Chapter 1
Zachary’s phone rang somewhere under the stacks of paper he was sorting through. At first, it startled him, but that wasn’t why he dove so eagerly into the piles to find it and snatch it up. He was bored with paperwork. He knew it had to be done, and he was lucky to have his sister Heather acting as his executive assistant and helping him to stay on top of everything—especially the accounting. But there was still paperwork that he had to handle personally, and he’d had enough of it for the day.
Hyperfocus was a blessing when he needed to dive deep into a case and unearth the details others had overlooked. When he was hyperfocused, it didn’t matter that he had to plow through hundreds of lines of security logs looking for a pattern or through dusty boxes of personal filing to find the one key piece of information that would help him to solve the case. But ADHD brought with it the opposite of hyperfocus. The inability to focus on what was right in front of him. Hypervigilance sapped his attention no matter how many times he told himself he and Kenzie were safe and there was nothing to worry about. And the novelty-seeking part of his brain was looking for something, anything to do that was not paperwork.
Zachary had managed to hold it together for forty-five minutes, using a chime that sounded on his phone every five minutes to bring him back from wherever his mind wandered to the job at hand. He had fought himself every step of the way and was not even halfway through the paper that he had hoped to process.
The sound of the phone ringing—not the refocus chime, but an actual phone call—was a reprieve, releasing him from his self-imposed prison. He knocked over a couple of stacks of paper looking for it and managed to swipe the screen and bring the phone up to his ear before the call went to voicemail.
“Goldman Investigations,” he greeted.
Hopefully, it was a good case. Not a robocall or a spousal surveillance file. Though, at this point, he would talk to anyone..
“Is this Zachary Goldman?” an unfamiliar female voice inquired.
Zachary took a half second to glance at the caller ID. It was a local Vermont number. Of course, it could still be routed through India or some other country, but the caller did not have an accent, so if it was someone trying to sell him a new phone plan or conducting a survey on the brands he usually bought, at least they were employing local Vermonters, and he should give them the courtesy of at least a few minutes of his time.
“Yes, this is Zachary,” he confirmed. “How can I help you?”
“Your name was given to me by Dr. Williams.”
Zachary went through his mental contact list. He saw or had seen a lot of doctors in his life, but Dr. Williams did not spring immediately to memory. Maybe a doctor he had seen on rotation in the psych ward? But if it were someone referring business to him, then it wasn’t likely to be someone who had seen him in the depths of a depressive cycle.
“Yes?” he encouraged, as if he knew who she was talking about. Hopefully, the conversation would remind him who Dr. Williams was, if that was important.
“Dr. Williams said that you have some experience in dealing with… kids who are selectively mute or non-speaking?”
It came to Zachary in a flash. Not a therapist that he had seen. One who was treating Rhys Salter, a Black teen that Zachary had met during a previous murder investigation and had kept in touch with ever since. Rhys did not speak. A very occasional word or phrase here and there. Mostly, he communicated by gestures and a messenger app on his phone. Not through conventional language, but mostly with pictures, memes, and short words and phrases. It was as though his brain wouldn’t let him communicate normally.
“Oh, Rhys’s doctor,” he blurted. “Yes, I manage to communicate with Rhys through other means.”
There were the other kids he had dealt with at the Summit Living Center as well, children with autism who had different levels of communication abilities, some of them facilitated with technology and some of them requiring a lot of patience and close attention to body language for their reactions.
“Okay.” The caller let out a sigh. “Okay, maybe you can help me. I am taking care of a six-year-old boy—Leo—who has been through… well, a very traumatic situation. He isn’t really mute, but… he doesn’t have much to say and just avoids it when I ask him anything. I was hoping you could help him.”
“I’m not a therapist…”
“No. Leo is seeing Dr. Williams, who thinks that in time, he’ll be able to help Leo. But, well… Leo’s father was killed and I don’t think the police are getting anywhere in their investigation. I wanted you to look into it. To see if you can figure out what happened. I don’t know if Leo knows anything about what happened. No one else has been able to get anything useful from him.”
“His father was murdered?”
“He was killed in a home invasion.”
“And was Leo a witness?”
“No one knows for sure. We don’t know how much he might have seen. He won’t talk about it.”
“Have the police interviewed him? They have people who are trained in talking to child witnesses. Getting testimony without unintentionally tainting it.”
