I wish I had seen the driver, a license plate, anything.

Her mind had been so locked on thoughts of Tyler that she’d been virtually oblivious to the traffic around her. When the oversized SUV had shoved her off the road, her car had rolled, coming to rest with the driver’s side on the ground.

The tow truck driver had started strapping her smashed car down to his truck when Tyler’s cruiser slid onto the scene, sirens blaring. He got out, then stopped when he saw the car.

Tyler put a hand over his mouth and rubbed it back and forth. He conferred with the supervising officer who turned and pointed at Dee.

Tyler followed his direction, and his gaze locked on her. His brows merged into one thick line as he scowled, and his eyes darkened to an intensity that made her sit up straighter. As he stalked toward her, her stomach tightened in a way that was part fear and part anticipation—she really wanted to avoid the coming confrontation, yet she truly felt relieved to see him.

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RAMONA RICHARDS

A writer and editor since 1975, Ramona Richards has worked on staff with a number of publishers. Ramona has also freelanced with more than twenty magazine and book publishers and has won awards for both her fiction and nonfiction. She’s written everything from sales training video scripts to book reviews, and her latest articles have appeared in Today’s Christian Woman, College Bound and Special Ed Today. She sold a story about her daughter to Chicken Soup for the Caregiver’s Soul, and Secrets of Confidence, a book of devotionals, is available from Barbour Publishing.

In 2004, the God Allows U-Turns Foundation, in conjunction with the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association (AWSA), chose Ramona for their “Strength of Choice” award, and in 2003, AWSA nominated Ramona for Best Fiction Editor of the Year. The Evangelical Press Association presented her with an award for reporting in 2003, and in 1989 she won the Bronze Award for Best Original Dramatic Screenplay at the Houston International Film Festival. A member of the American Christian Fiction Writers and the Romance Writers of America, she has five other novels complete or in development.

Ramona and her daughter live in a suburb of Nashville, Tennessee. She can be reached through her Web site, www.ramonarichards.com.

The Taking of Carly Bradford
Ramona Richards

The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: He gathereth together the outcasts of Israel. He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the number of the stars; He calleth them all by their names. Great is our Lord, and of great power: His understanding is infinite.

—Psalms 147:2–5

It only takes one special teacher to change a life. My greatest fortune is that I had more than one. So this is for all the men and women who did what they could to share their love of learning and their wisdom…and to keep me out of trouble. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to all my teachers at Crestline Elementary, Pennington Elementary, Cameron Middle, Two Rivers High, Mt. Juliet High and the entire English department at Middle Tennessee State University.

So many thanks go to Mrs. Camp, Mrs. Kay, Mr. Dobbins, Mrs. O’Neill, Miss Hall and Mr. Waters, as well as others. And especially to Dr. Frank Ginanni, who seemed to truly believe I could make a living from my writing when no one else did.

Joshua was scared. He knew he was in trouble, but he didn’t know what to do. “My parents will be so mad!” he told Rabbit. “They will never believe that my shoes walked away without me.”

Rabbit looked back with sad eyes.

“You are right!” Joshua exclaimed. “I have to find them. Then, when my parents find me, everything will be all right.”

—Dee Kelley

The Day My Shoes Took a Walk Without Me, 2003

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

“Drop the shoes!”

“No! Get away from me!” Dee Kelley screamed the five words, the sound tearing at her throat the way the trees around her tore at her body. Her face stung as a branch lashed her cheeks and forehead. The trees around her, the tips of their limbs vividly green with shiny new leaves, turned into a harsh field of obstacles as she fled, their boughs tugging at her clothes while their roots made every step uncertain. Dee risked a glance behind her, and she stumbled, going down sideways, her hip thudding into a patch of bright purple flowers in the undergrowth. A shriek burst from her lips as she twisted, fighting back to her feet, her right fist still desperately clinging to a pair of bright white children’s sandals.

“Drop the shoes!” The rough voice sounded closer than before, almost at her back, and Dee could hear the running footsteps, the sounds of boots smashing into the soft, spring ground that had dogged her for almost half a mile.

A musty, sweet blended aroma of damp leaves and squashed flowers circled around her head as Dee demanded her exhausted body to rise off the woodland floor again. “Get up! Get up!”

This third fall had compounded the scrapes and bruises of the previous two. The winding and uneven path that traversed the two and a half miles from her writer’s retreat cabin and the small, historic town of Mercer, New Hampshire, was familiar to her, but now she was far off the path, into the dense forest, running, gasping for air, hurting.

“What were you thinking?” Her hoarse words sounded flat as she struggled to her feet and ran, trying to ignore the voice behind her.

But she knew the answer as she grasped her aching side. She had been thinking that these white sandals could mean the difference between life and death. She just never dreamed it might be her own.

Tyler Madison picked up the picture of eight-year-old Carly Bradford that had remained propped against his desk calendar for the past three months. He examined yet again the delicate features and shining smile. Tyler thought all little girls were beautiful, but Carly’s infectious grin and loving warmth drew everyone to her. Yet she remained completely and totally eight years old. Innocent and full of wonder. So he’d kept the picture there since that rain-soaked day when the petite princess had vanished to remind him of what really mattered.

As if he could ever forget.

An early spring rain had barely ended when Carly had dashed from her home wearing only a blue gingham dress, white sandals, and a yellow poncho to chase her puppy into the woods behind her home. The puppy had come home alone.

Tyler and his small force had exhausted all their resources on the foot-by-foot search of the area, to no avail. Carly had simply vanished, leaving behind no evidence of either accident or kidnapping.

He released a deep sigh, put the photo back on his calendar and pushed away from his desk. He recognized that finding Carly had become his obsession, but he didn’t want to give up hope. It was not his nature to do so. After three months, however…

He stood, pacing his small office. He searched the Web every day for clues, but today he’d finished early. There was just nothing there. Three months! Everything had gone cold. The scant evidence, the interest of the community…even the press had been reluctant to keep her picture in their papers and on the Web sites unless something new turned up. The frustration of it gnawed at him, and Tyler knew he had messed up. What else explained it? Children didn’t just disappear! They ran away, had accidents, were taken by relatives or strangers, but they didn’t just vanish.

Tyler stopped. OK, I have to focus on something else. Some other case or…something. Jogging with his dog sometimes worked. Sometimes friends helped. He looked at the clock that hung next to his office window. Only ten o’clock, so he didn’t even have the distraction of lunch with Dee and the other folks at the Federal Café. He grabbed his hat and checked his pocket for his keys. Maybe a drive would clear his mind, although he doubted it.

Somehow Tyler knew that the taking of Carly Bradford would haunt the rest of his life.

Dee smelled blood among the musky scents of earth and newly sprouted trees, and she knew it was her own. Her face burned from the scratches and the salt of her sweat highlighted each wound with a sharp ache. Still, she pushed. She had to get to Mercer, had to find Tyler Madison. These shoes! She glanced at her fist briefly, her knuckles as white as the leather straps she clutched.

“Drop the sandals!”

Dee cried out, realizing the voice came from in front of her now, and she dodged to the left. She knew the road had to be just up ahead. Her mind grasped for a sliver of hope as she saw a break in the trees, there, farther into the woods, just to the left. Dee scrambled forward, reaching out for the next tree, then the next, her running shoes sinking deeper into the moist, moss-covered ground.

