The Truth About Comfort Cove

Waiting until Rose finished her task and went back inside, leaving whatever she’d been working on to dry on the pavement, Ramsey finally exited his car. He didn’t care if the neighbors saw him accessing the sewage tunnel that ran beneath their road, he just didn’t want Rose Sanderson to know he was there.

He’d dug up city blueprints and knew that the tunnel he was interested in ran from a mile east of the Sandersons’ street to two miles west, where it dumped into an underground city holding device. And it wasn’t really sewage. It was a runoff for rain and melting snow. The access Jack had mentioned was a hundred yards down from the Sanderson home and could be reached by jumping down from a retaining wall that ran on each side of the ditch, separating two properties.

Ramsey could easily see how a ball might roll down into the ditch and on into the tunnel. He could also see how a boy might jump down there to play. He doubted a two-year-old girl could make the jump without seriously injuring herself. He doubted she’d even be tempted to try.

But she could have been forced. Or carried.

With a quick glance at his loafers, topped by the brown cuff of the suit he’d put on that morning, Ramsey jumped down the four feet to the bottom of the ditch and made his way slowly toward the storm-sewer opening.

It hadn’t rained in a while and they hadn’t yet had their first dusting of snow for the season. The water at the bottom of the tunnel was barely enough to keep the cement damp. Ramsey stepped carefully around the occasional puddle.

Jeans might have been a better choice for the day. He hadn’t wanted to afford the time to stop back at home to change again before going into the office.

It wouldn’t be the first time he showed up to work with dirty feet.

He turned on his flashlight about ten feet into the opening, shining it all around him, taking in the aged, rough cement completely circling him—the graffiti-strewn walls and debrislittered floor. Looking down as his foot crunched something hard, he saw the syringe he’d just smashed. Empty bottles— some beer, some hard liquor—an empty can or two, lay haphazardly around the space. As did chip bags and candy wrappers. He saw a couple of disposable lighters. A cracked pipe. An empty matchbook. Some were soggy. Some hadn’t yet been damaged by water. What caught his attention were the empty plastic bags, sandwich-size, the kind with resealable openings, bearing white dust. And others, same size, with a telltale green hue.

The tunnel wasn’t a place for big-time dealers, clearly. But it was obviously a popular home for small-time users.

He walked west two miles to the end of the tunnel and came up blank. The holding tank that the water emptied into was huge, with a metal grate between the tank itself and the tunnel. Ramsey yanked on the grate. It didn’t give, not even a little bit. The only way anyone would have been able to stash a body, of any size, in that tank would have been to cut through that grate. If it had been cut twenty-five years before, it had been repaired. There was no sign of repair, but he’d check back at the office to see if there’d ever been a repair logged. Or maybe the grate had been replaced altogether.

And he wanted to know if the bottom of the tank was ever checked. If the water was tested. If there’d ever been reports of a bad smell in the area. A decomposing body, no matter how small, would emit a noticeable stench. Cataloging the questions in his mind, like a list he could visualize, Ramsey turned and made his way back to where he’d started.

The eastern mile of the tunnel was curiously untouched by graffiti and drug paraphernalia. Instead, he found some toy army men and lawn debris. The end of the tunnel opened out to a little park area between two homes. A somewhat secluded park area.

He might just have found out how someone got Claire Sanderson away from her home, out of the area, without being seen. Had anyone searched the neighborhoods, the areas, a mile from the little girl’s home that day? He hadn’t read anything about the area in particular. But he would.

Hurrying back to his car, he was already thinking about the files he would start with, the records he would search, including the names of all of the homeowners in the new vicinity. He’d check those records against the city’s database of criminal offenders and then move on to the national database.

He might have just found out how Jack Colton only lost four minutes when he took Claire from Frank around the corner from their street, or took her from Frank’s car while it was still parked in his driveway after the man had put Claire there and left the car purposely unlocked. There’d been someone else involved. Someone who took Claire from Jack—or Frank—and transported her through the tunnel into a park where he or she disappeared from view before anyone noticed anything amiss.

But even if he’d found his answer, even if he was completely right, he still had no idea what had ultimately happened to Claire Sanderson. He still had no closure for her family.

But if he could prove who took her, he’d be one step closer.

A sixtyish woman was outside the Sanderson home, with paper spread on the driveway, spray painting something white.

CHAPTER TWENTY

L ucy’s phone rang again, shortly after she’d hung up from Emma. She’d gotten out of her car and was sitting on a picnic table looking out at the river, reliving her past. The good times and the bad.

She was trying to find herself. Her deep-down heart. The thing that she’d told Emma to listen to. And all she could seem to find was the constant awareness of Sandy. Everything came back to her mother.

To the point that Lucy couldn’t seem to get a grasp on where she was. Not physically, but in every other way.

In no mood to be good for anyone, she almost didn’t answer the phone. Out of habit she looked at the number on the screen, in case it was Marie.

Ramsey.

“Hello?”

“I wanted to call earlier but hoped you’d be sleeping.”

She smiled but didn’t feel much. “I did take a nap this morning.”

“How are you?”

“Fine. My chin feels like it’s got dried glue on it and my tongue’s still a bit swollen, but otherwise I’m good to go.”