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  He stared into the water, paralyzed by the sight of the boy when a voice came up behind him.

  “Sorry, sir, I didn’t know anyone was in here. Do you wish to get fresh towels? Sir?”

  He turned to look at the small woman in the doorway, holding the white towels in her hands.

  “Sir?”

  He let go of the boy, then turned his head and got up to cover the bathtub, hoping the woman didn’t see anything, trying to block her view. He could, after all, be in the middle of drawing himself a bath.

  He forced a smile and narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her.

  How much had she seen?

  “I thought I put a Do not disturb sign on the door.”

  The woman was in distress. “I am so sorry, sir; I didn’t see that. I don’t know where my head is at today. I am so sorry. I did knock and yell, but no one answered, and I assumed that you…”

  She paused and glared at the tub behind him, just as the water moved, and the boy sat up with a loud wheezing gasp. The boy coughed up water.

  He stared at the woman as she smiled uncomfortably. He could tell that the hands holding the towels were shaking.

  “Again, I am so sorry, sir; I didn’t know you were in the middle of…I’ll just leave the towels here and then come back and clean later.”

  The woman turned on her heel fast after leaving the towels on the toilet. The boy was gasping for air in the tub as the woman suddenly rushed out of the bathroom, hurrying toward the door.

  He followed her closely with his eyes.

  She knows who the boy is. She saw him. She recognized him. Of course, she did. His face is all over the place. She’s going to tell. Of course, she is. She’ll run directly down and tell them downstairs if you don’t stop her. She’s too much of a risk. It’s too dangerous. You must stop her.

  Ignoring the crying and coughing boy, he leaped after the woman and reached her right when she had her hand on the handle and had pulled the door open a crack. He pushed the door shut forcefully, then blocked her way. The small woman gasped and looked up at him.

  “Please, sir, I…”

  “You what?” he asked. “You’re going to tell me you have children? You’re going to appeal to my humanity by telling me you have little ones in the hope that I won’t hurt you?”

  Her big brown eyes stared up at him. He could tell her pulse was quickening and that she was terrified by the small vein in her throat that was popping out.

  “Yes?”

  He shook his head.

  “I am sorry. It’s not gonna work.”

  As he said the last part, he punched his fist into her nose. The woman flew back and landed on the carpet. He towered above her, then leaned down and placed both hands on her throat. He tightened his grip and closed his eyes, then held it till she stopped gurgling.

  Chapter 32

  “Is he ready for me?”

  I rushed inside the hotel room. I had been on the phone with a state trooper on my way back, who told me that a car very much like Schultz’s was seen speeding on I-4 toward Orlando and taking the exit to the hotel on the night Cole disappeared. The state trooper went after him, but he got away when the trooper got the call about the missing Cole Marshall, and he had to respond to that instead. This told me Schultz was in Orlando at the time of the disappearance. I hadn’t given up the possibility of him having Cole, even though my visit with Odell had taken me in a completely different direction.

  “I put him in the bedroom,” Brad said. “The Marshalls agreed to this.”

  I nodded. “Good job. Will you assist me?”

  “What’s going on?” Mary asked, getting up from the couch where she was sitting, biting her nails when I entered. “Why do you have that man in the bedroom?”

  I smiled. “Just trying another angle. We’ll question him now.”

  Her eyes went fearful, and she hugged herself, rubbing her shoulders. “You think he has taken my boy?”

  “I don’t know, Mary. But I have a lead on this guy, and I must follow up on everything if we’re going to find Cole.”

  She nodded nervously. She seemed even wearier than when I had left. I couldn’t blame her. The clock was ticking, and the chances of finding Cole alive were getting smaller by the minute.

  “How did the questioning go?” I asked Brad as we grabbed ourselves some coffee and a pastry to silence our screaming stomachs. “Of the Marshalls?”

  Brad shrugged. “As expected. We went through every detail of the day again, and there was nothing that seemed off. We questioned them separately and compared their stories. They matched perfectly.”

  “You don’t believe they took the boy?” I asked and dipped the pastry in my coffee to moisten it up and ate it. It was still pretty dry.

  “Nothing points in that direction, no,” Brad said.

  “But what does your gut tell you?”

  He exhaled and took another bite of his pastry, then chewed and swallowed. “That’s a tougher one.”

  “How so?”

  “I guess because it happened twice. It just doesn’t seem possible, you know? To be this unlucky, and then there was the article this morning, the one saying she hurt her child deliberately, that she was sick and all that. It’s hard not to be suspicious of them, you know?”

  I nodded and finished my pastry, then washed it down with coffee. I made a refill to take with me into the bedroom. I had asked Brad to take the guy in there for us, but it didn’t hurt for him to sweat a little. I needed him desperate.

  “You ready?” I asked Brad as I put my hand on the door handle.

  He nodded, and I opened it. A set of dark green eyes looked back at us from the chair he was sitting in. To say he looked angry would be an understatement.

  “Finally,” he growled. “Could someone please tell me what the heck is going on here? I don’t have time for this. I have a deadline to make.”

