Long Lost by David Morrell

failed to catch Petey or find any sign of Kate and Jason. The Montana state troopers finally stopped watching the interstate.

5
    “He isn’t your brother.”
    “
What?
”
    “The man who took your wife and son isn’t Peter Denning,” Gader said as he stood at my front door. “His name’s Lester Dant.”
    I felt as if I’d been shoved. “You mean Petey used the name Lester Dant as an alias?”
    “No. The other way around.”
    “For God’s sake, what are you talking about?”
    “The prints the crime—scene crew found in your house belong to a man named Lester Dant.” Gader stepped inside. “Here’s the file we have on him. Background. Social Security number. Criminal record.”
    Bewildered, I sat in the living room and stared at the photograph that came with the documents. Complete with chipped tooth and scarred chin, Petey’s face confronted me from a mug shot that had been taken in Butte.
    But the file identified the man as Lester Dant. He’d been born in Brockton, Indiana, a year before Petey was born. Over the years, he’d been arrested for, but never convicted of, auto theft, armed robbery, and manslaughter.
    “Dant did time for extortion, drug dealing, and rape,” Gader said. “It’s a miracle he didn’t kill you all in your sleep. See where the Butte police have a record on him? Lester Dant got in a bar fight and put a man in the emergency ward. He was released from jail a week before the
CBS Sunday Morning
broadcast you were on.”
    “But …” My sense of unreality intensified so much that the living room seemed to tilt. “How did he know so much about Petey?”
    “They must have crossed paths,” Gader said. “Maybe your brother saw the
CBS Sunday Morning
show and talked about it with some people he knew, including Dant. Later, in private, Dant got more specifics from him and decided to pay you a visit.”
    I raised my voice in dismay. “My brother hung around with people like
Dant
?”
    “Maybe your brother had as rough a life as Dant claimed.”
    “But why in God’s name didn’t Petey come to see me himself?”
    Gader stared at me, and I tensed with the realization that Dant might have killed Petey to prevent him from interfering.
    “It doesn’t make sense,” I told Gader. “If Dant’s this vicious, why would he have packed clothes for my son? Why would he have taken Jason along instead of …” The words caught in my throat.
    “Killing him?” Gader looked uncomfortable. “I’m not sure that’s a topic you want to get into.”
    “Let
me
decide that.
Answer me.
”
    Gader exhaled slowly. “It’s probable that Dant took your son to put pressure on your wife. By threatening to hurt Jason, he could force your wife to submit to him.”
    I felt as if I’d been struck in the face. “No.”
    “I’m sorry, Mr. Denning. You asked me to be candid.”
    “Petey … Lester Dant …”
    “Fingerprints don’t lie.”
    “There’s got to be a mistake. What Petey told me about when we were kids and how he was abducted—”
    “What
Dant
told you. He probably kept buying your brother drinks to keep him talking, supplying details.”
    “But it all felt so
real
. I’m sure he was telling the truth.”
    “Listen, some of these con men are good—enough actors, they could have won Academy Awards if they’d gone straight.”
    “It’s just that …”
    “Everything was a lie. The name of the town in West Virginia where he told you he was held prisoner.”
    “Redemption.”
    “There’s no such place.”
    “What?”
    “Other parts of his story don’t hold together, either. He told you he got the scar on his chin last summer when he fell off a ladder on a roofing project in Colorado Springs.”
    “That’s right.”
    “Well, our agents showed Dant’s photograph to all the roofing contractors in that area. Nobody recognized him. The same with the construction contractors. If somebody had gotten a two—inch gash on his face, they’d remember it, they say. It would have