“There were a lot of names in that book. I can’t possibly remember them all.”
“The name was Sandy.” No last name. Y
ears before, while examining her mother’s papers, Lucy had found a peculiar scrap of paper with Gladys’s number written on it. That had been the beginning of the end for Gladys’s operation. Later, when Lucy had access to Gladys’s private information, she’d come across a record of her mother having called the older woman.
Not that Gladys had any idea who Lucy was, apart from being the cop who’d helped bust her.
Gladys didn’t know how Lucy had stumbled upon her operation in the first place. For her mother’s sake it had to stay that way. But she’d had a hellish weekend with Sandy, who hadn’t been sober since Saturday morning’s ID, and she was sitting right across from a woman who might be able to help her.
The focused look on Gladys’s face told Lucy she’d hit a mark. “That was a sad one,” Gladys said.
One piece of information was all they needed. Ramsey said so. And it didn’t look like they were going to get the information from Sandy—or Sloan Wakerby—anytime soon.
Last month, Lucy had scored the DNA match of a lifetime and found the guy who’d ruined her mother’s life. She’d always assumed that would be the hardest part. Finding the guy. After that all the pieces would fall into place.
Her mother’s memory would be jogged.
The guy would talk in a bid for leniency.
Neither one of those things had happened. And here she was, a month later, and no closer to finding her sister than she’d ever been. She was getting desperate.
She’d exhausted every lead she had from her mother’s life in Aurora—which were precious few.
Based on key evidence, the police had determined all those years ago that the abduction/rape had been a random stranger attack. There’d been no sign of anyone following her mother. Or of the attack having been planned. Quite the opposite. The busy parking lot, the open door, the body dumped by the river, were all signs of a spur-of-the-moment act.
A classic fit for one of the FBI’s most dangerous classifications of rapist profiles.
And a dead end when tracking reasons and motivations.
Amber Locken was doing the follow-up on Sloan Wakerby’s past. His associations. Any sightings of him with a baby almost thirty years before. So far, she’d turned up a big fat nothing.
Lucy didn’t know where else to turn, but Gladys. And she was here, anyway—here because she’d promised Emma Sanderson she wouldn’t quit looking for her sister until Claire was found. Or evidence of her death was found.
Her mother hadn’t been in contact with Gladys until after the rape. After Allie’s disappearance. There was no way Gladys could lead her to the man who’d raped her mother and taken her baby sister.
“Tell me about Sandy,” she said, after taking a moment to second-guess herself. This line of questioning wasn’t within protocol. It probably wasn’t smart.
But then it wasn’t the first stupid thing she’d done in her mother’s case. On her own time, her own dime, she’d identified Sloan Wakerby as a person of interest, but until she had his DNA she couldn’t arrest him. And without arresting him she couldn’t get his DNA. She’d tampered with his car— breaking both taillights—and given the police a reason to arrest him. Then she’d called and reported him. Sometimes, when there was no other way, you did what was necessary.
Gladys’s watery gray eyes were shadowed as she looked at Lucy. “Did something happen to the poor girl?”
“Tell me about Sandy,” Lucy repeated.
“I don’t know a lot. She was raped. Her baby was taken at the time of the attack. It was in all the papers, names withheld, of course. But I watched for the baby to come through. I only dealt with newborns, but that wouldn’t prevent someone from contacting me if they had a baby to dispose of quickly.”
Lucy’s palms started to sweat. “Did someone contact you?”
“Yes.”
Lucy’s mother lied and “forgot” by habit. But she’d believed Sandy when she’d told her this woman hadn’t found Allie.
“Who? When?” Her interrogation skills were slipping.
“Sandy did. After the attack. I’d all but forgotten about it, but then I got this phone call. The girl had been asking around downtown Cincinnati, in places a nice young woman shouldn’t have been, for ways to get rid of a baby. Someone sent her to me.”
“She wanted to hand over a baby?” Lucy asked, because she would’ve asked that if she didn’t already know.
Gladys shook her head. “She was trying to find out where people took babies they didn’t want. She wondered if whoever had taken her daughter had brought her there.”