Chapter 14

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Sam looked out the window and said, "It should be the third house on the right."

Jack slowed the car and pulled up in front of a beautiful colonial home in Stanford, Connecticut, the home of Jeanne Gellar. After talking to Victor the team did some research and discovered that Jake and Jeanne Miller divorced a year after Chris' death. Jeanne remarried and moved from Arlington to Connecticut three years later. Unfortunately Jake had been off the map for the last six months. No place of employment or residency. They hoped that Jeanne might be able to help them locate Jake.

Jack and Sam exited the car and headed up the sidewalk. Jack rang the bell and they waited. A moment later a woman with brown hair streaked with gray that was pulled back into a bun answered the door.

Jack held up his badge and said, "Mrs. Gellar?"

Jeanne looked at them questioningly and replied, "That's me, what is this about?"

"We'd like to ask you a few questions about your ex-husband, Jake Miller." Jack replied while Sam just stood back and waited for her to let them in. "Can we come in?"

She hesitated a moment and said, "Yes. Please come in." She motioned them inside. The living room was cluttered with books and clothes. "I apologize for the mess. My kids are home from college for the summer. They are still in dorm mode."

Sam and Jack took a seat on the sofa while Jeanne took a seat on the chair.

"What is going on with Jake? Is he okay?" Jeanne asked concerned.

"We are just trying to track him down." Jack replied before asking, "When was the last time you spoke to Jake?"

"Is this about Victor Fitzgerald or his son?" Jeanne asked nervously.

"Why would you ask about them?" Sam questioned. Obviously Jeanne knew something.

Jeanne sighed heavily and began, "I hadn't talked to Jake in over ten years but last February he called me out of the blue. He was drinking again and ranting….."

Jeanne was in the kitchen getting a cup of coffee when the phone rang. She picked up the cordless phone and answered, "Hello?"

"Jeanne, it's me, Jake." His voice was slurred.

"Jake, wow, it's been a long time." She knew that if he was calling her in the middle of the day drunk that he could not be in a good place. She didn't want to incite yet another argument with him so she tried to be pleasant. "How are you?"

"Did you hear the news?"

Jeanne sighed and asked, "What news?"

"The news about that boy who was kidnapped yesterday morning in front of the school in New York. They said that an FBI agent witnessed it but couldn't stop it." His voice began to rise to an angry level. "It was his son, the agent. It was Victor's son. He is just as incompetent as his father."

"Jake, stop it. I am tired of you blaming everything on Victor. It wasn't his fault." She was increasingly frustrated by Jake constantly placing all the blame on an agent who made the mistake of making a promise he couldn't keep.

Jake laughed mirthlessly, "It is his fault. He said he would find Chris but he didn't. He even made sure that Clarkson didn't have to face the death penalty. And now his son is as big a fuck up as he was."

"I read about that kidnapping. And I know that his son risked his life to get the boy back. He found the boy, safe and alive."

"Right, after he was held hostage for almost an entire day. And the kidnapper nearly killed them both."

"Jake, you are just seeing it the way you want to see it." She had long grown tired of Jake's obsession with Victor Fitzgerald and she was worried he was moving it over to his son. "Jake, you need to move on."

"What like you? Go off and get remarried, have other kids and pretend that Chris never existed?" He viciously accused.

"How dare you say that I pretend Chris never existed? I think of him every single day. Just because I continued to live and accept that Chris was gone. Besides, I know that Chris knew I loved him." She knew that she had hit him below the belt but she was so tired of having this fight.

He was quiet for a little bit and she wondered if he was even still on the line, "I won't let his son continue to make the same mistakes as him."

"What does that mean?"

"He hung up and that was it." Jeanne finished.

"Why didn't you report his threat?" Sam demanded. If Jeanne had reported it then Martin would be home; not in some madman's clutches, sick and injured.

"He had been making threats about Victor Fitzgerald for over twenty years. I thought he was drinking and venting and would sleep it off."

"But when we asked about him you immediately thought of Victor Fitzgerald." Jack asked; his tone cool and even.

Jeanne sighed and looked at Jack, "Victor has been in the paper a lot these last few weeks. I kept waiting for Jake to call me and complain."

"And you haven't heard from him since that last call?" Sam asked.

Jeanne shook her head and replied, "No."

"You said you told him that you knew that Chris knew you loved him. What was that about?" Jack asked.

"That was me being cruel. When we were married, Jake was very driven and he was a good provider but he wasn't around much. The day Chris disappeared it was a big baseball playoff game – his team was in the running for the Little League World Series. Chris had begged Jake to come and watch but Jake said he had a big work function that he had to attend so he couldn't go. Chris was heartbroken, he idolized Jake." Jeanne choked up and looked at a picture of Chris on the mantel. "Jake felt so guilty, like if he had been there he would have somehow prevented Chris from being taken. I think when he found out that Victor's son's team won the series it threw him over the edge."

Jack and Sam exchanged looks and Sam asked, "How did Jake know that Martin's team won?"

"Hang on and I'll show you." She walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a photo album labeled Chris. She flipped the pages and stopped at the last page. She moved over to the sofa and Sam scooted over so Jeanne could sit down. She pulled a newspaper clipping out of the album and showed it to them. "This was Chris' obituary." Sam looked at a grainy black and white photo of Chris' holding a bat along with the short article about a boy whose life was cut tragically short. Sam's heart raced when Jeanne flipped it over and there was Martin being carried off on the shoulders of his teammates with the headline, 'Georgetown Pirates Win World Series.'