Audrey balanced her briefcase in one hand and a mocha latte in the other as she approached her office. At the locked door, she maneuvered the latte out of her right hand into her left, then removed the key ring dangling from her clenched teeth and inserted the door key into the lock. Most mornings, she arrived before her receptionist, Donna Mackey, who usually arrived by eight-thirty, once she had dropped her twin grandsons at preschool. Her son-in-law, an army corporal, was stationed in the Middle East and her daughter worked the morning shift as a Burger King assistant manager. One of the reasons Audrey had hired Donna was because her grandmotherly appearance and personality immediately put patients at ease.

After making her way through the small waiting room and into her private office, Audrey dumped her briefcase in her swivel chair and set the latte on her desk. Just as she opened the window blinds to let in the morning sunlight, the phone rang. Before Donna arrived to take calls, the answering machine picked up and recorded messages, so Audrey continued moving through her office and back into the waiting room opening blinds and getting things in order for a busy Monday work schedule.

After the recorded message ended, a male voice said, “Dr. Sherrod, this is J.D. Cass.”

Audrey stopped and listened.

“I…uh…I was wondering if I could set up an appointment to talk to you.”

Audrey walked over to the telephone on her desk and laid her hand atop the receiver.

“It’s about Zoe,” J.D. said. “She seems to have taken a shine to you, and since she did…well, I thought maybe you could help her.” He paused for a moment, and then added, “Help us.”

Just let the answering machine take the call. Donna can contact Special Agent Cass later and arrange for an appointment. J.D. and his daughter are simply potential clients. Nothing more.

Her hand tightened on the receiver and before she could stop herself, Audrey disregarded what her common sense had told her.

She lifted the receiver. “Special Agent Cass. This is Dr. Sherrod.”

“Oh.” He seemed surprised to hear her voice. “Yeah. Good morning.”

“Good morning.”

“I guess you heard what I said about Zoe liking you and how I wanted to talk to you about helping us work out some father/daughter problems.”

“Yes, I heard. And I’d be happy to check my appointment book and set a time for you and Zoe to come in for your first counseling session.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather see you alone before we bring Zoe into it. I’m not even sure she’d go for the idea. She might not want to try counseling.”

“She does,” Audrey said.

“How do you—?”

“Zoe called me last night. She and I had a nice chat.”

“She didn’t say anything to me about calling you. But then she doesn’t tell me much.”

“The truth of the matter is I promised Zoe that I’d phone you this morning and talk to you about the two of you beginning family counseling.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I assure you that—”

“Tell me something, Doc, what kind of spell did you put on my daughter?”

“What do you mean?”

“You only met Zoe yesterday, and already you seem to have her eating out of your hand. How did you do it? She’s been living with me for over a year, and I swear to God getting her to listen to anything I say is like pulling eyeteeth.”

“No spells of any kind, I assure you. All I did yesterday at the police station and last night during our phone conversation was listen to what she had to say.”

“Are you saying I don’t listen to her? Well, I do, but everything that comes out of her mouth is ‘I won’t’ and ‘I’m miserable’ and ‘I hate you.’ Believe me, my listening to her has been a total waste of time.”

“Then perhaps that is the first problem we need to address in counseling.”

“Yeah, maybe it is,” J.D. said. “So, when can you work us into your busy schedule? It would be better for Zoe if I didn’t have to take her out of school. And as late in the day as possible would work for both of us.”

“I’ll check my appointment calendar and have my receptionist get back to you.”

“Couldn’t you check your calendar now?”

Yes, of course she could. But she wouldn’t do it. The fact that this man was practically demanding preferential treatment irritated her.

“I’m afraid I don’t have time. I’m quite busy and—”

“Maybe I should check with another counselor who isn’t as busy as you are.”

Damn him. She wanted to tell him to go right ahead, that the last thing she needed was to get involved with him, even on a strictly patient/therapist level. “After I promised Zoe that I’d contact you, I actually considered the option of putting you in touch with another therapist, but I decided that Zoe might rebel against the idea of seeing someone else. Your daughter trusts me.”

“And likes you.”

“Yes, she likes me and I like her.”

“You’re one up on me, Doc. She doesn’t like me very much.”

“Maybe that’s because she knows you don’t like her.”

J.D. didn’t respond, didn’t say one word.

