Page 23 of Stand By You
“I never figured you for an optimist,” Nick said.
Simons chuckled on his end of the line. “I can surprise people at times. How’s Jillian taking this?”
“I haven’t told her yet,” Nick admitted.
“Ah,” Simons said. “Then I won’t keep you from the hard part of your job. Tik Tok.”
“Not funny,” Nick said. “Any luck with the car?”
“CST took it back to their garage to go over it. They pulled a few prints off and ran them in the system with their handy dandy handheld gadget, but didn’t get any hits,” Simons said and took a deep breath. “These guys don’t have any priors.”
“That’s good. That means they aren’t criminals,” Nick said. “I hope that means Travis was safe while they had him. If they have handed him off, we can expect the same thing for whoever has him now? No way they could get a kid Travis age anywhere on their bikes.”
“I know,” Simons said, his voice heavy with regret. “My biggest fear is whoever has him, has gotten rid of him. That’s why there has been no ransom request.”
“Let’s not go there,” Nick said, not liking the thought of eventually recovering Travis’ body. “I don’t see two skateboarder dudes being the type to snatch a kid at the zoo to off him for kicks.”
“Neither do I, but that is where I become a pragmatist,” Simons said. “I’ve been doing this job too long to not be surprised by anything and finding a kid’s body is an outcome I sure as hell don’t want to deal with.”
Closing his eyes, Nick tried to clear his mind because he knew he couldn’t return to Jillian with them running through his head. She’d see it written all over his face. And he couldn’t break her heart like that, not when they didn’t know for sure Travis was dead. It was too soon for her to go there. “For right now, I’m sticking with us waiting for my Brotherhood Protector Contact’snew program picking up that signal. Jillian is upset enough as it is.”
“That’s a plan I can agree with,” Simons said.
Their call ended and Nick pushed away from the car, turning to find Jillian had got out and was hobbling around the side of the car toward him.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked. “You’ve been on the phone for so long.”
“I’ve talked to Swede and then Simons,” he explained. “Unfortunately, we lost their signal, and Swede believes they either took a bus or got on the Metrorail making them untraceable with the program. And there is no way to track them from here. Simons said his CST techs got prints off the car and there were no hits in the system. No leads there.”
She was silent for a moment, staring down at the ground. Then she looked up again. “What next?”
“I think we should get you back home for today,” he said. “Let you rest for when we get a new lead.”
She frowned and planted her hands on her hips, her left-hand fingers protruding from the cast. “I’m not disabled. I can keep searching for Travis.”
“C’mon, Jillian,” he argued gently. “You were hit by a car yesterday and sustained some pretty bad injuries. You’re actually lucky to be alive. Let’s go back and get lunch at least and then discuss our next move.”
“Not yet,” she said. “Mr. McGinty couldn’t reach Geneva. He asked me to try to do that for him. He gave me her number and last known address if the first isn’t successful on my end.”
“Have you tried her number?”
“Not yet. I was waiting for you to be with me,” she said. “I haven’t spoken to her in years. I had to testify against her during the divorce, so she may refuse to talk to me.”
“Just make the call and not worry about how she will receive it,” He suggested. “You must tell her what has happened to Travis since Mr. McGinty can’t reach her. Otherwise, we’ll have to have the police do the notification.”
Jillian called Geneva’s number and listened to it ring several times before it went to voice mail. She winced and whispered, “No Answer. Should I leave it there?”
“Ask her to call you back,” Nick said.
She leaned against the back of the car, closing her eyes as she began to speak when prompted. “Hello Geneva. This is Jillian Grant, Travis’ nanny. Can you please call me at your earliest. My number is 555-555-3232. It’s about Travis. Mr. McGinty has asked me to reach out to you for him. Thanks.”
She hung up and was headed toward her side of the car when her phone rang. She drew in a quick breath and spoke. “Hello?”
“Jillian? It’s been ages,” Geneva’s voice sounded strong and lively. “Nathan wanted you to call me about Travis. Is something wrong?”
“I hate to have to tell you this, but yesterday while he was on a field trip with his day camp someone snatched him. Mr. McGinty tried to reach you yesterday, but he’s out of the country and there was no cell service, but he didn’t want you to see an Amber Alert without first hearing it from him.”
There was silence on the other end and then muffled, hysterical cries filled the airways for a few moments before Geneva spoke again, “Are the police involved?”
