Olympus Drive Book 1: Everything is Fine

Chapter 6

Detective Stamos

Identifying the girl is tricky. There were a couple of little girls who disappeared ten to fifteen years ago, and I don't have a good age on her. She was a kid yeah, but that could be between fifteen and nineteen.

The littlest boy, however, I do get lucky on.

Rainn Nichols, his parents were generally blamed for his disappearance. His blood was found on a hammer in the garage. His aunt is the one who reported him missing when she went to visit her sister and then the baby wasn't there. He was eighteen months old. The parents didn't have a good explanation for the disappearance, or what they were doing partying at two in the morning one day that week. CPS charged them with neglect and generally not knowing where your eighteen month old is. Under interrogation eventually they said that the kid was possessed by the devil so they really couldn't say where he was. The baby was presumed dead.

That was three years ago. Little Rainn Nichols was the spitting image of that just about five year old clinging to my Basil's neck. So what--they took the kid? And the parents legitimately didn't notice? That doesn't explain his blood on the hammer. But the little guy is a dead ringer for our missing baby three years ago.

Then there's Luke Mazzo. With his rather unique green eyes, soft gold skin, and curly hair. That boy is hard to miss. Grandma took him to the beach one day to look at the waves. He was three. Grandma has a heart-attack. People call the EMTs. She doesn't manage to get out that she had the kid with her until after she's in the hospital. By which point the baby is long gone. Presumed washed out to sea as the little boy was known for charging into the waves only for his parents or grandma to scoop him up out of them to safety. The little boy was insulin dependent. So it was presumed he'd have died if kidnapped. That's a little off --how could Rhea know that and supply him with insulin to keep him alive? Still he's uncomfortably similar to the boy I saw last night.

The girls I can find don't match Rhea's MO. One five year old abducted from a school, unknown how. Mom dropped her off. Came to pick her up she wasn't there. Teachers said she'd been there the whole day. Parents were heavily suspected especially since they had prior and current drug/alcohol problems and a couple of CPS visits for bruises on the kid. Consensus they probably killed her.

Another weird one is someone posing as a caseworker picked up the kid from a foster home, only for both of them to vanish. No signs of foul play on foster parent's part. The bio mom had lost custody due to homelessness. She was set to regain it, having gotten a job and apartment after leaving her spouse. She left the spouse because he'd hit the kid. Then lived out of her car. Someone reported the baby left alone in the car while the mom was apparently just running in to ask about jobs. Not really neglect but since the mom had no money and no way to care for the baby she got pulled. Then kidnapped/killed. I remember that case, I'd sincerely hoped the mom had staged the thing to get her kid back. I wouldn't have blamed her and it would have meant the kid was safe. Not so, the little girl was gone without a trace.

Those two are the only abductions of a girl, the right age, four to five, in the local area. I'd really like to know who to pull in for DNA matches. But. These really don't fit Rhea. He himself was never seen with the boys. Those were crimes of opportunity. The girls are premeditated. Whoever took them had some form of ID, plan, etc.

Yet all of Rhea's other victims are from the local area. Maybe that girl is his actual kid with somebody? She looks nothing like him but she could take after her mom. 

I sigh. I don't know but I'm not actually closer to getting them home. I can't actually just stroll up and say 'hey these kids look like missing kids from over ten years ago I need them to spit in these cups'. Well technically I can but the precinct won't like it. This is a hunch with a few little weird clues. Leaving your sixteen year olds alone for a few days with their little siblings in an apparently well stocked house isn't technically illegal. Having your kids wear weird pajamas and homeschooling them out of your house in the middle of nowhere isn't illegal.