“I’m sorry,” Audrey told him. “That was unprofessional of me.”

“Maybe so, but it was the truth.”

“I think you and Zoe have a great deal to work through before you can find common ground and possibly learn to like each other.”

“You might be right,” he replied. “So, how about that appointment?”

Audrey gritted her teeth as she picked up the appointment book and flipped through the pages. “The earliest appointment I have after three in the afternoon is Friday at four-thirty. It’s the last hour-long appointment of the day.”

“I’ll take it. Put me down.”

“I’ll put y’all down, you and Zoe, for your first session of family counseling.”

“Okay, Dr. Sherrod, we’ll do this your way.”

“Thank you for being so agreeable, Special Agent Cass.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, sure. We’ll see you Friday at four-thirty.”

As soon as she replaced the receiver, Audrey released an exasperated breath. She was out of her mind to accept J.D. Cass as a client. She didn’t like the man, and he knew that she didn’t like him. Her personal feelings for him were a problem. Was there any way she could be objective where he was concerned?

You’d better be. Zoe needs you. If you don’t suck it up and learn to put aside your dislike for J.D., Zoe’s the one who will suffer.

The last thing Garth wanted to do was dredge up the past, a past he thought was long dead and buried. But these new kidnapping cases had dug up ghosts and all but resurrected the dead. God help him, he had no choice but to tell Hart. Sooner or later, the information about the toddler skeletons being found bundled in Jill Scott’s and Debra Gregory’s arms was bound to leak out and become front-page headlines. He couldn’t let Hart learn about those skeletons from anyone else. There was no telling how his nephew might react. Blake’s disappearance—Blake’s death—twenty-five years ago had altered the course of so many lives, Hart’s more than anyone else’s.

Unfortunately, Hart had inherited Enid’s emotional weaknesses. As a child, he had been quiet and shy and gentle. And Garth had tried to take care of him and protect him as he always had Enid, even though she’d been his older sister. Although physically, he and Enid had resembled each other just enough so that people recognized they were related, in every other way, they had been as different as night and day. He had taken after their none-too-handsome old man, a hard-drinking, womanizing son of a bitch. Their father’s only saving grace was that he had taken care of his own, making sure his wife and kids never went without the necessities. Garth was like his father in that way, too. He’d done his level best to take care of Enid, and after her divorce from Hart’s good-looking, worthless dad, he’d taken care of his nephew, too. Garth had inherited one redeeming quality from his sweet mother—his ability to love. He doubted his old man had ever loved anyone except himself.

Garth loved Hart as if he were his own son. Always had. Always would.

Glancing at his wristwatch, he noted that it was nearly eight-thirty. He had called Tamara to let her know he’d be running late that morning. She hadn’t asked why, but he figured she knew. He never mentioned his nephew to his partner. No need to dredge up old memories for either of them. Tam was married now and appeared to be happy. He hoped she was. She’d always been a good kid. It wasn’t her fault that things hadn’t worked out between her and Hart. Of course, Garth knew that the two of them going their separate ways had been for the best. Hart hadn’t been ready for marriage at seventeen, still wasn’t, and probably never would be. Besides the racial factor—which, despite the gradual changes in people’s attitudes, still mattered to a lot of folks—there was Hart’s alcohol and drug abuse, his inability to hold down a job for more than a few months at a time, and the boy’s mental instability.

Garth had hoped that Hart would wake up earlier that morning than his usual ten or eleven o’clock, but it seemed that unless he wanted to wait around and waste half the morning, he’d have to rouse his nephew.

He knocked on Hart’s closed bedroom door, and to his surprise, the boy answered him.

“Yeah?”

“Are you up?”

“Yeah, just woke up and took a piss. Why?”

“How about having a cup of coffee with me before I head out this morning?”

Hart opened the door and looked at Garth. “What’s up? You’re usually long gone by now.”

“Come on in the kitchen and we’ll have that coffee.”

“Sure.”

Barefooted and bare-chested, Hart followed Garth into the small galley-style kitchen and watched while Garth poured black coffee into a couple of mismatched mugs. When he handed his nephew one of the mugs, he took that moment to study him closely but quickly. The boy was every bit as good looking as his father had been, blond, blue-eyed, and almost too pretty to be a guy.

He noted that Hart appeared to be sober and alert and in a good mood.

