“I need your help.”

  “Okay.” Across the park, Ericka could see Greg still playing with Bud. She wanted to get back to them, but she also wanted to see this through.

  “Your father is here.”

  “He is… here?” Her heart skipped a beat.

  “Yes. But he’s in trouble. He’s asked me to help him.”

  “Oh.” What hadn’t he come to her?

  “The trouble occurred before he could reach you.”

  “I see.”

  “Will you help me?”

  Ericka squeezed her hands in her lap. “Of course.”

  All the trauma of growing up alone. All the time that she would have loved to have had her parents fight for her. They all came rushing back in. But she wouldn’t abandon him just because he’d done so to her.

  She straightened her shoulders. “What can I do to help?”

  Sasha looked relieved. “I have a plan, but I can’t do it alone.”

  “What do you need me to do?”

  Sasha had rattled off her plan. Ericka only cocked her brow a few times at the scheme, but she had to admit that the idea was genius.

  “Do you think that you could supply the equipment and the people?”

  Ericka thought about it for a minute. “Let me make a few calls.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  Ericka hadn’t expected that, but she’d said her father was in trouble and it seemed like it was immediate trouble.

  Ericka stepped away from the bench and called Archie. She explained and he didn’t question but promised to supply everything needed. He didn’t know how he would get approval, but since her father was an ex-agent, he assured her he would find a way.

  Once the calls were done, she walked back to the bench.

  Sasha stood. “I can tell by your expression that you’ve secured what I need. Tell them to meet me at this address in approximately two hours.” She handed over a slip of paper before hitching her purse strap up higher. “Cute kid.”

  Ericka looked out at Bud. He was running from Greg while they played a game of tag. Sasha was correct. He was a cute kid.

  The smile on her face left when she looked around and realized that Sasha was gone.

  Ericka sighed. She didn’t know how people disappeared like that. It was a trick she should learn, but later. For now, she texted Archie the pertinent information and went back to the playground with the other two. A few times she tried to look around the area for Sasha, but she’d truly disappeared.

  She joined the boys on the swings, taking a seat next to Bud. She giggled as Greg gave her and Bud a push. Greg’s guttural laugh filled the space behind her and caused her smile to increase.

  “What next, Bud?”

  “Um, the slide?”

  “You’ll need to go on that one alone.” Ericka rubbed the top of his head and mussed his hair until some of the strands stood on end.

  “Oh, okay.” Bud skipped toward the slide. It was yellow and twisted and extremely high up.

  Out of the side of her mouth, Ericka asked, “Greg, are you sure? I mean, look how high it is.”

  Greg lifted his head back and back and back. He sucked his lower lip drawing Ericka’s attention. She tried to look away but the fatherly figure, the action of him biting his lip, all of it made him even more attractive.

  Greg cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hey, Bud, why don’t we try this slide over here?”

  “Okay.”

  Bud had been hyped up but now he was a laid-back child. He didn’t fight or argue, he accepted. More than once, Ericka detected an accent in his speech although she couldn’t place it.

  Bud climbed the rickety stairs as Greg stayed right behind him. As soon as his legs touched the metal he slid down. Ericka was at the end and caught him before he went sailing through the air.

  “Again!”

  Ericka wasn’t sure about that, but she didn’t say so.

  Over and over Bud climbed to the top and practically flew to the end. There was a patch of worn dirt where the feet of other kids had planted. His tiny legs weren’t about to reach that though.

  If it had been any hotter outside the metal of the slide might have burned his flesh off. She remembered metal slides but not in a fond way.

  After about the fifteenth time, Bud removed himself from her grasp and said, “I think I’m done. Unless…”

  “Unless…” Greg repeated.

  “Is there a pond? Maybe with ducks? I love ducks.”

  “Good question. Let’s walk the perimeter and go see.”

  “The perimeter. We’re going to walk the perimeter.” Bud sang the words over and over.

  Ericka smiled at the new word coming from Bud’s lips. They each held one of his hands as they walked the sidewalk around the park. She didn’t think there was a pond. They were in the middle of New York after all, but if he thought it was fun to imagine and he was moving then so be it.

  Their time with him was growing more and more limited. Even though he was an important part of their case, or maybe because he was, she knew he wouldn’t be with them long.

  A ping had her looking at her phone.

  Quinn had texted. We’re coming to Greg’s house.

  She hoped that it had nothing to do with Bud, but she highly suspected it did.

  “Looks like we need to be getting back.”

  “How come?” Bud looked up at her.

  She squatted down to his level. “Quinn is coming over to visit and we don’t want to miss that.”

  “It would be rude.” His words were grown up, but his voice was childlike as he stared off into the distance. Perhaps he tried to gauge the way back, she wasn’t sure, but he waited until they decided what to do.

  Greg slung the backpack over his shoulder instead of carrying it in his hand and placed his hands in his pockets. They walked three in a row with Bud in the middle. At the corner they stopped at the stop sign and looked both ways.

  Greg whistled.

  Ericka hummed.

  Bud screamed.

  Hands came from a bush behind them. Ericka turned to fight them off, but the blow to the back of her head sent her to her knees. Her vision blurred. What she thought were images of Greg attempting to protect them flashed before her eyes.

