Snatched, page 8
After throwing some clothes on, Blayze downed a pint of water and went back to the bedroom. “Let yourself out, won’t you?” he said as he peered in at Olivia, who looked like she had gone back to sleep. He grabbed his keys and left.
After a fast-paced walk to the office, Blayze jumped in the elevator and headed to the situation room. Everyone on the team was there, including Assistant Director Stone, all busy gathering and entering the new information into their reports. “Well? Where was he found?” Blayze asked the room.
Rebecca went over towards the map, heading the long way around the table. “Nice of you to make it,” she remarked as she passed behind Blayze, who didn’t respond. “He had walked into a Walgreens on East Main Street, Apopka and asked someone to call his parents. They called the police straight away as they recognized him from the news. He is being brought here as we speak.”
“How far away is that from where he disappeared?” Blayze asked.
“It’s about a thirty-minute drive to the Walgreens from the park,” Agent Davis responded as he typed away on his laptop. “It says that it is around sixteen miles, give or take, depending on which road you take.”
Stone looked up and out of the window, as she had noticed people moving outside the room. “I think Dion must be here.”
“Excellent,” Blayze noted.
“We need to get his clothes checked and swabbed, and he will need processing too before we can question him.”
“I assume his parents have already been informed. Have they arrived yet?” Blayze glanced around to see if anyone knew. There were just some shrugs coming from Agents Davis, Wright and Shannon, so he presumed not.
“Not yet,” Rebecca finally responded, too busy watching the boy being taken away to get swabbed. “Get some coffee, everyone. We won’t be able to do anything until they prep him for questioning.”
Just before she left the room, she leaned into Blayze. “It smells like you could use a strong one. Rough night?”
“Don’t ask,” he replied. He wasn’t in the mood for any more of Rebecca’s sarcastic comments as his head was still pounding. He made his way out of the room for coffee and aspirin.
The sound of doors flying open echoed throughout the building, and the cry for Dion’s name had made it clear to Blayze - and everyone else - that his parents had arrived. As Mr and Mrs Burke rushed through the door, Agents Shannon and Wright quickly went to stop them.
“Where’s my boy? I want to see my boy!” Mrs Burke cried out in desperation.
“Tell us where he is!” shouted Mr Burke.
Agents Shannon and Wright were doing their best to slow them down without using force, but the way they were heading for Blayze and Rebecca, they had no option but to go hands on and hold them back.
“Let go of me now!” shouted Mr Burke, right in Agent Shannon’s face.
“Mr and Mrs Burke, please just calm down,” Blayze started as he walked over towards them, rubbing his head. “Your son is just in a room over there, being processed by our forensic team.”
“What the hell do you mean? Being processed?” asked Mrs Burke with a puzzled look on her face, trying to get to where Blayze had just pointed to.
“It’s nothing to worry about.” Blayze moved in front of Mrs Burke so that she couldn’t progress further. “It’s standard procedure that we have to have all his clothes and shoes tested for any signs of DNA, and look for any signs of physical harm.”
Mr Burke moved between his wife and Blayze, pointing his finger in Blayze’s face. “If anyone has laid a finger on my boy, I’ll kill them.”
Blayze took a small step back and could tell by his manner that he was not kidding, and that if they found any signs of abuse, he would have to keep those details from him for the time being. “Like I said, it is standard procedure, and it won’t be long before you can see him.”
Blayze looked at Agents Shannon and Wright, who still had hold of Dion’s parents. “Please escort Mr and Mrs Burke into a meeting room while we wait for Dion to be ready.” As they nodded and walked away, Blayze turned his attention to Agent Davis. “Take them some tea or coffee. Anything to keep them occupied for now.”
“Will do, Blayze.”
Rebecca was talking to some of the forensic team that had processed Dion. Blayze noticed they had bags with his clothes in and were about to take them away. “Rebecca,” Blayze shouted over. “How long until the results will be back?”
She turned to ask and then shouted back across the room. “They reckon twelve to forty-eight hours, depending on what comes back first.”
Blayze looked down at his watch. It was 9:15am, which meant that all they could go on today was whatever Dion had to say. Luckily, he was almost ready for questioning. Blayze noticed they had taken Dion to see his parents, who had thrown themselves onto him. He knew it would be best to let them have a few minutes alone before trying to take their son away again.
BLAYZE WAS SITTING next to Rebecca opposite Dion, whose parents were on either side of him. He had already been told that he was going to be recorded, so that they could use it as evidence later on.
“You’re very brave, Dion,” Rebecca began, as the interview got underway. “All we ask is that you try to remember as many details as you can, okay?”
Dion just nodded and looked at his mom and dad with fear in his eyes.
“We are right here for you,” his mom responded.
“Okay, Dion. My name is Blayze and I’m going to be the one asking you some questions, while my partner here, Rebecca, writes everything down. Can I start off by asking you what your full name is and how old you are? Don’t worry, it’s not a test. It’s just for the recording.”
Still scared, Dion looked again at his parents for reassurance. After getting the nod from both of them, he turned back to Blayze to answer his question. “My name is Dion Burke and I am seven years old.”
