Long Way Down, continued from chapter four.
Author's Note: I can't thank everyone enough for taking the time to review this..you all are incredible. Maple Street, words are simply inadequate.
The house Amelia Sachs parked in front of was much less expansive than the Glenn's, but appeared, at least from the outside, more welcoming and comfortable.
Samantha rang the bell and the door was answered after a moment by tiny Lisa Gallen. With her round, child-like face, upturned nose and freckles, she looked closer to twelve than eighteen.
"Lisa?" Samantha waited for the girl's slightly hesitant nod of confirmation before continuing. "I'm Agent Samantha Spade, this is Agent Jack Malone and Officer Sachs. We're here about Kerry Glenn."
The look of confusion on Lisa's face only deepened at the mention of Kerry.
"What about her?" Lisa Gallen's tone was wary, bordering on defensive.
Samantha was mildly surprised that Lisa appeared to be unaware of Kerry's disappearance, and Jack fielded the girl's question.
"She went missing last night," he informed Lisa, watching carefully for her reaction. Blue eyes widened involuntarily, lips parted slightly and a bit of color drained from her face.
'Genuine' was Jack's thought, and a single glance at Samantha told him she felt the same.
"Missing.." Lisa repeated, as if she couldn't quite wrap her mind around the heavy word and its vast implications.
"We really need to ask you and your brother some questions," Jack spoke again, insistence mitigated by the soothing undertone of his voice.
Lisa Gallen's jaw set stubbornly, and she seemed about to refuse before relenting, opening the door further and allowing the three inside.
The Gallen's home was warm and soft, and the muted colors only increased the air of comfort emanating from each of the rooms. Lisa led them into a small living room, stopping uncertainly in the middle.
"Um, Jamie's upstairs," she said. "I'll go get him."
"Don't worry about it." Samantha smiled. "Amelia and I will go."
"Second door on the left." Lisa's voice was quiet, distant.
A three-way glance between the agents and the red haired officer, and Samantha and Amelia left Jack with the wary Lisa Gallen.
The two stood for a moment before Lisa sat and Jack followed suit.
"I haven't seen Kerry for months," she informed him, idly twirling a slender bracelet on her wrist.
"Mrs. Glenn told us you and Kerry were extremely close," Jack began, choosing his words carefully. "What happened?"
"She left," Lisa answered, a touch of bitterness entering her voice. "Do..do you know?" She peered closely at Jack, who nodded without asking for confirmation.
"It was..God, it was the most horrible experience ever. Especially for Kerry and Jamie, but we were all devastated. My parents and Mrs. Glenn, too." She shook her head, eyes gazing at a point past Jack, focusing on something beyond his sight. "After..well, after that, there was no way to reach Kerry. We wanted to be there for her, you know? Jamie most of all. He was the only one who could come anywhere close to understanding how she felt. But.." Lisa blinked furiously, holding back the moisture that threatened to overflow. "But she was gone. She wouldn't return phone calls, she wouldn't see anyone, she never left her house. In August we found out she'd transferred to Wellington for college." Lisa stopped for a moment, her eyes and mouth hardening.
"I haven't seen Kerry since June, Agent Malone, and I don't want to see her. I can understand her wanting to leave the past behind, to move on and forget. But I will never forgive her for what she did to him. Jamie..he's broken. He doesn't know what to do without her."
Jack was silent as the fury and anguish emanating from the girl sitting across from him exploded in a fit of racking sobs.
"I miss her and I miss him." Lisa whispered so softly that Jack had to strain to hear. "I lost them both."
Samantha and Amelia Sachs climbed the stairs quietly, approaching the closed white door together. Samantha knocked softly, and a muted "Come in" sounded from inside the room. She pushed it open, a look of confusion crossing Jamie Gallen's face as he took in the two unfamiliar women standing in his doorway.
"Who are you?" His wary tone perfectly matched his sister's.
"I'm Agent Spade, and this is Officer Sachs. We're here to ask you some questions about Kerry Glenn."
Jamie winced at the name, a look of pain replaced immediately by one of unaffected nonchalance.
"What about her?"
In response, Samantha sat on a wooden desk chair as Amelia walked slowly around the room.
"Kerry disappeared last night," Samantha informed him, watching his reaction closely. He ran a hand through curly blonde hair and his blue eyes followed Amelia Sachs's quiet trek around his living space, looking anywhere but directly at Samantha.
"I don't know anything about that," he finally responded.
"No one said you did," Samantha replied mildly.
"You're here. You must think I know something."
It was raw pain disguised as anger, and Samantha couldn't help the twinge of sympathy that lit inside of her.
"We're not accusing you of anything," she assured gently, even as Amelia Sachs used a pen to open his closet door further, glancing inside. Steel blue eyes met brown, and Amelia gave her an almost imperceptible shrug as she continued her exploration.
"It's just important that we learn everything we can about Kerry."
Jamie nodded, eyes still guarded, but his defensive posture had somewhat relaxed, and so Samantha continued.
"When's the last time you saw Kerry?"
"Last June." His voice was rough, strained. "A few days after.." Jamie trailed off and Samantha nodded, confirming her knowledge of the event he so desperately did not want to voice.
"It's okay." Her gentle whisper seemed to strengthen him, and he continued.
"I was going to take her home from the hospital, but when I got there she was already getting into her parents' car. She saw me. She saw me and she just looked away, and I haven't seen her since."
"Have you spoken to her?"
A humorless laugh from Jamie Gallen was the response to Samantha's query.