  The sound of a weapon being discharged made Greg freeze. His hands rose in the air.

  Ericka blinked. She didn’t see anything on his person that would indicate he’d been hit. But then again, she couldn’t see much.

  The rough sidewalk concrete poked into her palm as she attempted to push upright. During the unsteady process, a black van without windows pulled alongside them. The door slid open. Bud and his kidnapper stepped inside the darkness and disappeared.

  Ericka could make out Greg dialing his phone and rattling off a list of letters and numbers.

  Then she couldn’t do anything more. She needed to lay down.

  ****

  Greg called Quinn while pulling a rag out of the backpack. He placed it on Ericka’s head. Blood seeped into the fabric. She would need medical attention. He needed a kick in the pants.

  He’d let his guard down.

  He’d let the family moment get to his head.

  The park. The swing. The slide. It had been like the dream, and he’d let the moment swallow him. Now look where they were.

  “Ericka, Quinn is on his way. As well as an ambulance.”

  “No hospital. We need to find Bud.”

  “We’ll let the EMT’s determine that.”

  She sat cross-legged at his feet. Other than the injury to her head, she seemed fine. Worrying about her would be the death of him.

  Sirens interrupted his train of thought. The ambulance arrived on scene first, followed by two local police officers. While the EMTs checked out Ericka, Greg explained what had happened to the officers.

  “So, someone came out of the bushes and grabbed him? A kid? A kid that you happened to have because you hadn’t turned him over to Social Services where he would have been safe?”

  “Yes.” Greg squirmed.

  “You’re part of that special assistance unit, right?”

  “We are.” Greg narrowed his eyes. Was the officer implying that the reason Bud was snatched was because of them?

  “Both of you?” The officer held his pencil aloft from a piece of paper. The crook to his lips indicated pleasure that he was getting to write up a report on officers who considered themselves above others.

  Greg prayed he was reading too much into it, but he wasn’t sure about that.

  “My head is throbbing, and a little boy is missing, would you just spit out your implication and stop beating around the bush.”

  “Gladly.” The officer’s voice lowered. “You two shouldn’t have had this kid in the first place and now he’s been taken. There, I said it.”

  “We were protecting him.” Greg should have kept his mouth shut.

  The officer leaned back at the waist and crossed his arms over his chest. “Really? How is that working out for you?”

  A black sedan with government plates squealed to a stop outside the police line. Quinn stepped from behind the wheel and flashed his badge. Maggie stepped from the passenger side. Her hand was over her mouth for a second as if trying not to vomit. Then she straightened, tugged down her blazer, pulled her shoulders back and moved toward them.

  Quinn went under the police line. When he approached them, he looked at Greg and shook his head. Immediately, Quinn became a different person.

  “I want all these houses canvased. Ask if anyone saw anything. Ask if they have video surveillance. You, get a dog and start sniffing around.” Quinn pulled a toy from his pocket. “Start with this. Bud was playing with it at the office at some point.”

  No one moved.

  Quinn looked at them with an intense stare. “What are you waiting for? Move!”

  That got them in motion. Officers spread out walking the streets of the neighborhood and knocking on doors.

  Greg was impressed, but now was not the time to praise his officer.

  “What do you got?” Now Quinn had approached the officer that had been interrogating them.

  “Not much. The perp came from those bushes and grabbed the boy from behind. A black van pulled up and he was pulled inside before they drove away. The lady officer was hit trying to protect the child.”

  “Thank you. You’re dismissed to help your men. I’ve got it from here.”

  The officer narrowed his eyes and cocked a brow, but he turned on his heel and walked away anyway.

  “What was that?”

  Quinn shrugged. “Maggie bet me that I couldn’t come in and act like someone in charge.” He held out his hand. “I’ll take those twenty dollars now.”

  Maggie muttered under her breath as she pulled money out of her pocket and handed it over.

  Greg was impressed and he would have said so multiple times, but now they had bigger problems.

  “Any idea who took Bud?”

  “None. What about you guys? You’ve been at the office all day.” Greg shot a glance at the back of the ambulance. Ericka still sat on the bumper holding a rag to her head. If the bleeding didn’t stop then they would have another issue to deal with.

  “Tito is missing.”

  Greg blinked.

  “Yeah, we know. Just one more thing.” Maggie took up the conversation. “He was talking to that new agent Amy Guild.”

  “Who?”

  “Some hotshot agent who is supposed to be good at finding kids or something. Anyway, they were talking, and she asked him to leave the kid in a room asleep and they both disappeared. No one has heard from them since. At first, they said Evers ordered Guild to talk to Tito, now she says she didn’t do that. It just keeps going back and forth. Be glad you didn’t go in today.”

  Greg didn’t think it was great that he missed. Obviously, everything was falling apart. “Have they tried to ping his phone?”

  Quinn turned his head slightly at the question as if he was offended.

  Greg raised his hands. “Okay, you’ve tried that. Which means you’ve also tried to ping Guild’s phone. So, anything else?”

  “Well…” Quinn looked like he didn’t want to answer.

  “Spit it out.”

