Free The Innocent: The New Ryan Lock Novel by Sean Black

almost lost control of the car. He corrected the steering just in time. An oncoming vehicle blared in fury at the narrowly avoided collision.
    He lowered his voice. ‘Aubrey Becker?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Yeah, the man’s name is Aubrey Becker. B-E-C-K-E-R. No, we didn’t see him, but we’re fairly sure that’s who Jack’s with.’
    The dispatcher asked for an address. Eve gave it to him, and he passed it on. ‘And can you put out a call to all your units to keep an eye out for his car?’
    The dispatcher did her best to tell him that he should take Eve Barnes back to her home and wait for a patrol car to arrive. Malik agreed, killed the call and kept driving.
    Now he finally understood why everyone had been so cagey. Aubrey Becker wasn’t just a respected pillar of the community. He wasn’t just wealthy, and one of the biggest donors to the university: he pretty much owned this corner of the state. And he just happened to be the brother of the governor, Tom Becker, who was hotly tipped to be making a run in the next presidential election, with the opinion-poll ratings and the cold, hard cash to stand a good chance of making it all the way to the White House.

Twenty-one
    Malik followed Eve’s directions down a narrow country road, with switchbacks and sharp bends that loomed out of the darkness. As he drove, she managed to fill him in on a little of the history. He got the feeling that she was still overwhelmed by the whole thing.
    On the one hand, in her gut, she knew that Malik was right. But part of her wanted to be protected from the horror of it. And the best way of protecting herself was to come up with reasons why it couldn’t be true. From his own experience, Malik knew that the truth can be a lot harder to take than what you want to believe, but sometimes you can’t avoid it. This time the truth had to be faced. No matter how painful.
     
     
    They pulled up to a set of black gates set into a seven-foot-tall stone wall that ran as far as Malik could see in either direction. A police cruiser was already parked outside, its roll bar sending a red wash splashing across the entrance. A lone trooper pushed off the side of the cruiser as Malik stopped his car. He seemed casual for a cop who’d just turned up to the scene of a possible child abduction.
    Malik tried not to let the paranoia he’d begun to develop get the better of him. Maybe the trooper was relaxed because Jack had already been found.
    Malik hit the button to lower his window. ‘This is Jack Barnes’s mother. We called in that her son was missing.’
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    It wasn’t a promising start. What the hell was ‘uh-huh’ supposed to mean? Malik wondered.
    ‘Can we go up to the house?’
    The trooper took off his hat. ‘And you are?’
    ‘Malik Shaw. I work at the university in Harrisburg.’
    Eve leaned over Malik. ‘Is my son here or not?’
    The trooper ignored her. But his features did soften. ‘The NBA player Malik Shaw? Guy that coaches the Wolves?’
    Malik tried not to roll his eyes. ‘That’s me. Now, can we go up? You have people there, right?’
    ‘Yeah, the captain’s up there now. Hasn’t found the boy, though.’
    ‘I need to find my son,’ said Eve. She was bordering on hysterical.
    Malik didn’t blame her. If it had been Landon, he would already have driven through, whether the gates were open or not.
    ‘Your captain’s going to want to talk to Mrs Barnes here in any case.’
    That piece of logic seemed to work. ‘Yeah, okay.’ The trooper turned and waved at a man in a dark blue private-security-guard uniform. The man was about six feet even, 240 pounds, with fair hair that ran to his collar and a three-day beard. He didn’t look to Malik like your standard-issue mall-cop type.
    The man shrugged, and said something into a walkie-talkie that Malik didn’t catch. A few seconds later, the gates began slowly to open.
    Driving through them, he had an uneasy feeling. Here they were, looking for a boy