“Stupid woman! Drop them!” The voice sounded as if it were right behind her.

Dee could see the road now, the black pavement cutting through the forest like an ebony river. Safety. She had to get to…

A hand snagged the shoes, pulling her arm back and spinning her around.

“No!” Dee jerked them toward her, wrenching the sandals free from her pursuer. The figure behind her lost momentum with the action and stepped backward, grabbing wildly at a tree for balance. Dee got only a quick glimpse of the thin figure, face hidden behind a cap pulled low and a cloud of short dark hair, the frame indistinct in the black hooded sweat suit at least a size too big.

“You took Carly!” Dee screamed, her fear turning into a mother’s rage. “Why would you do that?”

There was a quick shake of the head, then Dee’s pursuer froze as a car whooshed by on the road up the bank behind Dee, as if for the first time realizing how close they were to traffic. Dee took advantage of the hesitation and turned, scrambling upward, her left hand digging into the dirt for traction. A hand clutched at her leg, but Dee jerked away, kicking backward. Her foot connected with flesh, and a sharp “oomph” echoed around her. But the action cost Dee her balance and she stumbled hard into a tree. She braced herself, then pushed away to go around it.

A branch hit her full in the face, as if it had been held back and released. A sharp pain shot through her nose, and Dee went down with a scream, one hand covering her face. Her eyes and cheeks stung as if she’d been slapped, and a hot stickiness covered her fingers.

There was another jerk on the sandals, and this time Dee screamed, an insane fury filling her. “No!” She swung her fist into a hard right cross, and the assailant went down, rolling back down the embankment.

Dee couldn’t open her eyes wide enough to see anything. She screamed again as she fought her way toward the road, staggering on the rocky ground. How could she be such an idiot?

She knew she needed help. Just as she reached the pavement, unexpected drops of blood and sweat dripped from her brow into her left eye, blinding her. Dee tripped over the rough edge of the asphalt, right into the path of an oncoming car.

TWO

Light came back slowly. With it came the stark aromas of medicine and disinfectant, as well as someone’s cologne. Dee could hear padded footsteps, the whispery sounds of low voices and the rustle of clothes near her bed. Behind her head, a machine softly beeped.

Hospital. I’m in the hospital. Where are the—She squinted and cleared her throat, grasping out with her right hand, which felt oddly empty. “The sandals…”

A soft pressure covered her wrist and the soothing baritone of Tyler Madison’s voice attempted to comfort her. “Yes, we have the sandals. You gave them to me, remember? Dee. You need to rest. Just rest. Everything will be OK.”

Dee struggled against the grogginess in her mind. “The shoes. Carly’s shoes.”

“Yes. You told me about them. Sleep.”

The light faded a bit, as did the pain. The voices swirled around her in a fog, yet every moment in the woods remained as clear as luminous pearls on black velvet. Especially the moment she first saw the little girl’s sandals. Carly’s sandals.

The white leather had gleamed against the rich green grass of the stream bank like a beacon, like the sudden appearance of a cherished memory on a bad day. The shoes were simple, just a wooden sole with white straps across the top of the foot. But they had a sweetness to them, as all little girls’ shoes do, with the white leather straps etched with tiny stars. One shoe lay flat, while one rested on its side, but Dee Kelley knew they hadn’t been on the stream bank long, since no splashes of mud dotted the leather.

Dee, however, knew she looked anything but perky when she had paused by the edge of the path to catch her breath, clutching a tree branch to stay upright. Her dark brown hair stuck in matted clumps to her neck, and sweat rivulets carved crevasses in her makeup. “Keep going!” Her voice croaked from lack of air and water.

Determination, however, had not stopped the cramp in her left calf, so she’d hobbled off the path to a shady spot at the edge of a stream. The stream ran beneath a narrow, wooden footbridge and extended several miles through the woods. She stretched her leg, gulping air and massaging the muscle. As the pain eased, she plopped down on the stream bank. “I hate exercise.”

That’s when she had spotted the sandals, their pale shapes standing out against the dark earth and grass of the stream’s edge. “Someone must have gone wading.”

Dee stood and placed one foot on a rock in the middle of the stream. She bent to lift the shoes out of the grass by their straps. As she straightened, she hesitated, puzzled. There were no other signs on the ground that a child had been anywhere near here. No footprints, no squashed grass, no rocks appeared tipped or out of place. Dee lifted the shoes and peered at them. “So, did you walk upstream and just drop them, forgetting you had shoes in the first place?”

She smiled slightly, as a painful but beloved memory stabbed the back of her mind. Joshua had often done that, had constantly flipped off his shoes and gone without, forgetting where he’d left the dreadfully hot, confining things in the first place. Mickey had wanted to make Josh start paying for shoes out of his allowance, but Dee had resisted. It’s a kid thing. He’ll grow out of it.

Trying to soothe the issue between father and son, Dee had written a children’s book, The Day My Shoes Took a Walk Without Me, told from Joshua’s point of view.

Dee took a deep breath and pushed the memory away. Part of her ongoing plan for recovery meant allowing the memories in but not dwelling on them. After all, dwelling on the past had kept her locked in her parents’ house for almost three years.

“Keep moving,” Dee said aloud, as much about her exercise as her past. The sandals still dangling from her fingers, Dee struggled back up the bank to the path. Stretching again, she continued toward her goal at a fast walk, reluctant to break back into the jog that had caused the cramp in the first place.

Her goal was the Federal Café, in downtown Mercer. Those three years of seclusion had added some extra weight to her petite frame, and Dee had become determined to rid herself of it. So, every day she walked or jogged the path into Mercer for a sensible, low-calorie lunch at the café with her new friends. She then took the road that ran from Mercer through several neighborhoods and the wooded area back to the retreat.

Dee picked up her pace a bit, the sandals bumping against her leg with almost every swing of her arm. Her mind drifted to the way she looked in a size eight. In particular, an emerald green dress that Mickey had given her just a week before the accident….

Dee stopped and lifted the sandals again, peering at them. Something about a pair of children’s sandals tickled the back of her brain, and she let it drift there for a moment. There was something…in the news…sandals, wooden soles and straps with stars on them….

The wind sucked out of Dee as if she’d been punched, and her knees buckled. She sat down hard on the ground. Carly Bradford! These had to be Carly’s. A sudden panic flooded over her. “What do I do—?”

Tyler. She had to get to Tyler. He would know what to do. He was always at the café this time of day; they usually ate lunch together. She picked up her pace, then broke into a jog. She had to get to the—

“Drop the shoes!”

The voice, harsh and low, came from Dee’s right, and she stumbled, almost falling into a bush. She spun, listening, unsure if she’d really heard a voice or if her mind had turned the rustling of squirrels and birds into words.

“Drop the shoes!”

Dee had instead turned and fled.

Tyler leaned against the wall in the examining room, watching Dee breathe, every muscle tightening when she shifted restlessly on the bed. The bruise around her left eye had grown to the size of his palm, framing a network of scratches on Dee’s swollen, misshapen face. Tiny butterfly bandages held several of the cuts closed, including one across the bridge of her nose.

His mind reeled to think how close he had come to killing her. He’d almost panicked when she’d darted into the road, and precious minutes passed before he realized that, although his fender had grazed her, most of her injuries were from an attack in the woods.

