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  “We all have to get our jollies where we can. Anything I can do to help, ask. Don’t bother offering a disclaimer,” Liz added when Summer made as if to reply. “They don’t work. And since you’re here, we might as well do some work.” She opened one of the many folders on her desk.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Despite what your conscience is telling you, you don’t have to go.” Sandra Baxby pulled the keys from the ignition. They were parked in the lot of the building where the police sketch artist had his studio.

  Summer took one of her mother’s hands and held it to her cheek. Her mother had insisted on picking her up from work, on bringing her here. “Yes, I do. This will be the easy part.”

  “What if talking about it, thinking about it, makes you see him again? Makes you see that poor little girl again? How can either of those possibilities be easy?”

  “Mom, I have to do this. I know all of this is difficult for you to take. I really do. I would have spared you from knowing if I thought I could get away with it.”

  Sandra’s lips twitched. “That is so you. ‘If I thought I could get away with it.’” She shook her head. “I wish I could spare you knowing that monster. But I can’t.” She exhaled. “Then we have to nail him to the ground so hard he’ll never be able to get up.”

  Once her mother made up her mind, she was all about the action. Summer had to pick up her pace to keep up with her mother. Upon entering the loft she could see Patrick’s taste was eclectic. Old and new styles merged, from Andy Warhol to Georgia O’Keeffe to Vincent Van Gogh. She liked it. Liked it a lot.

  “Be right with you,” a voice called down from upstairs.

  She looked up and was struck dumb. The light coming from an upstairs window bathed the speaker’s head in light. For a moment Summer thought she was speaking to an angel. An angel with light brown eyes in a beautiful face framed by blond, curly hair.

  “You must be Summer. Carla described you perfectly.”

  “Wow,” Sandra whispered. “He’s beautiful. For a second I thought—”

  “He was an angel,” Summer finished. When the angel came rushing down the stairs in a dingy white T-shirt and ripped jeans, she could see he was at best a down-to-earth angel.

  He crossed to the door and turned the sign to read closed. “I’m Patrick. I hope coming here wasn’t an inconvenience, but I do better work here than at the station.”

  “I can understand that. As you figured, I’m Summer and this is Sandra Baxby.” She pointed to her mother.

  Patrick studied Sandra for a moment. “Mom I would say. You have the same eye shape, brows. Good to meet both of you. I have a workspace back here we can use.”

  The workspace was the opposite of the front room. It was stark white on all sides and dominated by a drafting table, three easels and a big set of drawers filled with supplies. Patrick directed Sandra to the comfortable-looking oversized chair, then patted one of the two stools near the drafting table. “Have you ever done anything like this before?”

  Summer looked at her mom before shaking her head.

  Though Patrick looked intrigued by the response, all he said was, “It’s simple and hopefully painless. You tell me what you saw and I draw it.”

  As Summer settled on the stool, someone banged on the front door hard enough to have the pane in the door rattle.

  Patrick sighed. “Be right back. Someone can’t read.”

  “Not an angel, but still wow,” Sandra said, fanning her face. “Hope his art is as good as his looks.”

  When Patrick returned with an irritated-looking Carla in tow, Summer’s stomach dropped to her knees. Had she said this would be easy? Politeness had her giving Carla a perfunctory nod.

  “Who are you?” Carla stopped in front of Sandra, looking like she was prepping for an attack. “I don’t remember there being another witness.”

  “Sandra Baxby,” she said with cool distain. “I’m here as Summer’s representative.”

  Carla’s lip curled in a sneer as she looked at Summer. “Always in need of protection.”

  “Carla, you’re free to observe, but I’m going to have to insist you leave my witness alone,” Patrick said firmly. “I need her relaxed.”

  “Chapman said I had to be here. Take it up with him.” Carla took the remaining chair, a sulky look on her face.

  “Summer, I need you to close your eyes and visualize the suspect.” Patrick put a hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “Open and tell me about him. We’ll start with the shape of his face.”

