“Bang!”
I reeled back. Fuck.
“What was that, Cosmo?” I went down on my knees and peered under the bed. “Was that a gun?”
He whimpered but didn’t reply.
“Talk to me, Cosmo.”
But he didn’t let out a sound except for the whimpers and humming I was growing accustomed to. No amount of cajoling could get him out from under the bed. I could have pulled him out. He was so tiny there was no way he could fend me off, but I hadn’t spent almost an hour making a fool of myself pretending to be Daddy material only to ruin the progress we’d made.
“Okay, I’ll leave you alone now,” I said. “But I’ll be back. I promise.”
I waited a few seconds, but when he didn’t react, I took up the plate and the bottle of water. The door opened, and I stepped out but couldn’t resist glancing back at the boy hiding under the bed. I had the powerful urge to stay and coax him out. To promise that everything was okay, but I never made promises I couldn’t keep. And that one I had no control over. I didn’t have a say in what happened to him.
The door clicked behind me with a soft thud.
“Fuck, that was…” Knight stared at me and shook his head. “How did you do that?”
He hadn’t been the only one observing me. Two other agents were with him, and they must have seen everything that had happened inside.
“Do what?” I asked.
“Get him to respond to you. He was in your lap.”
My face heated. Now would be a good time for the ground to open and swallow me.
“I’m a father, Knight. I just channeled what I would do for my own kid, and it seemed to work this time. It doesn’t mean I have a clue what I was doing in there.”
“You were a complete natural.” Knight took the plate from me and thrust it at another agent. He clamped his hand on my shoulder and walked me away from the others. “After seeing that display, there’s no way you’re not doing this, Neely. We’ve all tried, and none of us could ever get him to eat. He told you things we never knew. You were right. Someone’s out there who’s probably behind all this, and we’re this close to getting him.”
“I’m out of my element here. What do I do next? I have no clue.”
“Didn’t you say your son is in the lifestyle? Who better to get information from than him? Like I said, Neely, you’re the only one who got anything out of him, and we now have a name we can work with. It’s not much to go on, but it’s a start. Sometime tomorrow we might get him to tell us the name of the man behind the Handkerchief Murders.”
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my jacket and frowned, the boy’s pitiful cries and sobs replaying in my head. More than anything, I wanted to help solve the case, but the way they wanted me to do this was… too strange. Nothing in the books or my training had taught me how to interact with a suspect like Cosmo.
“Do it for your wife, Neely. I thought you wanted to find her body. Well, here’s your chance to do just that. After five years, are you willing to walk away from this or finally get the closure you’ve wanted?”
***
I spent all afternoon back at the precinct, but instead of reading case files, I researched age play to find out how best I could act like a Daddy. Knight had wiped all doubts from my mind by reminding me what was important: bringing my wife’s body to rest after all these years. Interacting with that boy, basically stepping into the shoes of his former Daddy—and bearing the embarrassment of others watching me—was a small price to pay.
It was just the closure Nate and I needed to repair our relationship. I would never get over my guilt. Not only had my job taken his mother away from him, but he hadn’t even gotten the chance to say a proper good-bye or to grieve over her body.
Information I unearthed about age play was informative, but everything was so subjective that I wasn’t any wiser about what I needed to be to that boy for him to trust me enough with the truth. The tips of my ears burned from the videos I’d watched—with my headphones plugged into the laptop so no one else could hear and ask awkward questions. The cops at the precinct knew I was working on a case with the FBI, but they didn’t know the details.
A hand on my shoulder startled me, and I jerked back, causing the earbuds to get yanked out of my ears. Heart pounding in my chest, I tilted my head back. Barney was grinning down at me.
“This is going to be good. Please don’t let me wait for an explanation. Didn’t know you were a diaper lover.”
I clicked out of the website and shut down my computer. My face heated, but I wouldn’t give Barney the satisfaction of seeing me flustered.
“Just research for a job,” I said. “What are you still doing here? Thought you’d be home by now.” If he could manage it, Barney was out the door as soon as his shift ended.
“Had to finish a report.” He scowled at me. “You spoil me. Captain has me partnered up with Jacobs, and the fucker doesn’t do my reports the way you do. When are you coming back?”
“Soon. We might have a lead.”