“Hank. He could be the sweetest man or he could be the Devil himself.”
Cassie pulled up another picture on her phone. She held it out for Sherry. “Is this him?”
Sherry looked at the phone, then looked down at her lap. She couldn’t stand the sight of him. “Yes.”
Henry “Hank” Fitzpatrick had been the man convicted of kidnapping and killing one child. He had been tied to many more disappearances, including Sarah’s, but there hadn’t been enough evidence. A shiver went down Cassie’s spine. They had always suspected he had a partner.
Was she talking to that very person right now?
“Tell me more about Hank.”
“I don’t want to.” It came out like a whisper. “I don’t want to.”
Cassie scooted her chair a little closer. “Did he hurt you?”
The woman nodded.
Cassie knew this woman had been involved in Sebastian’s death. And Sarah’s. And countless others. She may have been as bad or worse than Henry, but right now, she was just a little old woman at the end of her days. Cassie felt anger and empathy warring inside her.
“He can’t hurt you anymore.” She waited until Sherry looked at her. “He’s in jail right now. Do you understand?”
She nodded.
“Can you tell me about him? How did you meet?”
“He was a friend of a friend.”
“Was this before or after Ethan died?”
“After.” She wiped another tear away. “He used to be the only thing that kept me going. He worked at an adoption agency years ago and said he knew all kinds of people who had lost their kids. People who had adopted a child and felt whole again. He said he would help me.”
“Were you involved with each other?”
She nodded again. “Not at first. But he was so sweet. And he promised me. He promised me—”
When she broke off and a sob escaped her mouth, Cassie pulled a tissue from a nearby table and handed it to her. She waited until the woman blew her nose to look around. If any of the orderlies saw her crying, would they make Cassie leave?
“He promised to help you adopt a child? That must’ve given you a lot of hope.”
“I filled out all the paperwork. He helped me. But they denied me.”
“Do you know why?”
“They didn’t think I could handle having another child.” A spark of anger flashed across her face, but she didn’t have enough energy to carry it through. “They said it wouldn’t have grown up in a good environment. But they didn’t understand. They didn’t know I’d do anything for another son.”
“Is that when you saw Sebastian? The little boy in the park.”
“He looked just like Ethan. Just like him.” Her eyes misted over. “And when Henry found out, he was furious at first. But only at first.”
“Why only at first?”
“He told me he was mad that the agency had rejected my application. That it wasn’t right. That they turned away hundreds of people every year who deserved to have kids. He wanted to help people like that. People like me.”
“What did he do with Sebastian?”
“He let me keep him. He told me he wouldn’t tell anyone. That it would be our secret. But I had to help him keep a secret, too.”
Cassie leaned forward. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines. Sherry must’ve had a psychotic break after losing her child, and Henry took advantage of that. None of the reports Cassie had ever read about the man had indicated he was delusional like Sherry. Whatever he’d done to those children, he’d done of sound mind and body.
And he had been smart enough to get away with all but one for several decades.
“What secret did he want you to keep?”
Sherry’s breathing rattled in her chest. She coughed into the tissue, and Cassie gave her a clean one. It was hard not to keep pressing the woman, knowing that the pauses in between every word, every sentence, every answer were ticking down the seconds until Cassie’s time was up.
“Hank told me he wanted to help people like me. People who couldn’t adopt their own babies.” Another cough. Another rattling breath. “He asked me if I would help him take care of the kids while they were waiting to be adopted. He bought me a house away from the city. And all I had to do was take care of everyone.”
“Did you like doing that?”
“Being a mother was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
But that didn’t mean she was good at it. Ethan had died on her watch. And so it seemed, did Sebastian. “Whatever happened to that little boy from the park?”
Sherry looked out the window. Clouds were moving in, and her face was more visible in the glass now. Her lip trembled. “He was a good boy, but he cried a lot. Sometimes I couldn’t take it. I would get headaches. And I’d get mad. But I never put a hand on him. Never.” She looked at Cassie to make sure the young woman understood this before she continued. “But I would make him sleepy to calm him down. And one day, he didn’t wake up.”
Cassie was full of questions, but every single one of them sounded like an accusation. Her blood was boiling, but even though Sherry Miller was the reason Sebastian died, she knew it was Henry Fitzpatrick who was the real culprit.
“Do you understand what happened to him, Sherry?”
Sherry nodded, but her silent sobs kept her from speaking.
“What happened after that? How did Hank react?”
Sherry took a moment. “He took him away. He told me it would be okay. That he’d bring my son back one day. I believed him.”
Cassie’s voice was soft. “You already found him once. You
