Chapter 2
"AJ, have you seen my wallet? I lost it, put it down somewhere and now I can‘t find it,"
the woman‘s voice rose over the TV. The SWAT member set the five year old on his feet to get up and start looking in all the obvious places a woman might accidentally leave her personal possessions. The boy went to the vegetable bin that held carrots, onions and potatoes and pulled it open to expose her purse.
"Found it!" the man called and she came into the kitchen to stare at the little boy and his father.
"This is so strange, AJ," she said. "Watch this---Jeddy boy, where‘s Mama‘s blue ring?" AJ said, "The one you lost two years ago?"
She nodded and they followed as he took them on a tour of the house to the garage and into the car where he pushed the seat back. In the track lay a one-carat blue topaz and gold ring that glittered in his palm. AJ looked at the boy‘s clear bottle green eyes and then at his mama‘s blue ones.
"Jade, where‘s my Cross pocket knife?"
The strange gray brows furrowed, closed his eyes in thought and skittered out to the yard.
There on the massive deck between two cracks, he dug out the slim blade and handed it over to his father.
"No matter what I ask him to find, he finds it," she told her husband. "Stuff I haven‘t thought of in years."
"Lost socks, too?" he quipped.
"You can make fun of it, AJ, but I haven‘t been able to stump him yet," she retorted.
"Take him to the station and try it with some of the guys there."
"I just might," he returned. "Jade, want to go with Dad to work?"
The boy looked up at his dad and nodded. From the day that Arlen had brought the toddler home to his wife, the child had rarely spoken and when he did, he had the same strange accent as his mother.
His hair had not been dirty from dust but was an odd dark gray, uniformly one color, an ashy tone that looked odd on so young a child.
Franny James had taken the exhausted baby from her husband, bathed and fed him, rocked him to sleep in her arms. In the next week, she took him to a PEDS clinic and had him examined from head to toe, paid cash so that there was no paper trail on the boy.
For three years, almost four, they had raised him and not one of his team ratted him out.
In fact, the boy called Jade had seven uncles that doted on him.
Franny had dressed him in jeans, camo t-shirt and put his hand in AJ‘s, kissed him goodbye and waved as they drove out in his 4x4 Dodge pickup.
The station was a twenty-minute drive down the highway and into Boston proper. AJ‘s station was the 4-7, home of the top SWAT TacOps and co unter terrorism of which he was a senior member.
He pulled into his space, parked and unhooked Jadewyn from his car seat and put him down on the concrete. The two of them sauntered into the station house like marching soldiers.
"Hey, AJ. Jade," the desk sergeant smiled. "You on?"
"Nope, Reilly. Got the next two off," he said genially.
"Hey, did you hear about Rosslyn‘s daughter?"
"Mayor Rosslyn? No, what?"
"She‘s been missing for twelve hours; they‘re waiting for a ransom demand."
AJ looked at his son, and then back to his Sergeant. "They know where she disappeared from?"
"Somewhere on BU‘s campus."
"Got a map, Sarge? Bring it into the Loo‘s office. Is Murph here? Bring him, too." James dragged his child into the Lieutenant‘s office without knocking; he was on the phone and looked up in astonishment that he was interrupted without a knock or fare-thee-well. Hanging up, he glared at his off duty SWAT member and demanded to know what James was doing.
The desk sergeant came in with a map and paused at the desk, confused.
"Put it out on the desk, Sarge," AJ ordered and picked Jade up. He stared into those odd, large pupils. "Jade? Loo, you got a photo of Rosslyn‘s daughter?"
"Yeah. On the board." He pointed to the eraser board with the current cases listed. On the top of the board was Melissa Rosslyn, missing, the date, place and time.
"What is this about, AJ?" the Loo demanded as he handed over the photos. AJ gave it to the boy.
"Jade, this pretty lady is Melissa. She‘s lost. Can you find her?"
The boy took the photo, stood still in a way that was eerily adult and headed for the door.
AJ stopped him. "No, Jade. Show me on the map, can you do that?"
He looked, peered down at the metroplex map spread out on the desk and pointed to the streets Maidenhair and Culver, part of the Commons near the University. "What‘s there? Can you pull up a Google Earth view of the area, down to the buildings?" AJ asked. Such was his intensity that the lieutenant nodded and turned his monitor around after he downloaded the sight.
The 17 in monitor showed labs, power plant and the horticulture building on the university complex. Jade pointed to that building, to a specific location and said, "Under."
"This is bullshit, AJ," he said and AJ, the Sarge and a voice from the door denied it.
Murphy came in wearing his work suit, chinos, sport jacket, polo and 9 mm.
"Loo, if Jade says it‘s there, it‘s there. What‘s up, AJ?" His eyes scanned the maps, the girl‘s photo and the board.
"Melissa Rosslyn? He‘s found her? Jade, is she alive?"
"Murph! He‘s only five years old!"
"Sorry, partner." He laid his hand on the boy‘s skinny shoulder. "Loo, Jade has been finding stuff for us the last four years. I swear if he says she‘s there, you can bank on it."
"Yeah? Ask him where my wife lost her grandmother‘s diamond out of the setting?"
Jade looked up at him sidewise, said in a soft, lisping whisper, "Light over your hallway. In the cover."
"Right," he snorted, then, "How‘s he know I have a covered light in the hall?" He picked up the phone, stared at those green eyes as they stared back. He dialed. "Hi, Cappy. Look, do me a favor, will you? Get the ladder, go take off the cover on the hall light and look inside it. No, I didn‘t see any flies in there and I know you changed the bulbs four months ago. I‘ll wait."
Ten minutes later, they all heard her shriek, "I found it! Mimi‘s stone! I must have hit the setting and knocked it loose!"
He hung up slowly. "AJ, if he‘s wrong, I‘ll look like a fool."
"If he‘s right, the mayor will owe you big time."
"Murphy, Sergeant, get my car and we‘ll check it out ourselves," he decided. "Take him with us, AJ."
"Loo, what if she‘s---"
"Keep him in the cruiser. Have paramedics standing by."
All eyes were on them as the unlikely four descended to the car pool. They found her, buried in the compost pile in the greenhouses of the Horticulture Department. She had been raped and strangled; they managed to keep the sight from the child but he knew the outcome regardless. She must have just been placed there, the paramedics were able to revive her and the mayor met the boy and kept his secret.