  Chapter 33

  THEN:

  Everything was about the baby. It was all they talked about when Roy was there, and also when he was in his room upstairs and could hear them through the door. The baby this, the baby that. They made a nursery upstairs and bought so many things that they could barely fit in there. No matter where Roy looked, something reminded him of the coming arrival of their new son, the one who was supposed to be better than him.

  The Little Maggot didn’t seem to understand much of what was going on. She was still oh, so adorable and had all the adult attention as soon as she was in a room. No one looked at Roy, no one really spoke to him except for Pamela, who now and then would notice him sitting there, then say something to him, like, “Don’t you think, Roy?” just to try and include him in the conversation. He didn’t like to admit it, but she was the only one who seemed to care slightly about him, and for that, he resented her less than he did in the beginning.

  Two weeks before her due date, Pamela wasn’t feeling well and needed to go see a doctor. Roy’s dad was at a business conference in Las Vegas and so when Pamela needed to go to the doctor, he called and spoke to Roy.

  “You have to take her. I don’t want her driving in her condition. Can you do that?” he asked.

  “But, Dad…I just got my license, and I was planning on going over to Tommy’s house today.”

  Tommy was a friend Roy had made in high school. Roy’s dad didn’t care much for him since he both smoked and swore a lot, but Roy was happy to finally have a friend, someone to hang out with, especially someone like Tommy, who actually understood Roy. Tommy’s parents were divorced, and he lived with his drunk dad, who beat him whenever he got the chance. Just like Roy, Tommy was an unwanted kid.

  “Roy, I am giving you a chance to redeem yourself here. You never help out with anything at home; you barely even talk to any of us. All we get from you are angry grunts or sarcastic remarks. This is your chance to do something for others for once. Take it. Show me you care about anyone besides yourself. For once, Roy, do the right thing.”

  Then, he hung up. Roy stood wi
th the phone in his hand, staring at it, hands shaking. What he wanted to tell his dad was that he was still nervous about driving and, therefore, may not be the best person to be driving around with a pregnant woman. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to; it was because he didn’t dare to. He didn’t want to risk anything. But at the same time, he knew his dad was right. With her high fever, Pamela was in no condition to be driving. The little Maggot was at a friend’s house, so he couldn’t even use her as an excuse and say that they couldn’t leave her alone at the house. There was no sufficient excuse. He had to do it.

  He walked to her bedroom and knocked, then opened the door cautiously. She was lying on the bed in the darkness. He could hear her moaning something. It sounded like his name.

  “Roy?”

  “Pamela?” he said and walked closer. He stood by the side of the bed. “You need to go see a doctor. I’ll take you there. Come.”

  She lifted her hand in the air, and he helped her get up from the bed. He let her put her arm around his shoulder and leaned on him as they walked down the stairs and into the car in the garage.

  “Thank you, Roy,” she said as they were in the car, and he opened the garage door, then started the engine. Nervously, he stepped on the accelerator and backed out of the driveway, his hands shaking on the wheel.

  He didn’t even see the semi-truck as it roared toward them, coming up from behind just as they swung onto the road. It wasn’t till it honked its horn with a deep rumble that he realized what was about to happen.

  And by then, it was too late.

  Chapter 34

  He stared down at the woman below him. She lay completely still, her eyes staring dead into the air. He found no pleasure in seeing her die except for the fact that it served to keep his secret.

  What do I do now? They’ll find out she’s gone. They’ll come looking for her. They’ll come here.

  He bit his cheek, then felt the woman’s wrist to make sure there wasn’t a pulse. He couldn’t feel anything, so he placed two fingers on her throat, but still nothing. The woman was dead, completely gone. She wouldn’t be able to tell anyone what she saw; that part was good.

  But then what?

  “I have to think,” he mumbled under his breath. “I have to figure this out.”

  The boy was crying loudly in the bathroom now, and he left the woman to attend to him before he alerted the entire hotel. He rushed into the bathroom, where the boy had crawled out of the bathtub and was lying wet on the tiles.

  “Shh,” he said hissing.

  He then grabbed the boy in his arms and placed a hand over his mouth. But the boy wouldn’t stop. He kept crying behind his hand, and there was no stopping it. In the end, he got so tired of it that he slapped him across the face. He needed the boy to be quiet now so he could think. He needed to figure out what to do about the dead woman by the door. How could he get rid of her body? Could he hide it in the closet like he had the boy?

  He decided that was what he’d do for now. But first, he’d have to silence the boy. He couldn’t have him reveal his whereabouts.

  He walked to his suitcase in the bedroom and found the syringes. He filled one, while the boy still wailed in the bathroom, hoping they wouldn’t hear it downstairs. Luckily, this was a family resort, so many other children could be crying like this. Hopefully, they wouldn’t take any notice of it at all.

  But maybe they would.

  His hands shaking, he filled the syringe, then rushed to the boy, placed it on his skin, and emptied its content into his small arm. The boy wailed again as the prick was felt, and he held his mouth tight, holding him down till the drug did what it was supposed to, counting backward. The boy became limp in his arms, and, finally, he could relax. He wrapped the boy in the blanket again and placed him on the bed, then went to the dead woman and knelt next to her. He grabbed a sheet from the closet, then put it on the floor before rolling the dead body onto it and wrapping her up. He lifted her with much effort, then walked to the closet to put her inside. But her body was big. He couldn’t close the door. He tried again, but it kept knocking against her, even when he tried to turn her to the side.

