Page 21 of Bone Echo

“Check the cargo area of my Jeep. I always carry a pair.” He almost laughed at the idea that a good lawman always carried two things even if he had nothing else: his weapon and a pair of bolt cutters.

Benson hustled back with the bolt cutters and snapped the lock. Kurt pulled it free of the doors and opened the first of the two. It was as dark as hell down there. He should have had Watts grab his flashlight too. That was the third item a good lawman should always have handy.

“Got my flashlight.” Benson offered it to Kurt.

“Thanks.” He accepted the flashlight and then opened the other door. The stone steps leading downward were steep and damp. Once they were fully in the cellar, Kurt discovered a pull string for an overhead light. A quick tug and the darkness fled for the far corners.

The cellar had stone walls and floor. Old shelves lined one wall. The few random items stored there were covered in a thick layer of dusty cobwebs. A wooden shipping box from the days before cardboard lay on the floor. Other than those times there was nothing to see. Just to be sure, Kurt walked slowly around the space inspecting the walls and floor an inch at a time.

“Damn,” Benson grumbled, “I was sure this was a good find.”

Kurt cast him a look. “It is a good find, just not the one that gives us what we need.”

After closing up the cellar and having a long slow look around at the shed and the small yard itself, Kurt was convinced there was nothing to find. Disappointment hung like a millstone around his neck.

Damn it! He wanted to find his daughter. Someone somewhere had to know something or have seen something besides that one stop at the Village gas station.

He ensured the house was secured and thanked Watts and Benson for their help. The things he should probably do next whirled in his head like a cyclone. He drove to his office and got an update from Doreen. There was still nothing. Sure the tips kept coming in but none were really about Ella. Sightings thought to be her. Assertions that she’d been abducted by aliens.All manner of crazy claims along with the occasional legitimate tip that simply wasn’t about Ella.

The pattern was always the same. Anytime a person went missing and alerts were set in motion, the strange crawled from beneath their rocks and called in to the tipline. Small town or big city. It just was.

At this point he would take whatever he could get if it would even remotely point him in the direction of his daughter. He found it utterly insane that in a town this small no one had seen a thing.

The only halfway decent news today was that Lawler had not used his passport. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t obtained one in a different name.

Kurt dropped his head back and squeezed his eyes shut.Please just let her be okay.

On his desk his cell phone vibrated. He lifted his head and hoped this was better news. He’d had all the bad he could take. His heart hurt so badly he wasn’t sure how it kept beating.

Hanes. He accepted the call, a shot of adrenaline stinging through him, forcing his damaged heart into a faster rhythm. “You find something?”

“That high-end private school Ella attended those last two years you lived out here is closed. As it turns out that Higher Horizon Medical Clinic was closely affiliated with the school and it shut down too. There are all kinds of bizarre rumors about what happened but no one is talking.”

“When did that happen?” Kurt sat up straight. The adrenaline giving way to dread. “Liz’s OB was at that clinic. Ella’s pediatrician too.” A new, more ominous thread of trepidation slinked its way along his nerve endings.

“No one appears to be sure about anything,” he said before issuing a heavy sigh. “Look, I don’t want you to get your hopes up, but I’ve got a former employee who has promised to meetme later with some information. His record is not particularly reliable. He was fired from the clinic. Accused of improper behavior with some of the children. I can’t tell yet whether he’s a victim afraid to talk or an aggrieved former employee whose also a pedophile. But I’ll hear him out and let you know if I think his claims have any merit. Bottom line, it smells fishy that the place closed up so suddenly about the same time your guy Lawler shows up in Camden. On top of that, the whole thing has a lock on it that suggests the feds are involved.”

Kurt reminded himself to breathe. Damn straight it was fishy. “Whatever you can find, Avery. I’ll take it. I’m desperate here, man.”

“Anything I can do to help you find that girl, I’m on it.”

“Let me know what you learn,” Kurt urged. The sooner the better. No need to say as much. Avery Hanes would do all in his power as quickly as possible. Kurt knew this.

“We’re meeting at eight so it shouldn’t be long after that.”

The call ended and Kurt checked the time. Since Hanes was on west coast time, it would be a while before Kurt heard anything else. But, based on this new information he knew exactly what he had to do between now and then.

“Gotta run to the house,” he told Doreen on his way out. “Call me if you hear any news from anyone.”

“Count on it,” she promised.

A mixture of sleet and snow started as he walked out of the station, causing the drive home to take a couple minutes longer than it should have. He shot out of his vehicle before the engine died. Nearly busted his ass on the steps up to the back door. He slammed the door shut behind him as he stormed into the kitchen. Ten seconds later he barreled up the stairs. This house had three bedrooms. The extra room he used for storing all the boxes that hadn’t been opened. Boxes of Liz’s things that he hadn’t been able to part with. Boxes of their life back in L.A.Memories that wouldn’t let go like echoes from the deepest part of him…from the bone.

Kurt took a breath and started with the first box he encountered. He quickly realized he needed a knife or boxcutter. A run downstairs and a quick prowl through three or four kitchen drawers took care of that problem. He ignored the cigarettes that called out to him. No time.

Every box he opened made him smile in spite of himself. Toys that had meant so much to Ella. The sort that she was too grown up for now. Liz’s favorite trinkets. A bell from every place they’d ever visited. There actually weren’t that many because he’d always been too busy with work. He wished he could go back and change that. Big mistake.

Lots and lots more photo albums. Tax records for the thirteen years they were married.

---