“Yes. They’ve had him in three times,” her voice vibrated with frustration. “A different person each time. Trying to find someone who can connect with him and dig out what he knows. But that is not working. Besides that, they’ve given up now. They said to let them know if anything ever comes up in his therapy.”
Zachary thought about this. “I didn’t catch your name.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Yes, my name is Rebecca Harris. Do you think we could get together? You could meet Leo and just see… if the two of you connect. The people he saw through the police… they were all very kind, and I’m sure had all sorts of training, but I didn’t get the feeling that any of them understood him.”
“And… you said that you’re taking care of him. You’re not his mother?”
“No, Bianca and I are friends, and she just asked me if I could take him for a few days.” There was hesitation in Rebecca’s voice, and for a moment, she said nothing, thinking about how much she wanted to tell him or how to explain it. “She didn’t even tell me what had happened. I thought… she was sick or had to go on a trip, or was fighting with Marco and just needed some space. I didn’t want to ask when she didn’t explain why she needed someone to look after Leo.”
“She didn’t tell you that her husband had been murdered?”
“No, she just dropped Leo off in his pajamas, like he was here for a sleepover.”
Chapter 2
“So, how did you find out what happened?” Zachary asked Rebecca.
“I tried to figure it out in casual conversation with Leo. But he wasn’t talking. I could tell something was wrong. I thought maybe it was because Marco and Bianca were fighting. Tried to just soothe Leo and tell him that it wasn’t his fault.”
“And he told you his father was dead?”
“No. He hasn’t said anything about Marco being dead. Or about missing Bianca. Or wanting to go home. I found out through the newsfeed on my computer!”
“That must have been a shock.”
Rebecca blew out her breath noisily. When she spoke, her voice was vibrating even more than it had been. “You better believe it was. I didn’t think it could be true, so I called Bianca… and she said that it was, but she hadn’t known how to tell me, so she just… didn’t say anything.”
“She must be going through a very difficult time,” Zachary said neutrally. He didn’t understand how Leo’s mother could just send him to a friend and not tell her what was going on. But maybe, like Leo, she just couldn’t bring herself to talk about it.
“So… it’s been pretty tough,” Rebecca told him. “Like I say, he’s been in to talk to the police department’s psychologists or whatever they are three times, but they haven’t been able to get anything that helps with their investigation. And Leo is seeing Dr. Williams to help him with the trauma… but he hasn’t had much to say to him, either. He’s only had a couple of sessions, and I guess this could go on for quite a while.”
“And you’re hoping that if I can connect with Leo, it might help the police to track down his father’s killer and help Leo process what happened.”
“Yes.” Rebecca sniffled. She took a moment to get control of herself, but her voice was wobbly, on the edge of breaking. “I don’t know if you have any availability. You might be buried with other cases right now…”
Zachary had a soft spot for children and couldn’t see himself turning Leo away even if he had been overloaded. If he could help, he had to do it.
“No, that’s okay. I’d like to meet him. I can’t promise anything, but it sounds like he really needs someone.” After the words left his mouth, he realized that he might have made it sound like Rebecca wasn’t doing anything for him. “I mean, someone to help him work through it all and to come up with some answers, maybe. He’s very lucky to have you looking after him. I’m sure Bianca was relieved she had someone in her circle who could take responsibility for him for a while.”
“Leo needs as many people in his corner as he can get,” Rebecca reassured him. “I don’t think just one person can fill all his needs.”
Zachary nodded his agreement. He looked at the files and papers he had spread out all over Kenzie’s home office. Outside, the sun was shining brightly through dappled green leaves. “How soon can we get together?”
* * *
A few minutes later, Zachary texted Kenzie.
Have to meet potential client. Srry abt mess. Will clean up when I get home.
Cleaning up was the last thing that he wanted to do. But at least he could get away from the paperwork for a little while. Once he met Rebecca and Leo and got all the initial information he needed to start his investigation, he could go back to it. It would be easier to finish his filing if he had something to occupy his thoughts while doing it. He could ponder on the home invasion and the death of Leo’s father while he did the routine task.
Before leaving, he spent a few minutes at his computer looking up what had been reported in the media about the home invasion that had resulted in the death of Marco Mancini. There was very little information available. It looked like the police were holding back everything they could. Marco’s name had been released, which was how Rebecca had discovered what had happened. But other than a very general mention of the home invasion, little had been reported in the media.
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