  They worked for an hour. “It’s, well, it’s close,” Summer said with a frown.

  “What do you mean ‘close’?” Carla demanded, coming to stand over Summer.

  “The eyes aren’t quite right.” She massaged her stiff shoulders. She could practically see the defensive shields surrounding Patrick get stronger. Maybe she should concede, she thought, when he raised a blond brow.

  “You think you can do better?”

  “Break time,” Sandra declared. “Summer could use a fifteen-minute break.”

  “And I can’t?” Patrick demanded, very un-angel-like.

  “Fine.” Carla huffed. “Then maybe Ms. Perfection can do a better job of explaining exactly what she saw.”

  “You’re going to want to back off,” Sandra warned, every bit the protective mama bear. “When you’ve experienced what Summer’s experienced then you will have earned the right to be snide.”

  “I need air.” Patrick threw down his pen and left the room. He was followed by Carla.

  “Don’t let them get you down, sweetie.” Sandra pushed Summer’s hands aside and began to massage her daughter’s shoulders.

  “Maybe I’m being too picky.” Now that she wasn’t concentrating, Summer could hear the sound of traffic—horns honking, trucks rumbling. It seemed so normal and helped put things in perspective. She could almost hear Renny reminding her that she was helping them.

  “You’re doing fine. I’m going to run up the street and get us some drinks. You probably need a snack. What did you have for lunch?”

  She squirmed under her mother’s knowing look. “I…”

  “As I thought. I’ll be back. Don’t let them start without me.” Sandra grabbed her suitcase-sized pocketbook and hurried off.

  Summer heard the rumblings of voices, but she couldn’t make out the words. She guessed her mother was demanding Patrick not start without her. Her mother was nothing if not protective. Sometimes overly so. They would have to work on that once this nightmare was over. Her mother probably needed the return to normal as much as she did. “Something else to talk to Dr. Veraat about,” she said and absently pulled the drawing closer. The eyes were too small, too close together. And the nose was a little bit off. She hated to think what Patrick would say when she pointed this out. At the rate they were going, she’d be stuck here until well into the evening.

  Chewing on her bottom lip, she flipped the page and grabbed a pencil. With a few quick strokes she outlined the kidnapper’s face, then played around with the eyes until she was satisfied. She added the lips, the lines in his forehead and around his mouth, the beard. A shiver went down her spine. It was him. She dropped the pad, her heart beating staccato in her chest.

  “Look, I apologize for losing my cool. Hey, what’s wrong?” Patrick quickly crossed to Summer, took her hand. “Did you have another vision?”

  She pointed to the pad.

  Patrick’s eyes widened. “Is this him? Well, duh, of course it’s him. This is awesome. Man, you have skills.” The last part was added with admiration, bordering on awe. He switched back to his drawing. “The differences are subtle and yet they add up. Forced again to say ‘job well and truly done.’ Let me get Carla. She can run this by the station, saving me a trip.”

  To Summer, Patrick’s words were background noise. She was busy trying to figure out how she’d managed to put pencil to paper now when she’d failed so many times before. How was it that a monster had unlocked her
creativity? What did that say about her? About her relationship with him?

  Hugging her midsection, she rocked back and forth, needing the comfort. Needing to believe when they captured him there would be no more connection between them. No more connections to the girls whose childhoods he stole. She dropped her arms, stood up straight when Patrick returned with Carla.

  “You sure this is him?” Carla demanded, thrusting the sketch in front of Summer’s face. “I need you to be absolutely sure before we release this.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, looking away from his face. She didn’t need the drawing to know what he looked like. He was already in her head. Wasn’t that enough? “Contrary to what you might think I don’t get any satisfaction from providing false information.”

  “I’m the one who has to pay if you’re wrong about this. How am I supposed to believe you when you can’t even look at him?”

  Summer glared at Carla. “Don’t you get it? He’s in my fucking head! Why the hell would I need to look at that?”

