Noah Boyd - Last Chance to Die

The voice of a young boy came from another room. “Dad, who is it?”

“That your son?” Vail asked.

“Yes, it is.” Hillstrand led the way into the living room. A boy whose age Vail guessed at ten or eleven sat on the couch watching TV. He had medium-brown hair and was at least a foot taller than Joey Walton was reported to be.

“David, this is Detective Vail from the Reston Police Department. He’s investigating that missing boy from the race they keep talking about.”

The boy stood up and offered his hand. “How do you do, sir.”

Vail took it and looked into his pale blue eyes. “Your parents letting you stay up to bring in the New Year?”

“My dad is. My mom passed away when I was born, during child-birth.” Vail noted that he pronounced the words mechanically, without any sadness, his language a little too mature to be his own. The boy pointed to a nearby shelf. “That’s a picture of her with my dad.” Again the words seemed practiced.

Vail looked at the obviously pregnant woman in the photo standing next to George Hillstrand. Her coloring was even darker than her husband’s was, her eyes almost pitch-black. “I’m sorry, David. That’s really tough. I lost my mom early in my life, too. I know how hard that can be.” Vail reached up and tousled the boy’s hair.

He pulled his hand back carefully so as to not reveal what he had discovered. It is genetically improbable that couples with brown eyes will have a child with blue eyes, and David’s hair and skin were nowhere close to the darkness of his “parents’.” When Vail ruffled the boy’s hair, he felt the crescent-shaped scar on the crown of his head. Unbelievably, David had to be Edward Stanton, the child abducted four years earlier in Maryland. Which meant that, in all likelihood, Joey Walton was somewhere in the house. Talk about the luck pendulum swinging in the other direction.

The boy started to sit down in front of the TV again when Hillstrand said, “That’s enough for tonight, son. It’s time for bed.” Without any argument, the boy got up and said, “Good night, sir.”

“Good night, David,” Vail answered.

“Let me get him tucked in, Detective. I’ll be right back. Please make yourself comfortable.”

Vail went over to the photograph of Hillstrand and his wife and carefully examined it, trying to determine how old it was. By the clothing and the faded color of the picture, he guessed it was at least ten years old.

Suddenly Vail felt Hillstrand’s presence behind him. He turned around and found Hillstrand holding a .45 automatic on him. “Four years and you’re the first one to notice that his coloring didn’t fit. I guess I should put away that picture of my wife. I keep it there for my son. It took a while, but now he remembers her as his mother.”

“I was hoping you wouldn’t notice me noticing.”

“It’s something I’ve always been afraid of. When you ran your hand through his hair, I knew.”

“And Joey?”

“He’s fine. Downstairs in a locked room. He’ll be restricted until he learns he’s better off here.”

“Than with his parents?”

“Since I’m the one with the gun, you don’t get to be judgmental,” Hillstrand said. “Besides, if they were good parents, they wouldn’t have left him alone in a crowd like that.”

“You mean with the pedophiles and all.”

Hillstrand raised the gun and pointed it at Vail’s face. “I am not a pedophile.”

Vail took a closer look at the gun and said, “That thing looks pretty old. Sure it still works?”

“It was my grandfather’s and it works just fine.”

“That particular model is military. It has a number of safeties. Are you sure it’s set to fire?”

Hillstrand smiled. “I’ve shot it enough times since my father left it to me to be positive.”

Vail was trying to determine how familiar Hillstrand was with the weapon. Because it had been designed for the military, it had four separate safeties. Not many people knew about the disconnector safety. If the end of the barrel could be pushed back a fraction of an inch toward the person holding the weapon, the hammer wouldn’t release. Since Hillstrand didn’t seem to know all that much about the mechanics of the gun, Vail thought if he could get into position and push it toward him—with the body’s natural tendency to push back—it would keep the safety engaged for the split second it would take to disarm him.

But right now Hillstrand was standing just far enough away to prevent that. “Can you at least let me see the boy, then?” Vail asked.

“Sure. With the carpeting and all up here, it’ll be less messy downstairs.”

“Call me cynical, but that doesn’t sound like a very happy New Year to me.”

Hillstrand’s only response was to wave the gun toward the basement door. Once they were downstairs, he pointed to a heavy steel door with a thick lock and hasp. “He’s in there.” Carefully he tossed Vail the keys. Vail opened the lock and turned back to Hillstrand, holding the keys in his outstretched right hand. Hillstrand took a cautious step closer. Vail knew that this was it.

As Hillstrand reached for the key ring, Vail half turned back to the door and, appearing distracted, drew the key ring back about six inches. Hillstrand leaned slightly forward to get it. Vail spun quickly and stepped into him, placing his hand over the muzzle of the gun and pushing it into Hillstrand.

For a split second, Hillstrand pushed back against Vail’s hand, pulling at the frozen trigger frantically. But as Vail turned to get a better grip on the weapon, Hillstrand drew it back and pulled the trigger. The .45’s explosion echoed slowly through the basement.

KATE AND THE RESTON CHIEF, Tim Mallon, sat behind his desk watching the interrogation of their sex-offender suspect, Frank Dillon, on a closed-circuit monitor. “What do you think, Kate, is it him?”

She watched the suspect’s body language closely. “It’s hard to tell with these sociopaths. And I’m certainly no expert. I promise you that someone from Behavioral Sciences will be up here tomorrow. This detective seems to know what he’s doing, though. As soon as Vail gets back, he may be able to figure it out.”

“Where is he? The desk officer said he went out.”

“I think he went to get something to eat.”

There was a knock at the door. A uniformed officer stepped in. “Chief, the parents are here.”

“Bring them back.” Mallon turned off the monitor.

“You want me to leave, Tim?” Kate asked.

“God, no. That the FBI is involved is the most reassuring thing I can tell them right now.”

The door opened again, and Mr. and Mrs. Walton walked in. Mallon introduced them both to Kate, and everyone sat down. Confusion and grief distorted Mrs. Walton’s face. Her makeup and hair were disheveled. Her husband, whose eyes were slightly red, tried to strike a calmer pose, more to keep his wife’s teetering hysteria in check than as a reflection of his own feelings. “Any news?” he asked.

“I’m sorry, not yet. But we’ve got the entire force following up on leads. We have brought someone in, and he’s being interrogated right now.”

“Is he the one? Is there something you’re not telling us?” Mrs. Walton asked anxiously.

“No, no, nothing like that.”

“Well, who is he?” the husband asked. “Why him?”

Mallon knew that there would be no comfort in the answer. Kate said, “He’s a convicted sex offender. This is routine. There’s nothing to indicate that he has anything to do with Joey being missing.”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Walton said, and collapsed onto her husband’s shoulder.

There was another knock at the door, and the desk officer leaned his head in again. “Chief, there’s someone here that you’re going to want to—”