Temporary Partner (Valor and Doyle)

Chapter 4

AZZLING SUNLIGHT FILTERED THROUGH the trees,

dappling the grass and blinding me as I stepped outside. The sun was low enough in the sky its rays peeked under the covered upper section of the deck. Nearer the lake and with evening approaching, the temperature had dropped a few degrees. Not enough. The humidity continued to make the air heavy and wet, and sweat dripped down the center of my back before long.

Two people sat on deck chairs the next level down; a female officer and a woman in her mid to late thirties dressed in nothing more than a skimpy red bikini. Any other man might have been staggered by her voluptuous good looks. Me, not so much. She was oiled and tanned, rail-thin, with auburn hair tied in a messy bun. Several strands spilled around her face, sticking to her wet cheeks. Her nails were

manicured and painted. Mascara ran in black rivers down her face. The woman hiccup-sobbed, a pile of tissues accumulating at her side. Her eyes were swollen and puffy, and her nose was red from being wiped so many times.

Before approaching, I scanned the backyard, getting a sense of my surroundings. A perimeter had been set up. Yellow police tape cordoned off the area, blocking access to anything beyond the deck.

This was where the child had been sleeping, where the unknown suspect had snuck in and out without being seen. Questions churned and stirred in my head. The backyard seemed relatively secure. How had it happened? Where was the point of ingress? Who would have come inside this private space and abducted a napping babe? Why?

A six-foot privacy fence surrounded the yard all the way to the back reaches of the property where various trees formed a canopy overhead—a few elms, a maple, and a willow among them, its branches drooping and dusting the ground. There was a gate at the side of the house leading out to Maple Avenue and another in the back corner near a storage shed, lost among tangled vines and thick bushes. I got the sense it was rarely used.

Garden gnomes and other stone figurines decorated the rocky garden edge. Cedar woodchips formed a weaving path among rose bushes and other colorful blossoms. The earthy, pungent scent of the outdoors reached me at the patio door. Beyond a pergola, a large birdbath trickled and poured

water into a curved stone basin. Polished stone benches formed a small retreat. A trellis stood tall on the opposite side of the fountain, and a vined plant with teardrop-shaped leaves and purple flowers climbed its length, weaving in and out of the small diamond pattern.

A British-style pram sat unattended under the shade of a giant maple like a bassinet on four large wheels. It was a style I’d seen in an old television show once upon a time, but I’d thought them long ago outdated. I guessed I was wrong. It was big and bulky, not what I expected an upper- class woman to push down the road while out for a stroll with her baby.

What lay inside the pram? What was it Ikeyo had alluded to having seen? The officer and grieving mother blocked my path. It would be rude to march through their conversation without at least a cursory introduction. As thirsty as I was for answers, I needed to take this one step at a time.

I descended to the second level. Constable Melbourne noticed me first, her expression warning me to approach with caution. With my hands tucked inside the pockets of my slacks, I hoped to appear less imposing. On more than one occasion, I’d been told I came across as cold and unsympathetic, so I softened my facial features and hoped I appeared approachable. As much as this distressed woman needed coddling and sensitivity, we had a baby to find, and time was not on our side.

Clara Paquet pivoted when she heard me descend the stairs. Sniffling, she dabbed at her eyes with a crumpled tissue. The woman could have been a model. A few years past her prime, perhaps, but gorgeous nonetheless. She had dark brows, high cheekbones, and pouty, collagen-injected lips which had been painted crimson. She did not give off the impression of a mother. She was tanned, toned, and sported a pair of store-bought breasts that threatened the vitality of her tiny bikini top.

“Good evening, Mrs. Paquet. I’m Detective Quaid Valor with missing persons. Do you mind if I join you?”

“You have to find Mathieu. Please. He’s just a bébé.”

Tears rolled down her cheeks anew. Her French accent was thick, but her English was good. Relief flooded me. My partner, Eden, was the bilingual one of the pair of us. When it came to our vast French-speaking community, I faltered. My high school teachings failed me every time.

“We’re going to do all we can to find him and bring him home, but to do that, I need to gather as much information from you as possible. Do you understand?”

She nodded and blew her nose, setting her tissue aside and pulling another from the box beside her. She choked and cried some more, struggling to pull herself together. Melbourne rubbed her knee, offering soft words of comfort.

Giving the mother room to breathe, ensuring I didn’t encroach on her space, I took a position on the stairs that led down to the third tier of the deck.