  “What’s going on here?” Sandra demanded as she advanced into the room to stand by her daughter. “You were supposed to wait for me.” She shot Carla an accusing look.

  “It’s okay, Mom. Carla was just leaving. She got what she came for.”

  “Thank you for your cooperation,” Carla said, less than gracious. “Deputy Chief Chapman might need to speak with you.”

  “Not today,” Sandra said firmly. “She’s done more than enough for today. Time for the police to do their own work.”

  Summer reached for her mother’s hand. “It’s okay. If Mr. Chapman needs to speak with me today, he knows how to reach me.”

  Carla left with a curt nod.

  “We should go too.” Summer stood. “Hopefully I won’t have to use your services again,” she said to Patrick.

  “Not likely. Not after what you did.” The admiration was still visible on his face, still audible in his voice. “You ever do any showings? You’re a professional, right?”

  Summer managed a smile at his enthusiasm. “A lifetime ago.”

  “What was that about?” Sandra asked once they were back in her purple VW Bug with the rainbow peace sign on top and a line of daisies on every door.

  Summer looked at her hands. “I drew my own rendering of the kidnapper.”

  “Oh, baby.” Sandra’s face lit up. “That’s wonderful. How did that happen?”

  “I was looking at Patrick’s sketch, trying to figure out what was wrong and suddenly I’m drawing. I’m correcting the eyes, then the nose, adding the other features and then I’m finished. It looked exactly like him.” Summer turned to look at her mom, tears in her eyes. “Oh, Mom, what if I was only able to draw because we’re linked? What if I can’t draw anything else?”

  Sandra pulled her into her arms as best she could. “Let’s not think that way. Dr. Veraat said the skills would come back. You’re the one responsible for capturing his image. Only you.” She let Summer go, fumbled with the bag she placed on the backseat and withdrew a bottle of orange juice. “Here, sweetie. Drink this. We’ll go buy you some real food. Once you eat something, you’ll be able to think more clearly.”

  Summer downed half the bottle. She didn’t know what to think. Didn’t want to say anything else that would worry her mother. “I could eat,” she finally said, more due to guilt than hunger.

  “You will eat,” Sandra declared as she pulled out of the parking lot. “The only choice you have is what to eat.”

  She sighed. She knew that tone. Had heard it plenty of times over the past two years to know what it meant. “Spaghetti and garlic bread.”

  “House of Pasta.” Sandra made a quick right, then another to take them in the opposite direction. “Then we’ll stop by your place and see what you need from the grocery store. I swear you’ve lost five pounds since I last saw you. You don’t have any to spare.”

  “I don’t mean to worry you, Mom. I’ve been eating. It’s all this…” She shrugged.

  “And you didn’t think to tell me about this earlier? It shouldn’t have taken Kevin to make you come clean.”

  “We’ve already been through this. I told you I didn’t expect it to get to this. I thought it would go away. And you’ve already suffered through enough because of me. God, Mom, I didn’t want to add more. I don’t want to add more. Seems I can’t help it.” She wiped at tears.

  “As your mother it’s my right to worry about you. I worry about all of my children.” Sandra patted her blonde tresses. “Why do you think I have to color the gray?”

  Summer snorted. “You don’t.”

  “I think about it.”

  “Anyway. I don’t see the rest of your kids combined worrying you as much as I do all by myself.” She blew out a breath and watched the passing scenery as they left downtown behind and headed to an Italian restaurant located on the northern outskirts of town. Before she moved downtown, Summer had managed to convince her parents to take her there once a week.

  “Listen and listen good. I give thanks every day that I have you to worry about. It beats mourning your loss every day.” Sandra blinked rapidly. “Frankly, you were due some worrying about. For the most part you were always my good girl.”

  “Rose-colored glasses will do that.”

