The Touch Read online

  “The other night, after Allie reported Neil missing. I went to pick her up from gymnastics and I stayed for dinner and put her to bed.”

  “How did she seem to you?”

  Lexi hesitated a long moment, deliberating whether or not to speak up about the ghost thing. It didn’t seem like it could be related to her disappearance, but it had seemed out of character for Chloe at the time.

  “What is it?” Gabriel prompted, noting her hesitation.

  “Okay, I know this sounds nuts… and coming from me that’s not a stretch for you,” she tried for a smile. “But that night I was here with Chloe, she was acting a little off.”

  “Off how?”

  “She said this place is haunted.” Lexi waited to see what he thought of that before she embellished any further.

  “Haunted,” he repeated without inflection. “Would you categorize her mood as afraid?”

  “Not exactly afraid… though she did ask if she could spend the night at my house this weekend.”

  “You don’t think that she might have run away if she thought the house was haunted?”

  “I…” Lexi paused, was it possible? Could Chloe be making her way across town to her house even as they spoke? “I can’t imagine she would leave without trying to call me to come get her, or telling her mother where she was going. She didn’t seem that upset about it, really. Chloe said one of the ghosts was her friend and that the other ones liked to play pranks on her. She was a little spooked, but I really don’t think she ran away from home over it. How’s that for a definite maybe?”

  “So there are several ghosts in the house?”

  “That’s what she said, and she said they’re all children, how creepy is that?” That’s what it kept boiling down to for Lexi; it made her feel uneasy as hell to be talking about it in the house itself, as if they might be listening.

  “That would be pretty disturbing,” Gabriel agreed, pen tapping on his notebook.

  “Do you believe in ghosts?” Lexi asked suddenly. She would give anything to know what he was thinking just then. Was he convinced they were all a bunch of whackos or was he willing to keep an open mind?

  “You know, actually I do,” he leaned forward, arms on his knees. “When I was a boy, there was a house down the street that was supposed to be haunted. We would take turns daring each other to go inside. Seeing as how I always had more bravery than sense, as my Ma used to put it, I went up there one day and…”

  “And what?” she prompted, unconsciously leaning forward herself.

  “And I snuck in there through an open window,” Gabriel admitted with a sheepish grin. “The place was vacant but the whole time I was in there… it felt like there was someone behind me, just out of sight. Every time I turned around, there wasn’t anything there but I could have sworn… I could have sworn I heard breathing.”

  “Jesus… I would have been out of there so fast…”

  He gave a half shrug, “More bravery than sense,” he grinned and Lexi felt those last vestiges of annoyance starting to fade away. Maybe he wasn’t about to write her off as a fruitcake after all?

  “Okay so the house may or may not be haunted, but we don’t know if that has anything to do with her disappearance. My best bet is still on Neil.”

  Gabriel nodded, tucking away his notebook. “Me too. He would know how to enter the house without being seen and she would likely go with him without putting up too much of a fuss. But we’ll check the neighborhood; see if anyone spotted her on the road or local buses just in case she ran away from home.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Lexi nodded, definitely feeling better about the whole thing. “You said I could go up and touch Chloe’s things if I answered your questions, right?”

  “Actually I didn’t say that, you did. We need to wait until her room’s been processed before any of us can go in there.”

  “Which means what exactly?” She’d held up her end of the deal, and now he was trying to weasel out of it?

  “It needs to be photographed and searched. Not exactly processed like a crime scene since its unlikely anyone broke into the house and took her, but we’ll want to look for her diary, or any indications that she left of her own accord.”

  “I can do that, I have my camera in the car,” Lexi offered, glad she’d thought to bring it with her.

  Gabriel looked less than convinced. “I’m sorry, it needs to be a department photographer,” he shook his head.

  “Oh come on, I’m a professional photographer, I can do this.” They stared back at each other for a long moment, her eyes pleading and his wrestling with procedure.