He’d bundled her into the car and headed for Portsmouth at lightning speed. He had radioed the station to alert the hospital and sent Wayne Vouros, his sole detective and crime scene specialist, to the site of the attack. He’d also called Fletcher and Maggie MacAllister, owners of the writer’s retreat where Dee lived. Maggie was a close friend of Dee’s, and she now waited impatiently outside the E.R. while Fletcher had joined Wayne at the scene, promising to call as soon as they knew anything.

Tyler shifted his weight and checked his cell phone one more time, even though it had not vibrated since he’d arrived at the hospital. He replaced the phone, then took a deep breath to quiet his increasing anxiety, his need to do something.

Finally, he gave in to the gentle urgings of one of the nurses and sat in a hard plastic chair near the bed. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and clutched his hat in one hand. He examined the band closely, for no good reason. He just needed somewhere to look that wasn’t Dee—or the smears of Dee’s blood that still streaked his clothes.

How could he have been so blind? Tyler knew that deer leapt out on that stretch of road all the time, yet he’d trundled through, his mind so on Carly that he had become oblivious to everything else.

Lord, I could have killed Dee. Please let me be more alert and aware.

Not that he was normally unaware of Dee. In fact, he’d been increasingly aware of her since she’d arrived in Mercer, with her sharp wit and soft Southern accent. He looked forward to their lunchtime meetings at the café, her questions about Mercer’s residents and history, her thoughts about life in the South.

Tyler rotated his hat in his hands. He enjoyed the way she looked, too, despite the weight she said she wanted to lose. He didn’t get that, the weight loss thing, even though he could stand to lose a few pounds, as well. He liked Dee’s curves, the way her dark hair caressed her shoulders with the soft curls at the tips. She barely came up to his shoulder, so she was maybe five-two, but she seemed just right to him.

What is taking so long? He glanced at his still silent phone again. Never had he so badly wanted to be in two places at once, to see how she was doing here, but also at the scene of her attack. Maybe I should let Maggie take over here. Then he immediately dismissed the thought. Wayne and Fletcher were certainly capable of handling the gathering of any evidence, whereas Maggie had no training with crime victims. He needed to be here when Dee awoke, not Maggie.

He paused. Interesting friends, those two, the New Yorker who had adopted Mercer as her home and the Southerner who had seemed so lost a few months ago. Maggie had been tough on Dee at first; now they were friends. Maggie could be surprisingly hard on the writers at the retreat, even though she was younger than most, maybe thirty-one or so.

Hmm. How old was Dee? Tyler shifted in the hard chair, trying to find any kind of comfortable position, as he attempted to do the math of Dee’s life. He looked again at her face, so oddly relaxed now under the crisscrossing bandages. He knew she’d been married for about ten years, and that her son had been eight when he died three years ago. That would make her, what, early to mid-thirties? She still moved like a younger woman, though…

He stood, pulling his phone out again, as if the ring tone had stopped working for some reason. Still nothing. He glanced at the clock again. Stop getting distracted.

He paced slowly, quietly. There had been too many distractions lately. Focus on the case. What if Dee’s mumblings about the sandals were right? Were the sandals yet one more thing they had overlooked? He knew without a doubt they had searched that stream bank. With a child Carly’s age, the stream always got checked first.

Yet all previous cases of missing children in Mercer had been about runaways, all of whom had returned home quickly. In his ten years on the force, nothing like this had happened. A true kidnapping. And although he’d gained a lot of confidence and experience in the four years since he’d become chief, Mercer did not lend itself to giving him experience in major crimes. Robberies, assaults, an arson or two, the occasional domestic dispute—these were routine. But since the town had separated itself from the county and organized its own law enforcement department apart from the county sheriff’s team, the police had handled only one murder and no other major crime.

Tyler’s mouth twisted grimly, and he dropped back down in the chair. Of course, Mercer’s low crime rate gave him plenty of time to obsess about a missing little girl. The very idea of someone swiping a kid filled Tyler with a stomach-churning revulsion. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would be cruel to a child, and he knew most kids were found within a day or so—or not at all. Whether or not they were found depended a lot on the initial investigation.

The initial investigation. Tyler felt out of his league and terrified of making another misstep. He had made plenty in this case, even with the FBI and the state police helping and his best friend, former NYPD detective Fletcher MacAllister, looking over his shoulder. An Amber alert had not been issued due to the lack of evidence that Carly was in immediate danger; no proof existed that she’d been taken as opposed to running away. He had told Carly’s parents—and the media—too much about their investigation. The lack of evidence had panicked him into asking the wrong questions of the wrong people, leading to a lot of misinformation in the press, and the Bradfords were even more devastated by the publicity. Every day the case had grown colder as early spring rains washed away the last semblance of evidence. There were, in fact, no leads at all, and even now no evidence that she’d been kidnapped. Not even a clean indication of a crime scene.

Yet everyone in Mercer knew that the happy princess had not run away. Tyler ached to prove it. To find her.

He shifted in the chair. Stop whining. Focus on the facts. What few there are.

The Bradfords had no known enemies. Jack and Nancy Bradford were beloved members of the community with no apparent enemies. Even though Jack was a Portsmouth surgeon, he’d been out of medical school only a few years. He’d never been sued and only had one complaint against him registered with the American Medical Association—and the AMA had cleared him in that case. Nancy had given birth to Carly when she and Jack were still in college, barely making ends meet. They were a family made close by hardship, and they adored each other. Almost no one Tyler interviewed had a bad word to say about them.

Carly often played in the woods, but at no set time. The only conclusion anyone could draw was that it had been a random act, a moment of opportunity. A cruel stranger who had happened to see the lovely child skipping along after her dog and decided to…

“Tyler?” The voice came from behind him, and he turned. The young woman who stood there—tall, blond and exceptionally thin—could have been mistaken for a model, except for the white coat and the perpetually exhausted look of an E.R. physician. As police chief of a small town without a hospital, Tyler knew all the E.R. docs in Portsmouth and Manchester. “Hello, Anna,” he said quietly.

Her warm smile was genuine but looked as tired as her eyes. “Hi, Tyler. She one of your Mercer folks?”

“Yes. And a friend.”

Anna nodded. “Then you might want to keep an eye on her for a few days.” She slipped her hands into her jacket pockets and her doctor mode took over. “She took quite a blow across the face. She says it was from a tree branch, and I don’t doubt that. No sign of concussion, though, which is good news. As you can see, we’ve stitched up the cuts and given her something for the pain.”

“Pain.” Tyler took a deep breath. “Will she be coherent if I talked to her about what happened?”

Anna paused, focusing on his eyes, considering the question. After a moment, she glanced at Dee, then shook her head. “She has a lot of meds in her now, but she’s asleep, not unconscious. She should stir soon, but she’ll still be loopy. She didn’t make a whole lot of sense before the meds, but now, you may not be able to tell when it’s Dee talking and when it’s the drugs doing the speaking. She needs to rest for a day or so, but she’ll be okay and far more able to tell you her story tomorrow. The nurse is prepping the release paperwork, so they’ll bring her out in a few minutes. Mostly, she needs quiet.”

Tyler nodded. “Thanks. We appreciate your help.”

Anna paused, then put a hand on his forearm. “If she needs me, page me. I’ll meet you here.”

He wrapped his fingers briefly around hers, then she returned to her work.

When Tyler returned from the treatment area, Maggie stood immediately. “How is she?”

