Midnight Caller

Shaking off her anxiety as the result of lack of sleep, she leaned down and hugged him. “You bet. Let’s go.”

Less than an hour later, while they waited by the side of the parade route, Erin’s sense of uneasiness returned. Crazy as it was, she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching them. Goose bumps shivered along her arms. Glancing over her shoulder, her eyes roamed the crowd. Children and adults formed two lines up and down the parade route. Some of the parents had brought folding chairs. Others stood. Children sat cross-legged in the grass. A young couple chased a laughing toddler bent on escape.

Nothing sinister. Nothing ominous. Why couldn’t she shake this feeling?

Erin recognized many of her coworkers from the hospital. She couldn’t identify everyone by name, but she’d passed them in the halls or had ridden with them on an elevator. She waved to the ones she did know and nodded to others. It seemed like half the hospital staff came. Dr. Clark and his family. Shelley from the cafeteria crew. Mr. Peters from housekeeping. Even Lenny, the lab tech, had come. But that was no big surprise. The hospital cosponsored the event and all personnel had been encouraged to buy a ticket.

She turned her head and her eyes lit on her friend. She waved for Carol to join them. Erin banished her anxiety when Carol elbowed her way through the crowd and stood beside her.

“Can you believe this?” Carol asked. “I knew we’d have a crowd, but this is twice as many people as I expected. Times are tough. Money is tight, but it didn’t stop folks from reaching into their wallets to buy a ticket for a good cause, did it?”

Carol scooped Amy up into her arms. The child’s soft blond curls framed a little round face which held a smiling mouth and the slightly slanted eyes of a three-year-old Down syndrome child.

“You’ve done a great job, Carol.”

“Not just me. The committee worked hard and it looks like it paid off.” Music began playing and the excitement of the crowd became palpable. The sound of children’s laughter and yells of excitement tinkled in the air like wind chimes.

“The parade’s about to begin. Look,” Carol said, pointing to her right. “Here comes the Easter Bunny.”

He steadied the camera and clicked a picture. Then, he took another. He cursed when people moved in front of him and obstructed his view of her. Move. All of you. Get out of my way. He elbowed his way through the crowd until her image filled the camera lens again. Click. She threw her head back and laughed. Click. She shaded her eyes against the sun while she talked. Click. Click. Click.

Her son waited for his mother’s attention. The child leaned heavily on the walker, shifting his weight from one leg to another. But his mother was too busy flapping her gums to pay any attention to him. The boy tugged on her shirt. She glanced down, signaled for the child to wait a minute and returned to her conversation. He knew it. He knew he was right about her. She was self-centered and selfish. A rotten excuse for a mother.

He wasn’t at all surprised when the boy wandered away. The woman didn’t even notice he had gone. A deep hatred flowed through his veins like molten lava. She was like all the other women. Soon he would make her pay. Click. First he had to finish the job he started last night. Click. She’d pay, all right. Click. Click. She deserved to die.

The sun beat down without mercy as Tony Marino looked out over the crowd from his vantage point on top of the picnic table. Not even a hint of a breeze. This kind of weather you expected in August in Florida not April. Remember spring, Lord? Supposed to be warm and balmy, not hot and sticky. But it was hot. Miserably hot. And he wasn’t any closer to finding a lead on this case.

He wanted to curse so badly his lips twitched. Five years ago when Tony had found the Lord and decided to mend his ways, cursing seemed the easiest vice to attack first. He was wrong. As a detective for the Volusia County sheriff’s office cursing had been a natural part of his daily conversation. No different than any other word. He started out promising himself to say a prayer and put a dollar in a jar each time he uttered a curse word. When his prayers took hours and his jar collected enough money to buy a small car, he knew it was going to be more difficult than he first believed.

But he succeeded.

Not one errant word in five years.

Until today.

Sweat rolled down the back of his neck and beaded on his forehead. All he could think about was the case. He wanted to call his partner. See if there were any new leads. He wanted to get back to the files on his desk. Maybe he’d missed something. He wanted to be anywhere but here. What a colossal waste of his time, babysitting a stupid rabbit.

He glanced at the cage resting beside him. The rabbit didn’t look hot or uncomfortable despite the crazy multicolored cape tied to its body. It just chomped away on a carrot totally oblivious to the world. Lucky rabbit.

He couldn’t believe he’d been roped into this job in the first place. Carrying the “Easter Bunny” at the head of the parade and officiating at the opening of the Easter egg hunt. He knew the captain liked his men to volunteer in the community. Winters had played Santa for the kids in the hospital. Garcia, dressed as a super hero, had toured the schools and talked about the danger of drugs. But when his number had come up on the volunteer list, what did Sarge assign him? Easter Bunny duty at the fundraiser for the Wish for the Stars Foundation. Great foundation. Fulfilled dreams for sick children. Good for the kids. The pits for him.

Tony had agreed to do it not just because it was his turn. Or because it was for a charity he deeply believed in. But last night another woman had gone missing. He planned to mingle with the crowd. Keep his ears open to idle conversations. Keep his eyes open for anything out of the ordinary. Because something was very much out of the ordinary. A monster had invaded their peaceful community. They’d already discovered two bodies and now a third woman was missing.

