The weekend came and went, and they began the new week much the same way they finished the last one –with three missing boys and few leads. The rest of the team uncovered nothing of merit at the other games, and Carol found herself sitting at her desk, eyes cast downward, looking at nothing. She was startled back to full awareness when the dark-haired figure of Tony crossed her peripheral vision and entered her the office.
"What in the world are you doing here?" she asked.
"Good morning, Carol," he replied. "I'm fine, thank you for asking. And you?"
She conceded the point with a grin. "Lovely, thank you. Now, what in the world are you doing here?"
He dropped unceremoniously into the chair facing her desk. "I don't teach on Mondays and Thursdays, you know that. I'm just going to spend the day mulling over the case, so I thought - "
"-you'd hang about my office all day?"
His voice had just the right measure of wounded feelings when he replied, "No. Not hanging." He paused for the right word. "Mulling. Besides, I won't be in your office, hanging or otherwise. I'll be in the evidence room. You won't even know I'm here."
"Yeah, right," she answered, unconvinced. Looking down at her desk again, she appeared to be giving an issue some thought, and when she looked up, all playfulness was gone from her voice. "When we talked about this the other day, I thought perhaps you were thinking of stepping back for a while."
She didn't have to explain what 'this' was; he knew what she meant. He crossed his legs, ankle on knee, and absently picked at the hem of his trousers. He wrestled with his own thoughts before finally admitting, "It's the only thing I'm good at."
"Tony…"
He stopped her with a smile. Amending his comment, he said, "I'm in this far; I can't very well quit now, can I? Next time I'll stop before I get started."
Both knew, of course, that there would be no such next time. Carol may have chastised him for his underestimated opinion of himself, but she also knew that what he did wasn't just a job, it was a gift. To ask him to set it aside would be like asking her to not catalogue everyone she met by the blank spaces on a police report. It was simply who they were. And, if she was truthful, setting aside any personal concern for him, she needed him. As a police officer, she felt obligated to use every tool at her disposal in order to do her job well. And if that meant asking Tony to walk the edge of his sanity to do it, she would. It was her personal feelings for him that clouded the issue. Or maybe it was her feelings that helped her help him. An anchor, he had called her. Seeing the way he allowed a case to consume him with little regard for his own well being, she now knew what he meant.
She opened her mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a knock on her doorframe. It was Kevin, wearing a new suit and a grin.
"Yes, Kev?"
"You are not going to believe this one."
Carol and Tony exchanged puzzled looks before they stood and followed Kevin towards the evidence room.
"Spill it," Carol told him.
Over his shoulder, he answered, "The Fishers and the Youngs sent someone in to look at our evidence."
"What?"
"I didn't let her in," Kevin protested. "She came up to the office and when I turned to find Don, she was gone. We found her in the evidence room." He paused for dramatic effect. "It was almost like she knew where to go," he added with mock amazement. As they got to the office, Kevin gestured at the woman through the window. "Brenda Woodson. Psychic."
Carol coughed out a laugh. "You're joking." When she saw the look on the young detective's face, she groaned. "You're not joking."
"Interesting," was all Tony said.
Kevin held open the door and ushered Carol and Tony in before following suit. A tall willowy blonde who could have passed for anywhere from thirty-five to forty-five stood in front of the white board, eyes closed, fingertips brushing across the pictures of the three boys. Every so often, she would say a word or phrase and Don, sitting in a nearby chair, would dutifully write it down. When he saw the trio enter, he looked at Carol and crossed his eyes. She glanced at his notepad and saw "-man", "-glass", "long narrow path", and "-nutter" with an arrow pointing in the direction of the woman.
"Are you writing this down?" the woman asked.
"Don't you know?" Don quipped.
When she turned to glare at him, she noticed the arrival of Carol, Tony and Kevin. "Oh," she apologized, "I didn't realize you had come in."
"You're not very good at this, are you?" Kevin asked innocently.
"Brenda Woodson," she introduced herself.
Carol nodded. "Carol Jordan. Please," she gestured to the board, "continue."
