Their gazes connected.

A bond that had formed from the very beginning strengthened, and Madison started to envision more. She saw the possibility in his look and could even tell the exact moment he realized there was something beyond the case that was going on between them. His eyes blazed, and his intense regard took in her features as though he were reassessing his thoughts about them.

He pulled her into his embrace and just held her against him. “Thank you isn’t adequate for what I feel.”

His aftershave teased her senses. The feel of his arms sent a wave of contentment through her. What was happening to her? Surely these feelings were because of their heightened emotions concerning the case. She did not want to be hurt again. She did not want to mistake this for something it wasn’t.

MILLS & BOON

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MARGARET DALEY

feels she has been blessed. She has been married more than thirty years to her husband, Mike, whom she met in college. He is a terrific support and her best friend. They have one son, Shaun. Margaret has been writing for many years and loves to tell a story. When she was a little girl, she would play with her dolls and make up stories about their lives—now she writes these stories down. She especially enjoys weaving stories about families and how faith in God can sustain a person when things get tough. When she isn’t writing, she is fortunate to be a teacher for students with special needs. Margaret has taught for over twenty years and loves working with her students. She has also been a Special Olympics coach and participated in many sports with her students.

Vanished
Margaret Daley

Faith is the substance of things hoped for,

the evidence of things not seen.

—Hebrews 11:1

To the Steeple Hill editors

You all are the best

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

EPILOGUE

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

“Go away!” Sitting on the navy-and-beige couch, Kim switched the cordless phone to the other ear and turned from her little sister to face the bookcases along one wall in the den.

“But you said you would help me.” Ashley stamped her foot. “I have to have it done by tomorrow.”

“Just a minute, Lexie.” Kim cupped the receiver, glared over her shoulder at Ashley and blew a bubble, the pop of the gum loud. “Can’t you see I’m busy. I’ll help you later. Go outside and play.”

“But—”

“I’ll let you know when I’m ready to help.” Kim infused into her voice all the frustration she was experiencing at her little sister’s constant bugging. When Ashley didn’t budge from the spot where she’d planted herself five minutes ago, Kim firmed her mouth into a frown she hoped conveyed all her feelings. “Go! Now, brat!”

“I’m telling Daddy when he comes home you’ve been on the phone for over an hour.”

The whine hovered in the air between the two sisters. Kim narrowed her eyes. With a glare, Ashley spun around and stormed out of the den.

The slamming of the back door echoed through the house. Kim pried her hand loose from over the receiver and put it to her ear as she pushed herself off the couch and walked to the bay window to make sure Ashley stayed in the backyard. “She’s gone. I don’t understand why I always get stuck babysitting. My brother should have to some of the time.”

“At least your dad pays you. My mom doesn’t.” Her best friend’s pout could be heard through the phone.

The fact she got paid didn’t appease Kim at the moment. Having an eight-year-old always following her around made her wish she didn’t have a little sister.

The watcher spied the little blond girl stalk out of the house. The sound of the door slamming against its frame drowned out the dog’s barking a few houses down for a couple of blissful seconds.

I’ll return later to take care of that dog, but right now I’ve got more important concerns. Anticipation surged. His daughter, so close the watcher’s palms itched.

The child made a beeline for the swing set and plopped down on the seat, grabbing hold of the chains to keep herself upright.

The little girl’s mouth moved. The watcher strained to hear what she was saying, but her voice was pitched too low.

No matter. After years of planning it wouldn’t change what had to be done.

J. T. Logan will regret his very existence by the time I’m through toying with him. Everything’s in place for the merry ride he’s about to go on.

“Ashley. Kim,” J.T. yelled when he stepped through the front door of his house.

Ashley was usually waiting for him to tell him the latest Kim transgression against her. Ever since his oldest daughter had turned fourteen, all the sisters did was fight. It had gotten to the point he was checking into day care for his youngest after school until he could get home from work. Being a single parent wasn’t easy. He wished he had family he could turn to for help.

