The House That Jack Built Read online

  “What happened?” I asked. “Is she alright? Is the baby alright?”

  “Let’s sit down,” Dr. Stanton said and pointed at the chairs behind us. “She is sleeping now. Which is good. The baby is fine. Shannon will be too. But she can’t keep doing what she’s doing. She needs more rest. She was severely dehydrated when they brought her in. She had been throwing up all morning, and then with the travelling across the country and going on stage with all the heat from the lights, well she collapsed on the stage.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God she’s alright,” I said. “So, it was just dehydration?”

  Dr. Stanton paused. It wasn’t a nice pause. “Well, there is more. She experienced some pain, she told me when she woke up. Abdominal pain. Now, it might be nothing, but I think it’s her body’s way of telling her to slow down. I’m not taking any chances with this baby, and I have to order her to stop working for the rest of her pregnancy. She needs rest, she needs to eat better, and make sure she gets enough liquids. She has a history of not being very good at taking care of herself, so it is up to you and me to make sure she does. Now, the press is down the lobby waiting. We need to get them out of her way. She needs her rest and to not have this pressure and stress on her shoulders. How do you suppose we do that?”

  Bruce, her manager, was sitting next to me and I looked to him for help. I had no idea how to handle the press.

  “I know she wanted to wait to tell them till it showed,” I said.

  “It would be best if she told them herself,” Bruce said. “To show them she’s not really ill. If she could do so tomorrow, then we might avoid the ugly headlines. There’ll still be a few out there, stating that she’s terminally ill or that she has bent under the pressure of being charged with murder. I think it would be best if we avoided too many headlines, for her health.”

  “I agree,” I said. “She gets really upset when they write bad things about her.”

  “Alright,” Dr. Stanton said. “I’ll allow her to do one press conference, as soon as she feels up to it, then no more press, no more concerts or anything that is stressful. I want her to take long walks on the beach and play songs on her guitar, spend time with her family, that’s it.”

  I was allowed into her room and spent the rest of the night sleeping in a chair next to her. In the morning, I woke to the sound of her voice.

  “Jack?”

  I grabbed her hand in mine and got up from the chair. “How are you feeling? Are you hot? Cold? Do you need anything?”

  “I’m fine,” she said with a smile.

  “You scared me, Shannon,” I said.

  “I know,” she said. “I scared myself. I’ll be good from now on. I promise.”

  “No more concerts,” I said.

  She sighed and the smile disappeared. I knew it was hard on her. She loved to perform.

  “No more concerts,” she repeated. “No more stress. I promise.”

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Cuba, April 1980

  One of the Cuban guards in front of the Peruvian Embassy was killed when the bus crashed through the fence. He was shot in the crossfire as the guards tried to stop the bus. Isabella remembered seeing him being removed from the ground and carried away at the same time as she was being helped out of the bus by Peruvian soldiers and brought inside the Embassy. They were met by a Peruvian diplomat. Isabella was still shaking and fought hard not to cry when he spoke to them.

  Given the desperate measures the five of them had taken to ask for political asylum, they were granted it by the Peruvian diplomat in charge of the embassy. He promised he would take care of them and make sure Castro’s soldiers couldn’t reach them.

  They could hardly believe they had actually succeeded. Their plan had worked.

  The next day, the Cuban government asked the Peruvian government to return them, stating they would need to be prosecuted for the death of the guard. The Peruvian government refused.

  “We’re protected. The diplomat kept his word to us,” Isabella’s grandfather said and hugged her when they were told the news.

  “Castro won’t give up that easily,” her grandmother said.

  And she was right. Four days later, Castro declared he was going to remove his guards from the Peruvian Embassy. Isabella woke up the next morning to the sound of people screaming and yelling. When she looked outside the windows of the embassy, she saw crowds of people running in the streets towards the embassy’s gate. They had temporarily patched the area where the bus had driven through the fence, but hundreds of people now stormed it and broke it down.

  “What’s going on?” her grandfather asked, coming up next to her.

  “This is exactly what we feared,” her uncle said. “This is exactly what Castro wanted.”

  “So, what do we do now, Papa?” Isabella asked anxiously. She spotted women and children among the people outside. It was everyone for himself. They were being pushed and trampled.

  “We help them,” he said.

  That day, seven hundred and fifty Cubans gathered at the embassy in Havana and asked for diplomatic asylum. People were coming in so fast they climbed the walls, since the gate was too full. Isabella, her uncle, and grandparents helped people over the fence one by one as they rushed inside. Outside the fence, news spread by word of mouth and by the second day there were more than ten thousand people crammed into the tiny embassy grounds. People occupied every open space on the grounds, some were even climbing trees and other structures and refusing to abandon the premises. New Cuban guards arrived and now blocked the entrance so no one could get in or out. The embassy grounds were jammed with people. Everything had turned to chaos. Isabella tried to help everyone, and along with her grandmother, she passed out water to the people. At some point, they spotted three trucks pull up outside and dump rocks into the street. They saw everything through the destroyed fence. Isabella looked at her grandmother. Then she felt her uncle pick her up as more people gathered on the outside of the fence and started throwing the rocks at them.

