Page 5 of One Cry Too Loud
“I sure hope not,” I said. Taking a deep breath, I continued.“Why did you bring me here, Nathan? I’m sure it wasn’t to show me your pottery or tell me about your father.”
“It was not,” he confirmed. “Though something tells me that, by the end of this, you’ll wish it was.”
“Just tell me what’s going on,” I said.
“Twelve days ago, a five year old girl on the southside of Miami named Cindy Masters was taken from her home. Her mother, Alice Masters, was knocked out by intruders, and when she woke up, the girl was gone. Local authorities were informed and they went to work quickly, but they have-as of yet, not managed to find the child.”
“And you want me to do that?” I asked, folding my arms over my chest.
“I do,” he said.
“Alright. I’ll look into it,” I said. “Get me whatever information you have, and I’ll start. I’m confused, though.”
“Confused?’ He asked.
“Don’t get me wrong. I’m happy this is the kind of case you want the Coastal Crime Unit to take on, but why not let us do it? Why exclude Kat from this?”
“Because of me,” a voice said from behind me. “Because I asked him to.”
I turned and saw Holly standing behind me. The blonde Englishwoman wore a band of bracelets up either arm and pulled at her hands nervously as she spoke. She had just come out of the adjacent room, the one with the light on, and I could tell from her face that she’d been crying.
“Holly?” I asked, taking her in. “What are you doing here? Why don’t you want Kat involved?”
“Because I don’t want her to know the truth,” she said, sighing loudly. “I don’t want her to know that Cindy Masters, the little girl who was taken twelve days ago, is actually my daughter.”
CHAPTER 4
Ilooked at the woman, at her fidgeting hands, at the way her foot tapped nervously against the floor of the pottery studio, and at the expression on her face, so open and vulnerable. She was telling the truth. How could that be, though? I knew Holly. She didn’t have a child. She didn’t have a daughter.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, narrowing my eyes and shaking my head. “You don’t have a-”
“I do,” she cut me off, nodding and looking at the floor of the studio. “I did. What I mean is, she’s mine biologically.” She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “I-I gave her away.”
“How? When?” I asked, remembering what VanPelt had just told me. “Cindy Masters is five years old. You couldn’t have had her in the year and half I can’t remember. So,-”
“I lied to you before,” she said, shuffling a bit. “About my past. I mean, I didn’t lie to you directly, but I did by withholding. I suppose you could call it a lie of omission.”
I saw the hurt in her eyes, the absolute hurricane of emotion that was brewing across her face. She was about to crack, to burst open like a dam and let whatever all of this was come spilling out of her like so much water. I had seen that happen before, though. I knew that, when a person burst, it could behard for them to put themselves back together. I couldn’t let that happen to someone like Holly. She deserved so much more than that.
“Hey,” I said softly, walking over to her, placing a hand on her shoulder, and giving her what I hoped was a steadying stare. “This is going to be okay. Whatever is going on, whatever is happening or has happened in the past, it’s all going to be alright. I promise you, Holly.”
She looked over at VanPelt with tears in her eyes. “I told you he was the right one.”
VanPelt nodded. “Perhaps you should tell him the rest then.”
“Wait,” I said, swallowing hard as I looked from one of them to the other. “Before you do that, I need to say something.” I squeezed her shoulder. “You said that you lied to me by omission. It’s important that you know that you didn’t. That’s not what happened. You don’t owe me or anyone else an explanation for what happened in your past. It’s yours. Whatever you did or didn’t do is yours to discuss or not as you see fit. You didn’t lie to me, Holly. You don’t need to feel like you did.”
“Thank you for that,” she said, brushing an errant tear from her cheek.
“And if you don’t want to tell me everything now, that’s okay too,” I said.
“I have to,” she shook her head. “You need to know everything so that you can save that little girl. So that you can bring her back to her mother.”She put her hand on mine and let it rest there. “More than that, though, I trust you Jack. I trust you with everything.”
“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath. “Then tell me what you think I need to know.”
She stepped back and ran a hand through her light hair. The bracelets lining her right arms shook and clinked togetherwith the movement. “You know I had a difficult childhood back in England. You know I had some rebellious inclinations. You know my sister died. Maybe Ihadthose rebellious inclinationsbecausemy sister died. I don’t know. In any event, you remember what happened.”
“You hacked into the database of the NSA and got thrown into prison for it,” I said, recounting the story she’d told me not long after we’d met. “Eighteen months later, Kat offered you a spot on the team as a way of commuting your sentence.”