Maybe today they actually got along for a change. He’d certainly prayed to the Lord enough in the past months concerning his two daughters. God was probably getting tired of hearing from him, J.T. thought with a chuckle.

After the long day he’d put in at the sheriff’s office, trying to pacify people who didn’t want to be pacified, all he wished for was a warm dinner and a little peace. He cocked his head, realizing the place was too quiet. His youngest was so full of energy that she usually kept going strong right up to bedtime.

J.T. walked toward the den at the back of the house. Halfway down the hallway he heard Kim mumbling something he couldn’t make out. When he entered the den, his oldest daughter quickly put the receiver in its cradle and bolted to her feet as though he hadn’t seen her talking on the phone.

Ever since Kim had become a teenager, the phone wasn’t far from her reach. Even setting limits on her phone time didn’t stop her from spending half of her waking hours gabbing to her friends—not her family. It had never been that way with his son. But girls were different. “Where’s your sister?”

Kim waved her hand toward the window. “Out back playing.”

“Go get her. You two can help me make something for dinner. Neil will be home from baseball practice in an hour.”

“Why don’t we order pizza?”

“Because we had it two nights ago.” J.T. left the den and headed for the kitchen to see what was in the refrigerator while his daughter hopefully obeyed and got Ashley.

His shoulders aching, he stood before the near-empty shelves, the cold air cooling him, and wondered how he was going to pull off dinner with the few items he had. Ketchup. Milk. Three eggs. Several cheese slices. An onion that had black spots on it. A few stalks of limp celery. He would have to go to the grocery store on the way home from the station tomorrow. Being shorthanded at the sheriff’s office because one of his deputies was on vacation was certainly takinig a toll on him.

Kim shuffled her feet across the tile floor and opened the back door. “Ashley!” A long pause, then his oldest daughter stepped out onto the patio, the screen door banging closed behind her, and shouted, “Ashley, you’d better get inside. Now!”

The exasperation in Kim’s voice made J.T. lift his head and turn toward the back patio. By the tone of Kim’s voice, he would be refereeing yet another fight this evening.

“Ashley, you’re in big trouble. Get in here!”

Great! His oldest daughter had alerted the whole neighborhood. He walked out onto the patio. “Kim?”

She peered over her shoulder at him, all the exasperation in her voice showing clearly on her face. “She’s mad at me. She’s hiding.”

“Why is Ashley mad at you?” He positioned himself next to Kim and began to scan the backyard.

“I wouldn’t help her with her wildflower project when she wanted.”

“In other words, you were talking on the phone and didn’t have time for Ashley. I pay you—” J.T.’s words suddenly caught in his throat when he spotted one of his daughter’s black patent leather shoes on the ground by the swing set. She’d begged him to buy them and for the past two weeks they had been on her feet constantly except when she’d gone to bed. So why was only one there?

Every cop instinct in him rose to the surface, reviving for a brief moment the dark years he’d spent in Chicago as a homicide detective. There he saw a side of life most people never saw. He forced down the panic that for just an instant surged through him. She was hiding, as Kim said, probably in her fort by the trees. Or she’d gone over to a friend’s without permission.

The father in him believed that.

The sheriff in him didn’t.

He’d been trained to expect the worst. J.T. hurried toward the swing set, his gaze making a sweep of the large backyard. He noted a couple of places to check to see if Ashley was hiding from her sister. But it wasn’t like her to continue to hide when he came out. She liked to complain too much to him about Kim’s transgressions against her.

He skirted the swing set and jogged toward the stand of trees and several large bushes along the back of his property near the chain-link fence. “Call some of her friends and see if she’s there.” When Kim didn’t move, he added in a stern voice, “Now, Kim.”

I need to know that Ashley is okay. That I’m letting my cop imagination get the better of me.

Heart pounding, J.T. inspected the area behind the grouping of pines and various types of bushes where Ashley often played with her friends or by herself. The downpour earlier that day would have washed away all footprints except recent ones. His gaze fixated on a lone pair of prints in the mud near the thickest brush. Cowboy boots, size nine or ten, worn by a person around a hundred and eighty pounds.