  “Not her room, but you can help with the rest of the search,” he agreed finally.

  “Like out in the woods?”

  “No, we’ll need to search the entire house and photograph everything. In case she’s hiding or hurt and can’t call out for help. But first I want to make some calls, get some people checking on the neighborhood and local buses like I said.”

  “Okay, I’ll go get my camera out of the car,” she agreed readily, leaving him to his police business while she retrieved her case from outside. By the time she got everything set, Allison was done with the den and ready to begin the search. Gabriel and Tim stood near the front door talking to the two uniformed cops that had been checking the grounds.

  “Okay, I think we’re set. Ms. Travers you go with Detective Cooper and start on the ground floor, I’ll take Miss Morgan with me and we’ll work from the top down. Ramirez, when the photographer gets here, take him straight up to the child’s room. Try not to touch anything until after it’s been photographed, but feel free to call out to try and catch Chloe’s attention. It’s possible she’s just curled up asleep in a closet somewhere and we can all laugh about this over dinner,” he added, more for Allison’s benefit but Lexi was grateful for the effort. Allie nodded and Cooper gave a little two fingered salute to Ryan before they moved off together. “Is there access to the attic?”

  “Yeah, there are pull down stairs in the upstairs hallway but I don’t know if she’d ever go up there.”

  “We’ll find out, won’t we?” Gabriel gave her a genial smile, gesturing for her to accompany him up the stairs.

  “Do you really think we’ll find her curled up in the house somewhere?”

  “I’ve seen kids asleep in closets, stuck in a laundry chute, hiding in the attic, trapped underneath a woodpile that caved on top of them; it always pays to start with the classics,” he replied.

  It was a comforting thought, but Lexi was more inclined to believe Neil had something to do with Chloe’s disappearance. It was too much coincidence that he’d gone missing just a couple of days before she did. “So we’ll start in the attic?” her nose wrinkled with distaste.

  “Yep. Why, do you have something against attics?” Ryan looked vaguely amused by the notion.

  “Not attics themselves, just spiders.”

  “Don’t you worry, Lexi; I’ll protect you from any spiders that attack,” Gabriel patted the butt of his gun.

  “Very funny.” He was calling her Lexi again, that was something at least. The attic stairs were creaky but sound; the string to the overhead light easily accessible. Gabriel went first, moving cautiously, as if he expected something or someone to jump out at him at any time, but she figured that was the way he’d been trained to enter a room, whether he needed it or not. Once up there, she relaxed; the attic wasn’t especially spooky or dirty and what cobwebs she saw looked unoccupied. She should have known Allison would keep the attic with as much order as she kept the rest of the house. Neat rows of plastic bins labeled for holiday decorations and Chloe’s baby clothes stood to the immediate right and furniture cast offs were to the left. The old crib was stacked flat against the wall. Maybe Allie kept those things around in case they had another child someday? That scenario looked less and less likely.

  Against the far wall, a less orderly pile of cardboard boxes were stacked with older furniture, liberally coated wit
h a thick layer of dust. “Chloe? Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Lexi called out in a sing song voice but there was no response. “Do you want me to get shots of all of this?”

  “Yes please, of all four angles of the room.”

  “You got it,” she agreed easily, walking around to get the best vantage point. The light hadn’t quite faded from the sky, helping to illuminate the room more than the single naked bulb allowed for, but the corners of the room were still cast in shadows. Before moving to the next corner, Lexi couldn’t resist snapping a quick picture of Gabriel while he wasn’t looking, a candid shot of him peeking behind a stack of crates. The last wall held the older boxes and she moved closer to get a better look. “I don’t think this stuff belongs to them, it looks like it’s been here longer than they have.”

