“You going to tell me where Dean lives?” Ramsey said.
“Like I told Melina, I don’t know,” Bonnie said. “Cops think you can keep asking the same question over and over until you get the answer you want. I don’t know where Sonny is!”
“I’m warning you, Bonnie. Watch your step around Sonny,” Melina said. “He’s a very dangerous man.”
Bonnie got into the car and reached for the door handle. “You worried about me, Mellie?”
“You saw the pickle jar,” Melina said.
“Don’t worry about me,” Bonnie said.
Melina did not bother with any more warnings about Sonny. “Don’t come back to this house, Bonnie. Or you will be back in jail.”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it.” Bonnie closed the door and started the car.
Stone faced, Melina watched the car drive away. Only when the Ford rounded the corner did she curl her fingers into fists. The encounter had unsettled her, but she had said her piece.
Ramsey had the good sense not to ask how she was doing.
“Let me check on my mother,” she said.
“Sure,” he said.
The two walked up the front steps and Melina used her key to open the door. “All’s clear, Mom and Dad.”
Mrs. Shepard came around the corner with Elena on her hip. The little girl had coiled her legs and arms around her mother like a drowning person did a life raft.
Mr. Shepard hobbled into the kitchen. His hand was behind his back and she knew he had a weapon.
“Mom and Dad, this is Special Agent Ramsey. He’s with the FBI. We’ve been working a case together.”
“What case?” her mother asked.
“A missing persons case.” Ramsey extended his hand to both of them.
Hank Shepard’s grip was strong, and his gaze reminded Melina of a cop trying to read a homicide scene. “How’s my daughter involved?”
Ramsey didn’t appear surprised that she had not disclosed the details about the Key Killer. “Your daughter has been our local contact on the case.”
“Where are you based?” her father asked.
“FBI offices in Quantico, sir,” he said.
“Division?”
“I head up a team of agents who work cases all over the country.”
“Are you always vague with your answers?” her father asked.
A small smile tugged at Ramsey’s lips, acknowledging that Shepard had called bullshit on his answer. “You know the drill. I can’t talk about an open case.”
“I’m not asking for specifics,” Hank said. “Just generalities.”
“It doesn’t matter now, Dad,” Melina said.
“It does matter very much,” her mother said. “Agent Ramsey is here to investigate a crime with our daughter.”
Melina winked at Elena. “I can’t discuss the details, Mom.”
“We’ll see about that later,” her father said.
Her father’s eyes burned with unasked questions. Elena was the only thing standing between her and a class-five parental grilling. That would come later when the kid was out of earshot. She owed the kid another bottle of bubbles.
“Where is BB?” Elena whispered.
“She just drove away,” Melina said.
“BB doesn’t like cops,” Elena said.
“They’re not all bad, kid,” Hank said. “Melina is a cop. I was a cop.”
“Some are pretty talkative, too,” Molly said.
“Did BB drive back to jail?” Elena asked.
Six-year-old children should not have to ask questions like this. “No. She went to a motel room. But she’s not out of trouble yet,” Melina said.
“BB’s always in trouble,” Elena said.
Elena leaned her body into Mrs. Shepard as she stared at Melina with large brown intelligent eyes that all but swallowed up her face. The kid was smart, but life had taught her how to be practical. She might have been relying on Bonnie, but now she had clearly figured out the Shepards had her best interests at heart.
“Don’t worry, Mom and Dad. You and I will have a nice visit, and I’ll fill you in on all the details. For now, I’ve got to get back to work. You shouldn’t have any more interruptions, but if you do, call me.”
“I will,” her father said.
She kissed her mother and then her father on their cheeks and held out her flat hand for Elena. “Give me five?”
The girl’s eyes softened, and she raised her hand ready to smack it toward Melina’s. Just as Elena was about to connect, Melina jerked her hand. “One more time. Be quick this time.”
This time the girl’s little hand connected with Melina’s with a hard smack. “Good job. See you all soon.”
“Can we do bubbles?” Elena said.
Ramsey nodded. “I’ll get a case of them.”
Elena smiled.
Melina was grateful Ramsey was driving. Her nerves were shot, and she did not release the breath she was holding until they pulled out of her parents’ neighborhood.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“Outstanding,” she said.
“It’s understandable that Bonnie upset you.”
“I’ve been living with Bonnie leaving me on the roadside since I was five years old. Don’t worry about me.”
“On the positive side, I like your parents.”
None of the other agents had met her parents. “I’ve always kept a firm line between my private and professional lives. Now that line is blurring.”
“Both your parents look like they can take care of themselves.”
“Dad’s in his late sixties. He’s recovering from a fall off a ladder he had no business being on.”
“How’s he handling retirement?”
“Getting old sucks, but he’s tough.”
“Yeah. I could see that. He misses the excitement of the job. He’s not worried about going to the mat or pulling his weapon. But he’s worried about you, your mother, and Elena.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“He sees that. But he wants to be needed by you and your mother.”
“How would you know? You’re the lone wolf type.”
He was silent for a moment. “Not by choice, but the job gets in the way.”
She was one to talk. She shared her morning coffee with the neighbor’s cat. “Does that bother you?”
“It never did until recently.”
The car grew silent.
“Your parents look like they’re bonding with Elena,” he said.
“If Mom has it her way, Elena is going to be a part of their home for good.” Melina had been replaced, but in a good way. Her parents needed that little girl as much as Elena needed them.
“You really okay?” he asked.
The stress and adrenaline spike had pricked the underside of her skin. “Hearing Bonnie talk about Elena and love in the same breath churns up memories. When I was a kid, I must have thought she did love me.”
“Maybe she did. But self-preservation runs deep in Bonnie Guthrie.”
“Maybe she did love me enough to keep me out of foster care. But she’s not the kind of mother who deals with a difficult child well for long.” This was a conversation she should have had with her adopted mother, but oddly it was easier to share with a near stranger. “Bonnie was lying when she said I got out of the car on the side of the road and ran off.”
“She doesn’t want a child abandonment case on top of everything else.”
“She is a survivor, first and foremost.”
“She was surprised when you mentioned the call from the diner,” he said. “She recovered pretty quickly, but it was there.”
“I saw that, too.” She watched as the houses moved past her and the residential road fed into a bigger one. “She’s protecting Sonny. And he’s still the little boy who wanted Bonnie to love him. Love and need tangled up and knotted in a tight ball with anger,” she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Thursday, August 27, 8:00 p.m.
Ramsey drove, feeling Melina sink deeper into her thoughts as she sat in silence. He rifled through his best comforting words of wisdom, but they all fell short of the mark. He wanted to help her but did not know how.
Her phone rang and she sat forward, clearing her throat before saying, “Agent Shepard.”
He noted a shift in Melina’s body language as she tilted her body forward.
“Text me the address. We’re on our way.”
In a blink, her melancholy mood had vanished, and he was glad she sounded more like herself. “What is it?”
“911 call came in at 7:15 p.m. A woman reported a break-in. The officer who visited her realized this wasn’t an ordinary B and E. The intruder drew a warm bath and left behind a pair of garden shears.”
“What?”
“Yeah, looks like Bonnie is pressing Sonny’s buttons.”
Ramsey increased his speed and rerouted to the new address. The home was very similar in construction to the last victim’s house. One story. Brick.
“I have Sandra Wallace’s DMV picture,” Melina said.
He glanced at the picture. Wallace was thirty-eight, blond, and buxom. “Our guy is sticking to his pattern.”