“I need to talk to you,” Garth said.

“Yeah, sure. Shoot.” Hart took a sip of coffee. “This would be better if it was Irish.”

When Garth narrowed his gaze, Hart chuckled good naturedly. “Don’t worry, there’s no liquor in the house and I haven’t had a drink in weeks. And I’m still going to my meetings every day.”

“Good for you.”

Would telling him about the skeletons send him off on a bender or to the nearest drug dealer?

“Is something wrong?” Hart asked. “Nothing’s wrong with Audrey or Dad or—”

“No, no, they’re fine. It’s about the case Tam and I are working on.”

“How’s that going? You’re treating Tamara right, aren’t you?”

“Tamara’s a good police officer. She and I work just fine together.”

“I’m glad.”

“Hart, son…” Garth set his mug down on the counter. “I don’t know any easy way to say this, so I’m just going to say it. The case I’m working on…the two kidnapping and murder cases are connected. We’re pretty sure the same man kidnapped and murdered Debra Gregory and Jill Scott.”

“A serial killer?”

“More than likely. What I’m going to tell you is something we’ve kept from the press, something when I tell you, you’re going to have to—” Garth growled with frustration. “I wouldn’t be telling you anything because there’s nothing to it, nothing to concern us, but God almighty, Willie Mullins took it upon himself to tell Audrey and Wayne, and Audrey’s convinced herself of something that’s impossible and Wayne’s all torn up about it and—”

“For God’s sake, just tell me.”

“You might’ve heard that both of our murder victims were found sitting in rocking chairs and holding a blanket-wrapped doll in their arms.”

“Yeah, I guess everybody in Chattanooga’s heard the weird details.”

“You see, the problem is, in neither case was it a doll wrapped up in the blanket. It was the skeleton of a baby…a toddler, actually. The experts say the skeletons belonged to boys between two and three years old.”

Hart stared at Garth, his blue eyes wide with uncertainty, as if he thought he had misunderstood.

“What are you trying to tell me?” Hart asked, his voice a raspy whisper.

“Audrey and Wayne think there’s a possibility that one of those toddlers might be Blake.”

Hart’s coffee mug dropped from his hand and hit the floor with a loud crash. Hot liquid poured across the tile floor.

“That’s not possible,” Hart said.

Ignoring the spilled coffee and broken mug, Garth reached out and grasped Hart’s shoulder. “Of course it’s not, and once the DNA tests are run, Wayne and Audrey will know neither boy is Blake.”

“But they hope one of them is Blake, don’t they? They want to find him. How many times did I hear Dad say that he wanted to bring Blake home and bury him beside Mom?”

Garth squeezed Hart’s shoulder. “Now, you listen to me, son. There’s no reason to get upset about this. It’ll amount to nothing. I wish to high heaven that this hadn’t happened and reopened painful old wounds for all of us. Don’t let this set you back. You’ve been doing real good lately. You’re clean and sober and you’re taking your meds and—”

“I’m sorry, Uncle Garth. I’m so sorry.”

Garth hugged the boy to him and held him. “You’ve got nothing to be sorry about. Do you hear me? You do the best you can, and that’s all anybody can ask of you.”

Garth released Hart, forced a smile, and then cleaned up the coffee and broken mug before he left for work.

J.D. knew former Special Agent George Bonner, now retired and serving his second term as mayor of nearby Cleveland, Tennessee, only by reputation. The two had never met, not until now. Bonner carried three hundred pounds quite well on his six-four frame. He was a big, bulky guy with a shock of auburn hair streaked with silver and a set of keen brown eyes.

“Mayor Bonner, this is Special Agent J.D. Cass,” Chief Mullins said.

Bonner stuck out a meaty hand and he and J.D. exchanged a solid, man-to-man handshake as the two sized up each other. The corners of Bonner’s lips lifted slightly and J.D. sensed that he had just passed muster.

Chief Mullins indicated the other two men in his office. “You already know Mayor Hardy and DA Harrelson.”

Both seated, neither the mayor nor the DA stood, but each acknowledged J.D. with a nod and he did the same.

“Take a seat, J.D.,” Chief Mullins said.

J.D. sat in the chair the chief indicated.

