Out of Reach: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

and Alec suspected the parade of men through her bedroom were more often paying customers than boyfriends.
    Nor had Ellen or Roy exhibited any other behavior that would have Alec hunting for a body instead of a terrorized boy. Yes, there was the friction between Roy and Cody, but that alone didn’t make Roy capable of murder. Or more specifically, of successfully covering it up.
    “They don’t strike me as smart enough,” Alec said. “But let’s not rule it out.” He didn’t want to blind Cathy with his opinions. He wanted her eyes open and looking at all possible scenarios. “I want you to push a little harder on them. If nothing else, they might know more than they’re saying. Get a polygraph.”
    “They’ve already refused.”
    “Find out why. If they’re telling the truth, they should have no objection.”
    “You’re the boss.”
    “What about the biological father?” Alec asked. “Have you found him yet?” He’d skipped out when Cody was four, and according to Ellen, they hadn’t seen or heard from his since.
    “Not yet, but we’re working on it.”
    “I doubt he’s involved.” Men who’d deserted their families didn’t usually show up years later to kidnap the children they’d abandoned. “But we need to make sure.”
    “We’ll find him.”
    Alec waited while she made notes on the storyboard, joining Ellen and Roy’s names with a bracket and drawing an arrow to the word
polygraph
, question mark, in capital letters. When she was done, he brought up another common scenario. “Cody could have run. If he had a problem with Roy, the boy might have decided he’d had enough, picked up, and taken off.”
    “That’s what the locals think,” Cathy said, recapping the marker she’d used on the storyboard and dropping it on a nearby table. “And it wouldn’t be the first time.”
    Cody had run three times in the last year, which accounted for the limited manpower working the case. The locals just didn’t believe this was a kidnapping, but the case was getting a lot of media attention and so they’d called in the FBI and the CACU.
    “What do
you
think?” Alec asked, trusting Cathy’s instincts on child behavior more than those of an overworked police force.
    She hesitated, considering, taking her time before answering. “If he ran, it was spur of the moment. According to his mother, nothing is missing.” Cathy crossed her arms, again weighing what she knew. “And I went through his room as well. I don’t think she’s lying. He left behind his clothes, his Walkman, a stash of money under his mattress—two hundred dollars that I don’t want to even guess about how he got. Everything a nine-year-old boy takes when he runs.”
    Again, Alec agreed. It was a matter of looking for patterns, behavior that fit the specific outcome. Given certain stimuli, most people reacted in predictable ways. Cause and effect. It was what made profiling work.
    “Okay,” he said. “We’ll assume an abduction, but keep our options open.”
    She nodded, going to retrieve her coffee.
    “Let’s move on.” Alec pushed off the table and pointed toward the second point on the time line. “Cody arrived at school before the eight-fifteen bell. He was in his homeroom and the rest of his classes at the designated times throughout the day.”
    “And no one remembers him acting differently or doing anything else unusual.” Cathy took a careful sip of her coffee and put it down. “Although, I wasn’t too impressed with the interviews, especially those done at the school.”
    Alec wouldn’t have put it quite so nicely. He was seriously undermanned, with only a half-dozen agents from the Baltimore office working the case and another half-dozen locals—all rookies—doing the legwork. There just weren’t enough experienced agents or officers to go around.
    “I want a second set of interviews. Call Quantico and see if Matheson can spare a day, just to interview the kids at the school.” Matheson, a