Tyler held up the two plastic bags the hospital had loaned him, one holding a pair of white sandals, the other the contents of Dee’s pockets. “Shook up. Her face is all scratched up, and her left eye is black and swollen shut. Her doctor thought she’d broken her nose, but it’s just badly bruised.”

She looked up at Tyler, then pointed at the bag with the sandals. “What are those?”

He motioned for her to sit, then dropped into a chair next to her. “She kept mumbling about these all the way here. I couldn’t even get her to let go of them. She kept repeating that she’d heard a voice in the woods, demanding that she drop the sandals. She ran, but the voice chased her.” He paused, watching her closely. “She says they’re Carly’s.”

Maggie fell back in the chair as if she’d been punched, and her voice became a tight, hushed whisper. “Carly’s? How could they be Carly’s?”

He shrugged. “She said she found them by the stream.”

Maggie straightened. “That’s impossible. We searched every inch of that stream bank, the entire run of it. The whole town did.”

“I know.”

She shook her head. “And we’ve had other false finds. They can’t be Carly’s.”

“I know.”

“It’s almost too weird to believe.” She paused. “If I didn’t know Dee, I’d think she was…” Her voice trailed off, and she seemed to sag a little.

“Hallucinating?” Tyler asked.

Reluctantly, Maggie nodded.

“Except she didn’t smack herself in the face.”

They fell silent a moment, then Maggie pointed at the other bag. “What’s in that one?”

“The stuff from her pockets.” He turned the bag so they both could see the contents: a cell phone, keys, a pack of mints and a Swiss Army knife. He frowned at them. “She carries a Swiss Army knife?”

“Everywhere she goes. I think it belonged to her husband. Dee isn’t crazy about carrying a purse.” Maggie looked down at the floor a second, then back up at him. Squaring her shoulders, she stood. “What if she’s right? What if these are Carly’s and someone did attack Dee? What then?”

Tyler rose as well, watching her face closely, trying to read her meaning. Was this about Dee? Or the fact that those woods bordered the retreat’s property? Fletcher had once told Tyler that Maggie seemed to adopt all the writers at the colony, taking them under her wing no matter what their age. Encouraging, sympathetic, and patient with the creative egos, Maggie became their sister, mother, or daughter, depending on their needs. He also knew that Dee held a special place in Maggie’s heart. Tyler saw that in her now, the light of deep compassion in her hazel eyes.

He took her hand in his. “Then we’ll protect her. We’ll get her story and investigate. We’ll call the FBI and ask for their help again. We’ll have to revisit a lot of what we’ve done on Carly’s case.”

Maggie breathed deeply, her voice barely above a whisper. “If they are…I mean…would this mean she could still be in the area? Does this mean that Carly is still alive?”

THREE

Somewhere over her head a door slammed violently, and a scream of pure fury echoed throughout the house. Carly Bradford whirled away from the narrow window of the basement room and dropped back down on the bed beneath it. She scooted close to the headboard and drew her knees up close to her chest, waiting, her eyes locked on the overhead vent that allowed in cool air and a lot of noise from upstairs. She followed the booted footsteps as they crossed the ceiling, then thudded down the stairs into the basement and across the short passage outside her door. There was an odd sound of rustling metal that she could never quite figure out, then keys rattled, the lock scraped and the door swung open.

Her captor entered, face red with anger, and Carly knew immediately that the sandals had not been found.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drop them…” She stopped, and Carly’s eyes widened as she took in the bruised face and the streaks of mud on the legs and chest of the sweat suit her captor always wore into the woods. Something had happened.

Carly flinched, a new wave of fear surging through her, and she hugged her legs tighter. “Please don’t hit me again.”

“Someone took them. I tried to stop her—” Her captor waved a hand in dismissal. “Never mind. I want the dress.”

Carly pointed, hand trembling, to a trunk in the corner. “It’s still there.”

Shortly after her captor had locked Carly in this tiny bedroom, new clothes had appeared on the bed, with orders to put the sandals, poncho and dress into the trunk. There they had stayed until last night, when her captor had awakened Carly well after midnight and announced that she needed exercise. Her captor had not bought new shoes for her, so they had retrieved the sandals. They had walked the stream bank into the woods, following only the light of a full moon. Her captor had tried to make her laugh and play, as if all were normal, despite the rope tied securely around Carly’s waist and a hushed threat of what would happen if she screamed. Exhausted, terrified, Carly had tried, finally slipping off the sandals and wading downstream a bit, then back. Only after they had returned home did they realize the sandals were gone.

Her captor snatched the blue sundress out of the box and waved it at the young child. “I’ll get them back. Have to. No matter what it takes. That meddling witch…” The dress snapped like a flag in the wind. “If this doesn’t work, we’ll have to move.” The door slammed, and the lock clicked back into place.

Tears leaked from Carly’s eyes as the frightened, confused little girl rolled over on the bed. “I want to go home.” The pillow muffled her words and soaked up her tears, but she grew quiet as something her captor had said echoed again in her head.

Someone took them…her…

Someone. A woman. Maybe the rescuer Carly had been praying so feverishly for? Carly looked up at the ceiling. “God? Can she help?”

Is Carly still alive? Maggie’s question haunted Tyler all the way back to Mercer, just as it had clung to almost every waking moment for the past few weeks. He drove back alone in his cruiser, with Maggie insisting that Dee ride in her larger and more comfortable SUV. Anna had been right. When they brought Dee into the waiting area after her discharge, the medications had completely clouded her mind. Incoherent and groggy, Dee had almost fallen out of the wheelchair, and Tyler’s chest tightened as he looked over her injuries and tried not to show his surprise.

Tenderly, he’d lifted her from the chair and snuggled her down into the backseat where Maggie had made a nest of coats and blankets borrowed from the hospital. “Ride easy, Dixie Dee.” He had whispered it so softly no one else could hear, and she’d blinked up at him, then closed her eyes sleepily as he’d tucked a pillow in at her side.

He’d backed away as Maggie took over as nurse, and Tyler returned to his car with the bag holding the sandals. As both cars pulled out of the hospital’s parking lot, he called Fletcher. “Speak to me. Where are you?”

The older detective cleared his throat. “Just leaving the scene. It’s getting too dark to do any more tonight. How’s Dee?”

Tyler related what Anna had told him about the attack and Dee’s condition. “Anything to corroborate her story?”

“Some. Wayne found blood spatter around a tree, and drops leading to the road near where you hit her. He also found blood and bits of skin on one of the limbs. There are at least two sets of footprints, one most likely Dee’s, but we couldn’t tell if there were more than two. The ground is badly torn up. We took a couple of casts, just in case. Wayne gathered some of the blood and skin to send to the lab, but my guess is that it’s all Dee’s.”

“Hear any spooky voices out in the woods?”

Fletcher paused. “You don’t believe her?”

Now it was Tyler’s turn to hesitate. “I don’t know, Fletcher. Her injuries are real, and it does sound as if she had a scuffle with someone. I don’t think she made this up. I just don’t know if she heard what she thinks she heard. It could have been a kid trying to scare her. What’s your take on this?”

Another pause. “The wind in these trees can sound strange to anyone not used to it.”

Tyler grinned. “So says the boy from New York City?”

“Not me,” Fletcher growled. “I grew up in Vermont.”

“Right.” Tyler let him off the hook. “Listen, Maggie is taking Dee to the retreat lodge house. She’ll play nurse, but if you could…”

“Not a problem. And I’ll keep an eye out.”