  Movement caught her eye but after a quick rush of adrenaline, Lexi realized it was her own body moving in front of a very dusty mirror. “Jesus, I almost gave myself a heart attack…” she muttered, letting out a shaky breath. That’s when she noticed the mirror was the same one she’d seen when touching the earring Chloe found under the bed. It was the same dressing table the dark haired woman had been sitting in front of in the vision. “Whoa…”

  “What is it? Did you find something?” Gabriel asked from across the room.

  “Yeah, well not exactly. It’s just… Chloe said that the ghost likes to leave things under her bed, so I touched an earring she showed me and I saw a woman sitting in front of this table, brushing her hair. I assumed she was a former resident, I guess I was right.”

  He joined her in front of the dressing table, “The ghost leaves things under the bed?” Ryan sounded vaguely disturbed by the notion.

  “Yep. She showed me a collection of little things like a whistle, a penny and the earring. At the time I wasn’t convinced they were left behind by a ghost but she was adamant. I wonder if I could pick up anything helpful from this table?”

  “Maybe you could do that a little later?” Gabriel was starting to look more and more uncomfortable. “We should really continue with the search for now. She’s not up here, if you’re done with the pictures, we should move on.”

  “Yeah, let me just get this one.” Lexi changed her angle so the flash wouldn’t be caught in the mirror and took the last shot. Whether he was uncomfortable with her using her gift in front of him or the idea of staying up in the attic any longer was unclear, but she decided not to push for the moment.

  The rest of the search was less interesting. Lexi had been through each of the rooms before and there was no sign of Chloe or anything out of the ordinary that she could tell. By the time they were done with the second floor, the photographer was already at work in Chloe’s room and Gabriel excused himself to confer with Cooper, leaving her alone with Allison in the living room while another technician searched through the computer in the study.

  “This is all so strange. I don’t understand how she could just be gone. Why wouldn’t I have heard anything? Why wouldn’t Neil have talked to me before taking her?” Allie rubbed at her temples and Lexi instinctively rose to get her some Tylenol and a glass of water.

  “Allie, have you noticed anything odd about Chloe’s behavior lately?” she asked gently.

  “Oh, not you too? Do you honestly think she ran away? I can’t imagine her doing that. Even if…”

  “Even if what, Allie? Even if she thought the house was haunted?”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  So her sister was aware of Chloe’s fears. “She did the other night. That there were a bunch of ghosts in the house, playing pranks on her. Is that what she told you?”

  “I just thought she was trying to get out of taking responsibility for pulling those pranks herself,” Allie shook her head.

  “What kind of pranks?”

  “Oh you know, little things. My hairbrush would disappear and show up in the freezer, I’d find salt in the sugar bowl, stuff like that.”

  “Then you don’t think the house is haunted?”

  Allison opened her mouth to respond, but hesitated, mulling it over. “No… no, I don’t think so. I never believed in any of that but… do you think ghosts are real?”

  There was something in her reply that made Lexi wonder if she hadn’t seen a thing or two in the house that couldn’t be explained, but there was no sense in pushing her over it. The important factor was whether or not Chloe believed it and had taken off. “Maybe. I have no idea,” she shrugged.

  “But shouldn’t you know?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Lexi scoffed.

  “Well, you have your…” Allison gestured to her gloved hands.

  Of all people, her own sister should have known what she could and couldn’t do with her hands. “That doesn’t have anything to do with ghosts, you know that.” Allison started to tear up again and Lexi felt about an inch high for snapping at her. “Look, I’m sorry, I’m gonna help you with this, okay? The important thing isn’t whether or not you have ghosts; the important thing is getting her back.”

  “I want them both back,” Allie sniffed.

  Lexi wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders. “Yeah, I know sweetie, I know.”

  Chapter Six

  The case just kept getting weirder and weirder.

  First his old friend Neil disappeared and then the little girl… While Gabriel was ninety-five percent sure Chloe was safe in her father’s care watching TV and eating pizza, he couldn’t let go of that five percent chance that something else had happened to her. The trouble was, without compelling evidence of foul play, his hands were tied as to the resources at his disposal. Maybe if he played up the runaway aspect he could get a little more urgency given her age, but it was unlikely that Captain Bristol would want to go full tilt on the case.