Someone came into his yard recently.

That thought renewed the earlier panic he was trying to suppress. For what purpose? To read the gas meter? He glanced toward it, twenty feet away and on the other side of the yard, and realized that wasn’t a likely explanation.

Which in his mind left all the bad reasons someone would trespass on his property. To do harm. Again the panic rushed to the foreground. He worked to keep it under control. It wouldn’t do him any good in a time of crisis.

He looked at the bushes that his youngest loved to play in. Her secret hiding place, she had told him once. “Ashley, it’s time to come out!” The strength in his voice conveyed all the rising doubts that she wasn’t hiding in her fort. But he had to check and hope for the best.

Although there was no sign of her footprints nearby, J.T. got down on his hands and knees, making sure not to disturb the area around the ones made by the cowboy boots, and crawled into a hole in the vegetation that Ashley used as a door to her fort. Mud oozed up between his fingers. The bottom part of his tan uniform pants was soaked almost instantly. Something dripped down onto his head from above. He peered up and another raindrop spattered his forehead.

Lord, let her be inside and just playing a prank on her sister and me. Please.

He parted some branches to reveal a cleared area where his daughter had left some of her toys. But that was all there was under the large group of bushes. He backed his way out, trying desperately to keep his professional calm about him.

This just means she’s at a friend’s house.

But as he stood, his gaze again caught sight of the two footprints of an adult who’d had a perfect view of his whole backyard from this vantage point. In his professional estimation there was only one reason someone would have been watching his house. That person had to be up to no good. In his line of work he had angered some hardened criminals who would love nothing better than to get back at him, who had in fact threatened that very thing.

And as an officer of the law, he’d been taught to assume the worst-case scenario with a missing child. It was always better to be safe than sorry. That thought sent J.T. racing for his back door. Visions of the missing children he had been involved with as a Chicago police officer flew across the screen in his mind.

Inside, Kim hung up and turned toward him. “She isn’t at any of her friends’.” Her gaze widened at the sight of him muddy and wet.

“Who did you call?”

As his daughter ticked off the long list of Ashley’s friends, he ran his fingers through his damp hair. “Did anyone know where she might be?”

Tears welled in Kim’s eyes as she shook her head. “Dad, where’s Ashley?” A lone track coursed down her cheek. “I know we got into a fight, but why would she run away?”

Lord, I hope it’s only that. J.T. couldn’t believe he had thought that, but if she were missing and she hadn’t run away, the alternative would be that she had been taken. And that chilled him to the bone. In Chicago some of those missing children cases he’d been involved in hadn’t ended—

Reminded of the ugliness in life he’d left behind, J.T. snatched up the phone and called the station. Time was of the essence, especially if she had been kidnapped. Twisting away from Kim to cover the trembling in his hand that held the receiver, he counted the rings.

On the fourth one, his secretary and receptionist Susan Winn finally answered. “Mercer County Sheriff’s Office. How may I help you?”

“J.T. here. Ashley’s missing. Send a couple of deputies to my house.”

“Missing? What happened?” Susan asked.

“I don’t know. She isn’t in our backyard where she was supposed to be and none of her friends know where she is. It isn’t like Ashley to leave without letting someone know where she’s going.” Ashley was his child who always followed the rules.

“Do you want to put out an Amber Alert?”

The waver in Susan’s voice as she asked about the alert forced J.T. to dig deep for the mantle of professionalism he wore in cases like this. But his secretary’s question underscored the situation. He couldn’t afford to fall apart—not with his daughter’s life at stake.

“I’ll call you back in a few minutes and let you know. I want to check with the neighbors first.” Please, God, let her be at one of their houses.

“J.T., I—”

He lowered his voice so Kim wouldn’t hear. “She’s okay. She’s probably next door or across the street. Got to go.” Dear Lord, I hope that is all it is.

