what it did to his family. He had turned his own anguish into a national crusade, and as a result thousands of children had been reunited with their families.
The analysts and supervisors at NCMEC always gave Stallings their utmost attention and followed up on every request. He was that rare hybrid of mourning parent and devoted cop. One thing the people at NCMEC appreciated was a hard-charging missing persons detective. They recognized that there were other assignments cops often preferred, including homicide or narcotics. So they cherished a cop who put his entire efforts into finding missing children. They didn’t care what the cop’s motivation was. They understood that it was a special breed of cop who had the determination of Stallings. This was forged through personal desire and loss. Some detectives just understood the issue and the mind-set of other cops. It was hard to convince an old-time road patrolman that a runaway was anything more than a spoiled kid looking to get out of punishment. And the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was always there to help.
Today Stallings checked to see if they had any new information developed from what he’d provided about Leah Tischler. It didn’t hurt to throw in a quick query on Jeanie.
At least now he felt like he was accomplishing something and, for whatever reason, just the ritual of talking to the same people and going through the same tasks made him feel much better
He was enjoying himself sitting on the balcony of the seafood restaurant on the second floor of Jacksonville Landing. The Landing was Jacksonville’s desperate effort to provide a convenient, clean, safe tourist area. Like most restaurants and big commercial facilities, it was sort of bland and geared toward general tastes. But he enjoyed a moderate breeze and watching Mary try to eat an oyster in a ladylike manner. He soaked in every detail of her pretty face and perfect smile. Although his recent spate of activity had left him tired, he was revitalized knowing he could honor someone like Mary for all eternity.
She did most of the talking, telling him all about her cruise and how she was a little nervous about her flight to Fort Lauderdale to board the ship. She showed him her bottle of Xanax she claimed would keep her calm during the fifty-minute flight.
He said, “What time do you have to be at the airport?”
“My flight’s at nine fifteen, so I’ll get to the airport about eight o’clock.” Mary looked at him and said, “Did you say your apartment is in this part of the city?”
“Yeah, not too far from here. About ten minutes from the airport.”
“Maybe I won’t have as far to ride in the morning as I usually would.” She gave him a sly smile and a wink.
He was surprised by her aggressiveness and couldn’t think of anything witty to say in reply. He was also disappointed she’d be so obvious on their first date. On the bright side, it sounded like it wouldn’t be difficult for him to get her over to his apartment.
“I’d love to show you one of the pieces of art I made through blowing glass. I keep it in my apartment above my workshop.”
She gave him the smile her employer should use as an advertisement and said, “I’m dying to see it.”
Although Patty liked to think of herself as a tough, educated, experienced cop, right at this moment, on a Friday evening, checking herself in the mirror of the ladies’ bathroom next to the Land That Time Forgot, she felt more like a schoolgirl. After the wild week and her increasing pain in her back and lack of sleep, she was really looking forward to an honest-to-goodness date with her boyfriend, Tony Mazzetti. She’d gone so far as to look at the restaurant’s website and dream about sipping good pinot noir and eating clams ore-ganata. She wished she could talk about her date to other people in the squad, but that seemed minor compared to the date itself. She felt confident things would work out and she and Tony could talk about the relationship openly. It might be a good time for her to move forward with her plans to take the sergeant’s exam. If she left the unit as a sergeant, she’d not only be advancing her career, she’d be opening herself to a serious, normal relationship. But before she could think about anything like that she had to make sure her prescription-drug habit was under control. At least under better control than it was now. The Xanax she’d taken earlier in the afternoon still had her on an even keel as she got ready to meet Tony down in Deerwood Creek.
Sergeant Zuni’s voice surprised her, “What are you doing here so late? I thought you and Stall were in pretty good shape on your leads.”
“I was killing time before I meet … before I meet someone for dinner. I didn’t want to run back to my condo and out again.”
The sergeant smiled. “I’m glad you have plans tonight. I worry about you guys working too hard. Especially about Stallings. He always seems to be involved in stuff after hours. I never met a cop who got so fixated on a case.”
“I worry about him too. He’s under a lot of stress with his kids and he’s trying to keep better track of his father and his health. I keep a pretty good eye on him.”
Sergeant Zuni gave a short laugh. Patty realized it was because the sergeant knew no one controlled Stallings for very long.
Patty said, “What about you? Anything exciting on the agenda?” Patty often wondered if the beautiful sergeant got out much. She seemed very private and quiet.
Sergeant Zuni said, “I might manage to grab a bite to eat tonight.”
Patty smiled as the sergeant walked away. There was something in the way she’d said she might grab a bite to eat that led Patty to believe she had a romantic evening planned.
Mary couldn’t believe how lucky she was to meet a guy like this before her cruise. It gave her something to look forward to as well as an easy way to get to the airport. She liked him a lot. He was sweet and polite and a really good listener. That was hard to find in Jacksonville. It seemed like the men were either hotshot attorneys who felt the world revolved around them or underemployed high school dropouts who still lived with their mothers. She’d been burned too many times and had a tendency to take the all-or-nothing bet on men. She rarely waited to see how things would evolve because it was outside her control. Instead, she liked to commit early and completely. That either scared men away or hooked them so solidly she had to get a court order to get rid of them if things went south.
But this guy really did seem nice as he drove her to the long-term parking lot near the airport. She’d already decided to do something special to show her appreciation. But it also gave her a chance to see that lovely smile with the cute dimples. She couldn’t decide if she had gone into dental hygiene because she liked teeth or if she noticed teeth because she was a dental hygienist. Either way this guy had a great smile.
She hadn’t dated a guy she’d wanted to sleep with in months. Her last boyfriend, Troy, showed up occasionally to keep her satisfied. She knew he told his friends it was just a booty call, but it worked both ways. The problem with Troy was he was only twenty-three years old and not mature enough to realize how great he’d had it when he was with her. She missed those washboard abs as well as some of his grander attributes. But tonight she was going to let loose with someone else. She hoped he felt the same way. The same fire. She recognized this as one of the special nights in her life as she started an exciting vacation by having a rendezvous with a man she thought might be something exceptional. She loved to look at her life that way.
He had a quiet, calm quality she found irresistible. Too many guys wanted to sit around and talk about themselves or sports or the damn Jaguars. He seemed much deeper than all that. And she had a scary thought. What if she didn’t like his art he’d been talking about? She knew she’d suck it up and play along. She’d tell him it was so beautiful she wished she’d inspired it. Or some kind of shit like that.
Tony Mazzetti had already visited the first construction site and talked to two of the names Joey Big Balls had given him. One of the men had given him the names of two others. But Mazzetti had questioned him ruthlessly about his whereabouts the night Kathy Mizell was killed. He had a foolproof alibi. He’d been in jail for the night after being arrested that afternoon on a probation violation. The arrests and even the probation had not made their way through the computer yet to show up on his criminal history. Such was the life of a cop in modern times. Mazzetti tended to depend on computer printouts so much that he was surprised when someone had an excuse not shown on one.
The other man had been much tougher to talk to. Sour and holding a serious chip on his shoulder, the