  Agitated, sweat springing to his forehead, he looked around to see if there could be someplace else that he could put her.

  There’s gotta be some way. It’s just a body, for crying out loud.

  That was when he remembered something, something really important.

  “Her cart. Cleaners in hotels have carts. It’s gotta be outside.”

  He opened the door, peeked out to make sure no one saw him, then spotted the cart parked in the hallway. He grabbed it, then pulled it back into the room and closed the door behind it. Panting nervously, he looked at the cart, then at the woman when an idea shaped in his mind.

  He put the woman inside the cart, completely hidden under the dirty towels, then rolled the cart down the hallway. He placed it inside the elevator and pressed the button to make it go up before exiting the elevator again.

  Chapter 35

  “What am I doing here? Why did you ask me to come in?”

  I sat down on a chair in front of Fischer, and Brad pulled one up as well, then sat down, crossing his long legs with a sigh.

  “We just have a few questions we need to ask you, Mr. Fischer,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “You’re not,” I said.

  “That depends on your answers,” Brad added.

  “We just need some clarification on a few things that I have come across,” I said.

  He sat up straight, then looked at me, scrutinizing me. “Okay. I can do that.”

  “How did you come across the knowledge of Mary Marshall being accused of harming her own children?”

  He frowned. His tone was flat, cold. “I never reveal my source, but since you already know who he is, then…”

  “I know you got the details from the doctor, but how did you come across the information in the first place?”

  He smirked.

  “I’m not gonna tell you.”

  “You’ve been awfully busy smearing the Marshalls,” Brad said.

  “Both then and now,” I added. “You’ve written a lot of articles putting the suspicion on them. It seems kind of, what’s the word I am looking for…?”

  “Desperate,” Brad said, leaning forward.

  “Yes. Like you’re trying very hard to put the blame on them—convicting them in the eyes of the public. Why is that?”

  He stared at me, then scoffed. “Because I believe they’re guilty. I think they hurt their children, no make that I think the mother did. I think she’s sick, and you’re refusing to see it. Think of this. On the night when the twins disappeared, Mary went to check on them. According to the police report, she said she went to the bedroom, then out on the balcony, and then she ran downstairs right away to tell her husband. Why didn’t she search the rest of the suite? Why didn’t she look in the master bedroom first? The kids could have snuck in there to play. They could have been hiding in the closets because they feared getting in trouble for jumping out of bed. She didn’t even check the bathrooms. What did she do? She went straight downstairs, and then what did she do? She told Peter that someone has taken the children. Those were her words. How did she come to that conclusion so quickly? Other explanations seemed more plausible at the time. They could have run off. They could have gone to the pool, or run down the hallway to play with the elevators. How did she know that someone had taken them?”

  “She already told the police that she felt it in her heart. Her instinct told her something had happened to them.”

  “I ain’t buying it,” he said. “I can’t believe you are. Especially not now that she’s done it again. But she’s not fooling me.”

  “She was scared and made the conclusion in fear. It was rash and irrational, yes. It doesn’t mean she’s guilty of harming them. But I have another theory. Your interest in making Mary look bad could also indicate another thing,” I said.
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  “Like what?”

  “Maybe you’re trying to push the attention away from the real kidnapper,” Brad said. “Trying to distract us.”

  A deep frown grew between his eyes as he looked at me, then at Brad.

  “What’s really going on here? Are you seriously accusing me of having hurt those children?”

  He didn’t seem to notice that there was a vagueness to his voice. It almost sounded like he doubted himself.

  I shook my head. “I’m not, but have you?”

  He shook his head and rubbed his stubble. I could tell he was getting stirred up now. His usually so composed exterior was failing him.

  “This is ridiculous.”

  “Can you tell us where you were yesterday afternoon and evening, particularly around five o’clock when the boy went missing?” I asked.

  “I was at home. It was my day off.”

  “Anyone with you?”

  He shook his head. “No. I live alone.”

  “If it was your day off, then why did you show up out here before everyone else? You were the first one to arrive, the woman at the front desk in the lobby told me. At least twenty minutes or so before the others. How did you know about the disappearance earlier than every other reporter in the area?”

  “Because I have my sources,” he said, reaching out his hands in a nervous gesture. “One of them called me and alerted me to this happening, and I knew in my heart I needed to be on it. I was there ten years ago, and I have always believed those parents were involved somehow.”

  I nodded and wrote it on my notepad that he had no alibi. Then, I lifted my eyes and met his across the room. He took another deep breath, and the silence in the room stretched out. It was obvious Fischer felt hot and uncomfortable.

  “You wrote a portrait of Mike Odell recently for your newspaper. When the date of his execution became known, you did an article about him. Odell then told you something that no one else knows except for him and the people involved in the case. He told you that the girl, Maggie, talked to him before she was kidnapped by the pool the same morning and that he told her he was a secret spy.”