  And then there was Lexi. Somehow or other she had him bending rules left and right, worming her way into his case and into his thoughts. He started to wonder if she had some other magic ability to circumvent his good judgment, besides the little trick with her hands. While Gabriel liked to think of himself as a fairly open minded guy, there were some things that stretched the limits of his beliefs. Psychics and fortune tellers were definitely on the list of professions he took with a great big grain of salt. Too many of them were swindlers.

  At the same time, he couldn’t help but feel like he could trust Lexi. That her heart was in the right place was definitely not in question. He had to admire her zeal in trying to find her family; when he wasn’t bent on throttling her, that was. She had a way of pushing her way into a situation she had no business being in the middle of and driving him to distraction; so that he ended up unsure if he wanted to kiss her, or staple her mouth shut. So far the urge to kiss her was winning out, but only just.

  Gabriel poked his head into the room, but froze when he caught sight of Allison’s tears, not wanting to intrude. “We’re all done with the search, Allie,” he said gently.

  “They didn’t turn up anything outside? That’s good news, right? That means she’s with Neil,” Allison sniffed, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

  He didn’t have the heart to break it to her; nothing was good news until they found Chloe. “It means we’re gonna keep looking.”

  “So what happens now?” Lexi asked.

  That was the million dollar question and the one that had to be finessed to keep emotional parents from flying off the handle when they couldn’t mobilize the entire police force to scour the county for their missing child. At least not in this instance. “There’s no playbook, we take every kidnapping on a case by case basis. But… when it looks like she’s been taken by a family member, that does influence how we proceed. I will recommend that we issue an Amber alert, but it’s up to my Captain to give the final go ahead.”

  Allison frowned, “Why wouldn’t you? I thought that was the usual procedure…”

  “It’s designed for kids in imminent danger,” Tim volunteered, “and if she’s with her father, that might not
qualify.”

  She seemed to accept that easily enough and Gabriel breathed an inward sigh of relief that he didn’t have to defend a decision that hadn’t even been made yet. “In the meantime, her vital information will go into national database that’s accessible to all law enforcement. We’ll canvas the neighborhood, question everyone and see if anyone saw her at the bus stop or get into a car on the road, or saw your husband’s car. I’ll personally make sure that the local news affiliates get her picture and a few minutes of air time on the news tonight whether we get an Amber alert going or not.” It was an easy enough promise to make; he had connections with the local paper who could point him in the right direction. “The good news is that most likely she’s safe with Neil and he’s not exactly a master criminal,” he smirked. “Sooner or later we’ll catch up with them.

  “They’re done upstairs,” Cooper interrupted and Ryan gave him a nod.

  It was time to wrap things up, but first he drew Lexi aside, to lay down a few ground rules before she went poking around in Chloe’s room. “You’re okay to take a look up there, but please try and leave it as undisturbed as possible in case further investigation is needed, okay?”

  “I’ll be careful,” Lexi promised readily and he was satisfied that she understood the gravity of what he was asking her. “Are you guys taking off?”

  “Soon we will,” he nodded. “I’ll stay on the scene until everyone’s ready to clear out. I think they’re almost through with the computer and the uniforms are already moving on to the neighbors. What about you? Are you planning on staying the night with Allison? Or are you heading for home after you…” Unsure how to put whatever it was she did with her hands, he settled for gesturing towards them.

  “I don’t know yet, I guess that depends on Allie.” Lexi looked over at her sister and he was struck, not for the first time, by how different the two of them were. Never in a million years would he have guessed that they were related. Not because they were all that dissimilar physically, they both had the dark hair and dark eyes, but their personalities and temperament were so far apart. Given the type of boy he’d been in high school, Gabriel could understand his attraction for the older sister, but given his tastes now…