Free Cold Touch by Leslie Parrish

remained put the time period at no
    less than a decade, and it was doubtful somebody had moved the boy and
    wal ed him up after he’d started to decompose.
    Building permit records had indicated a major renovation twelve years back
    . . . long before Fast Eddie had ever bought the place from the former owner,
    who’d since died. And the blueprints on file with the county showed the
    addition of the very storage room where the boy was found. It was
    circumstantial, but, like a lot of circumstantial evidence, it al certainly led to a
    picture that seemed more likely than not to be the truth.
    “My kidnapping happened twelve years ago last spring.”
    “The timing does seem to fit.” Stil , he didn’t want her to get her hopes up
    that her long-held mystery was definitely solved. “But a lot of children go
    missing each and every year. The chances of it being this one particular boy . .
    .”
    “I know,” she murmured.
    “Listen, how about I go get the file, bring back the sketch so you can give it
    a closer look?” And also, he knew, so that he could take a quick look at this
    woman’s history, just to confirm everything she’d said. Not that he doubted her
    —he didn’t. But he had the feeling there was more to learn about Olivia
    Wainwright.
    Rising to leave the room, he paused, his hand on the doorknob, when she
    spoke again.
    “There’s one more thing.”
    “Yes?”
    She swal owed, a visible gulp of grit to go on with something that bothered
    her. Gabe geared himself up to hear it, sensing they’d come to something big.
    Something major, in fact. He loosened his grip on the knob.
    “This bar, this Fast Eddie’s, it’s very close to Laurel Grove.”
    “The north section, yes.”
    Another deep swal ow, and he’d swear her hands shook the tiniest bit on
    the table. She confirmed it by clenching them together again, each long, slim
    finger twining into another until she looked like she was gonna do that kid’s
    rhyme about the church and the steeple. Like if she didn’t have something to
    hold on to—her own other hand—she might falter or lose her nerve.
    Final y, she got down to it. “I’ve been there, Detective Cooper.”
    He hesitated, not entirely sure why that mattered. Hel , in point of fact, she’d
    pretty wel been there just Monday morning.
    Then she laid it out.
    “I was found the fourth morning after the kidnapping, wandering around in
    Laurel Grove Cemetery. Naked, filthy, badly injured, and nearly out of my mind
    after having spent the entire night among the dead.”

Chapter 3
    Tyler Wal ace had never been much of a reader, other than doing what he had
    to for school and work. But as he quickly skimmed through Olivia Wainwright’s
    case file, he found himself thinking he needed to check out more fiction
    books. Because, man, did her story ever read like one. He couldn’t bear to put
    it down.
    When he’d returned from lunch and heard his partner was interviewing a
    woman about the Jimmy Doe murder, he’d instinctively turned to join him. But
    no sooner had he reached the hal way when Gabe had come out of the
    interview room, appearing deep in thought. He also wore that excited look that
    said he might be on to something.
    Hearing the something was the twelve-year-old memory of a kidnapping
    victim who thought their vic might have been a kid who’d shared her darkest
    nightmare didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. In fact, the whole thing sounded
    far-fetched or, at best, a total shot in the dark.
    Stil , Ty had been every bit as hopeful that they’d final y gotten a break. This
    case was getting to him on a personal level. It had been since they’d first
    heard that firefighter talk about finding those little bones and had gotten worse
    when he’d read the autopsy report. Because they weren’t merely talking about
    the tragic murder of a boy, they were talking about systematic abuse of a kid
    throughout much of his short life.
    So, yeah, as Gabe had warned him it might,