“I know Dee will remember things differently tomorrow, but there was no way to get a statement out of her today.”

“Assault victims usually do.”

“Is Wayne going to send everything to the lab?”

“Yeah. He said to tell you to go on home. The boys are changing shifts, and he’ll take care of the rest of this. You can do any remaining paperwork in the morning.”

“I’ll drop the sandals off so he can log them in and put them in a proper evidence bag. If, in fact, they are evidence, I don’t want to leave them in the car overnight nor in a plastic bag.”

“You know you’ll have to call Jack and Nancy about this before you do any forensic work on them.”

“I know. Can’t spend the money on forensics unless we know for sure. We’ve already been through this too many times.”

A beat of silence passed before Fletcher spoke again. “You want me there?”

Absolutely! You think I want to do this by myself once again? Look into those faces, offer them some kind of false hope again? “No. Thanks, though. I need to do it.”

“If you change your mind, let me know.”

Tyler hung up, following in silence as the cars turned into the long drive leading to Jackson’s Retreat. He carried Dee from the car into a guest bedroom in the retreat’s lodge house, then stood back awkwardly as Maggie took on the role of Dee’s caregiver. Normally the writers stayed in individual cabins on the property, but this way Dee would be close to Maggie and Fletcher, who would guard her as if she were a queen.

Maggie still bustled about the virtually unconscious Dee as he eased out of the room and returned to his cruiser. The ten-minute drive to the police station felt much longer, with his mind occupied by the innocent eyes of Carly Bradford and the wounded face of Dee Kelley. He gave the sandals to Wayne to log in for evidence, then headed home.

An odd sense of resignation settled around Tyler as he drove to his small house not far from downtown and let go of any idea that the sandals belonged to Carly. They couldn’t. That style had been quite popular for young girls this spring, and they had already received a dozen or more false “sightings” of the shoes. This was just one more. But, of all the people to find another pair of “Carly’s shoes,” did it have to be Dee Kelley, with her wounded mother’s soul? He couldn’t imagine what was going through her mind and heart right now.

Help her, Lord. Tyler’s silent prayer came automatically to him. She’s already been through way too much.

He also hoped that this “attack” was more than Dee’s imagination, that it didn’t mean Dee was about to spiral viciously backward into her old life. She’s come so far since being here, Father. Don’t let her go backward in her healing. She’s going to need Your help.

Everyone in Mercer seemed to know Dee’s heart-crushing story, of how she’d lost her husband and son in a devastating car crash and the three-year depression that followed. He’d heard different versions from a variety of townspeople, including Laurie at the café and a couple of shop owners. As usual, small towns and personal secrets weren’t a good mix. Yet knowing it had led the locals to embrace this newcomer in a way they seldom did. Of course, it helped that they’d discovered Dee to be one of the most gracious people they’d ever met.

He sighed as he turned on to his street, his mind flipping back to the day he’d met her, not long after she’d arrived in Mercer. Tyler and Fletcher had grown close over the past couple of years, and he often ate dinner with the MacAllisters and the writers at the retreat. One day, a few months ago, Dee had joined them. She’d been polite but reserved, and had spent most of the meal watching birds whisk to and fro at the feeders on the back deck of the lodge.

Tyler, on the other hand, spent the time watching her, drawn in even more when Fletcher had recounted her full story to him later that evening. The two of them had retreated to the basement game room of the lodge with hot cups of coffee to discuss cases and long days on the job. Then, when Tyler’s increasingly curious questions about the new writer started to amuse Fletcher, he switched the subject to Dee. Fletcher’s tale captured both Tyler’s imagination…and a bit of his heart.

Fletcher explained that Dee had seldom left her small Southern town before the accident. “She did, however, spend a lot of time on the Internet, which is where she met Aaron.” Aaron Jackson, a best-selling novelist, had started Jackson’s Retreat as his literary legacy, and he’d sung its praises to Dee when they had met during a writers’ conference. An immediate connection had sprung up between them, and they found a lasting friendship in their common beliefs. Aaron and Dee had e-mailed almost every day, sharing stories and problems.

Aaron had also been one of the few out-of-town friends to come to the funeral of her husband and son three years ago, following the car accident that had destroyed Dee’s world. Aaron had even remained several days afterward, holding her and letting her sob and rage at someone other than her parents and God.

Aaron’s murder a year later had been the last straw for Dee’s already fragile mind, and she had descended into a darkness she thought endless. A darkness completely devoid of hope, faith, and love. Devoid of God.

Her mother, however, remembered Aaron’s retreat and found some of the correspondence on Dee’s computer. Her parents, conspiring with Maggie, had put Dee on a plane.

Tyler had scowled at Fletcher. “Why am I just meeting her now?”

Fletcher sipped his coffee. “Because she’s just now emerging from her cabin. She’s not done much except stare at the walls.”

The first month at the retreat had been more darkness, with Dee lying for hours on the bed in her cabin. Maggie, with a new baby on her hip, had gone to the cabin every morning, opened the blinds and windows, turned on the lights and ceiling fan, and booted up Dee’s computer. Maggie had returned in the evening with Fletcher to insist Dee join the group for dinner. Dee had initially refused, and Fletcher and Maggie had stayed with her, eating dinner in her cabin and forcing her to talk to them. They learned the more intimate details of Dee’s life, during those first days, when Dee began to share her words with them, long before she started coming to the lodge for dinner.

Slow therapy, but it worked. Listening to other writers around the large dining table had finally engaged Dee in challenging conversation, and, eventually, had inspired her to sit at the computer, if only to stare at the blank screen. Six weeks later, she started to write. A journal, at first, then essays, two of which she sold to parents’ magazines. Those first paychecks buoyed her in a way she had not expected, letting a tiny glimmer of hope into her mind and heart. Tyler had met her as that glimmer of hope had begun to grow. Yet, the one thing still missing in her life was God. She had not reopened her heart to Him at all.

The bump that edged the entrance to his drive yanked Tyler back to the present, and he now prayed silently that God would make sure Dee held on to that hope. “She needs You more than ever, Lord, even if she doesn’t think she does,” he whispered, as he pulled into the drive at the side of the house and let the car roll to a halt in front of a garage near the back of the property.

Well, it was supposed to be a garage, but the building had never held a car as long as Tyler could remember. The previous owner had been on his way to an assisted living facility when he sold the house, and had left the garage stuffed with all the yard tools Tyler would ever need, plus some he didn’t even recognize.

The owner also left Tyler a dog, which now stood peering at him from the back porch, her front half outside the pet door, looking calm. The back half, however, gyrated so violently that the pet door bounced up and down on her back. Patty, a supremely obedient peekapoo named for the New England Patriots’ mascot, always waited for permission to welcome him home, but she jiggled, wagged, and whimpered until she seemed ready to split apart at the seams if he didn’t give it.

Tyler couldn’t help but grin. He got out of the car, and Patty’s increased excitement made the entire back door vibrate in its frame. He clucked his tongue and patted his thigh, and Patty launched herself off the porch, propelled by healthy muscles and pure love. When she got close, she bounced up on her hind legs, dancing a bit until he scratched her under the chin and praised her, their welcome-home routine. Then she whimpered with pleasure and pressed herself up against his leg briefly before prancing alongside him as he entered the house.