  “No, my little Summer Rain, you were always sweet, always looking out for everyone else. Even from the beginning. Of all my kids you were the only one considerate enough to be born on your due date. Not one of your sisters or your brother can say that. You slept through the night sooner and, best of all, you sailed through your teen years without turning into a little bitch who felt the need to fight me every step of the way. No way you have a connection to a monster. Your sweet heart wouldn’t let you. If there’s any connection, it’s to those girls.”

  The band around Summer’s chest loosened. “It’s strange to hear things about myself that I can’t remember. I wonder if I ever will.”

  Sandra beat out a yellow light and made a left onto Highway 101. “One day you will. Until then listen to the woman who’s known you all your life.” She pulled into a parking space and turned off the ignition before patting Summer’s thigh. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you’ve come so far in only two years. Try to remember that the next time you’re faced with a challenge. You’ve beat so many already, and you’re going to beat more.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The ringing of her phone brought Summer out of a tortured dream. Without thought she answered it. “Yeah,” she mumbled, her voice thick with sleep.

  “This is Vincent Chapman. Sorry to wake you, Summer, but we think he’s snatched another girl.”

  “No!” She sat up and exhaled. Another girl missing could only mean Georgia was dead. Could only mean her efforts hadn’t been enough. “Please, no. There was supposed to be more time. Why would he kill her already? He hasn’t had her a week!”

  “We might never know. What we do know is Corey Smith didn’t make it home from school. We’ve talked to her friends, searched along the route from school to home, searched her hangouts and nothing. I’m hoping you’ll be able to help.”

  “But I don’t know a Corey Smith and I haven’t seen anything since this morning. How can I help?”

  “Would you be willing to handle something of hers? See if her disappearance is connected to the others? I know it didn’t work before, but frankly we’re running on empty.”

  “And if this thing with Corey is connected? What then?” That won’t put you any closer to him, she thought. No closer to putting him behind bars.

  “The chief’s going to need to call in the GBI. This guy’s escalating at an alarming rate. Please, Summer, I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”

  “Okay. Okay.” She took a shaky breath. “I need someone to pick me up. I don’t drive.”

  “I can bring it to you.”

  “No! I don’t want that here. Don’t want him anywhere near here.” The condo might not be home, but she felt safe from h
im here. “I’ll come to you.”

  “I’ll send two officers. Is thirty minutes enough time for you to get ready?”

  “Twenty. I can be ready in twenty. They can buzz me from downstairs. I’ll come down.”

  “Thanks for this, Summer. It means a lot.”

  She rattled off her address before disconnecting the call. When the trembling started, she brought to mind her mother’s words. The connection was to the girls. They were the ones reaching out to her. This was just another challenge. She’d gotten through others, she would get through this one. If she made contact, she could use it to get to him, to keep him from harming any more innocents.

  Once dressed, she decided to go down to the lobby. Waiting down there would help keep this mess out of her condo. Keep this a place where she didn’t have visions or mind hops. Grabbing her bag, she went downstairs and paced until her police escort arrived.

  At the station, they were met at the door by Vincent. With him was the young cop Renny had tormented. Despite the hour, his uniform looked fresh.

  “Thanks for coming, Summer. You remember Juan Griego. If anyone’s to blame for your being here it’s him. He convinced me to call you.”

  Juan blushed bright red.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Summer said, thinking again he had to be new to the job. He was as fresh as his uniform.

  “I thought we could do this in my office,” Vincent said. “This place is a madhouse as you can see. Every officer on active status has been called in to help.”

  Inside Vincent’s office with the door shut, the noise dropped to a manageable level. “Can I get you anything to drink, Summer?” Vincent asked, gesturing to the chair beside his desk.

  “Water would be good,” she said, a mass of nerves and uncertainty. What if she couldn’t do it? Would another little girl lose her life? She couldn’t answer that now any more than she could on the ride over. She missed the motion of Vincent’s head that sent Juan for water. Missed it because she was too busy reciting the multiplication table as if it were a benediction.

  Juan was back quickly with a bottle of water and two Cokes. He smiled shyly at Summer as he handed her the water. “It will be okay,” he said softly.