When he hung up, his hand lingered on the receiver for a few seconds as he composed himself for Kim. His heartbeat thundered in his ears. He drew in a deep, fortifying breath. He’d been involved in many cases where nothing had been wrong.

But the few—

He shook the thought from his mind and pivoted toward Kim. “I’m going to check with the neighbors. You need to stay right here and wait for my deputies. Don’t open the door to anyone else. Understand?”

With tears still streaming down her face, Kim nodded. “Daddy, I didn’t want…”

Hearing her call him Daddy tore at his fragile composure. She’d stopped using it several years ago when she’d informed him she was too big to call him Daddy. He pulled her to him for a quick hug. “Everything will be all right, honey.” When he opened the back door, he said, “See if you can get hold of Neil at the baseball complex and have him come home.”

“Hey, maybe Ashley went to see Neil practice.” She grabbed the phone.

“Maybe. If so, I’ll be next door. Lock the door after I leave.”

He waited on the patio to hear the lock click into place. J.T. hated to quench Kim’s theory. But Ashley disliked anything to do with sports and didn’t even like to go to her brother’s baseball games. So Ashley going there didn’t seem likely.

At a jog he headed toward his nearest neighbor whose view of his backyard was blocked by his six-foot wooden fence down both sides of his yard that the previous owner had erected because he had wanted some privacy. That very privacy could have made it easier for someone to come onto his property undetected.

Day one, 9:30 p.m.: Ashley missing three hours

“Kim won’t come out. She refuses to eat.” Susan grabbed the pot of coffee and began to refill everyone’s cups as distant thunder rumbled.

Exhausted, J.T. pushed himself to his feet, his muscles protesting the movement after the hour spent sitting at his kitchen table mapping out a strategy to find Ashley. “I’ll talk to her.”

The blaring of the phone cut into the silence. Its sound jarred J.T. He whirled around, reached across the glass table and grabbed the receiver before it rang again. “J.T. here.”

“Sir, we checked all the places you gave us and found nothing,” Deputy Derek Nelson said, frustration marking each word spoken.

All energy drained from J.T. His eyes squeezed shut for a second as he leaned against the table for support. “Go back over every square inch a second time. The church. The school. The park.”

“Yes, sir.”

J.T. slammed the phone down. “Derek reported nothing.”

“We still have four more teams who haven’t called in yet.” Kirk Carver studied the map of the town and the surrounding countryside. “Maybe she wandered off and lost track of time and they’ll find her.”

Lost track of time? Three hours? After dark? J.T. faced his deputy and wanted to laugh. He knew in his gut that Ashley hadn’t walked away from the yard willingly. Someone had taken her. What little evidence they had pointed in that direction. He needed to be searching like his sons. “As soon as I talk with Kim, I’m going back out. All this planning isn’t doing my daughter any good.”

“We need to coordinate where people look. We need—”

“I don’t. You can,” J.T. interrupted his deputy. “There’s got to be something—some kind of evidence that will tell us what happened, where to look.”

“We scoured your backyard before it got dark. Except for her shoe there was nothing.”

“And those footprints by the bushes.”

“We’ve taken a casting. There’s still a possibility—”

“What possibility? That Ashley is at a friend’s playing? That someone opened my back gate and innocently wandered into my yard to stand by the bushes and face the back of my house?” All his anger and frustration—held at bay while he’d focused on planning—swamped him. “Nothing about this feels like a missing person. No one has wanted to say it, but I think Ashley has been kidnapped.”

Susan gasped, bringing her hand up to her mouth. “Why?”

J.T. swung his gaze toward his secretary. “If I knew that, I might know who.”

“Are you sure?” Her eyes wide, she dropped her arm limply to her side.

“Don’t you think with practically the whole town out looking for the past couple of hours we’d have found Ashley by now?”

“Sir, we still need—” Kirk paused a few seconds “—to drag the lake and search the surrounding woods. Your house isn’t too far from it. The two teams checking all the places around the lake haven’t reported in yet.”

