Chapter 6

My days took on a new routine after that day. Mornings I would work at the office and in the afternoon while Jenson was either visiting Anya or meeting with clients I would work on the file from Gregory. Mid afternoon I ventured down into that gym and developed a routine for myself on that piece of gym equipment before showering and returning to the file. Sometimes I went out for an early evening walk by myself before dinner, just to clear my head. By the end of the first week several things became obvious to me. I was doing more repetitions on the gym equipment, walking further and at long last was making headway with finding Charlie.

Saturday was when I was going to really focus on finding an answer and just hope that the way that I had processed the information was right. I couldn't work out why someone had targeted Charlie so went out at a tangent to look for similar times when a child had disappeared. You might think that there would be a lot but not ones who matched Charlie's description. So after trawling through local newspapers and researching any boys who had disappeared I'd found one boy who matched the age and description of Charlie who had disappeared nine months ago.

The boy, Kevin, was the opposite to Charlie. He lived with his mother, who had been holding down two cleaning jobs to make ends meet, in an apartment block that seemed to have so many issues. Kevin attended a state school unlike Charlie who was at a private school and Kevin's hobbies looked to be have been playing out on the streets. Kevin looked like a cheeky street savvy kid while Charlie was protected through his parents and routines. The two boys lived in totally different parts of town so would never have come across each other or known each other.

The police classified Kevin as a missing child, but I got the feeling that they weren't looking for him, probably deciding that he'd run away. Highlighting the two parts of town where the boys lived, I spent an age thinking of who might have seen both of the boys. I researched different occupations such as post men, garbage collectors in the hope that there was some commonality, but to no avail. I looked through neighbors in case one of them worked where the other boy lived finding nothing. It was by sheer chance that as I looked out of the window whilst thinking that I watched as a white van drove along the bridge that I had the inspiration of a delivery man. I mean lots of people order stuff online now, from groceries to clothes so could that be a link between their neighborhoods?

Going back through the finances that Gregory had compiled for immediate neighbors to Charlie I did the same check against other people who lived in Kevin's block of apartments and then compared them. I knew that the people in each area would have very different consumer goods in common, I mean their finances and needs were very different. There was only one company that had delivered to both neighborhoods on a regular basis, a company that supplied sewing items, from material to wool to craft products. Where Charlie lived, they delivered to an elderly lady who lived with her husband and where Kevin lived, they delivered to a young single woman who was selling homemade products online.

I almost hated the feeling that came through me as I came across that piece of information. A feeling that I'd jokingly called my spidey sense. I hated it because it was her feeling, Stephanie Plum's. Joe had called it stupid and said that I used it as an excuse to follow up on something that usually resulted in me getting into trouble.

I closed my eyes as I thought through what Joe had said. Joe had been my on and off boyfriend, someone that everyone thought that I should marry. Everyone except me. He was a good looking guy and we shared some good times together but also some bad times. I'd been at an off stage before the fire but that hadn't stopped him from trying to take advantage. I couldn't understand how he could berate me with words that hurt so much and then in the next breath tell me that I had to marry him. It was as though he had taken advantage of what had happened to try and control me and my life. Give up that job before you get someone else killed. Hearing him say that in my head now sent shivers through me. I didn't need him to reiterate what everyone else was saying, that it was because of me that someone had died. Another person blaming me which was why I had left home, why I needed to obliterate everything that Stephanie Plum was.

But what did I do now? Those spidey senses were strong as I looked at my findings. Should I ignore them and put them into my past? The problem was that I couldn't. Charlie needed to be found so with some trepidation I opened up a new search on the company, Sewingbox, and then at their employees. There were ten men who worked as drivers, but I knew I couldn't find out who delivered where, so started the arduous task of looking at each one. Single and living with parents, married and living with wife and children. Single but close to retirement. I researched each man until I was left with two whose backgrounds were unusual.

A single man in his forties who had a police record and a married man who seemed to have a lot of absence through illness. Looking at the single man first a police record of theft seemed a long way from moving to kidnapping to me. Plus, his financials showed that most of his money went on clothes and a car. The married man, now that was weird because his medical history didn't show up any long term illnesses, but his wife's did. Her doctor had diagnosed her as having severe depressive episodes with psychotic symptoms. I had to look that one up and read that it was when a person went through severe episodes of depression, where they might experience hallucinations or delusions. A hallucination meant that the person might hear, see, smell, taste or feel things that others couldn't. A delusion meant that they might believe things that didn't match reality. Those symptoms were called psychosis.