When her crying petered off to gentle sobs, I pushed. “I understand you’re married, Mrs. Paquet. Is that correct?”

“Oui. Yes. Like I told this lady, Giles is away this weekend for his job.”

“Away where?”

She shook her head, sniffling. “I don’t know. He travels a lot for work. I don’t always ask.”

“I’ve made several attempts to contact him,” Melbourne said, handing me a slip of paper. “He’s not answering his cell phone. It goes straight to voicemail. I think it’s turned off.”

I took the paper where a phone number had been scrawled in blue ink. “Did you leave a message?”

“Yes, sir. Multiple. I asked him to contact us immediately, stating there was a family emergency. I didn’t go into detail.”

Nodding, I handed back the paper. “Keep trying. Where does your husband work, Mrs. Paquet?”

“He’s a senior developer for Virtu-Link Software. He’s responsible for a majority of the French clientele, selling them new software programs and training them on how to use them.”

“Do you have a direct contact for his department head or a boss’s name and number where we might be able to find out where he is or how to get a hold of him?”

She nodded and gestured toward the deck railing. “On my phone. Up there. His boss’s name is Steven Ingles. I have

his personal cell number. He and Giles play golf together sometimes.”

Melbourne retrieved Clara’s cell and caught my eye, anticipating my next move.

“Give Mr. Ingles a call,” I instructed. “Find out where the husband was sent this weekend and see if he has another means of contacting him or a hotel name where he might be staying. Anything.”

“Yes, sir.”

Melbourne had Clara unlock her device before taking it inside to do as I asked. Once we were alone, I faced Clara. “I need to ask you a few important questions, Clara. Is that okay?”

“I don’t understand why I have to keep repeating myself.” Her voice evaporated into blubbering sobs. “I told that lady everything I know. Where’s my bébé? Just find him. I can’t… Please. I need my bébé.” She hugged herself and broke down again.

“And that is exactly what I want to do. Believe me, Clara. Before Giles left to go away this weekend, did you two get into a fight or have a disagreement?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, dabbing the runaway mascara from underneath each. She shrugged and shook her head. “No. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

“What does that mean exactly? The ordinary.”

“Giles doesn’t help much with Mathieu. I confront him sometimes, and he tells me that’s why he hired me a nanny.

That’s not what I mean, I tell him. He gets angry and tells me to go get a pedicure and relax. He doesn’t have time for a bébé.”

“Does he spend time with Mathieu when he’s home?”

Clara shrugged. “Sometimes. Sometimes no. He’s very busy, but I know he loves Mathieu.”

“I’m sure he does.”

I puzzled out what she wasn’t saying. Leaving that angle for the moment, I changed directions.

“Clara, can you tell me exactly what you were doing and what happened up until the point when you discovered Mathieu missing?”

Her shoulders bounced as she cried harder, hands trembling as she shredded a tissue. “H-he was … n-napping. I … I … I was t-tanning. Isabella, she’s the nanny, she left earlier, and we were all alone. Mathieu likes to have his dodo outside. I stay with him. I never leave him. You have to understand. I’m a good maman.” She cried harder, her ability to converse compromised to a point her words blubbered out nonsensically.

I gave her a few minutes to blow her nose and find her composure before urging her to continue.

“My phone, it was ringing and ringing. I bring it with me outside when I’m tanning.”

“Who was on the phone?”

“A man. H-he said he was from Service Canada.” I frowned. “What did he want?”

“He s-said Giles did one of their surveys. A census thing.” She waved a hand like she didn’t quite understand what it was. “They needed to confirm something about his tax form. A number. I don’t know these things. Giles does all this. Not me. They said there was an error on a document, and I had to check to see if the number was right. I told them to wait for Giles to come home, and the man said it was urgent.”

“Did this phone call feel suspicious in any way?”

“N-no.” She hiccupped and blinked wet lashes, her green eyes glimmering in the sunlight. “The man, he knew everything about my husband. Where he works. How much he makes. His social insurance number. All those things. It seemed proper.”

“It’s Saturday, Mrs. Paquet. Service Canada wouldn’t make calls on a weekend.”

“I know this now. I didn’t think. He tricked me. He took my Mathieu. I am a stupid, stupid woman. Giles will be so angry with me.” Her panic was rising, so I veered our conversation forward before I lost her again.

“Did you recognize the voice of the caller?”

She dabbed her eyes, shaking her head. “No. The call. It was not clear. There was static, and he sounded far away. A bad connection. Muffled.”