  “Traitor! Traitor!” they yelled while the rocks flew everywhere. From atop her uncle’s shoulders, Isabella watched the chaos unfold while gasping for breath. She saw a woman with the most beautiful blond hair. Their desperate eyes met, just as her hair went from blond to red.

  Isabella screamed as she saw the woman fall to the ground. She was carried away and put on the ground where a wall would protect her. Most of them would sleep there lying close on the floor. She lay all night staring at the stars above, trembling and cursing her own vulnerability. In the street outside, trucks with speakers rolled past and yelled at them, keeping them awake.

  “Traitors, Traitors!”

  The sound of machine guns being fired in the air caused her grandfather to throw himself at his exhausted family. While lying on the hard ground all night, Isabella heard him murmur a prayer, asking that none of the bullets would rain down on them from this beautiful treacherous sky.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  May 2015

  Noah was taken out of the box once a day. He was given food, and was allowed to go to the bathroom if he hadn’t already done so in the box. He was even allowed to walk around a little and move his legs and arms. Every day, he looked forward to the lid being lifted, the light entering, and being let out. Even though it was that creepy man with those piercing eyes that took him out. It was the highlight of his day.

  His legs were hurting so badly from lying still in one position all day and night, and he felt how he was getting weaker and weaker as the days passed. There was one small window in the room where he was being kept, and every day when he was let out, he looked to it, to take in as much sunlight as possible from the small window under the ceiling.

  It wasn’t long that he was allowed outside the box, only enough time for him to eat and drink a little, then go to the bathroom and walk two rounds around the wooden box that he had learned to dread so terribly.

  Then, he was put back in and the lid closed ag
ain. Those were the terrifying moments, when Noah would cry and plead and beg for the man to not put him back in there, but he showed no mercy. Noah even tried to fight him, but it was no use. He lifted his hand, and with one slap across Noah’s face, he let him know just how much stronger he was than Noah.

  He didn’t give him much food…a few slices of bread and a glass of water every day. It was far from enough for him, and Noah was constantly starving. He felt dizzy even when lying down, and soon he started to sleep a lot. He dreamt about his mother and father and being back at the old house with his old friends and neighbors. He dreamt himself back to where he had last been happy, where he had last felt safe. It didn’t take long before he decided he would rather stay in his dreams than be awake in the nightmare he was living.

  His guardian never spoke much. He only commanded him to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. He tried to speak to him to maybe convince him to not put him back in the box, but he wouldn’t even look into Noah’s eyes. It was like he didn’t want to talk to him.

  “Please, Sir?” he asked one day when walking around the cold room. As usual, the man was sitting in a chair by the door, watching him as he walked in circles around the box. “Please, tell me your name?”

  “Walk. No talk,” he said and turned his head away.

  “Please, can’t I sleep outside on the floor instead of in the box?” he asked.

  He didn’t answer. He stared at him with his piercing dark eyes.

  “I can sleep right over there? I won’t bother you. I won’t cry or scream. I won’t try to escape.”

  He slapped Noah across his face and Noah fell to the ground. “Walk.”

  Now, Noah was crying. Tears rolled across his cheeks and he refused to get up. He simply couldn’t do this anymore. He refused to.

  The man stomped his feet in the ground. “Walk.”

  “No! I don’t want to,” Noah said defiantly. “I want to go home. I want to see my mommy!”

  The man rose to his feet with an angry movement. He grabbed Noah by the arms, lifted him up, while he was screaming and kicking, then put him inside the box again and closed the lid.

  “Please don’t. Please don’t leave me here!” he screamed.

  But he did. And he didn’t return until three days later.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  May 2015

  I took Shannon home to Cocoa Beach the next day and put her on my couch with orders to not move. I made her lunch, then kissed her forehead and looked into her eyes.

  “Now, promise me you’ll take it easy while I’m gone, okay?”

  She smiled wearily. She still hadn’t regained her strength after the collapse. Dr. Stanton had gone back to Nashville, but promised to come down later in the week to check on her. I, for one, was worried madly about her and the baby.

  “What am I supposed to do all day?” she said with a sigh. “Just sit here and watch TV?”

  I went to my bookshelf and pulled out five books that I placed on the coffee table.

  “Here. Once you’ve watched all the movies, then read these books. The kids will go to my mother’s when they are dropped off till I pick them up this afternoon. We’ll have dinner here at the condo, so you can stay put for now. I have to go to work for just a little while, but call at anytime, alright?”

  Shannon nodded. She didn’t seem too pleased at the prospect of spending the next days on the couch, but I hoped she knew how important it was that she did. For the baby and for her own sake. We couldn’t risk any more collapses.

  “Will you be alright?” I asked and kissed her again.

  “I was just dehydrated, Jack. Will you stop acting like I’m dying? I’ll be fine. Go, do your job.”

  I left, feeling like I’d abandoned her. I wasn’t going far, though. I was meeting Beth at the Kinley’s house on 4th Street North.