The couple were in their late thirties with no children which had me asking the question of why they would kidnap a child. Obviously when the wife was suffering badly then the husband took time off work and maybe his employers were okay with that if they knew that his wife could be the one who was ill. I looked at the wife's medical history and suddenly everything made sense but at the same time had me drawing in a breath. She had lost a son nine years ago which was put down to sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), also known as cot death or crib death. It was the sudden unexplained death of a child of less than one year of age which to me would have been very hard to live with. Had the wife been so ill that she had to have her child back, even if it wasn't hers? Shit did that mean that the couple had taken other children before, younger ones that would match the age of her lost baby? I suppose her illness would explain that need. But if that was the case then what had happened to any children before now? I didn't want to even think about that. I had to focus on finding Charlie.

The couple lived on the outskirts of Tacoma 28th Avenue, a street just off Chapman Road. I found the address for where they lived and on Google Earth zoomed into where the property was. It was set off the road and looked like a single dwelling place. Not knowing the area at all I went into street view surprised at the quality of houses along that street. How could John Spencer afford to live there? Simple, because the house had belonged to his wife's parents. Being so isolated no one would know if a child turned up.

It was late when I closed down the laptop. I had printed everything out including a report on what I'd found, with reasons for taking the direction that I had. Those papers went into the file which I placed on the table. I rubbed my eyes, knowing that part of the tiredness came from all of the computer work and reading but also from the weight of my findings. Had I still been Stephanie Plum I would have driven to that address and checked it out, so why would I have done that? It wasn't curiosity but maybe it was because like now I had doubts about what I'd found. Doubts that stopped me from asking for help or taking someone with me in case I was wrong. Now though I couldn't do that, I had to stop doing all of those stupid things.

"You finished for the night Chloe?"

I stood up with the file and walked over to where Jenson was sat, dropping the folder onto his lap.

"I have a possibility of where Charlie might be, who took him and why"

I don't know why Jenson looked at me. Maybe he was doubting what I'd said. Maybe he was right to do that. He placed the file next to him on the couch and turned down the volume of the TV. Okay, he was going to put it to one side and ignore it, he'd probably already decided that I couldn't be right and maybe he was right.

"I'll call Greg in the morning. We can take the file over"

Not what I was expecting. The problem was that tomorrow was Sunday so there was no excuse of work to argue against doing that.

I'd expected Greg to have lived locally and that we would be going to where he lived. That wasn't happening because when Jenson had called him, Gregory had said to bring it to where his company was. I'd remembered that Gregory worked in Seattle which I suppose made sense when Charlie and his family had lived there as well. I had no memory of Seattle, though knew that I'd changed buses there. While Jenson had driven, I'd kept my silence. I wasn't the same person who felt the need to fill the silence anymore. Now as Jenson drove the old station wagon and as the area became more built up, I was starting to feel very anxious. I assumed that maybe Gregory was a lawyer, like Jenson, but hadn't thought anymore about it. I should have done. I should have asked why he was approached to look for Charlie. Now it was too late but as far as I was concerned, we'd drop off the file and turn round to go back home.

Being a Sunday the streets were quiet but that anxiousness only ratcheted up as memories of Trenton came back to me. I'd got used to the sleepy feeling of where I was so being in a city felt claustrophobic. As we pulled up in front of a large building, I had no idea what to expect. Looking around I know that I jumped when my door opened but seeing Jenson stood there I quickly got out of the car. I was wearing jeans and a thin sweater holding the file tightly to my chest as we walked through a glass door.

To be honest I was watching Gregory approach us wondering whether or not to just hand him the file or not. Gregory was talking to Jenson while I looked around.

"Give Hansen your keys, he'll park your car in the garage"

Did I stare as a man approached us? Yes I did, because I was trying to work out who he was and why he was dressed as he was. I followed him as he took the keys from Jenson and opened a door to the side. That was when I looked through to the garage and a vision of large SUVs assaulted me. The man, Hansen, was dressed in black cargos with a black T-shirt and black boots and that was when absolute terror took hold of me. I dropped the file on the floor, only aware of papers flying everywhere, and ran out of the glass door. I felt totally shocked as I ran, ignoring the sound of shouts from behind me or of horns as cars swerved to avoid me. I ran without knowing where I was going, tears stinging my eyes as a sense of betrayal enshrouded me.

Why had Jenson taken me to Rangeman? Did he know who I was and wanted me to be confronted by the men who worked there? I couldn't face that, not to have them lecturing me on how it was because of me that someone had died, to lay the blame on me. I couldn't stop running even though I had no idea where I was going. I just had to get away. I dodged people on the sidewalk and had to step onto the street to avoid a large group of men taking up all of the space. Did a car hit me, or did I run into the car? I don't know. All I knew was that I had to get up and continue running.

I felt hands on my arms, maybe even heard voices but I was so lost to the absolute panic that had engulfed me that I had no idea what was happening. I know I was sobbing and trying so hard to get away so when I felt a small pain on my arm, I just assumed it was from a hand letting me go. I heard screaming and shouting before everything seemed to just go quiet and then I couldn't remember anything as a tiredness came over me, my muscles heavy. Too heavy to move until there was nothing more.