His deputy’s statement hung heavy in the sudden silence. J.T. lowered his gaze to the tile floor, his hands clenching at his sides. “I know we’ll have to drag the lake if she isn’t found soon,” he finally managed to say, though his throat closed around each word.

“She could have gone to the lake. Had an accident.” Kirk downed the last of his coffee and stood.

J.T. didn’t know which was worse: thinking Ashley was at the bottom of the lake or she was kidnapped. At least if she had been taken there was a possibility she was still alive. Is that why I’m insisting she’s been kidnapped?

No, he knew the reason. The evil he had encountered in Chicago nearly destroyed him to the point he had tried to forget the ugliness by drinking. Now he felt in his gut his past had come back to haunt him.

“We’ll do it first thing tomorrow morning if we haven’t found her by then.” J.T. scanned his kitchen. “And we need to move the command post down to the station.”

“J.T.,” Rachel Altom, another one of his deputies, said from the doorway, “I’ve cataloged everything in Ashley’s room and secured it. You need to go through it and determine if anything is missing.”

Only an hour ago he’d briefly checked Ashley’s room to see if her favorite doll or stuffed bear was missing. Both had been on her bed in their usual place, mocking him with their presence. The rest of his survey of his daughter’s belongings had been quick. He’d barely held himself together and didn’t know how he was going to do a more thorough search.

“I didn’t see anything earlier, but I’ll do it again.” J.T. didn’t say it was a waste of time. He knew in his heart his daughter hadn’t run away, but this investigation needed to be by the book and he was the only one who could do the search.

“I need to talk to Kim again.” Rachel took a mug of coffee that Susan handed her. “Now that she’s had time to think, I want to make sure she’s positive about what Ashley was wearing.”

J.T. shook his head. “I’ll do it. But unless Ashley changed after school, what Kim told you was right.” He remembered his oldest daughter fleeing to her room an hour ago, refusing to talk to anyone. The longer Ashley was gone the more silent Kim had become.

J.T. plodded across the kitchen and passed Rachel at the doorway. The hallway to the bedrooms lay before him. The sight of Kim’s and Ashley’s closed doors tightened his chest, making breathing difficult. As he approached Kim’s room, he drew in one shallow breath after another but nothing alleviated the pressure. It felt as if his heart had broken into hundreds of pieces.

For the first time in years, since his time in Chicago, he wanted a drink. He wanted to drown his pain in a bottle of alcohol, to forget that evil existed. His hand shook as he reached for the handle.

Lord, I can’t go back to that kind of life. Help me! Bring Ashley home safely.

He knocked softly on Kim’s door, then pushed it open. Kim sat trancelike in front of her small TV set, listening to the Amber Alert broadcasted over the Central City television station. He moved closer as his daughter rewound the tape and began to play it again. He touched her shoulder and leaned forward to switch off the TV.

“Kim—”

“Daddy, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” She spun toward him and threw her arms around his waist.

Although she buried her face against him, he heard her sobs and the tightness in his chest expanded. Stroking her hair, J.T. fought to keep his own tears under control. For the past few hours they were ever present, a huge lump in his throat.

He swallowed several times. “Honey, you’re not at fault.” He managed to kneel next to her and cup her face, forcing his daughter to look at him. “Do you hear me? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You paid me to look after her, not talk on the phone. I told her to go out back and play. If she hadn’t, she would—”

He pressed his fingers over her lips. “Shh. Ashley played out back all the time, often by herself. You had no idea this would happen to her.” He regretted his admonition of Kim earlier, but there was no way he could take it back. His words uttered in frustration would be with both of them for a long time. He knew what guilt could do to a person. He’d dealt with it six years ago with his drinking and his wife’s death.

“What if she ran away because of me?”

If only that was the extent of it. Another deep breath to fill his oxygen deprived lungs and J.T. said, “Let’s not play what-ifs. It won’t help Ashley, and it won’t help you. Now, I need you to go over one more time what Ashley was wearing when she went outside to play.”

She closed her eyes, a tear leaking out. “I told Rachel what she was wearing.”