“The DA has put in a request to the TBI asking that you be officially assigned to what the press”—the chief tapped his index finger on the copy of the Chattanooga Times Free Press lying on his desk—“as of this morning’s headlines is referring to as the Rocking Chair Murders and the UNSUB as the Rocking Chair Killer.”

The announcement didn’t surprise J.D. He’d halfway expected it. What he hadn’t expected was to be called to the chief’s office for a meeting with the mayor and the DA. And what was Bonner doing there?

“You’ll be working with Sergeant Hudson and Officer Lovelady,” the chief told him, then glanced at Bonner. “They’ll be brought up to speed later today when you and I meet with them. We’re going to have to handle everything from here on out very carefully. If our suspicions are correct, then things could quickly turn into a media nightmare.”

J.D. glanced around the room, inspecting all the somber faces. An odd, off-center twitch in his gut warned him that there was more to this bigwig powwow than met the eye.

“It’s complicated.” Chief Mullins glanced from J.D. to George Bonner. “There is a possibility that our Rocking Chair Murder cases are connected in some freakish way to a series of kidnappings that occurred in and around the Chattanooga area over a five-year period that began twenty-eight years ago.”

That information piqued J.D.’s interest and aroused his curiosity.

“I was the FBI agent in charge of the task force that investigated the Baby Blue toddler abductions,” Bonner said. “I’ll give you the basic info now and you can go over all the files later and bring yourself up to speed on the old cases.”

J.D. nodded.

“Over a five-year period, six toddler boys, all fitting the same general description, were abducted, and the first five have never been found, dead or alive.”

Bonner’s facial expression didn’t alter, but J.D. noted the flicker of pain in the former federal agent’s eyes.

“Until now,” Bonner said. “Maybe.”

“We won’t know for sure until we get the results of the DNA tests on both toddler skeletons found with our murder victims.” Chief Mullins cast a sympathetic glance toward Mayor Hardy, whose wife’s cousin had been the second victim.

“If the skeletons turn out to be two of the Baby Blue abductees, then there will be no doubt that there’s a connection between the two cases despite a quarter of a century separating them,” Bonner said.

J.D. took a couple of minutes to assimilate the info. Years ago, someone had kidnapped six toddler boys. Their bodies were never found. Now someone had killed two young women and placed the skeletal remains of the toddlers in the murder victims’ arms.

Whoa, wait a minute. Did Bonner say five of the toddlers had never been found?

“You said five of the bodies had never been found. What about the sixth toddler?”

“Jeremy Arden,” Bonner said. “We rescued him and arrested the woman who kidnapped him. He’s alive and well. I checked, and he’s living here in Chattanooga now.”

“The woman who kidnapped him—did she abduct the other five boys, too?”

“We weren’t sure then and we’re not sure now. Regina Bennett was declared legally insane and spent the rest of her life in a mental institution. The psychiatrists who examined her at the time explained the death of her own toddler had sent her already unbalanced mind over the edge. She admitted to killing her terminally ill two-year-old, and from her rambling confessions, we gathered that she kept putting the child out of his misery over and over again. The only thing was, we believe that she was actually killing perfectly healthy little boys after she kidnapped them.”

A tight knot formed in J.D.’s belly. “She never told you what she did with the bodies?”

Bonner shook his head. “From what we could gather and what her doctors explained, Regina Bennett believed that she mercifully ended her son’s suffering. In her mind, there had been only one child.”

“Her own son,” J.D. said.

“And before you ask, yes, we tried to find out where Cody Bennett was buried, and we found something mighty peculiar. There was no record of Cody’s birth or his death.”

“Are you sure the child existed?”

“We’re sure. There are hospital records. The boy existed and he was diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia. Thirty years ago, the survival rate for children with the disease was much lower than it is today. For many children it was a death sentence.”

“Ever figure out why there was no record of Cody Bennett’s birth or death?” J.D. asked.

“The best we could ascertain, Regina Bennett was raped, hid her pregnancy, and then gave birth to the child at home on her aunt and uncle’s farm.” Bonner held up a restraining hand. “Again, before you ask, yes, we covered every inch of that farm—all eighty-nine acres—with a fine-tooth comb. We didn’t find any human remains.”

“If the skeletal remains found with Jill Scott and Debra Gregory are two of the missing toddlers, someone knew where Regina Bennett buried those little boys,” Chief Mullins said. “And that somebody is, more than likely, our killer.”