The Truth About Comfort Cove

Locken tapped on the window and the curtain slowly slid away, exposing five men, all around six feet tall, sixty years of age, white and muscled.

Sandy bowed her head.

Lucy knew that Sloan Wakerby was number four. When he’d first been brought in, she and a visiting missing-child cold-case detective, Ramsey Miller, had done their best to break the man. And just because a good lawyer could maybe prove that the fluid recovered by the hospital after Sandy’s rape was not up to court standards, could maybe get it thrown out of court, did not, in any way, prove that the man was not guilty of raping her mother and abducting her sister.

Lucy wanted him dead.

As soon as the piece of shit told them what he’d done with baby Allie. She prayed to God he sold the baby as opposed to… Black-market babies brought a hefty price—she knew that all too well since breaking the Buckley case eight years before.

Sandy’s head was bowed, her eyes pointed at her feet.

“Ms. Hayes? We need you to look through the window,” Detective Locken said.

The good thing about black-market babies was that, once they made it to their homes, they were generally loved and adored and spoiled by the desperate couples who were willing to pay huge sums of money for children they couldn’t have on their own. Allie could be happy and healthy and just unaware that she had a family out there. A family whose lives had been irrevocably torn apart by her absence.

“Ms. Hayes? Are you okay?” Amber sent Lucy another long glance.

“Look up, Mama.” Lucy had agreed not to speak. If she influenced the ID in any way…

But if there was no ID…

Lucy watched, as her mother slowly raised her head.

“Ms. Hayes. Do you recognize anyone there?”

Sandy’s head jerked forward. And back. Her dyed blond ringlets moved up her neck and back down to the top of her lumbar.

“I need you to speak, Ms. Hayes. Do you understand? We’re recording this session.”

“Yes!” Sandy’s voice was loud. Too loud. “Yes,” Lucy’s mother said more calmly. “I do understand that you are recording this. My daughter told me what to expect. And no, she did not tell me what to say.”

“It wouldn’t matter if she did, Ms. Hayes. Lucy had no way of knowing who would be in this particular lineup or on what space. You indicated, by a nod, that you recognized someone through the window, Ms. Hayes. Can you verify that?”

“Yes. I… Yes.”

Sandy’s voice lost any strength it had had.

Get through this quickly, Locken. You don’t have much longer....

“What number do you recognize?”

Lucy held her breath. What if her mother’s memory played tricks on her? Sandy had tried so hard to forget. To survive.

“Number four. I know him.”

Lucy’s muscles gave way, weakening so much she had to sit down.

“Who is he?”

“The man who… He…”

“It’s okay, Ms. Hayes. We’re here with you now. Tell us

where you know this man from.”

“He…raped…me…?.”

Lucy was directly behind her mother, holding Sandy’s weight with her own. Locken would need more. The prosecutor would need more.