“Tell me again.” He pushed her bangs from her eyes. He hated adding to Kim’s pain by interrogating her. But it had to be done.

“She had on her blue jeans with the butterflies around the hem and her pale pink T-shirt and no jacket because it was warm.” Kim came to a shaky stop, blinking rapidly. “Do you think she’s cold? It still gets cold at night in May, Daddy.”

He ignored her question because he didn’t have a good answer. Instead he asked, “Which pair of shoes was she wearing?”

“Her black patent leather ones. That’s all she wears anymore. I caught her one night sleeping—” Kim brought her hand up to cover her mouth and her tears returned to flow down her cheeks. “But now she’s missing one,” she mumbled through her fingers.

He couldn’t hold his own sorrow back any longer. His tears left a wet track as they slid down his face. Hugging his oldest daughter to him, he cherished the feel of her in his arms. At least Kim is safe. She had been inside the house alone with the back door unlocked. What if whoever had taken—Don’t play the what-if game.

Except for the murder almost a year ago, Crystal Springs was a safe Illinois town. People left their doors unlocked. Kidnappings didn’t occur here. Not a lot happened here, and that was one of the reasons he had brought his family back to his hometown after he’d pulled his life out of the gutter.

Kim jerked away and shot to her feet. “I’ve got to do something to help. I want to search like Neil is. Please, Daddy.”

His son had accompanied Reverend Colin Fitzpatrick and a couple of men from the church while they searched the area around Faith Community Church and the lakeshore near it. He hadn’t let Kim go with them, partly because she was the last person to see Ashley and needed to be interviewed and partly because he wanted to keep her as close to him as possible. He could have lost her today, too.

“No.”

“But I need—”

He planted his hands on his jean-clad thighs and shoved himself to his feet. “I said no, Kim. It’s too dark and most of the teams are finishing up.”

“Tomorrow then?”

“We’ll see. I’m moving the command center to the station, and I want you to come with me.” Again he heard thunder in the distance and realized another storm system was moving into the area.

She opened her mouth to say something, decided not to and snapped it closed. After snatching up her jacket on the back of her desk chair, she stalked out into the hallway.

With a heavy sigh, J.T. followed his daughter toward the foyer. The doorbell rang. Kim rushed forward to answer it before he could stop her.

Standing in the entrance to his house was Madison Spencer. The sight of her in her FBI jacket thrust him back to the previous May when murder had come to Crystal Springs. The implication of her presence in town underscored the gravity of the situation and nearly destroyed all the control he had mustered.

TWO

Day one, 10:00 p.m.: Ashley missing three and a half hours

“Madison,” J.T. whispered in his entry hall, his voice a weak thread. Seeing the FBI agent jacket cemented in his mind that his daughter wasn’t likely to waltz into his house, wanting to eat dinner, anytime soon.

Madison stepped through the doorway. “I’m sorry we’re meeting again under lousy circumstances.”

Kim looked from Madison to him then back to the agent, her gaze glued to the yellow letters on the navy-blue jacket. “Dad?”

J.T. shook his head at Madison, hoping his brief expression transmitted the need to be careful with what was said. “Honey, the FBI is routinely called in when a child’s missing.”

But as usual his daughter was smart and observant. “Ashley isn’t just missing. Someone took her.” Kim’s voice and lower lip quivered.

Although it wasn’t a question, J.T. answered, “We don’t know for sure—” he stalled, wishing more than anything he didn’t have to say the next part of the sentence “—but yes, I think she has been kidnapped.”

His daughter bit down on her lip to keep it from trembling. Tears glistened again in her eyes. “Why? Who? We don’t have much money.”

No words came to mind as he stared at the pain in Kim’s expression. Her observation about their financial situation made the fear he’d kept suppressed in order to function effectively bubble to the surface. Financial gain could be handled. The other reasons a child was kidnapped were so much harder as a cop and a parent to deal with. He shuddered. He realized his daughter needed some kind of answer, but he didn’t know anything to say that would make the situation better for Kim.

