Ben didn’t answer. The officers came outside with Caleb sandwiched between them. The little boy sobbed, his body shaking all over, and Ben felt his heart break. The boy’s world was falling apart around him, and he was powerless to stop it. Ben knew that feeling all too well.
“Ben.”
“I’m not okay,” he finally answered Jackson. “Someone should have done something before now. How did everyone have missed it? How could no one realize that he wasn’t who he said he was?”
“You did,” Easton said. “You knew something was off with that guy. It’s because you kept hunting for the truth that the little boy is away from that guy.”
“Then why don’t I feel better about it?”
“Because it’s a shit situation. But Hanson’s going down. The cops have what they need to put him away. And we can make sure the kid gets what he needs to deal with it. We don’t have to walk away now that the case is closed,” Luke reminded him.
Hanson started shouting after Caleb, but it wasn’t the loving reassurance of a parent comforting a child. He yelled for Caleb to keep his mouth shut. He told the little boy that he’d regret it if he talked to anybody. The officers hurried Caleb to a squad car and sped away before Hanson caused any more damage with his words.
Ben never took his eyes from the scene until a separate squad car drove away with the Chief and Hanson inside. The rest of the officers stayed at the house, collecting anything that could strengthen the case against Hanson.
“I never expected this,” Ben murmured, knowing his brothers would hear him.
“None of us did,” Jackson returned. “We should go. You’ll have to give a statement to the cops.”
Ben allowed his brothers to pull him along as they headed back to his Tahoe. He didn’t argue when Easton offered to drive. He was too distracted to be behind the wheel. Though he wanted to be alone, or better yet back at Charlotte’s apartment, he was grateful to have his brothers join him in closing the case.
“I can’t believe the DNA test came back so fast,” he said as they headed toward the police station.
“It didn’t,” Luke told him.
Ben shifted in his seat to stare at Luke in the back seat. His eyes adjusted to the limited light, but he barely made out his brother’s form. “What are you talking about?”
“It wasn’t the DNA. You know that DNA tests don’t come back that fast. It was the picture you called me about.”
Jackson snorted. “It was dumb luck.”
Ben looked from one brother to the other. “Okay, I need to hear the whole story.”
“I got to thinking about what you said with Hanson getting the baby from a surrogate or from an affair. So I used facial recognition software to find a familial match to certain facial characteristics in Caleb’s picture. Or I guess I should say Dalton,” Luke explained.
“Dalton Sims,” Ben said quietly, still not believing what they uncovered.
Jackson picked up the story. “His parents live in Randolph, Missouri. His mother was shopping with him and his baby sister. The sister was only a few months old at the time, and Dalton was four. The missing child report said that a strange woman started getting too close to the sister, and their mother was distracted trying to keep the woman away from her baby. Someone, probably Hanson, snatched Dalton while his mother was preoccupied by the woman, who was probably Delia Hanson, or whatever their real names are.”
“Dalton’s mother runs a non-profit foundation providing aid to families of missing children. They’ve helped to find something like eighty or so missing kids,” Luke said. “In raising money for the foundation, Ms. Sims shares her story of how Dalton was abducted. His picture is even on the Foundation’s website. Not only did the software hit on a familial match with Mr. Sims, it matched with Dalton’s pic on the website. We pieced everything together from there.”
“So rather than adopting a child, Hanson and his wife stole a toddler? And not the baby?”
Easton joined the conversation. “We think they were trying to take the baby, but Ms. Sims realized what they were doing and kept them from getting too close. We think they took Dalton because they couldn’t get to the baby.”
“We don’t know Hanson’s real identity yet. They’ll run his fingerprints when they book him, and between that and the DNA test Atlas Security is running, we’ll figure out who he is,” Jackson said.
“Caleb’s real — or rather Dalton’s real parents. Have they been notified?” Ben asked.
“Alex offered to break the news. He’s flying the family from Missouri to Ivy Springs in the company jet. They’ll drive in from the Atlanta airport and probably be here in the morning. They seem like solid people. Maddy Sims’ work with the foundation is amazing, and David Sims makes a decent living as an insurance agent. The sister, Amelia, is almost six now,” Jackson told him.
“Wow. She was so young when Dalton was abducted, she probably doesn’t even remember him.” Ben’s head started to ache when he pictured what the coming months held in store for the Sims family.
“Try not to think about what’s coming,” Easton told him. “This family is whole again. That’s a big deal.”
Ben nodded. “Has anyone told our client? If she hadn’t insisted something was wrong, we wouldn’t have discovered the truth.”
“Reagan’s going to call the teacher in the morning and let her know we’ve closed the case. Once you’ve given your statement to the police, you can pack up your shit and head home with us,” Jackson said.