  “We were coming to protect you because the order to take all the computers from the office came from the previous Chief, Ron Wexell.”

  Greg looked back and forth between Maggie and Quinn. He knew that his jaw had dropped from shock, but he couldn’t help it.

  “How?”

  “We were working on that until we were ordered to your house and then rerouted here. It’s been a busy day.”

  Greg would have replied but couldn’t. Ericka had returned to their fold.

  “You good?”

  “They say I’m fine, but they want me to get another head CT. All this radiation is going to melt my brain.”

  “I don’t think it works that way.” Quinn just had to say it.

  Ericka looked at him with her hip cocked and her hand settled on it. “Did I ask you?”

  Quinn swallowed. The man was three times Ericka’s size and could snap her like a twig, but he genuinely looked scared.

  “All right you two. No fighting. We need to figure this out. Who took Bud and where did they go? And where did Tito disappear to.”

  “Did Marsha Evers say anything about who ordered the computers taken?”

  “Um…” Quinn looked at Greg. The poor man was afraid to answer.

  Greg did it for him. “Ron Wexell.”

  “Ron Wexell…” Ericka drew out the last word. “But how could that be? He is in a mental facility.” Ericka began to pace and mumble.

  Tito missing, the child missing, a person locked in a mental facility giving orders. Greg was honestly surprised at how well they were holding it together, especially Ericka. She’d been through traumatic experiences as a child in foster care which was why she’d refused to let Bud go to one, but they hadn’t done much better caring for him.

  The poor kid.

  He was probably terrified.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Tito huddled against the wall of the metal van. He’d seen Ericka and Greg walking next to Bud on the sidewalk. He would have called out or tried to warn them, but he’d been warned.

  Make a sound and risk the kid’s life.

  That he wouldn’t do.

  When the kid was pulled into the van and placed beside him, he wrapped his body around him the best he could. Tears coursed down the boy’s face. If Tito’s hands had been free, he would have wiped them away.

  “It’s going to be all right.” He whispered the words.

  Bud nodded and buried his head against Tito’s chest. At least Tito had spent time with the boy, and he knew him. Tito hoped it helped him not feel so alone.

  “Welcome.” Roxanne’s voice grated on Tito’s nerves. If she was trying to soothe, it wasn’t working. Bud cringed even more.

  “I’m so glad you could join us. Now maybe your father will come out of his silly hiding place.” She faced the front as the van sped away.

  Tito finally realized something.

  Roxanne and her crew were after Bud’s father. Maybe he knew something about their little operation. The people in that warehouse were not there for a good reason.

  Visions of being under that building with Jasper Dove came to mind. He’d looked up and seen all the people looking down at him ready to escape.

  Could the two things be connected?

  Highly unlikely.

  But he’d learned not to discredit any idea he had of late.

  Bud snuggled next to him as the van hit a bump and sent them bouncing.

  The warmth of the tiny body was a distraction, but he still counted turns and the seconds in between. It might help him if he was able to escape in the future.

  They came to a halt. The doors opened, but this time they weren’t at the warehouse. They were in what looked like an old movie set. The buildings were old and rickety like from a Midwest town that had been abandoned to ghosts. The only grass or trees were at the fringes of the row of dilapidated buildings. The buildings stood out in the open. That would make it harder to escape.

  “This should be a good place to hide out. Take the boy and him to the jail.”

  Tito started to resist, but he realized he couldn’t protect them with the cuffs on. He followed willingly, noting all the things in the area.

  There were ATVs and dirt bikes parked close by. He could see a two-hinged arch bridge that appeared to be painted a dark blue color. So, they had crossed water and quite a bit of it. If he concentrated, he thought he heard the water rushing.

  Bud reached up and grabbed his hand that was secured behind his back. Tito squeezed the best he could.

  They entered a room that smelled like hundred-year-old dust. Metal bars creaked open, and Tito was shoved inside. Before he reached the back wall, a key twisted in his cuffs, and they fell to the ground.

  With one movement he turned and scooped Bud into his arms. He smoothed his hair. “It’s okay. I promise it’ll be okay.”

  Their jailer took a seat outside the jail. He eyed Tito then turned away. Maybe this jailor would be sympathetic. If he could bring someone to his side of things, then maybe they could escape after all.

  ****

  Sasha had her plan. She had her people. Now she just needed to enact it.

  Head held tall she looked at the men and women behind her. They wore gear for spraying bugs. The van they arrived in said, Bugs Love Leaving. She thought the name was a little foolish, but she’d take what she was given. Marco might have done a little better than Ericka’s friends, but then again Marco wasn’t free. And Ericka had a vested interest.

  She entered the hotel’s office. With a smile plastered on her face, she said, “We’re here to spray.”

  The man behind the desk lifted his head. His glasses perched on the edge of his nose. “Spray?”

  “Monthly bug spraying.” She cocked her brow, in a shouldn’t you know this kind of way and hoped he bought her act.

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “I just paid for that last week. And I don’t use your stupid company. Get out.”

  She leaned in closer and whispered, “The company you work with sprayed a chemical to attract bugs. See?” She stomped on a large roach that one of the guys behind her had just released.