Tyler paused and let out a deep sigh as he closed the door and removed his gun and holster and placed them in a cabinet near the door. Home. It felt good. He’d waited so long to buy his own place that some folks thought he never would. But Tyler wanted just the right house, and he was patient. This former residence of a retired teacher and confirmed bachelor had been just the right house. Well-kept and already decorated in the dark greens, blues and browns that Tyler found comforting. He’d changed very little in the house, but it was still his space.

I wonder if Dee would like it. Images of the short brunette slipped in and out of Tyler’s mind as he prepared dinner—a scoop of dry food for Patty and a sandwich and chips for himself—then cleaned the kitchen and stretched out to watch one of the news channels for a bit. He liked Dee’s laugh, and he thought again of their great chats over lunch at the Federal Café. He found her questions about his life and his faith intelligent and curious without being intrusive. He’d encouraged her to look to God again, trying to give examples of perseverance and success from his own life as well as his friends’. She still resisted, even if her curiosity about his own faith never waned. Maybe, as she healed from her grief…. He sighed. “Special lady.”

Patty, who had parked herself by the couch within reach of his petting hand, perked up at his muttered words, tilting her head to one side, as if to ask, “Did you say ‘walk’?” She twisted in the other direction.

Tyler scratched her head. “Let me change, and we’ll go out. Maybe this will clear my head.”

Patty bounded up and over to the row of pegs behind the back door where her leash hung. He laughed, then went upstairs to the bedroom to change into shorts and a long-sleeved T-shirt. By the time he had his running shoes on, Patty had turned into a wriggling maniac, and he calmed her down, then snapped on the leash.

They started out with a slow walk, with Patty darting around him, sniffing every post, mailbox or clump of grass that hinted of a previous dog’s passing. They circled the block near his house, and he waved to any neighbors out for late evening chores or porch sits. Mrs. Adams, eighty-three and still a pistol, flagged him down to complain about a stray dog that had been digging in her yard. Tyler promised he’d speak to the county’s animal control folks and complimented her on her beds of spring flowers. The Beekers, transplants from Boston, asked about the spring arts festival, and he referred them to the gallery owner who organized it.

Eventually, he and Patty headed toward the city park at the edge of town. Dusk gave way to a pleasant darkness, with the moon already rising, turning open areas silver as the shadows became more stark and defined. The park had a graceful, steady slope to it, and many of its features—the bandstand, memorial fountain, and the cluster of benches that was his favorite prayer spot—faced Mercer, so that everything appeared to overlook the small vale where the town sat so peacefully.

Tyler jogged around the perimeter of the park once, checking out anything that might look suspicious, then circled it again in a fast jog. The last of the visitors—a couple he knew from church and a scattering of young boys squeezing as much out of the day as possible—wandered toward the park entrance. At the end of the second trip, the jog turned back into a walk, and he and Patty headed home.

He’d once clocked it at 4.6 miles, and Tyler claimed every foot. He didn’t like to run; he did it because he needed to stay in reasonable shape for the job. Having Patty along made it palatable, and he’d gotten asked out recently because of the dog. He grinned. Maybe he should introduce Dee to Patty.

Yet as he ran, his mind had started shifting from Dee Kelley to Carly Bradford. More than anything, he wanted to help them both. And he wondered if his reluctance to believe that the shoes had belonged to Carly indicated a lack of hope for Carly or a lack of confidence in Dee’s recovery.

Tyler’s pace slowed, and he looked down at Patty, who panted hard. “Neither, right? I can’t lose hope in either.”

The dog tipped her head up once to look at him, then returned her focus to the street in front of her.

But the shoes can’t be Carly’s! We went over that ground with a fine-tooth comb. There’s no way we missed something as important as her shoes! He stopped and bent over, bracing his hands on his knees and stretching his back and thighs. “Right?” he asked Patty again.

Patty decided a telephone pole was more interesting and tugged on her leash. He relented and as he waited ran his hand through his close-cropped hair, his deep-seated frustration rising again. His jogs normally pushed it away, but not today. He let out a long breath and resumed walking.

As he turned onto his street, a dark, nondescript sedan pulled up next to him, and the passenger window slid down. Fletcher leaned over and called to him. “Get in. We’ve been looking for you.”

Tyler opened the back door and motioned for Patty to get in, then he got in the front. “What’s going on?”

Fletcher turned the car toward downtown. “Wayne called the lodge when he couldn’t get you on the phone. Someone’s found Carly’s dress.”

FOUR

Thin bands of white moonlight brightened Dee’s room and fell in stripes across her face. She stirred and blinked, easing awake in the silent room, confused as to why the moon seemed to be in the wrong position. The bed, the night table, also wrong. She jerked up as a short burst of panic flared in her. Where am I? The jerk produced pain in her face, neck and shoulders, and it all flooded back again—the day, the attack, the fuzzy ride home from the hospital.

Oh. Right. The lodge house, not my cabin. Dee pressed her head against the pillow and closed her eyes, aware that the pain, dull and throbbing, must have awakened her. She touched her face gingerly, a bit surprised at how much even the lightest touch hurt. Twin tears slipped from the corner of each eye, moistening her temples and disappearing into her hair.

What was I thinking, why didn’t I just drop the sandals? Stupid! He could have killed me. Yet, even as she scolded herself, Dee knew why.

Carly. Whoever attacked her must have Carly. Dee now knew that fact as certainly as she knew her own name. No one else would know yet that she had found the shoes. No one else could know whether they were really Carly’s. No matter how crazy it sounded, it had to be true. They were Carly’s.

But would Tyler believe her? She’d seen the look in his eyes, and that doctor’s, when she’d told the story in the E.R. They thought she was crazy.

Still crazy. Tyler must think I’ve had a relapse. Maybe I have. Dee did know she couldn’t get Carly out of her head. She’d thought of almost nothing since she’d found the sandals. In and out of her grogginess at the hospital and, later, here, her mind had replayed every newspaper article she’d read, every television report she’d seen. Carly is eight, the same age Joshua was. We have to find her. We have to!

Dee knew that Carly now threatened to be lodged in her mind and spirit, almost in the same way Joshua had been. And Mickey. Even after they died. But Carly…Carly might still be alive. And that—person—knows. I know what I heard. I heard it. I didn’t make it up. He has to believe me.

“Tyler,” she whispered. Dee opened her eyes as she remembered the trip home, how he’d lifted her at the hospital, then again here. Lifted her as easily as if she were a child. He’d been so tender with her, as if she were fragile as well as injured. His chest and arms had been firm, radiating a comforting warmth, and he’d smelled like…. Dee closed her eyes again and inhaled, as if he were still next to her. He smelled like soap and freshly cut wood.

And there was something else…a whispered phrase. Even now she felt uncertain that she’d actually heard it.

Ride easy, Dixie Dee.

She smiled, which hurt, making her thoughts return to Carly. “You have to believe me.” Her words slipped away unheard as sleep took over again, and she drifted away with one last thought. I have to talk to the Bradfords.

“Where?” Tyler demanded as Fletcher put the car in gear.

“Downstream from where Dee found the shoes. That stream apparently runs behind a subdivision a few miles down—”

“Ryan’s Point. It’s one of the older neighborhoods in Mercer. Some of the houses date back to the nineteenth century.”