Brenda frowned and shook her head as she returned her attention to the photos. "It's very dark. Cloudy. They're not alone, yet I don't see anyone with them." She looked down to see if Don was taking notes.
"Oh, right. Sorry," he said and wrote down her thoughts.
"I see a man; an authority figure. Not a father. Someone in a uniform. A dark uniform."
"I don't suppose there's a nametag?" Kevin asked.
She ignored his tone. "No. It's dark everywhere. The children can't breathe."
Tony spoke up. "Inside or outside?"
The three officers swiveled towards him, amazed at his seriousness.
"Outside. It's cold."
Carol folded her arms across her chest. "Right. Outside, cold, dark, a man. Anything else?"
"Mock me all you want, Miss Jordan. I happen to have a 68 success rate."
"Is that before or after you've seen our evidence board?"
"The parents of these poor boys asked me to help," she replied evenly, "and that's what I'm trying to do. I'll be sure to tell them of your gratitude."
Carol's eyes hardened at the challenge. "You can tell the parents that, as a courtesy, I didn't arrest you for entering a police investigation without so much as a by-your-leave. And you can tell them we are doing everything we can."
The woman reached into her pocket and pulled out a business car. Handing it to Don, she said, "As a courtesy," she stressed the word, "I would appreciate it if you would call me as you gather more information. I might be able to help."
Don took the card and remarked, "You know, I have to admit, you're - "
"-not what you expected?" she finished.
His eyes widened in feigned surprise. "You are psychic!"
She glanced around the room, looking for measure of support, when Tony smiled. "Welcome to my world," he told her.
Finding some kind of sympathetic spirit, she held out her hand. "And what kind of world would that be?"
"Psychology," he answered, and shook her hand. "Dr. Tony Hill."
When their hands clasped, her smile disappeared. Her dark brown eyes bored into his startled blue irises.
"What is it?" Carol asked, her voice breaking the silence that had descended upon the office.
"You're with them," the psychic whispered.
His first instinct was to pull away from this woman who had pinned him with her uncomfortably intense scrutiny. But his innate curiosity quickly overcame his apprehension and he held on to her hand. "Go on," he said.
Carol knew him well enough to recognize where he was going. The voice in her head said, 'Let him.' The voice in her heart cautioned, "Tony…"
His gaze never left the face of the woman in front of him. "Go on," he repeated.
"It's cold where you are," she began.
Kevin snickered. "And dark. Yeah, we've - " Carol's hand on his arm silenced him.
"There's a light above your head," she continued. "You're trying to reach it, but you can't. Someone's holding you down." Her brow furrowed in concentration, her sight straining to see the unseen. "You can't breathe."
Whether it was her power of persuasion or the clarity of his recollection of the dream he had had on his couch nights before, Tony could feel the pounding increase in his chest and ears; his heart hammering out a panicked staccato. He opened his mouth to draw in more air, a subconscious effort to try and relieve the anxiety.
"You're drowning," she said.
"That's enough," Carol broke in as she put an arm across Tony's chest and gently sat him down in a chair.
Brenda looked at Tony excitedly. "You know where they are." When she felt all eyes but Tony's on her, she corrected herself. "Of course, he doesn't know, but on a subliminal level, he's already putting the pieces together. Images he's seeing are in response to a psychic connection he's somehow made with the boys."
Carol took in a long deep breath in order to prevent the first retort on the tip of her tongue, which was somewhere between "Give me a break" and "Bullshit". Instead, she calmly offered, "Or, it could be his subconscious working out the bits of evidence he's been seeing for the past week. Here, in this very tangible office." Carol cut off the psychic's next words. "As it is, I think we're finished here for today. Thank you for coming in. We've got your card; we'll be sure to call you if we need any further… assistance."
The woman saw Carol's protective hand still resting on Tony's shoulder. "I see," she murmured.
"Well, you are psychic," Don noted helpfully.
As the three officers watched her stalk out of the office, Tony stood up and grabbed a marker. With a slight tremble in his hand, he drew a long vertical line on the white board, dividing the existing notes from a long blank column where he began jotting down words in his familiar block printing.