  The mother, Lauren, opened the door and let us inside. “Steven,” she said, addressed to the husband. He was sitting in a chair in the living room, staring out the window. He didn’t react when we came in.

  “He’s been like this ever since it happened,” she said. “I can’t get him to do anything. He won’t even eat. They keep calling him from the office. They say he is going to lose his job if he doesn’t come in, but how can he? None of us can do anything. We keep wondering. Where is he?”

  “I understand,” I said.

  “Please, tell me you have news,” she said as we sat down.

  “I’m sorry, Ma’am. I don’t,” I said. “We’re here because we need you to tell us more about Noah. It will help the investigation if we know him better.”

  The disappointment was visible on her face. “Well, I guess no news is better than bad news,” she mumbled.

  “Have they arrested that Johnson fellow yet?” Steven Kinley suddenly said from his chair. I looked at him. He still stared out the window.

  “No, we haven’t, Sir,” I said.

  “But, it must be him,” Lauren Kinley said with a slight whimper. “It all fits. He was just released, and then our son disappears, just like that other boy all those years ago. I called the station and told them to look at him, you do have…You have checked him out, right?”

  “We have searched his home several times, Ma’am, and we’ve had him in for questioning more than once. If he has your son, we will find out,” Beth said. “Don’t you worry.”

  I could tell she believed Vernon Johnson was guilty as well. It made something turn inside of me. After my talk with my mother, I had realized I had been busy trying to make him guilty as well. But the fact was, he couldn’t have kept or buried Scott Kingston, since he was in jail at that time. It would only be possible if he hadn’t worked alone. There was nothing placing him at the scene of the crime when Scott Kingston was kidnapped. Only one boy’s testimony, which had now been withdrawn, because he wasn’t sure it was actually Vernon he saw.

  It was my idea to try and have another talk with Noah’s parents…to maybe try for another angle on the case. I seemed to be the only one doubting Vernon Johnson’s guilt.

  “As long as we haven’t found your son, there is still hope he is alive,” I said. “That’s why we need you to tell us everything about him. Even the smallest of details that you think might not be of interest might help us.”

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  May 2015

  “Do you have children, Detective?”

  Lauren Kinley looked at me intensely. Her husband Steven had come closer and was sitting with us while we spoke about Noah. It seemed like talking about him made Steven Kinley warm up to us, made him feel better, and got him out of this state of apathy he seemed to be caught in. When speaking of his son, he lit up, and so did his wife. They appeared to be very loving parents and to still have deep affection for one another, even with all they were going through. I couldn’t help comparing them to Scott Kingston’s parents. Would the Kinleys end up like them in twenty-eight years? I couldn’t bear the thought. We had to find this boy. This wasn’t going to end like it had back then. I kept wondering if there was anything about the parents or the family that made the kidnapper choose them. Was there anything linking the two cases, other than the fact that the boys were both taken from their own rooms?

  “Yes, I do. I have three and one on the way,” I said. It felt good to finally be able to tell everyone that Shannon and I were having a baby. Shannon had held a press conference earlier this morning, just before we left the hospital, and now the news was everywhere. I felt very proud.

  “Jack is the guy dating the country singer, Shannon King. She’s pregnant,” Lauren said, addressed to her husband. He didn’t look like he cared. “I’m sorry,” she said, addressed to me. “I watch a lot of TV. Keeps me from thinking all the time. Steven prefers to sit still and worry. I can’t stand the silence in the house these days. I need to have some noise around me.”

  I could vividly imagine how hard it must be to have to wait for news about your son, not knowing if the next call on the phone would be the police
asking you to come down to ID your own child. The very thought made me shiver.

  “The teachers at his school tell us Noah had a little trouble,” I said, looking at my notepad. I haven’t gotten much out of my talk with them so far. Noah seemed to be a very ordinary boy, who had a tendency to get himself in trouble at school, played baseball on Wednesdays, and had guitar lessons on Thursdays. Nothing really struck me as out of the ordinary. Some of my colleagues had already spoken to his best friend’s parents, back on Merritt Island, but found nothing suspicious in any of their statements.

  “Yes, he did. He was having a hard time adjusting to the new school,” Lauren said. “But he is the sweetest of boys. Just missing his old friends, that’s all.”

  I looked at the picture of Noah that the parents had given us and tried to compare it to that of Scott Kingston that we had at the office. The two boys didn’t seem very alike. Scott was redheaded, while Noah was blond. Scott was slightly overweight, while Noah was small and skinny. If this was the same guy, then what triggered him about his victims? How did he meet them? Why these two boys of all the boys around here? And why wait twenty-eight years between them?

  “Did anything happen in his life up till his disappearance that we might need to know? Did you see anyone suspicious in the street watching your house? A car that was maybe parked close by? Anything?”

  Lauren looked at Steven, who looked like he could break down any moment now. The thought that they might have been able to hinder the kidnapping if they had been more alert had to be eating them alive. I knew I would be wondering constantly. Was there anything I could have done differently?