“A woman found it in her garbage bin. Said she’d noticed someone in her backyard earlier, but didn’t think anything about it at first. Then she went to take out the trash, opened the bin, and there it was. She knew it wasn’t hers and had seen enough of the news that she called the station. Wayne caught the call.”

“Is he at the scene now?”

Fletcher took another turn and speeded up. “On his way.” The older detective’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Said the woman told him she’d seen enough of those true crime TV shows that she knew not to touch anything. Maybe they are good for something.”

Tyler snorted. “Now if they’d stop convincing jurors that DNA is the answer to everything. Who’s the woman?”

Fletcher pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Tyler, who unfolded it. Directions to the house, scribbled in Fletcher’s bold, angular scrawl, cluttered most of the page. At the bottom, capital letters spelled out “Jenna Czock.” Tyler said the name.

“You know her?”

“I know everybody in Mercer.”

Fletcher’s mouth twisted. “Small-town cop. I need to get you into New York sometime. I meant more than by sight.”

“Nah, there are too many strangers in New York. Jenna runs the florist shop on Fourth, which she started after her divorce about twenty, twenty-five years ago, so my mother tells me. Jenna’s maybe mid-fifties, dark hair. I don’t know her well, but she sometimes eats lunch at Laurie’s the same time Dee and I do.”

Fletcher glanced sideways at his friend. “You and Dee eat lunch together?”

Tyler felt his cheeks burn. “I mean, we eat there at the same time. It’s not like—” He broke off, stumbling over the explanation and deciding to change the subject. He didn’t want to explain that he’d started timing his lunches so he’d be there when Dee arrived. “You need to turn here.” He pointed.

“Directions said—”

“This is faster.”

Fletcher followed Tyler’s instructions, letting a few seconds of silence pass. “You know, I can be distracted, but I don’t forget.”

“Take the next left. We need to focus on the case.”

In the silence that followed, Patty stuck her head between the front seats and Tyler scratched her chin. “OK. Go ahead and say it.”

Fletcher remained silent.

Tyler filled in the empty air. “This makes Dee’s claim a lot more credible.” He pointed at another street.

Fletcher turned the corner, still quiet.

“Do you have any idea when I’ll stop screwing up this case? I should have jumped on those shoes and got them to the lab last night.”

Fletcher glanced sideways again, then back to the road. “Don’t give yourself so much credit. You’re not screwing up anymore than the rest of us. This case is a jumbled mess and has been since Day One. You were right not to send the shoes last night. You know as well as I do how many false reports we’ve had about the shoes. It would be worse to jump the gun on these, especially given how fragile Nancy Bradford is right now. We need to find out if they are Carly’s before we stir anything else up.” Fletcher took a deep breath. “What I want to know is why pieces of Carly Bradford’s last known set of clothes are suddenly being scattered up and down the same stream of water.”

Tyler’s gut twisted. “She’s dead, and her killer is getting rid of evidence.”

“But if Dee is right, then the shoes were a mistake. They weren’t meant to be dropped. Her attacker was trying to get them back.”

A sliver of hope rose again in Tyler. “But…once they were found and turned over to us, we’d know Carly might still be in the area. We’d renew our search for her. This time maybe even more intensively.”

Fletcher turned the car into a subdivision and slowed, searching for the right street. “So the best way to keep us busy is to leave a trail leading in the wrong direction. A distraction.”

Tyler stared at his friend. “She’s going to be moved.”

Fletcher nodded. “Most likely. And if we’re not careful, it’ll happen while we’re peering into trash cans and following accident victims to the hospital.”

Tyler let out a long sigh as Fletcher parked the car behind Wayne’s cruiser. “Then we need to move on the shoes quickly. I’ll call Rick when we’re through here.”

“We’re definitely going to need his resources as well as any manpower he can spare.”

Tyler nodded and got out of the car. Rick Davis was the FBI special agent who had worked with them on the initial investigation. The FBI didn’t usually investigate local cases of missing children unless there was absolute proof of foul play or immediate danger to the child. There had been no Amber alert on Carly for the same reason. Children who disappear into the woods don’t usually have help doing so. They get lost; they have accidents. Tyler, however, put in a request for the FBI to help with the case as soon as he was convinced Carly hadn’t just wandered off. His officers, the FBI and the local press turned the town into a fortress. The square-foot-by-square-foot search of the town lasted ten days. As the time passed, hope drained from the town and the officers. Rick and his team had finally left when they found themselves sitting around the police station one day doing nothing but reviewing old files and going through the interview transcripts yet one more time. There wasn’t even enough evidence for a profile of a suspect. The case had simply come to an absolute dead end.

As if Carly had just vanished from the face of the earth. Until now.

Jenna Czock waited for them on the front stoop of her two-story Federal-style house. The boxlike home sat close to the road, but had a backyard comprising almost an acre of land. To the right of the house, a separate, more modern garage had a dark blue, mid-size sedan in front of it.

They pulled up behind it and got out, leaving the windows down for Patty. At Tyler’s strict “Stay!” the dog stretched out on the backseat. Jenna came down the steps to greet them, looking like someone who’d just gotten home from work, with her red oxford cloth shirt, charcoal-gray slacks, and the thick makeup some older women seemed to prefer. A fleeting smile creased a worried face, and she motioned for them to follow her around the side of the house. She used a flashlight to augment the flood lights that shone from beneath the eaves of the house.

“I hated to bother you, and I’m hoping this isn’t what I think…that it’s just trash. I usually check the can just to see if there’s room for another bag, and this was on top, just lying there. I’ve been following the case and listening to what the folks are saying around town. Everyone’s still talking about that precious little girl.”

They reached the back of the house, and Jenna pointed at a latticework cage set back from the house about forty feet. “The cans stay back there. I had that built for the garbage and the firewood. Cuts down on the raccoons in the garbage and the snow on the firewood.”

Raccoons, indeed, thought Tyler. This backyard must be a haven for them. Towering old trees dotted the richly green and well-tended lawn, many of them surrounded by flowerbeds ripe with new spring flowers. The cage, with its slanted roof, had vines of clematis and morning glories running up its sides, allowing it to blend into the landscape. The yard had a gentle but steady slope from the house to the stream at the back of the property. Yellow dots of fireflies danced among the bushes at the edge of the water.

“People walk their dogs along the stream almost every day.” Jenna pointed to a well-worn path that edged the water. “Even after dark like this. And there are two hiking trails on the other side that run close.” She shrugged and hugged herself as she followed them toward the cage, where Wayne had set up a bright spotlight on a tall mount. “It’s just not unusual to see people in my backyard, but I should have realized this one was up closer than most. I just didn’t dream someone would get into my garbage.”

“Man or woman?”

Jenna shrugged. “Not sure. It was already pretty dark. It looked as if they were wearing a cap, maybe sweats. Somewhere between my height and yours, I guess.”

“So about five-nine, five-ten.”

Jenna nodded. “I’m five-eight, so yes.”

They rounded the edge of the lattice, to find Wayne bent over next to the cage’s opening, peering at the ground illuminated by the white light of the quartz spot he had set up. He spoke without greeting. “Only one set of prints, but it’s been pretty dry the last couple of days. Doesn’t match either of the sets in the woods.”

Tyler cleared his throat, and Wayne looked up at Tyler, puzzled, then his gaze darted to Jenna and back to his boss.

Jenna perked up. “In the woods?” She grabbed Tyler’s elbow. “Does this have anything to do with Dee being attacked this morning?”