"I've tried. Called her three, four times a day for the first few weeks, but she wouldn't talk to me, or to Lisa. She wouldn't see us, either. After awhile..it just hurt less to stop trying."
"According to Mrs. Glenn, the three of you were very close. Do you have any idea why Kerry refused to see or speak to you?"
Jamie gave a hollow shrug.
"She was in so much pain. I've never seen agony like that, Agent Spade. I guess..I guess we were constant reminders of what she lost. It was horrible for all of us, but Kerry..Kerry was tortured. I loved her, you know? I still do. There's just this emptiness now, where she used to be. Hell, I don't even know how to talk to Lisa anymore."
Samantha noted no bitterness in Jamie Gallen's voice, only a haunted, tired resignment echoed by the drawn, weary expression on his face.
"Can you think of anyone that may have wanted to hurt Kerry for any reason?"
Jamie shook his head.
"No. As far as I know, everyone likes Kerry."
"Where were you last night, Jamie?" Samantha asked the question carefully.
A hint of resentment crept into his eyes, and his voice dropped a notch. "I was here. So was Lisa."
"What size shoe do you wear?" Amelia Sachs spoke for the first time since they'd arrived at the Gallen's.
Jamie stared at her incredulously before answering. "Ten."
"Ah. Okay. What about your father?"
Samantha eyed the other woman warily, but Sachs's gaze was leveled on Jamie, who shrugged.
"I don't know. Eleven, I think. Why?"
"Could you show them to me?"
Jamie turned to Samantha almost pleadingly.
"Why?"
"We need to see them so we can completely rule you out as a suspect, Jamie. It's standard procedure." Samantha's voice was smooth and assuring even as she cast a questioning glance at the collected Amelia Sachs, who merely gazed calmly back at her.
Jamie's face was still a mask of confusion, but he obliged, leading the two women from his bedroom and into another across the hall.
Amelia pulled a slender camera from inside her jacket and, with quiet efficiency, snapped a picture of each pair of shoes and collected samples from the soles, making notes every so often. She was finished in a matter of minutes, and stood, smiling at Jamie and Samantha.
"Thanks."
A troubled-looking Jamie Gallen nodded. "Are we finished?"
"We're finished. Thank you, Jamie."
Another nod, and he spoke quietly. "I'll probably never see her again, but..please find Kerry. She's been through so much already.."
Samantha patted his arm, offering a soft smile and silent reassurance as she and Amelia made their way down the stairs, where Jack had just finished questioning Lisa Gallen. The three were quiet until the Gallen's front door closed behind them and Samantha turned to Amelia Sachs. Before she could speak, the red haired officer began to explain.
"I know Jamie wasn't originally a suspect, but the Under Armor we found at the scene? He's got three shirts like it in his closet. None of them are ripped, but that was basis enough for the dirt samples. The print near the call box was size eleven; he could easily have worn a pair of his father's shoes. We'll have to compare the samples from those shoes with the samples collected at the college."
By this time, Amelia Sachs was behind the wheel and they were headed back to Lincoln Rhyme's.
"I don't know." Samantha twisted in her seat, directing her thoughts to both Jack and Amelia. "I just don't see Jamie as the violent type. He still loves Kerry; it's obvious."
"Lisa Gallen said they were both home last night," Jack offered. "Still; love makes people do strange things."
"Maybe." Samantha had to agree with that, and they fell into a contemplative silence.
Jack and Samantha were at Lincoln Rhyme's long enough to hear the man first grumble that the DNA results from the hair tie still hadn't come back, and then brighten considerably when Amelia Sachs presented him with dirt samples from the Gallen's.
"I love dirt," Lincoln Rhyme proclaimed to the room in general. "It's great for comparison, it traps trace, it can place a perp directly at a scene.."
Samantha and Jack exchanged glances as a bemused Sachs began loading the samples in the chromatograph.
"Samantha and I are going to visit Marabella's," Jack informed Lincoln and Amelia. "See if the people Kerry works with can shed any more light on her life."
"Good, good." Lincoln Rhyme was buried in a microscope, his voice distant, preoccupied.
With a wave to Amelia, the agents departed.
"These kids have been through a lot," Samantha said as she guided the vehicle one-handed down a winding, deserted road.
Jack nodded his agreement. "They've lost more than a child," was his quiet reply. "Patrick Glenn gave me a list of his recent cases, but I really don't think this had anything to do with him."
"Probably not," Samantha acquiesced.
They fell into silence, and Samantha was acutely aware of Jack's eyes on her, studying her, holding her in his steady, unwavering gaze. She swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
"If you keep looking at me like that, we're going to get into an accident," she commented, working to keep her voice light, mild.
She didn't have to take her eyes off the road to know the expression he would be wearing, but she did anyway, a slight shiver shooting down her spine as she took in his easy smirk and challenging dark eyes.
"What else should I look at?" His tone was teasing, but present also was the low, seductive lilt that she felt rather than heard.
"I don't know. Look at the cows." She couldn't keep the grin off her own face as he settled back in his seat.
"They're not as pretty as you," he grumbled, in as close to a pout as Samantha would ever hear from Jack Malone.
She shot him a brief but genuine smile, one that he returned before shifting slightly so his fingers brushed over her hand that rested on the seat in between them.
They were warm and comforting, and for a single, perfect moment, she allowed herself to pretend that the world was as beautiful as the intoxicating connection that flowed so strongly between them.
TBC…