Tony scanned the crowd for the hundredth time. It looked like a Norman Rockwell painting and he smiled in spite of himself. Children of all ages, shapes and sizes covered the grounds like ants at a picnic. The organizers had done a good job of dividing the kids not just by age group, but also by disability. Children in wheelchairs were accompanied by volunteers to help them hunt and many of them picked up their own eggs using long-handled reachers.

His eyes slid over the adults. Mothers helped their children. Fathers snapped pictures. Was one of them a murderer? Experience had taught him that the most frightening serial killers were the ones who could blend easily into the normal thread of life. The neighbor waving hello as he mowed the grass. The guy delivering the morning paper. The man walking his dog. Now a killer was here in his community, kidnapping and brutally killing women. Tony was determined to find him.

The smell of charcoaled hamburgers wafted across the lawn. His stomach growled in response. He hadn’t had more than a doughnut and coffee for breakfast. He was more than ready to relinquish his furry charge. The rabbit could go back to doing whatever rabbits do and he could grab a burger and head back to the department.

In his peripheral vision, he caught a glimpse of movement. He turned his head. A boy, five maybe six years old, approached. Tony groaned. Just what he needed. A kid coming to see the rabbit. He watched the child push the walker with the speed and determination of a little man on a mission. Tony grinned. The boy reminded him of himself when he’d been that age. Full of curiosity and excess energy. He’d been a real handful for his single mom. To this day he never knew how she managed to raise him all on her own.

An unruly mass of red hair sprouted from the kid’s head. He looked like a cartoon character who had stuck his finger into an electric socket. In the distance, a woman with bouncing auburn curls was in hot pursuit. Must be the mother.

The child pushed the walker up to the table and stared into the cage.

The boy’s serious expression intrigued Tony. “Why aren’t you hunting eggs with the other kids?”

“He’s not real, is he?” The boy’s frown deepened.

Tony glanced at the rabbit and shrugged. “Looks real to me.”

“There’s no such thing as an Easter Bunny. It’s all pretend.” The boy’s shoulders slumped and his lower lip jutted out.

“Jack, don’t bother the man.” The mother had caught up. Winded from her race to catch up with her son, her words came in short gasps. Her eyes held the remnants of fear probably from realizing he had wandered away. “Why did you leave without telling me?” She lowered her voice to a whisper meant for her son. “You know the rule about talking to strangers.”

A blond-haired woman, her arms wrapped around a child with Down syndrome, appeared behind them. “Don’t be too hard on him, Erin. We were talking. It was probably hard to resist coming to see the Easter Bunny. Right, Jack?”

Jack looked at Tony. “Do kids really get wishes? Or is that pretend, too?”

“Why? Do you have a wish?” Tony asked.

The boy nodded. “I’ve been wishing and praying every night and I didn’t know how God was going to help me. But I heard Mom and Aunt Carol talking. She said that kids get to make a wish and sometimes that wish comes true. Since you’re in charge of the Easter Bunny, I figure God wants me to ask you.”

“Jack.” The mom placed her hand on the boy’s shoulder. “What are you talking about? What wish?”

“Yes, Jack,” Tony said with a grin. “What is this wish that’s so big you’ve been praying about it?”

“I need a dad.”

“Jack!” The mother coughed and sputtered. Her friend gasped and then burst into laughter.

“Not a real dad,” Jack spoke faster. “A pretend dad would be fine. But I need him by eight o’clock next Saturday.”

“Eight o’clock?” Tony, just as surprised as the mother, could only echo the boy’s words.

Jack’s head bobbed up and down. “Mrs. Meltzer at Kidz Club says it doesn’t have to be a real dad. It can be a stepdad or an uncle or a grandfather or even a big brother. That’s what you need to ride the boys’ bus to Disney World. But I don’t have any of those things. It’s just me, my mom and Aunt Tess. I really want to go on that bus.”

The mother’s face and throat flushed with color. She was an attractive woman. Slender. Medium height. Auburn hair. Green eyes. An appealing package. The woman seemed to be struggling to find something appropriate to say. “Jack,” was the only word she managed to whisper.

“Moms get to go. And sisters, too,” the boy continued. “But they have to ride on the second bus. Only the guys get to ride the first bus. Mom’s going with me. But if I don’t get a pretend dad, I won’t be able to ride the first bus with the rest of the guys. I don’t want to ride the girls’ bus.”

“Jack Patrick O’Malley, you stop it right this minute.”

A smile tugged at the edges of Tony’s mouth. Obviously, the mother had overcome her embarrassment and slid right on into mad-as-all-get-out.

“I don’t want to be different from the other kids,” Jack said, ignoring his mother’s outburst. “My legs don’t work right. I can’t play with the other kids at recess. I have to use this stupid walker all the time. I want to go on the boys’ bus. I want to be just like everybody else even if it’s only for one day. Can you do it? Can you get me a pretend dad for Saturday?”

Tony drew in a deep breath.