-DARK
-COLD
-WATER
-LONG NARROW
PATH
-GLASS
-MAN (UNIFORM, AUTHORITY FIGURE)
-LIGHT
OVERHEAD
"You're not taking her seriously, are you, Dr. Hill?" Kevin asked when he realized what Tony was doing.
Stepping back from the list, he capped the marker. "Why not? Discounting the fact that scientists have mapped out less than twenty percent of the human brain, let's look at this with the question of 'why not' rather than 'why should we'. It certainly can't hurt, can it?" When there was no reply from the room, he made a circular motion around his list. "What does this say to you?"
Kevin was the first to venture an opinion. "I know she said outside," Tony added this to the list, "but my first reaction is, it's a bathtub. Light overhead could be a light fixture, someone's holding them down while they look up."
"Or it could be a light from an outside source," Don offered, picking up Kevin's trail of thought. "The glass represents a window; sunlight coming through."
"Okay," Carol said, conceding the validity of the exercise, but also feeling compelled to don the mantle of Devil's Advocate. "What is the long narrow path? The man in uniform?"
"Dark uniform," Kevin added. "Weren't those referee uniforms black?"
Everyone exchanged a look, then turned their attention to Carol. Sighing, she said, "Right. Let's see if we can get a search warrant for Ian Coles' residence."
"I thought you said we didn't have enough," Don said.
She touched her chin with her fingertips. "I don't know, but we might as well try. We've got his prior arrest, and his accessibility to the children. Maybe we'll get a sympathetic judge. Get on with it, Kev. See what the magistrate says." Kevin nodded. He got to the door when Carol called after him, "And for God's sake, don't even say the word 'psychic'!"
--
Don collected his notes and left Carol and Tony alone, to stare at the board. They stood shoulder to shoulder, as if they could share thoughts with each other through the touch. Carol's mouth twitched into a small smile as she glanced sideways at him.
"Okay. I'm fairly confident I know what you're thinking –or at least, what I'm thinking –but know I want to hear it. What do you make of it?"
He mirrored her sideways glance, though he had to work on the smile. "Anything in particular?"
"Don't be difficult," she chastised him. "Duncan Amerson. Ian Coles. The psychic."
"Brenda Woodson?" he asked, a bit of playfulness now creeping into his voice. He noted Carol hadn't addressed the woman by name, but instead issued her a label.
"Yeah, whatever," Carol yielded. "What do you make of it?"
He snapped the marker lid on and off several times. "Well, I'm fairly confident in ruling out Duncan Amerson. While I don't dismiss the fact that he has his own psychological problems that should be addressed sooner rather than later, he's a stalker, not a child abductor. Even without the injunction, I think it would have been hard to link him to these disappearances." He saw Carol nod her head in agreement. "Ian Coles…" he rubbed the back of his neck and clicked his tongue behind his teeth. "I don't know. He's got the opportunity and the trust factor. But does he have the means? And more importantly, does he have the motivation? He's been around these children for three years. Why start now? What is the trigger for these events to take place?"
"That's your angle, isn't it?" she nudged him good-naturedly. Unable to resist, she prodded, "And what about the –Brenda?"
His serious reply was betrayed by a slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. "She'll never be able to read my mind like you do, Carol."
She threw him a withering scowl. "Do you want to know what I'm thinking right now?"
He decided a sheepish demeanor was his best means of coming out of this one relatively unscathed. "Probably not, no."
--
The door opened a fraction, and a pair of cautious eyes greeted them. "Yes?"
Flashing his warrant card, he introduced himself. "Kevin Geoffries, Bradfield CID. DI Paula McIntyre," gesturing to the woman beside him. "Is this the residence of Ian Coles?"
The door opened a bit wider revealing the woman behind it, and Kevin automatically made a mental note of her features. About five foot six inches, eleven and a half stone, long straight brown hair, deep dark eyes.
"What's this about?" she asked.
"And you would be?"
"Ruth. Ruth Coles. I'm Ian's wife."
Kevin held up a piece of paper. "Mrs. Coles, we have permission to search the premises."