“Excellent. Now, Dion, can you remember the name of the theme park you went to with your mom and dad two days ago?”
Dion looked at his mom. “Err.” There was a brief pause while he tried to remember. “Elf something, I think.”
His mom stepped in. “Elf City, good boy.”
“That’s great, yeah. Elf City. What was your favorite ride?” Blayze didn’t want to jump in too quickly about the kidnapping, as he wanted Dion to feel relaxed enough to talk.
“I loved the roller coaster. It was so quick.” He looked over again at his mom. “Can I go on that again soon?”
His mom just smiled and nodded, knowing that her son had just gone through a major ordeal, and yet all he wanted to do was to go back.
Mr Burke ruffled his son’s hair. “Soon, mate, soon.” Dion smiled back at his dad.
Blayze asked a few more questions about some of the rides, and with Dion now becoming much more relaxed and chatty, felt it was time to find out about the person who had taken him.
“While you were at the park the other day, you had a balloon, didn’t you? Do you remember how you got your balloon?”
“It was the man who took me that gave it to me.”
Blayze turned to Rebecca, who had been writing everything down, and she glanced back. The brief look of knowing that they had the right man. He pulled a picture out of the file in front of him and placed it down in front of Dion. “Was it this man in the cap?”
Dion stared at the image briefly, as the picture was a little grainy and not clear at all. “Yeah, I think that’s him. I remember him having a cap on.” He looked at his mom again. “He’s weird.”
“What do you mean by weird, Dion?” Blayze asked.
“Well, when I was in the car I could hear him laughing, and then suddenly he would shout and call himself horrible names.”
“What names would he call himself?”
Dion looked over at his dad, shaking his head. “I’m not allowed to say. They’re naughty words.”
“It’s okay, son. You won’t be in trouble for telling these people. You are doing so well and I’m really proud of you,” his dad said, ruffling his son’s hair again.
Nervously, Dion began. “He would say things like, stupid idiot.” He paused and looked at his dad once more, who just nodded with encouragement. “Fucking stupid idiot, fucking asshole. Things like that.”
Blayze noticed that Mrs Burke had tears in her eyes as she got hold of her son’s hand. “It’s okay. Well done, Dion, you are doing great. After you left the park, do you know where you went to?”
“I don’t know. He put me in the trunk of his car. I couldn’t see anything.”
“Were you in the car for a long time?”
“I was in the car for ages, even after he stopped driving.”
“What time did he let you out?”
“I don’t know, but it was dark and there wasn’t anything around. I was tired.”
“What happened next?”
“He dragged me down a path, but I couldn’t see well. It was really dark and scary.”
Blayze noticed the change in Dion’s voice as he was now reliving the trauma. A tear had appeared and ran down his cheek. “We won’t be much longer, I promise. Can you tell us how you got away?”
“I fell over. He shouted at me, then he tried to pull me up by my coat, but it came off. I got up and ran.” He turned and clutched hold of his mom with more tears flowing down his cheeks. “I was really scared, mom.”
“Can we stop there?” Mrs Burke asked. “Can’t you see this is terrifying him?”
Blayze nodded in agreement. “Yes, of course. Dion, you have been amazing. Thank you so much.” He stood up, as did Rebecca, and left the family to console each other.
The team met back up in the situation room to discuss the interview. Blayze asked Agent Shannon to research everything he could about the type of man Dion referred to. It seemed to Blayze that they may be dealing with a psychopath from the description Dion had given. With the results not due back for several hours, they had little else to focus on.
“While Agent Shannon is looking at what kind of person we may be up against, I need everyone else to focus on just who this man is,” he said, slamming his hand on a picture of the man they had on the wall. “I want you to search all the employees’ records again and find out if any of them have any form of mental disorder. I will contact a medical expert straight away to find out what medications they prescribe for antisocial personality disorders. Then you can check their medical files to see if anyone is taking any of them, and using any form of cognitive behavioral therapy.”
Rebecca walked over to the side of the room and collected the paper files of some parks’ employee paperwork, while the other agents were on their laptops already. “We’d best get started. There’s a lot to cover.”
REBECCA HAD RECEIVED a phone call to say that some of the lab results were ready. Blayze had jumped in the car with her and they headed to the lab, which was only a few blocks away. It was no use waiting for them to come to the office, as there were still more tests to be run.
As they entered the lab, one of the lab technicians that had been at the scene greeted them and handed Blayze a sheet of paper.
“What’s this?” Blayze asked, noticing a graph with several words on that he had never seen before.
“It is data from the mud on the boy’s shoes,” the technician replied. “We have found that the carbon that is stored in the soil must be from a forest that has ancient trees in it. We are talking seventy-five years and older.”
“There can’t be many places here that have trees that old, can there?” Blayze asked Rebecca.
“And what do you think I am? A tree expert?” she replied.
Blayze shrugged his shoulders. “You never know.”
“We’ve not yet found any DNA evidence on the boy’s clothes, except for a couple of fibers, which we are running tests on now,” said the technician.
