Tracks Read Online Free Page B

that so far, Sammy was
missing .
      Ten years had passed since that terrible day
and Sammy was still missing, Sam agonized, as he scooped the pile of faxes off
the machine and sat at his desk to scan them.  He heard the door open, the
street sounds suddenly becoming audible, and knew Black Jack had arrived .
    Detective Jack Preston,
invariably known to all as Black Jack, was, as the name suggested, a black
police detective, who in his youth loved card games, especially the game of
blackjack which he excelled at.  He was awarded his nickname before
joining the police force but the name stuck when some of his colleagues at the
police academy discovered that he spent significant sums of money pursuing this
shady practice.  He had been assigned to investigate the rape and murder
of Michelle Baker and the kidnapping of little Sammy Baker, and would later be
a pillar of strength in Sam’s road to recovery.  He would become obsessed
with the unresolved case and eventually leave the Los Angeles Police Department
to form a special federal task force for finding missing children, a task force
which would later accept Sam as a member but eventually be dismantled for lack
of funds .
    Sam would privately go on to
form the “Center for Missing Children”, a non-profit organization funded by
philanthropists and various concerned businesses and organizations. 
Designed to assist children and parents in need, the Center would be sanctioned
by the various law enforcement bureaux but would not be funded by them. 
Detective Black Jack Preston would eventually leave the force and join Sam’s
Center for Missing Children as lead investigator .
    Black Jack fussed in the foyer
with his attire then threaded his way through the crammed corridor, knocking
over several stacks of files before poking his head through the door to wish
Sam a good morning.  He continued on to the brewing coffeepot and came
back with two steaming Styrofoam cups filled to the brim with coffee, set them
on the desk and slumped into a chair across from Sam .
    Such was their morning ritual
when both were in town.  They sat in silence for a while, sipping their
coffee, scanning the faxes that had come through during the night.  Soon
they would begin to assess pending issues and examine ongoing events, preparing
for the day ahead.  Mainly they would try to assign a set of priorities to
the numerous tasks they had to perform, their troop clearly being undermanned
with a staff of only six people, Black Jack and Sam included .
    “ Sammy
would’ve been eleven tomorrow,” Black Jack gloomily remarked after he read the
last of the faxes Sam had passed on to him .
    “ He
will be eleven tomorrow,” Sam corrected him, then instinctively looked to his
calendar.   It was March 18, 1995 .
    As the years passed, treating
his son’s existence became more and more ambiguous to many of his acquaintances
and friends, even to Black Jack, his closest friend, but never to Sam who
refused to believe in anything other than his little Sammy being alive. In his
darkest hours throughout the yet-to-be-resolved ordeal, he would refuse to
succumb to morbid thoughts concerning his son’s being.  Lately he had
begun to concede the idea that he may never get to see his son again, but never
would he concede to thinking he no longer lived.  This belief was quintessential
to Sam’s own survival and he had told Black Jack early on, that so long as
there was no hard proof, he would never accept such a fate, and if he ever did,
he would have nothing to live for .
    Sam’s brother, Robert, three
years his senior, a professor of law at UCLA, had been the first to arrive at
the hospital.  Black Jack, one of the first detectives to reach the
dreadful murder scene, had found his phone number in Michelle’s Rolodex in the
kitchen and had delivered the horrible news, suggesting he hurry to the
hospital to be with his brother.  Robert had called Sam’s sister, Rebecca,
and she had alerted his