Chapter 3 - The Missing Mother
By 6:00 a.m., the torrential rain outside had eased into a cold, gray drizzle. Leo was transferred to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU), hooked up to IV antibiotics and a heart monitor. He was stable, but still heavily sedated.
Down in the surgical waiting room, Lead Detective Vance sat across from me, a legal pad balanced on his knee and a lukewarm cup of hospital coffee in his hand.
"Greg is currently in a holding cell at the precinct," Vance said, flipping through his notes. "He’s refusing to talk without a lawyer, but he keeps insisting that the child's mother will clear everything up. He says she's out of state on a business trip in Chicago."
I shook my head immediately. "Detective, a mother does not leave her nine-year-old child with a man who doesn't even know the boy's birth date. When Greg checked Leo in, he had to look at his own driver's license to guess the boy's last name. Something is wrong."
Vance nodded thoughtfully. "We ran a check on the emergency contact paperwork Greg filled out. The home address he listed is a vacant commercial lot downtown. The phone number for the mother, Maya, goes straight to a disconnected line."
"He lied about the injury, he lied about the shed, and he lied about their address," I said, leaning forward. "He isn't just covering up the abuse, Detective. He’s keeping Maya isolated so she can't find out where Leo is."
Vance stood up, his jaw set. "Let's check the local cell towers. If Maya’s phone was active anytime in the last forty-eight hours, we can trace the last tower ping."
It took two hours for the police department's digital forensics unit to pull the cell tower records associated with Maya’s registered social security number. The final ping had occurred thirty-six hours earlier, coming from a rural tower twelve miles outside city limits—a heavily wooded region where Greg operated a small, private Contracting workshop.
At 9:30 a.m., Detective Vance led a team of three patrol units to the remote property. The workshop was a secluded metal building set far back from the main road, surrounded by overgrown trees and abandoned vehicles.
When officers knocked on the door of the small residential cabin adjacent to the workshop, there was no answer. However, Vance noticed a faint smear of mud near the exterior cellar door, along with a padlocked heavy latch mounted on the outside frame.
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Using a entry tool, the officers broke the padlock and swung open the heavy wooden door.
Down in the dark, unheated basement, sitting on a cold concrete floor beside a water heater, was Maya. She was weak, shivering from the cold, and bruised across her arms and face. Greg had locked her inside two days earlier, taking her phone, her car keys, and her identification after the violent argument in his workshop. He had told her he was taking Leo to a private clinic in another state—and that if she tried to escape or call for help, she would never see her son again.