“Can you email all the results once they come in?” Blayze asked, handing over a card with his details on.
“No problem.”
The lab technician left and Blayze turned to Rebecca. “Since you don’t, who do you know that knows about trees?”
“Let’s head back to office and I’ll have a think on the way.”
Once they had pulled up in the parking lot, under the FBI building, Rebecca pulled out her phone and sent a couple of text messages. “Let’s see what they come back with,” she said to Blayze, who had already pressed the elevator button and was standing, waiting.
“Who have you messaged?”
“Just a couple of people who like nature and history. It’s a long shot, but you never know.”
The elevator doors opened, and they both got in. As the door closed, Rebecca looked over to Blayze. “Listen, about the other day. Let me buy you dinner to apologize. I’ve been on this case for years now and it can be very frustrating. I can get a little irate, and I don’t think before I speak most of the time.”
“You’re not wrong there,” Blayze agreed.
“Hey, shut up.”
“Okay. Well, I’m sorry too. I also get frustrated when I know the answers are right there, and yet, I can’t piece it all together. About dinner though, yeah. I’m up for that.”
“It’s not a date, before you think anything funny.”
“Don’t worry. I get the feeling I’m not your type, anyway.”
Before she could respond, the elevator pinged, and the doors opened. They both headed to the situation room to tell everyone what they had found.
AGENTS SHANNON, WRIGHT and Davis had been busy combing through the vast amounts of employee files from all the parks for any medical documents. As soon as Blayze and Rebecca entered the room, they all stopped and looked up.
“Anything so far?” Agent Shannon asked.
Blayze explained to them all what they had been told by the lab technician and that some results were still to come in. “Once we have the results from the fibers they have found, we will need to split up and each concentrate on an area. But for now, how are we getting on with finding our suspect?”
Blayze sat down, awaiting any form of news, while Rebecca left the room to answer a call on her cell phone.
“We have - so far - five potential employees who have, in the past, put down certain medical conditions on their paper work which are of interest to this case,” Agent Wright responded. “We haven’t finished looking through the rest yet, so there may be more.”
Rebecca burst back through the door, her phone still in her hand. It looked like she was still talking to someone. “Quick, someone, anyone,” she said. “On the map now, I need you to circle Apopka, Chuluota, and Kissimmee. Come on, quickly!” she urged, then realized that she was still talking to someone. “No, sorry, not you. Listen, thank you so much and you’ve helped more than you know. See you later.” She hung up and placed her phone on the table.
“Who was that?” Blayze asked.
“It doesn’t matter. Listen. Apparently, these areas have some of the oldest trees around.”
Blayze looked back at the map, and at Agent Davis, who had jumped up with the marker when Rebecca had shouted. “Do me a favor, will you? Can you draw me a ten-mile radius around all three areas?”
“Give me sec.” Agent Davis started calculating the distance before drawing a circle over the areas asked. “There you go.”
“Where are you going with this?” Rebecca asked.
Blayze walked over to the map with a thoughtful look on his face. “Well, we know they took Dion from here.” He pointed at Lake Cane. “Now look at the ten-mile radius that Agent Davis has drawn. We can assume now that our kidnapper lives within this area and has been under our noses all this time. He’s literally within our reach, and what have we got? A picture of a man in a cap with no name.” He hit the photo on the wall, showing the rest of the team his frustration.
“What else can we do?” Rebecca asked, shrugging and agreeing with his emotion.
“It’s time we put a stop to this. I want every park within a ten-mile radius of those areas closed and searched. I want every employee questioned and then questioned again. There has to be a connection.”
“Blayze, over here,” Agent Shannon said, pointing to his laptop screen.
Blayze walked over and peered over the agent’s shoulder. “What am I looking at?”
“I quickly narrowed down our employee search while you were over at the map and we have a name. Garret Sparrowhawk. Over the past three years, he has worked in parks in all three areas, and see here on his medical history.”
Blayze looked closer. “He has bipolar disorder. This could be what Dion was describing to us. Let’s bring Mr Sparrowhawk in for questioning while we search the rest of the parks.”
Chapter 10
Blayze and Rebecca stood looking through the one-way glass window at Garret Sparrowhawk, a middle-aged Native American with long hair, which was tied back in a pony, and a goatee beard. He was sitting, clasping his hands on the table in front of him, shaking with nerves. They watched on as his attorney entered the room. They had given them just a few minutes to talk alone before the questioning was to begin.
“What do you think?” Rebecca asked.
“He looks nervous, that’s for sure. He’s hiding something, but what? That’s what we need to find out. Come on, let’s get in there.”
They exited the side room and headed in. Before saying anything, they both sat down and placed their files on the table. Blayze took out a disk and inserted it into the recording device on the wall. After pressing the record button, he waited for the long beep to finish before speaking.
“Interview commencing on November twenty-first, 2020. The time is 10:35am, and present in the room are Special Agents Blayze Carlson and Rebecca Scott. Also present is——” Blayze looked at Garret, “——Please state your full name for the record.”
“Garret Sparrowhawk,” he replied after clearing his throat.
