health conditions or intentionally caused them—was legitimate, though she couldn’t immediately see how that piece cleanly fit into this clusterfuck.

  “Well, that was my thought, but Kyle—that’s the husband—said that she flipped out when the kid’s cancer came back. That she handled it okay the first round and second round, but when it came up this time, she had a meltdown. Didn’t stop crying for days. Says she’s been frantic, taking him to specialists and trying to do whatever she can for him to be healthy. He was adamant that she only wants what’s best for Miles. Oh—and circling back to your theory that maybe she was giving up the kid—remember that she didn’t want to come to California. Tried to turn down the trip, then tried to get Kyle to go with Miles instead of her.”

  They took a moment to digest the information.

  “Okay,” Kevin finally said. “Let’s go back to the chicken-and-the-egg thing. Scenario two is that the Miles kidnapping has nothing to do with the murder. Mom is taken and killed for who knows why—Miles was outside with her when she was snatched and bumps into a different bad guy, who has him.”

  “Or the killer—Trent—snatches the kid too and then disposes of him somewhere.”

  “The kid gets cancer multiple times, then gets kidnapped or worse.” Farah shakes her head in disbelief. “Talk about an unlucky kid.”

  “And a tough one,” Kevin said.

  Yeah, Farah thought morosely. She hoped that, right now, the kid was sticking it out like a champ.

  CHAPTER 70

  THE KID

  His head hurt, like really hurt. His seizure had stopped right before they got to the hospital, which Mustache Man said was really good, like Miles had any control over it. Now it was hurting and normally Mommy had medicine for him but Mustache Man said that he didn’t have anything and that Miles would get some at the park.

  It didn’t make sense that Mustache Man didn’t have any. Adults always had medicine. Mommy kept extras everywhere, and if he was a kidnapper, he was not good at it. Mommy said you should always plan ahead for emergencies, but Mustache Man didn’t even have a Band-Aid for the cut on Miles’s head. The cut also hurt really bad, and Miles didn’t think that he had ever been in this much pain, except for maybe the day of his surgery.

  Now Miles was in the back seat again and trying to follow the three rules, but he’d started crying two times because of the pain and Mustache Man didn’t seem to care at all, other than that he kept cursing and hitting the steering wheel.

  Suddenly the whole car jerked and they were wobbling all over the place. Miles tried to grab ahold of something, but the seat was slippery. He grabbed the seat belt, but that didn’t work because it stretched. It felt like his head was cracking open, and it was so sharp, the pain right above his ear, and Miles screamed as loud as the pain was and the car suddenly slammed to a stop so hard that he fell in between the back seat and the front seat and hurt his elbow.

  He hiccuped and held it with his hand, and the seat creaked as Mustache Man leaned over Miles and breathed on his face. He looked very serious and very scary.

  “Listen to me,” he hissed, just like a snake, and Miles really wanted to remind him of how happy he had been about his seizure stopping but decided to stay quiet just to be safe. “I’m going to give you very important directions, and you have to follow them exactly. Do you understand?”

  Miles sniffed and nodded and tried not to cry, but the tears felt like they were going to burst out of his eyeballs.

  “Do you know what happens when you don’t follow directions that you’re given?”

  “Yes.” He let out a teeny sob that he couldn’t hold in. Mommy goes away and I get put in dark places and kidnapped and starved to death. “I’m going to follow—to do what you say.”

  “It’s very easy, okay?” He pointed out the car’s window. “All you have to do is walk that way until you see someone with a kid. You’re going to see a lot of them, because it’s a park. And just go up to that mom or dad and tell them who you are. Who are you?”

  “Miles Pepper.” That one he knew. That, and his home address, and Mommy’s phone number.

  “Tell me what you’re going to do.”

  “Walk that way.” Miles pointed toward the window, even though he couldn’t see out of it, and didn’t know if it had a big scary lagoon, or a lava pit, or an obstacle course he would have to go through. “And keep going until I see a mommy or daddy and then go up to them and tell them my name.”

  “Yep.” Mustache Man looked at him the same way that Miles looked at caterpillars, really close and carefully. There were lots of poisonous caterpillars, so you better be careful about which ones you touched. “You feel okay? Feel better?”