Fletcher let out a long sigh and squatted next to Wayne. “Small town.”

Before Tyler could respond, Jenna bolted on. “Phil, down at the convenience store, had the scanner on this morning, heard it and called his sister, she works at the hospital, saw Dee in the E.R. Is she OK?”

Tyler patted her hand. “She’ll be fine. Just a few scratches.”

“Is she back at the retreat?”

Tyler nodded. “But—”

“I should send her some flowers. Roses, do you think?”

“Maybe—”

“Or tulips. I think she said one time in the café that she likes tulips. You know, she talked about how she used to grow tulips and—”

Fletcher straightened and cut off Jenna’s rapid words. “Ms. Czock, would you mind if I got a glass of water?”

Jenna paused in her flower review and smiled. “Certainly. Follow me, and I’ll show you where the glasses are.” She took his arm, and they turned for the house.

Once they were out of earshot, Wayne also rose. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Tyler waved away the apology. “I shouldn’t have let her follow us down here. The whole town will know about the connection today.” He reached to adjust his hat, then realized he didn’t have it on. “What do you have?”

Wayne pointed a gloved hand at the open Dumpster-type receptacle. “The dress is spread out as if it’s on display.”

Tyler looked. The blue gingham dress lay draped across two plastic garbage bags, one of which had been ripped open, so that paper, eggshells and days-old milk had leaked out into the can and over the dress. Tyler winced at the odor. “So the kidnapper intended for it to be found.”

“I think so. If he had wanted to hide it or just dispose of it, it would have been simpler just to shove it down in the can beneath the bags.”

“A message. But why here? Why not leave it on a bench in town or some other place like that?”

“My guess is that it would be too risky. Someone might see it, or the dress could be picked up. Here it’s protected, yet it’s doused in a forensic soup. No way we’re going to get an uncontaminated clue out of this. Since Jenna’s the florist, her hours and routine are easy to determine. And he knew that Jenna would be following the case and would spot it right away.”

Both men stood silent for a moment, then Wayne cleared his throat. “I’ve finished processing everything I could. I’m ready to bag it.”

Tyler nodded and stepped back, watching as Wayne eased the dress out of the garbage with a pair of tongs and slipped it into a brown paper bag. “Any blood?”

Wayne shook his head. “Not that I could see. You know it’ll take weeks to process this at the lab.”

“I’d rather they be thorough than quick. We’ve made enough mistakes already in this case.”

Wayne paused and looked his boss over carefully. “Not anymore than another team might have. Why are you being so hard on yourself with this?”

Tyler’s eyes narrowed. “Because Jack and Nancy Bradford are still missing their eight-year-old daughter.”

Wayne opened his mouth to respond, but a door slammed, and they turned to see Fletcher and Jenna returning. Jenna smiled at them as they entered the light cast by the spot, but the stoic Fletcher showed no emotion at all. Tyler focused on Jenna, slipping his fingers around her arm and pulling her to his side. He lowered his voice as he pointed to the trash can. “Jenna, we’re done here, but you know we’d appreciate it if you would keep this to yourself for a bit. We don’t want any wild speculations getting back to Jack and Nancy before we have a chance to talk with them. You know how it is.”

Jenna glowed at his confidence in her, as he had hoped. “Of course, Tyler. I’ll keep it quiet until you say otherwise.” She held up two fingers. “Scout’s honor.”

“Thank you.” Tyler released her and motioned Wayne and Fletcher to follow him. They remained silent as they returned to the cars. Wayne left with the evidence he’d gathered as Tyler and Fletcher settled into the sedan. Tyler scratched the patient Patty behind her ears, barely glancing at his friend as they fastened their seat belts and left the house.

Tyler finally cleared his throat. “Everything okay?”

Fletcher gave a quick nod. “That woman talks more than anyone I’ve met in a long time. And clingy. She never left my side. Kept trying to pump me for info.” He rolled his shoulders, as if to push away the encounter.

Tyler fought a smile. This wasn’t the first time Fletcher’s striking Eurasian looks had gotten him unwanted attention. Women around Mercer found Fletcher to be both handsome and exotic, and some never resisted the temptation to flirt shamelessly. Such attention, however, never failed to annoy the happily married detective. “I appreciate you getting her away from the scene. See anything else suspicious in the house?”

Fletcher glanced at him, then finally grinned. He straightened his shoulders, as if to shake off the last of Jenna’s advances. “No. The kitchen and living room were clean, just the usual clutter of a house that’s actually used. Not a lot of light. She said she’d been cleaning, and the dishwasher was running. She went on about how expensive the heating oil had been this winter, and that she was having trouble with air in her pipes making them rattle. She talked about her daughter, told me she’d been following Carly’s story.”

Tyler looked out the window at the passing suburban houses. They all looked so…normal…“Yeah. Elaine. Wayne and I discussed that might be why the kidnapper left the dress with her.”

“She said any mother worth her salt would be watching around every corner.”

“Like Dee.”

“You think it was her mother’s instinct that made Dee fight for the sandals?”

Tyler nodded. “She’s still a bit of a wounded bird, as you well know. Stronger, but the idea of losing a child resonates deeply with her.”

Fletcher swung the car through a turn and headed for downtown Mercer. “You want me to drop you at the house or the station?”

“The station. I’ll make sure Wayne doesn’t need anything else from me right now, then walk home. Patty’s been patient, so I’m sure she’d love a chance to stretch her legs.”

Fletcher pulled into a parking spot in front of the storefront office, and Tyler got out, snapping his fingers for Patty, who bounded out of the car and halfway up the block and back before Tyler could reach the door. The Mercer police station, a converted storefront, had been both a dime store and a bank in years gone by. Now it held Mercer’s tiny force of five officers, a dispatcher, and Wayne, who did double duty as detective and crime scene specialist. One of their three dispatchers always sat behind the front desk to greet visitors and direct them to the proper officer for a complaint. A cheaply paneled wall separated the front from the bull pen area where the officers and Wayne had desks. The wall extended the width of the building, creating a front hall and waiting area.

Two doors in the wall allowed access to the back. One led to the bull pen. The other opened onto a narrow hallway leading to the police chief’s office and two interrogation rooms.

A bell clanged over Tyler’s head as he pulled the door open, and the third shift dispatcher, Sally, looked up. She acknowledged her boss with a nod of the head toward the bull pen door. “Wayne beat you back by about five minutes. Anything I can do?”

“Thanks. Think we’re covered.” He entered the bull pen, Patty trotting behind him. Normally silent at this hour, the room echoed with Wayne’s shuffling evidence bags and paperwork. Tyler sat down next to his desk. “You going to stay long?”

Wayne shook his head. “I’m going to lock everything in my desk, then e-mail the lab to let them know I’m sending the dress and shoes tomorrow.”

“Take them.”

Wayne paused in his work. “What?”

“I want you to deliver them. I’ll call Rick before I leave and see if his folks can put a little pressure on the process.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Tomorrow will mostly be spent with the Bradfords. I want to show them the shoes and dress first thing. Then you can take them.”

Wayne hesitated. “Show them before—”

“They’ll know whether they’re Carly’s.”

“Tyler, I don’t—”

“Tyler.” The sharp voice interrupted them, cutting through the deliberation. They turned toward the door, where Sally stood, distress on her face. She continued without pausing. “The security alarm at the retreat is going off.”

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