She frowned, "But Ian hasn't lived here in over six months." Seeing Kevin's reaction, she added, "We're separated."
He glanced over to Paula who shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Up to you."
"Well, since we're here, we might as well have a look," he decided, though he spoke to Mrs. Coles.
Her voice was welcoming, but her eyes were wary. "I suppose I should let you in, then," and she stepped aside. Kevin crossed the threshold and nodded his thanks, and Paula followed closely behind.
"Should I take the upstairs?" she asked him.
"Sounds like a plan. I'll cover down here."
As Paula went up the stairs, Coles' wife said, "I'm not sure how comfortable I am with this."
"Don't worry, Mrs Coles," he assured her, "we won't be digging around. We're just here to have a look." He walked into the small kitchen, directly off the living room, and opened the cupboards one at a time. No children's cereals or biscuits; nothing that would seem to cater to the whims and appetites of a six year-old.
"What is it you're looking for?"
Ignoring her question, he returned to the living room. "Small place," he remarked.
"It's just Ian and me. Or, it was."
"No kids?"
She didn't meet his eyes. "No."
"Is that why you separated?"
Her head snapped up. "It's never just one thing, is it?" she replied coldly. In an instant, she regretted her tone and said, "It was a large part of it, yes."
"I'm sorry," Kevin apologized. A sweep of the room revealed nothing. No toys, no books, no games, no movies that might entertain a child. A long drab sofa lay against the longest wall in the room and faced a small television. The matching armchair sat in the corner near a standard lamp. The rest of the floor space was taken up by a rectangular coffee table bereft of anything but a remote control and a copy of "OK" magazine. His eyes looked up to the walls. Reprints of two famous paintings he couldn't quite identify hung over the sofa and over the television was a single shelf which was the home to a pair of photographs. One was a large 8x10 of the Coles, at their wedding reception, Kevin surmised. The second one was smaller, and he had to step up close to see it. A black and white picture, perhaps 3x5, sat proudly in a heavy black frame. Behind the glass, the image of a young boy no older than eight grinned joyfully back at Kevin. He took it off the shelf and looked at the woman standing beside him.
"My brother," she said, answering his unspoken question.
"Ah, I was about to comment on the resemblance."
She took the frame out of his hand and carefully returned it to the shelf. When she turned around to face him again, she remained standing between him and the photo. "You still haven't told me what you're looking for."
He heard Paula's light tread on the stairs and, when he saw her, he knew immediately she'd found nothing.
Pointing in the direction of the stairs with her thumb, Paula observed, "You don't have a bath."
The older woman shook her head. "We've been meaning to put one in ever since we bought the house, but…"
Kevin pulled out a small notepad. "Where's your husband staying now?"
"In a flat on Meadowlark. Number thirty-four."
He wrote this information down then returned the pad to his pocket. In its place, he pulled out three smaller versions of the photos at the office. "Do you recognize any of these boys, Mrs. Coles?"
One at a time she took them from him. Slowly examining them, she said, "Yes. These boys played for the Knights. This one," she pointed to the picture of Kieran Fisher, "was over once or twice for tea. Nice boy. Could play football like nobody's business, or so my husband said. I don't know the names of these other boys. Sorry."
Kevin wished he had paid more attention when Tony talked about all the subconscious tics of a liar. And yet, even without that knowledge, something in his gut told him the same thing –this woman was lying. As he took the photos from her, he raised his eyes to look at her, but his gaze was drawn over her shoulder, to the young boy who smiled out from the black and white photo. Kevin's heart froze. The resemblance wasn't just between the woman and her brother. He didn't have to look down at the photos; their images had monopolized his attention since the very start of this case. His hand shook a little as he returned them to his jacket.
"Just out of curiosity, what's your brother's name?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Is that important?"
He shook his head. "No, I suppose not. Thank you for your time."
They barely made it down the steps when Paula turned to him. "What was that all about?" she asked, not unkindly.
"I'm not sure," he answered. He had his assumptions –one huge one, in fact –but until he ran it past Carol, he thought it best to keep it to himself.
--