Stolen Lives : The Lives Trilogy Book 1 by Joseph Lewis Read Free Book Online Page A

sadder if that was possible.  She had told Richard and Tammy Hart that their boy, Tyler, had been found.
    “How?” they asked.  “Where?” they asked.  “How do you know it was . . . is Tyler?” they asked.
    Summer didn’t want to tell them.  She didn’t want to give them all the sordid details, so she had given them an abridged version instead.  But it all boiled down to the same thing: their son, Tyler Hart, had been found dead.  His fifteen-month ordeal had ended. Another young boy dead; executed, alone.
    Their ordeal, however, would never end.  Not until their questions were answered.
    Who took their boy as he had peddled papers on a city street?  Why did they take him?  Who would do such a thing?
    Why?  Who?  Where?
    Summer didn’t have any answers.  She never had any answers.
    Maybe this time she would finally get answers once and for all.   All she and Pete needed was a little luck, a break.  Maybe the Indian kid would give them one.
    Maybe.
    As she watched the mother and daughter walk out of the park hand in hand, Summer pulled out her cell phone.  She had Thatch on speed dial and needed to talk to him.  Thatcher Davis, tall, slender, stately and divorced, was her mentor and friend; always willing to listen, always willing to let her cry on his shoulder.
    He had warned her that joining Kiddie Corps, as noble as it was, was not only a dead-end career move, but a hopeless one at that.  He had warned her that rarely, if ever, would she find any child alive.  He had quoted her the statistics: that of the abductions each year, most kids were killed in the first hour after being taken; if they lasted past that first hour, a girl more than likely found dead in the two weeks following the abduction; if a boy’s body wasn’t found in six months, it would most likely never be found.
    And, he had warned her about working with Pete Kelliher, viewed by some of the heavy-hitters in D.C. as long past his prime and on the downward slide of his career.  Summer had argued that she didn’t want to be a suit; that she had wanted to do some good and make a difference.  Something good.  Anything.  Even the possibility of good.
    “Hi, it’s me.  I’m catching a plane for D.C.  Do you have time for me this evening?”
    “Always.  Something happen?”
    “I’ll tell you about it tonight.”

CHAPTER NINE
    The Crimes Against Children Unit, or Kiddie Corps, was actually made up of two Special Agents in each fifty-six FBI Field Offices, serving as CAC Coordinators.  These coordinators use all available FBI investigative, forensic, tactical, and informational and behavioral science resources to investigate crimes against children.  They are charged with establishing and maintaining multi-agency, multi-disciplinary Resource Teams with participants from local, tribal, state and other federal agencies.  Members of these teams include federal and state prosecutors and non-governmental organizations having roles related to child safety and welfare.
    In short, a cluster fuck, at least in Pete’s mind.
    The only real team, the gang that ran the on-going cases on a consistent basis, consisted of the five individuals sitting uncomfortably around a metal table in what was called a conference room, but was actually only a little bigger than a janitor’s closet on the third floor of the Hoover Building in D.C., housing the whole of the FBI.
    The conference room was industrial gray, rather nondescript and certainly not as elaborate as those found on the upper floors.  The large metal table taken from some other area in the building almost filled the entire room.  The only nice feature the room had was the swivel chairs, which were padded and could rock back and forth.  Yet, anyone sitting in them was crammed around the table with barely any room to maneuver behind them.
    There weren’t any windows.  A whiteboard filled one wall.  Pictures of dead boys were placed in columns on two of the remaining walls.