Eyes of the Innocent by Christopher Wright

Author:Christopher Wright
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: new york, senator, child abuduction, boston area, kidnap fiction, cult abduction, kidnap baby

Chapter 22

Matt put his arm around Zoé. The passenger in the police cruiser was clearly a woman, and when the older officer opened the rear door he could see no reason for Zoé having been confused.

"This is Velma," the older officer said. "She's here as part of the family support program."

Velma smiled and slid across the wide rear seat to give Matt and Zoé plenty of room. Matt let Zoé go in first so she could sit next to Velma. Seeing Velma smiling and looking so friendly, he wondered why Zoé had even thought the woman look like Wendell. It must have been the dark glass and her unsettled mindset. He was becoming concerned that Zoé was seeing Wendell Harris everywhere they went.

The two officers got into the front, the younger one behind the wheel. As they drove away silently, no siren, no lights, the older officer turned. "It seems our Chief is taking no chances. Velma is here just in case she's needed. It seems like a long shot to me, with very little evidence. But you never know, we could strike lucky."

Striking lucky presumably meant bringing disgrace to the Harding family, not necessarily recovering Jack alive. Matt wondered what the Senator had done to deserve such a level of hostility, but he was glad of it. At times he felt Zoé had acted irrationally in claiming to have heard baby Jack crying on the phone. At other times he clung to the hope that Zoé had used a deep maternal instinct to recognize a cry in a way that only a bonding mother could. But all the time his professional instinct was telling him that Boston could be it. Wendell and Ms. Nosey might be mistaken about where the baby was born.

The older officer turned again. "Look, I'm sorry we had to pull you over yesterday. We received a genuine 9-1-1. Suspicious characters outside the Senator's house. Me, I guess I'm afraid of upsetting the Senator. He's one powerful guy. Our Assistant Chief might want to put one over on him, but I'm coming up for retirement soon. Like any sensible cop, I don't want to jeopardize my pension. Just so you know where we're coming from, Mr. Rider."

"As long as you do a good job, I'm happy," Matt said. "We've had someone called Wendell Harris on this. I can't work out if he's an undercover cop or an ex-cop. I don't suppose you've heard of him."

The two officers shook their heads.

"He went up to Boston," Matt explained. "Seems he thought he was onto something there, but we heard just now that he thinks the family is legit."

A car was passing from the other direction. It was only the second car they'd seen on this street. Zoé jumped and turned in her seat and looked out of the rear window.

"Turn around," she ordered.

The driver touched the brakes and stopped. He turned to his boss. "What do I do?"

"What is it, Zoé?" Matt asked.

"It was Wendell Harris. He was driving that silver car.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.