the decal I had seen on the clinic’s doors and for a second some bells started ringing in my mind. Little Angels Health Clinic—had I heard that name before Maria Cacciatore told me about it? I went back to the chair and sat down, racked my brain, and came up with nothing.
The doctor entered the room again and he had a file in his hand.
“Listen, Ridley. I’m a medical professional bound by very strict rules and regulations. Any violation of those rules could cost me my career. Do you understand that?”
“Yes,” I said, still turning the clinic name around in my mind.
“That said,” he went on, “I helped that investigator and I’ll help you. I’ll tell you what I told him, at least.”
I leaned toward him, offered a grateful smile.
“The investigator, his name was Jake, was also a child of the welfare system and his mentor, Arnie Coel, was a good friend of mine,” he said. “Aside from the investigation, he had his own reasons for wanting to know what happened to those kids.” He released a sigh here.
“As much as I’d like to, I really can’t tell you what’s in these files,” he said, “but I happen to know that the doctor who attended Jessie Stone is still practicing in New Jersey. He’s close to retirement, but he might be willing to talk to you. You may even convince him to petition the Medical Association to release this file. Since Jessie was his patient, he’s the only one that can really do that for you.”
I nodded. “Thank you,” I said. I wasn’t sure if it was going to be any help, but I guessed it was better than nothing.
“His name is Dr. Benjamin Jones. I’ll give you the number for his private practice.” He chuckled a bit then. “Quite a coincidence, you having the same last name. But I guess it happens to you all the time.”
Dr. Benjamin Jones. My father.
I heard the distant beat of drums and the room seemed to darken and spin. I was afraid that I might be sick in his office. “Yeah,” I said, the fakest smile I have ever worn threatening to shatter like glass. “Happens all the time.”
twenty-six
I got out of there as fast as I could. Looking back, I realize there were a thousand questions I should have asked Dr. Hauser—a real private investigator wouldn’t have freaked the way I did and bolted—but I didn’t know how long I could hold that fake smile and nod my thanks for his help. I felt like there was a siren going off in my head and I was walking on one of those fun-house floors that jolt and tilt. So as soon as he handed me the number, I left. I didn’t ask him about Jake, about Project Rescue.
I yanked the crumpled door open on the Jeep (it still opened and closed but not without effort) and climbed inside. I sat there a minute in the cold. It was growing dark outside now and the snow that had started to fall was growing heavier. I turned the engine on and realized as I reached to put the car into reverse that I didn’t have any idea where to go next. I fished my cellular phone out of my coat and dialed.
“Salvo.” He answered before the second ring, his voice gruff, tired but officious.
“It’s Ridley Jones.”
A sigh, then silence. “You tipped him off. And now he’s gone.”
I didn’t respond to his statement. I wasn’t going to incriminate myself, but I didn’t feel like lying anymore, either. “Is his car still impounded?” I asked instead. That was the reason I’d called, or one of them. I had to know whether Jake had tried to kill me.
“What?”
“The Firebird,” I said, sounding a little snappish, tense. “Is it still impounded?”
He was quiet for a minute. “We never impounded his car, Ridley.”
My heart sank a little further in my chest and I fought back tears of disappointment and fear.
“I’m in trouble, Detective Salvo. Someone tried to kill me.” My voice sounded odd, even to my own ears, tinny and strained. Even then, I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to say,
“Come in to the station. I can’t protect you if I don’t know where you are.” He sounded calm and concerned, gentle. But I didn’t trust him, either. Maybe he was just trying to coax me.
“I need to find out what’s happening to me,” I said, trying to sound firm and together. “Did you look into those missing kids I told you about? Or were you just humoring me?”
I heard some papers rustling in the background. “I did some nosing around, just because I said I would. All the parents are dead…except for Marjorie Mathers, mother of Brian. She’s serving a life sentence for murder at Rahway State Penitentiary for Women.”
“Doesn’t it seem odd to you?”
“What? That all these kids went missing and were never found? Sad to say, it happens more often than people want to admit.”
“Okay. But then most of the parents die?”
“Well, I mean, these are what we call high-risk people. You know, their lives and habits put them in dangerous situations. Drug addicts, right? Drinkers who don’t think twice about getting into a car. People who get in bar fights. I mean, think about it. People like you, Ridley, are low risk. You obey the law—up until now, anyway. You’re responsible to yourself and the people around you. You’re less likely to meet with a violent and early death because of your choices. If you’d had too much to drink, you’d probably choose to get a cab or call a friend than get behind the wheel. A choice, which, poorly made, might result in your death and the death of three teenage girls…or not.”
Choices. We were back to that, the things that determine the course of your life. Was it that simple? Some of us are high risk and some of us low? Some of us made bad choices and some of us made wise ones? And these choices determined whether we were happy or miserable, healthy or unhealthy, loved or unloved? I had to wonder, What informed these choices? The obvious answer is our parents, the people who loved or didn’t love us, raised us well or poorly. There were other factors, of course. But did it just come down to whether someone loved us enough to teach us how to make the right choices for ourselves?
No. It’s not that simple. Life never is. I mean, look at Ace and me. We were raised by the same people in the same house. Totally different outcomes; we’ve made totally different choices in our lives. Like I said, how you were raised
“So what about these kids? Their parents were poor—high risk, as you say. Everyone who might have loved them is dead. No one ever figures out what happened to them. And, oh well?”
I heard Detective Salvo sigh again on the other end of the phone. “It was thirty years ago. I’d say the trail has gone cold.”
“If someone was alive to love those kids, they’d still love them even thirty years later.”
“Now you sound like Marjorie Mathers.”
“You talked to her?”
“I told you I’d look into it.”
“And?”
Another heavy sigh. Or maybe it was that he was smoking, releasing these sharp exhales. “She says two men dressed in black with masks over their faces came in that night and took her boy. She thought her husband had hired them because they were duking it out over custody. She claimed he abused the kid and she was gunning for full custody and supervised visitation only for the father.”
He paused and cleared his throat. I heard him sifting again through papers.
“Thing was, you know, she didn’t call the police until the next morning. Claims she was knocked out by some drug and didn’t recover consciousness until the next day. But there was no evidence of that. The police didn’t believe her story. So both she and her husband were suspects. And she wasn’t very credible—had a history of depression and suicide attempts. Says in the report that she was hysterical.”
I laughed a little. “Wouldn’t you be?”
