Olympus Drive Book 1: Everything is Fine

Chapter 3

Detective Stamos

Twelve years. 

Twelve years since that woman was sobbing in my arms, begging me to bring her baby home safe. 

Twelve years since I had to tell her, day after day, that there were no new leads.

Little Basil Merryweather was playing in the backyard of his home, while his mother watched on. Hearing the phone ring she went inside. Two minutes later he was gone. The four year old had previously sneaked out the back gate to play in the empty lot behind the house. But he wasn't there. He was gone. Vanished without a trace.

Neighbors reported seeing an unfamiliar work van in the neighborhood. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. No license plate to go off of. Just an old van, yellow or white. 

The dogs got nothing. His trail stopped in the empty lot. Which means that somebody put him in a car. And took him.

As the years went by I was well aware the odds of finding Basil alive were rapidly decreasing. Odds were he died the day he disappeared. And they dumped his body in the ocean or someplace out in the woods that no one will ever find. 

But Mrs. Merryweather didn't like those odds. And frankly neither did I. She calls me still from time to time. I think now it's just to check in. she knows the nights I sat up, the days I spent retracing the kidnappers possible movements. She knows I wanted to bring her son home.

I keep a picture of that kid on my desk. Because I failed him. I couldn't bring him back. I couldn't save him.

So I know what that boy looks like. Dark hair, strange, sad dark eyes, the tip of his lips when he smiles. I know what that kid looks like.

And I'd be lying if I didn't stare in hope at every sixteen year old kid I see. Let it be him. Let him be alive.

But I know this was more than hope. A routine HMW call and who comes to the door but a sixteen year old who looks like he isn't let out of a the house? Who doesn't know his rival eastern conference team? No, no that was weird. What's a kid, or a couple of kids, doing up in that old house? The neighbors said a man lived there with 'a few' kids. And that the kids never left the yard much or played with the other kids. And the man kept to himself.

Most kidnapping victims are held within five miles of their home. Olympus drive is a mere seven miles from the Merryweather's quiet subdivision.

I know that it's a long shot. But I know that boy's eyes. I've stared at his quiet, sad face, for far too many hours.

Also who homeschools around here? It's too cold to keep your kids in all winter.

So I'm looking at property records. Bradley Rhea is a real person. He bought that houses on the hill in cash twenty years ago. No marriage records that I can find. No cosigner on the house though that doesn't necessarily mean anything special. 

Two hours of googling later, I discover that Bradley Rhea was married. To his college sweetheart, not long after he got his doctorate in theology. The wife still uses his name, and still lives in Missouri. So he ties up kids at this house here? Does she know he owns a house up here? Is down there where he is now? Maybe that's their kid and this is all normal. But I think not.

"Hi, can I speak to Marleen Rhea?" I ask, when someone answers the phone.

"Speaking?" the woman's voice is bemused, but not concerned.

"This is Detective Stamos with Winfell PD is your husband at home?" never mind that I'm across the country from them I need information.

"My---I haven't spoken to my husband in twenty years," she says, her voice faltering, "Did you find him?"