Night Sins by Tami Hoag

cry silently, tears rolling down her cheeks, her hand pressed over her mouth.
    “It wasn't a ransom note, but it made it clear Josh had been taken,” Mitch said. The words were branded in acid on his brain, an eerie message that pointed to a twisted mind. He wished he could give them the confidential evidence line, tell them it might be crucial to keep the information secret, knowledge only the guilty party would have, et cetera, but he couldn't. They were Josh's parents and they had a right to know. “It said, ‘ignorance is not innocence but SIN.' ”
    A chill shot through Hannah. “What does it mean?
What—”
    “It means he's nuts,” Paul declared. He raked his fingers back through his hair again and again. “Oh, Jesus . . .”
    “It doesn't ring any bells with either of you?” Mitch asked. They shook their heads, both looking too stunned to think at all. Mitch let out a measured sigh. “What we need to concentrate on now is coming up with possible suspects.”
    Natalie brought the coffee in on a tray and set it on the cherrywood trunk, where remote controls lay like abandoned toys. She handed Mitch a cup, took another, and pressed it into Hannah's hands, leaving Paul to fend for himself while she coaxed her friend to take a sip. Paul didn't miss the slight. He shot the woman a glare as he leaned forward to add sweetener to his.
    “You can't honestly think anyone we know would do this?” he said.
    “No,” Mitch lied. The statistics scrolled through the back of his head like a news bulletin crawling along the bottom of a television screen. The vast majority of child abductions were not perpetrated by strangers. “But I want you both to think. Have any clients or patients gotten mad at either of you? Have you noticed any strangers in the neighborhood lately, any strange cars driving by slowly? Anything at all out of the ordinary?”
    Paul stared into his coffee and heaved a sigh. “When are we supposed to notice strangers hanging around? I'm at the office all day. Hannah's hours are even worse than mine now that she's been named head of the emergency room.”
    Hannah flinched as another small barb struck its target. It occurred to Mitch to ask them how long they'd been having problems, but he held his tongue. For all he knew, the stress of the situation was bringing out Paul's cruel streak.
    “Has Josh said anything about someone hanging around the school or approaching him on the street?”
    Hannah shook her head. Her hand trembled violently as she set her mug back on the tray, sloshing coffee over the rim. Ignoring the mess, she folded herself in two, hugging her knees, dry sobs racking her body. Someone had stolen her son. In the blink of an eye Josh was gone from their lives, taken by a faceless stranger to a nameless place for a purpose no mother ever wanted to consider. She wondered if he was cold, if he was frightened, if he was thinking of her and wondering why she hadn't come for him. She wondered if he was alive.
    Paul pushed himself up out of the wing chair and paced the room. His face was drawn and pale.
    “Things like this don't happen here,” he muttered. “That's why we moved out of the Cities—to live in a small town where we could raise our kids without worrying about some pervert—” He slammed a fist against the fireplace mantel. “How could this happen? How could this happen?”
    “There's no way to make sense of it, no matter where it happens,” Mitch said. “The best thing we can do is focus on trying to get Josh back. We'll get a tap and a tracer on your phone in case a call comes in.”
    “Are we just supposed to sit here and wait?” Paul asked.
    “Someone has to be on hand if the phone rings.”
    “Hannah can stay by the phone.” He'd volunteered his wife without consulting her or even considering her mental state, Mitch thought, his patience wearing thin. “I want to help with the search. I have to do something to help.”
    “Yeah, fine,” Mitch murmured,