“Can you describe the voice?” She sagged forward. “No.”

“Did he have an accent? Did he speak French or English? Was the tone of his voice deeper or higher pitched?

Anything you can tell me will help.”

“He spoke fast. English. Midtone? I don’t know. Nothing stood out.”

“Okay. So you went inside to retrieve the information he asked for. How long were you gone?”

“Five minutes. Maybe a little longer. I don’t know. It could have been ten minutes. Giles keeps all that stuff in his office. I never go in there. He doesn’t like me in there, so I didn’t know where to find it. While I was l-looking, the man on the phone kept pressing. He said he needed this paper and that line, and I was confused. I don’t know. Then after I told him I couldn’t find it, he said he needed to put me on hold for a second. I needed to wait while he confirmed something. So I waited. Before he returned, the call… it stopped.”

“He hung up?”

“My phone, it made the noise.” She waved a hand as though I should understand.

“A dial tone?”

“Yes. Like that. I took the folder with the tax papers outside in case he called back. When I got off the deck, I saw the blanket was gone.” She waved a hand at the pram nestled among the trees and surrounded by garden paths. “I always keep a blanket on top of the pram so Mathieu doesn’t get too much sun.”

Information filtered through my head. Ikeyo’s warning that something was amiss with the carriage. The phone call that

turned out to be a ruse intended to distract Clara. The father who wasn’t answering his cell and who’d displayed irritability toward his wife and child before leaving for a business trip.

“Was there a caller ID? Did a number show up on your phone?” It was a long shot.

“No. It said unknown.”

“Excuse me, Detective?” Clara and I both turned at the gentle voice of Constable Melbourne.

The officer stood on the upper level of the deck, shielding her eyes against the sun with a hand.

“Sorry to interrupt, sir. I got a hold of Steven Ingles. He claims Giles Paquet was not sent away for business this weekend. As far as he’s concerned, the man was off today. He doesn’t know where he is.”

“What?” Clara grabbed my arm. “He… He’s… I don’t understand. What does this mean? He… He wouldn’t do this, Detective. You have to believe me. Giles would never take Mathieu away from me. Is that what you think?” The uncontrollable crying started anew.

“Ma’am.” I placed a comforting hand on her arm.

She threw me off and pinned me with a hostile glare. “He wouldn’t take him! Find my bébé.”

An absent father. A missing baby.

I’d seen this scenario play out a few dozen times in my career. When marriages were rocky, when children came between loved ones, people did crazy things. The Paquets

might not be in an ongoing battle for custody over their child, but it didn’t exempt Giles from being among my primary suspects. Parents, family, and close friends were often responsible for a majority of the cases involving missing children that I worked. Statistically, it was more likely Giles had the child than a stranger.

Melbourne stepped in and worked to console Clara, for which I was grateful. That was another aspect of my job where Eden’s skills were far superior. She was better with distraught families and knew how to talk to them and get the information we needed. I had a reputation for sticking my foot in my mouth and forgetting to be sympathetic. My single-minded focus was on finding the kids who disappeared.

The pram sat in speckled sunshine, ominous in the distance. While Melbourne had Clara distracted, I stood and made my way toward it, skipping over the yellow barrier tape, despite knowing better. I scanned the mulched path on my way and studied the fencing on either side of the yard. Turning back to face the house, I noted a single security camera set high on the deck’s overhang. Its angle made me think it covered the patio door and nothing more, but it might have caught something useful. I made a mental note to ask Clara if we could view it.

“Detective?” Clara called after me.

Lost in my analysis, I ignored her and kept walking. Within seconds, I sensed her following.

“Detective?”

Before I got to the carriage, I held up a hand. “Stay off the grass, ma’am.”

The pram was constructed of navy fabric on the outside with a domed canopy that could be drawn back in nicer weather. Another step and I could see inside. The interior of the pram was cushioned with a padded mattress and a ruffled, ivory-eyelet material edging the circumference.

It wasn’t that I expected to find a baby sleeping inside, but my heart gave a jolt nonetheless at finding it empty. Even after eight years as a detective, each case, every missing child or teen or adult had a way of sneaking under my skin and filling my stomach with nauseous acid. Today was no different.

There was no baby in the navy pram, but what I found instead prickled the hairs on my arms to stand on end. In the center was a neatly folded baby blanket. Nestled in the middle was a silver pendant the size of a loonie on a leather cord. Etched on the pendant was a symbol of some kind, a spiral design, swirling toward the center with three dots on the lower exterior. The outer part of the spiral ended in a hook. I’d never seen anything like it before.

