“Two more are found, two more cases closed,” he said.
“Who would have thought that a penchant for chocolate bars would be a kidnapper’s downfall?”
“It’s how he lured the girls. He offered them some of the chocolate he always had on him. He kept them happy with it until he turned them over to the agency.”
“Who paid money for them.”
“You guessed it. He used the money to get back on his feet after prison. Down payment on a place. A car. Some furniture.”
“And he’d have gotten away with it, too, if you hadn’t been determined enough to research something as innocuous as chocolate.”
“Everyone has his weak point.”
“What’s Jack Colton’s? Other than his scarcity mentality?”
“If I knew that, the man would be behind bars.”
“So, other than the sewage ditch, what’s next with Colton?”
“I’m going to check on that girlfriend he mentioned, Haley Sanders. Depending on what I find, I might need you to follow up.”
“Of course.”
“And I’m still watching Frank Whittier, and will go back and take another look at what I have on him. I have to find the connection between the two—the time when they met and planned this thing, or met afterward. I’ve been thinking that maybe Jack saw Frank drive away with that little girl and made a deal with him to keep quiet in exchange for a steady income.”
“Which could be why Jack is so believable when he says he didn’t take Claire. Maybe the alibi for the time discrepancy is just
the truth.”
“Frank Whittier hasn’t had a bank account that we can find since he left Comfort Cove. And Jack has been independently employed. Maybe some of his regular income has come from Frank,” he offered.
“Which leads us back to the question of what happened to Claire. If Frank Whittier took her, what did he do with her?”
Running his hand through his hair, Ramsey had a brief thought of just staying where he was. In bed. He got so damned tired of answers that only led to more questions. And then he caught a couple of hours’ sleep and had to go search for answers again.
Before he could come up with an answer he didn’t have, Lucy continued. “And the blackmail angle doesn’t explain Claire’s DNA being in the Buckley home, which, by the way, isn’t as clear-cut as we thought. Turns out that Claire’s DNA wasn’t taken from a hair ribbon, but from a hair found at the scene, probably in the box of ribbons. Anyway, there’s no ribbon to trace.”
“But the important thing, the connection, the knowledge that Claire was there, is still valid.”
“Completely.”
“And Jack’s our connection between Comfort Cove and Aurora.”
“Gladys Buckley had clients from the East Coast. It might be that Jack’s time in Cincinnati is only a coincidence. As much as we don’t believe in coincidences because they usually mean connections, maybe this time it is just a coincidence.”
It was possible. “Is that what you think?”
“No.”
“I don’t, either.” But he was willing to be wrong. As long as Claire Sanderson was found. “I talked to the DNA lab in Boston and was able to get them to move Jack’s sample up on the list, but unless he touched something the girl left behind, we won’t get a match.” He leaned back against his pillows, still wearing his dress slacks.
“So you keep looking at what you’ve already seen.”
Amelia Hardy had invited him over for a turkey dinner when he was off shift on Thursday. Maybe he could take another look at her activity records. Catalog the mentions of Jack Colton. There could be something…?.
“Something happened to Claire Sanderson, Ramsey. The answer is out there, waiting for you to find it.”
Which was exactly why he kept looking.