Chapter Twelve:
He blocked her entrance to the house, not wanting her near Nora, “Gabrielle, this isn’t a good time and I definitely don’t have time for any of your games.”
“I heard about Matthew’s kidnapping and I wanted to offer my sympathy to you”, looks around him noticing Nora standing in the middle of the living room, “and to Nora.”
“Thank you, Gabrielle, but as you can imagine this has been hell on me and on Nora so if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to ask you to leave. Nora needs to avoid stress and she has enough to deal with right now, she doesn’t need any conflict.”
“Ahhh…yes the baby,” she spat out “your precious love child”, Nora turns and walks upstairs, no longer wanting to hear Gabrielle’s voice. Gabrielle grins and begins to walk away but then turns back to face Bo. “Isn’t life funny, just when you think you have everything you’ve ever wanted something like this happens, someone comes along and takes it all away.” She walks away leaving Bo standing on the porch staring after her.
Bo closed the door and turned around noticing for the first time that Nora was no longer in the living room. He walked upstairs and found her looking out her bedroom window. He walked up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Is she gone?”, she asked as she continued to stare out the window.
“Yeah, honey. She’s gone.” She turned around in his arms and laid her head in the crook of his neck. He wrapped his arms around her and walked towards the bed. She sat down on the end of the bed and he sat down beside her. Nora laid her head on his shoulder. He reached around behind her and pulled her close. “You should get some rest, honey. The baby needs you to rest.”
She just nods her head and lies down on the pillow. He pulls her legs up and lays them across his lap. He begins to massage her feet wanting to offer her whatever she needed to keep herself calm. She opened her eyes and looked at Bo, tears welling up in her eyes, “I love you, Bo.”
He stands up and walks around the other side of the bed and lies down beside her; pulling her close once again until she is perfectly spooned against him. They lay their intertwined hands on top of her stomach and close their eyes. Her breathing slowed as she finally fell asleep and just before falling asleep himself he whispers in her ear, “I love you too, Nora. We’ll get through this together, and I’ll bring our son home.”
Two months have passed. Thanksgiving came and went and so did Christmas. His presents still sit under the tree waiting for him to come home and open them. Nora is now six months pregnant and they’ve found out their having a girl. She’s buried herself in work; trying to lessen the pain somehow. Their relationship has become strained; despite how much they love each other. Bo spends his days and nights at the station following any lead that comes in, no matter how futile…
Two weeks after New Year’s…
Bo sits behind his desk staring at the picture of him and Nora and the picture of him and Matt when he caught his first fish. He picked up the photo of him and Matt and leaned back in his chair just staring at it. He never noticed Antonio walk into his office. “Umm…sir, I hate to interrupt but we just received this package addressed to you and DA. Buchanan.”
Bo stood up and took the package from Antonio, walking back around to his seat. He placed the package on the desk and sat down. He looked up at Antonio, “Thank you, Antonio. I’ll let you know if I need you.”
“Yes sir. I’ll be at the house with Jessica and Jaime. Just call me.”
Bo waited until he was alone before beginning to open the package. He noticed there was no return address which made his fears more real. He had an idea who this package was from and suddenly he didn’t want to open it alone. He picked the package up off the desk and walked towards her office. He knocked on her door and walked in sitting down in front of her desk, “This came for us today. I think it’s from whoever has Matt.”
She looked over at the picture of them on her desk and the tears began to well up in her eyes, “It’s been two months since Matthew was taken what makes you think they’d contact us now?”
“I don’t know, honey. Call it a hunch.”
He starts to open the envelope, “Bo wait…”
He looks up at her, “What’s the matter, Red?”
“I don’t know. I’m just afraid I guess. Afraid of what I might see and afraid of what I might not see.”
“Honey, we don’t even know if it’s from them, and we’re not going to know unless we open it. So what do you say, Red?”
She sighs and walks over to the other side of her desk; sitting down in the chair beside him. He takes her hand and squeezes it, “I’m okay, go ahead and open it.”
He looks down at the package in his hand and opens the envelope carefully setting it aside in case it needed to be used as evidence. He opened the interior envelope and removed the contents. Tears began to well up in their eyes when they looked at what he held in his hand, “My God, Bo. He…he’s changed so much.”
He flipped the picture over and read the back, “January 2004. It’s recent.” He opens the note that accompanied the photo and reads it out loud, “Sometimes getting everything you want comes with a price. Now you know that betrayal costs.” Bo looks over at Nora and she can see the anger and pain in his eyes. “I know who has him, Red.”
“What, who?”
“Gabrielle.”
Nora stands up and begins to pace, “How do you know?”
“Remember the night Gabrielle stopped by the house, the night after the kidnapping?”
“Yeah, of course I do.”
“She said something very similar to what was written on the back of the photo. She said something about me finally getting everything I ever wanted and then having it taken away.”
“If Gabrielle’s the one that has him, where does she have him, certainly not in Llanview?”
“No, I don’t think he’s in Llanview,” he looks at the photo. “I’m going to take this down to forensics. I’m going to have them blow the photo up. Maybe there’s something in the background that will clue us in.”
“I hope so, Bo but…”
“But what, Red?”
“He’s been gone for two months. Why would she tip her hand like this?”
“I don’t know and it might not be her. It might just be a huge coincidence.”
She walked over towards the door of her office where Bo was standing looking at the photo again, “Maybe Al would recognize something in the background that might help us determine if it’s Gabrielle.”
He leans in and kisses her, “Good idea, Red. Why don’t you call him and see if he can stop by. I’ll be down in the forensics lab.”
Nora called Al after getting his number from Marcie. He arrived at the station a half hour later curious as to why he was asked to come to the station. He walked up to Marcie’s desk and sat down beside her. He leaned in and kissed her before sitting back in the seat to wait for Nora. “So did Bo or Nora tell you why they wanted me to stop by?”
“No, but I think it has something to do with Matthew’s kidnapping. I heard some of the officer’s talking in the hallway.”
“I wonder why they think I would have any info on their son’s kidnapping; unless…”
Nora walks up behind him and lays a hand on his shoulder, he turns around, “Al thanks for coming by so quickly.”
“It’s no problem”, he turns and kisses Marcie goodbye and then follows Nora into Bo’s office.
Bo stands up and shakes his hand, “Thanks for coming in, Al.”
“Like I told Nora, it’s no problem, but I honestly have no idea why you’ve asked me here.”
“Well we need you to look at a photograph and see if anything looks familiar to you.”
He looks between Bo and Nora; pausing before speaking again, “This is about Matthew’s kidnapping isn’t it? You think my mom had something to do with this,” he looks between them again, “Don’t you?”
“We’re not sure Al. We got this photo and letter today. The person who wrote the letter said something very similar to something your mom said to Bo the night after Matthew’s kidnapping. It may all just be a coincidence, but it’s the first real lead we’ve gotten since he was taken. So will you help us?”
He looks between them and remembers back to when he had heard about his brother and sister’s kidnapping and the pain his father went through waiting for word from the kidnappers, “Sure…”
“Thank you, okay…we just need you to look closely at the photograph, see if anything looks familiar to you, anything at all.”
Al stands up and walks around behind Bo’s desk. He looks at the photo for a few moments before his eye catches something in the corner of the photo. He looks at it more closely and then sighs; pointing at the image, “That’s…that’s a picture of my Great-Grandfather. This is my mother’s childhood home. I recognize the furnishings in the room, that…this is the bedroom that I would sleep in when I would go to the house.”
Nora and Bo both look at each other and then over at Al as he sits down in Bo’s chair with a sigh; dropping his head in his head. None of them noticed the man standing out in the hallway, listening to everything they just said.