Thankfully Madison stepped forward. “That’s what we’re going to determine.” She steered his daughter toward the couch in the living room. “I can’t believe how much you’ve grown since last summer.”

Alone in the foyer, J.T. dropped his head and stared at the ceramic tile. Visions of those other reasons swam around in his numb mind: someone who thrived on sexual exploitation, a person from his past while he was a detective in Chicago, or human traffickers. Another shudder passed through him.

Lord, please bring Ashley home. Protect her. I’m begging You. Help me! I can’t lose her. Where do I begin?

The sound of Kim and Madison talking in lowered voices drew him forward. If he was going to do a thorough job of finding his daughter, he had to shut down the thoughts that kept popping into his head. He couldn’t waste any more time on them.

“But there hasn’t been a ransom demand,” Kim said as J.T. entered the room. “There hasn’t, has there, Daddy?”

His daughter’s big blue gaze fixed upon him chipped away at the composure he had just shored up. “No. Nothing.” He instilled strength into his voice, a strength he had to maintain.

“Then, see, she’s probably just missing.”

“That’s a possibility, Kim, but we’re covering all the bases until we know something for sure.” Madison looked toward the kitchen. “I smell coffee, and I’ve been driving for a couple of hours. I could use a cup. Do you think you could get me one, Kim?”

“I guess so.” His daughter pushed to her feet and trudged across the room, her shoulders hunched.

When she was gone, J.T. came closer to Madison and sat in the chair next to the couch. For some reason her presence helped him feel as though he wasn’t totally alone in this. They had worked well last year on the murder case and she was very good at her job. That thought comforted him. “So you left the state police to join the FBI. Where’s the rest of the team?”

“They’re coming. Probably twenty minutes behind me. I think I broke a few speed limits getting here.” She tossed a wry half grin then sobered. “I know what you must—”

“Who’s the agent in charge?” He couldn’t take her pity and sympathy at the moment. He wasn’t that strong.

“Matthew Hendricks. He’s good at finding people. That’s why the Chicago office is handling this instead of the small one in Central City.”

Susan came into the living room with a mug. “I talked Kim into eating the ham sandwich I had for her earlier.” She handed the coffee to Madison. “Can I get you anything else?”

“No, thanks.” Madison sipped her coffee. “This is just what I needed.”

“J.T., we’ve almost got everything packed up to move down to the station. We should be ready to leave in a few minutes.” His secretary started back toward the kitchen. “Glad you’re here, Madison.”

Madison flipped open her cell phone. “I’ll call Matthew and let him know to meet us at the sheriff’s office on Lake Shore Drive.”

While J.T. listened to her talk to the agent in charge, a restless energy hummed through him. He shot to his feet and began to pace. When she finished her call, he stopped in front of her, hands stuffed into his pants’ pockets. He remembered her efficiency and professionalism and was glad to see a familiar face.

She took several more sips of her coffee, then placed it on the coaster on the table in front of her. “Okay. That should keep me going. Show me where Ashley was last seen.”

“Kim saw her on the swing last, probably right before she was—kidnapped.” The word stuck in his throat. Thinking about that shook him to his core. He could have lost both daughters today. Kim had been so close—an unlocked door away. He couldn’t get that realization out of his mind.

“What time was that?”

“Kim saw her at about five-thirty. I came home at six-thirty.” He recited the facts he’d learned earlier from his daughter as though this was just another case. If he let his emotions rule him, he would fall apart. He couldn’t afford that. Not when Ashley’s life depended on him keeping a level head.

“So she disappeared some time between five-thirty and six-thirty. We can start building a time frame.”

J.T. headed for the front door. “Let’s go around to the back this way. If Susan has finally managed to get Kim to eat something, I don’t want us to interfere by going through the kitchen.”

Madison stepped out onto the small porch first. “Any evidence at the scene?”