“That’s how I found it,” Clara said from over my shoulder. “I always drape the blanket over the top. It stops the bugs and the sun from getting at him.”

I should have shooed her back to the deck and barked at Melbourne for allowing her to follow after me, but I shouldn’t

have been contaminating the scene either. “Do you recognize the necklace?”

“No. I’ve never seen it before.”

So whoever took Mathieu had taken the time to fold the blanket and replace it inside the carriage along with a small gift.

My head raced with the new information. Statistics roared like a hurricane, battering the inside of my brain and pointing me in several directions at once. Part of me felt certain if we located Giles Paquet, we’d locate the missing infant.

But now I wasn’t so sure. “Has anyone touched this?”

“No, sir,” came Melbourne’s voice from behind. “Ikeyo ensured everyone stayed back once it was discovered. He… ensured the perimeter was in place.”

As he should have.

“How many people have been in this backyard?” “I don’t know, sir. I can ask Ikeyo.”

“Six now, including you, Detective.”

I spun, catching Ikeyo’s attention where he stood on the bottom step of the deck, hands on his hips, not looking happy at all the people ignoring his yellow tape.

Rightfully.

“I need everyone to clear the area,” I said.

Before backing away, I pulled out my phone and snapped a few pictures of the interior of the carriage, the pendant,

and the folded blanket. As I stepped away, I snapped a few more pictures of the backyard, the garden path, and the two gates.

As I moved to pocket my phone, it rang, jarring me from the maelstrom of thoughts swirling and spinning in my head. I checked the ID. My boss.

“Sarge, you’d better have someone for me,” I snapped in lieu of a hello. “I’m going to need it. I’ve got what appears to be a premeditated kidnapping and a father who’s in the wind. I’m not saying they’re connected, but it’s not looking good. I need crime scene investigators out here ASAP and a bloody partner if it’s not too much to ask.”

I waved at Melbourne, urging her to take Clara away as I turned my back, lowering my voice. “Sir, I think there’s a good possibility we have a parental kidnapping, but certain details make me feel like it could be more. I cannot fly solo on this one. I have a bad feeling.”

“Keep your pants on, Valor. I’ve been working on it. It’s not as easy as you think. Did you miss the part where I said we were running short? That’s why I called you in. I’ve been jumping through hoops to find you a replacement.”

I pinched fingers into my eye sockets and paced the lower section of the deck. Bureaucracy was going to be the death of me.

“I hear you, sir, but did you miss the part where I said I have a missing five-month-old baby? I’ve got Peel running around like chickens with their heads cut off, canvassing the

neighborhood, setting up roadblocks, clearing the harbor, and conducting interviews. I’ve got a hysterical mother who can barely get through her story without breaking down. The husband won’t answer his phone and isn’t where he’s supposed to be, and a kidnapper is leaving behind gifts in a carriage. My crime scene is contaminated, and the clock is ticking. You need to pull all the stops on this one. Just in case. Call it a gut feeling.”

“Valor,” Edwards snapped. “Listen to me. You need help. I hear you. Our guys are tied up, and I had to grovel to other departments. I’ll get your CSIs as quickly as possible.”

“How long on a partner?”

“One hour at most. Probably less.”

“One hour? Sir, with all due respect, you know as well as I do that every minute counts in a kidnapping case, and if I don’t—”

“I’ve got Summerfield making a call right now, so if you’d

—”

“Homicide? No. No. Sir, are you—”

“Work your case, Valor. Have Peel start setting up a command post if you think you need it. Help is on the way.”

“But someone from homicide? Who?” “Summerfield is calling Doyle.”

“Doyle? Aslan Doyle?” A wash of dread filled me. “You have a problem with that?”

“No, sir.”

“Didn’t think so. He should be on his way soon.”

Edwards hung up, and I took a few cleansing breaths. Aslan Doyle. Of all people. He was the cockiest, most arrogant, outspoken sonofabitch I’d ever had the pleasure of meeting. The guy thought he was God’s gift to men and women alike. He’d made a pass at me once, but I’d put him in his place. Aslan was the last thing I needed. I should have gone solo.

With another fortifying breath, I turned back to the chaos at the house. Melbourne was calming Clara. Ikeyo was looking on expectantly. He’d likely picked up on the gist of my conversation with Edwards.

I waved him over. “I’ve got help