The Perfect Couple (Last Stand #4)(49)
Author: Brenda Novak

She stopped. "He’s alive? I bet his parents are so relieved!"

He nodded. "But he was naked and badly beaten."

Her eyes were riveted on his. "What makes you think he has any connection to Sam?"

"There’s not a lot," he admitted. "He turned up the day she went missing. That could easily be a coincidence, but it stood out to me. And because he’s a similar age, and this type of thing is so unusual here in Sac, I called Skye’s husband."

"He’s a detective with the Sacramento police, right?"

"Right. He was nice enough to place a few calls to the sheriff’s department and get us some more information."

"You don’t think the same man took Sam."

"Not necessarily. Like I said, it’s a long shot but…worth investigating." And they didn’t have anything else.

"So what did you learn?"

He nearly cursed when his phone went off again. Robbie Babcock wasn’t giving up easily. He wanted to get paid for hauling in a man who’d jumped bail for armed robbery. But this time Jonathan turned off his phone.

He couldn’t leave it that way for long–it was his conduit to the world–but he needed a few uninterrupted minutes. "The poor kid was in shock and babbling incoherently when they found him," he told her. "They couldn’t get him to focus long enough to answer a single question, but every word he spoke seemed to revolve around the same theme."

She brought a hand to her chest. "What?"

"Someone he called ‘Master’ treating him like a dog and making him wear a collar that choked him."

The color drained from her face. "Where’s he from?"

"His family lives in Antelope, only he wasn’t taken from the house.

He went missing while on his way home from school."

She shook her head. "Antelope’s not far from where I live, but I don’t see the connection to Sam. As you said, the fact that he was found the day she went missing might mean nothing. And–"

Jonathan raised a hand. "I’m not done. The deputy who rode in the ambulance with him kept asking for a name. ‘Who did this to you?’ He was afraid the boy would die and the case would go unsolved. And knowing there was a cruel son of a bitch out there who needed to be caught, he kept pushing."

"Did he get a name?"

"No. Just more babble–until he asked where he could find this

‘Master.’"

Zoe’s eyes grew round. "And then?"

"The boy assumed a deep voice and spoke his only complete sentence:

‘Not just any bastard can live in this part of Rocklin.’"

Toby Simpson, the boy Jonathan had told Zoe about, was lying unconscious in intensive care with his parents by his side. After Jonathan had explained why they’d come and received permission, Zoe stepped in for a brief moment, took one look at his bruised and battered body, and all the tubes hooking him up to various machines, and felt her heart break.

Live, she prayed. Fight back. Help us beat the monster who put you here.

Tears slipped down her cheeks, but only a few. She was becoming accustomed to the nightmare. The hurt was quickly being replaced by a white-hot anger that transformed itself into raw determination. She would never give up, she promised herself. If the man who’d done this had also taken Sam, she’d spend every dime she could scrape together, every moment of the rest of her life. She’d search until she finally found him–and made him pay.

Mr. and Mrs. Lyle Simpson, the boys’ parents, stood silent while Zoe gazed down at their son, then they followed her into the hall.

Zoe felt guilty for disturbing them in their grief. They’d been through so much. The last thing they needed was to have strangers show up at the hospital and bombard them with questions. But she also believed they all had to pull together to put an end to the suffering, to reclaim their children and protect others. She had no idea if her daughter had been taken by the same man, but the fact that both children were connected to an affluent part of Rocklin made it likely. This kind of crime wasn’t common, and Rocklin wasn’t that big.

"Was he conscious when you got to the hospital?" Jonathan asked the boy’s parents.

"For a few minutes." It was a pasty, tired and shell-shocked Mrs.

Simpson who answered. The weariness even showed in her voice.

Jonathan slid his hands into his pockets. "Did he say anything that might help determine who did this to him? A name, a characteristic?"

"No." This time Mr. Simpson, a stocky, balding man who was several inches shorter than his wife, provided the answer. "We tried to ask him, but he clung to my hand and–" He choked up and couldn’t finish, so Mrs.

Simpson filled in.

"Started to cry." She blinked repeatedly, fighting her own tears. "And then he slipped into a coma."

A muscle flexed in Jonathan’s cheek, and Zoe knew he was having the same reaction she was. He wanted to put a stop to the man, whoever he was, responsible for inflicting such senseless pain.

"What do the doctors say?" Zoe asked.

Mrs. Simpson exchanged a worried glance with her husband. "They’re not making any promises."

Jonathan had given Mrs. Simpson his business card when they first arrived. "If something changes, will you contact us? Please?" he asked.

The woman wiped her eyes and nodded. "I’ve got your number in my purse."

"I’m sorry we had to intrude at a time like this," Zoe whispered and began to move away, but Mrs. Simpson caught her arm.

"Don’t be sorry," she said. "We’ll do whatever we can to help you.

Someone needs to stop ‘Master’–in case…in case he hurts another child."

Zoe nodded. That child could be hers.

Chapter 20

"W e now know two things we didn’t know before," Jonathan said as they walked out of the hospital.

The anger pounding through Zoe was so strong she couldn’t keep her voice level. "What’s that?" She swung open her car door with more force than necessary. "That whoever did this is a sadistic bastard?"

He seemed to consider her response. "Okay, I guess we know three things. But two of them are good."

She dug through her purse, searching for her keys. She wanted to get away from the hospital. Away from the broken boy. Away from the grieving parents who’d made such a deep impression on her. Because watching them wait and hope was too hard. In two or three months, maybe sooner, she could be them. If she was lucky enough to find her daughter alive.

"Good?" she echoed. "I guess I missed that part."

"Think about it." Resting one hand on her door, he stood in the opening. Had he been any other acquaintance, it would’ve seemed casual and nonthreatening, but his body penned her in and he was close enough that she immediately got behind the wheel to put some space between them. She didn’t want to feel what she was feeling for Jonathan. Not in the midst of so many other turbulent emotions. As bad as she was at relationships, why ask for more trouble?