“We found one of Ashley’s shoes in the grass under a swing.” When he followed her, he saw a news crew from Central City setting up in the street behind the barricade his deputies had erected to keep people away from the scene. He had been to hundreds of crime scenes in his career as a law enforcement officer, but never at his own home.

“A tennis shoe? They don’t come off easily.” Madison strode toward the wooden gate at the side of the house and pushed aside the yellow tape slashed across it.

“No, a slip-on, so in a struggle it could have come off.”

“But Kim didn’t hear anything?”

“No. She said she checked on Ashley when she first went outside to play, then she moved back to the couch across the room to talk on the phone.”

Madison stared into space, a good minute of silence passing. “Still, if there had been much of a struggle, she should have heard something.”

“I particularly asked Kim about that. There wasn’t anything unusual. All she heard was a dog barking two houses down.”

“Which way.”

J.T. pointed east. “That way. The Morgans. They have an American Eskimo.”

“Maybe the abductor came that way and stirred up the dog. I’ll check on that when I interview them.”

“I already did. Or rather, I discovered neither Jill nor Ross Morgan were home at that time. Some of the people on the street work in Central City and hadn’t gotten home yet.”

“Convenient time to take someone.”

He massaged the taut muscles in his neck. “Yes, my thinking exactly.”

“Do you mind if I interview Kim later? Maybe she’ll remember something she’s forgotten in the trauma of finding out her sister is missing.”

“Sure. I know the drill. We’ll do anything to bring Ashley back.”

“Has the scene been processed?” She hung back, not going more than a few feet inside the gate.

J.T. came up behind her. “Yes, the crime scene unit from Central City finished about an hour ago.”

“That was fast.”

“I know the police chief, and I wanted them to start when they at least had some daylight. There wasn’t much we found except the shoe and a set of footprints behind there.” He indicated the group of trees and bushes along the chain-link fence at the back of the yard. “Most of the area is grassy except for a small spot.”

“What size?”

“Cowboy boots, size ten. It rained enough earlier today that it would have washed away any previous prints.”

“Did you take a casting?”

He nodded, then realized she couldn’t see his answer because she was facing away from him, surveying the yard. “Yes. Ashley had a fort in the bushes. She played there a lot. In fact, when I first came out that was where I thought she was hiding.” He gestured toward the largest one that served as Ashley’s fort, then toward a chain-link gate not five feet away from it. “There are two ways into the yard.”

“So if someone took Ashley, he probably used the back one.”

“That’s what I’d do. Less chance of being seen since the woods are directly behind my property.” A few raindrops spattered him. “Great, more rain.”

“Which doesn’t help.” Madison held her hand out flat as if gauging the intensity of the rain.

J.T. took a step toward the gate. “We fingerprinted the swing set and anything else we could.”

“Both gate handles?”

“Yes,” he answered in a tight voice as she walked past him. “I know my job. My deputies know their job.”

She turned then and stared up at him. “I know, but I still need to ask. You don’t want any mistakes in this case. Especially this one. You know how important the crime scene can be.” She again scanned the yard. “Even with the lights on, it’ll be hard to see anything tonight, especially if it starts raining harder. I’ll come back tomorrow. Did your next-door neighbors see anything?” Madison headed back around front, her short brown hair beginning to get wet.

J.T. hurried his steps. “Nothing. One wasn’t even home at the time and the other one is an older lady with a hearing problem. She was watching TV on the far side of the house from four until I knocked on her door at a little before seven.”

“So you interviewed all the neighbors on your street?”

J.T. opened his front door and let Madison go into his house first. “There was only one neighbor I didn’t talk to. I figured if anyone saw something it would be a neighbor, but no one did.”

“Not even an unusual car?”

He shook his head. “Not that anyone can recall. I’ll get you copies of the interviews.”

“Which neighbor did you not talk to?”

The muscles in his neck ached, pain radiating from his shoulder blades down his back. He again kneaded his nape, but nothing relieved the tightness. “Mrs. Goldsmith left for Central City a little before six to do some shopping and won’t be back until probably ten, according to her husband.”

“Mr. Goldsmith can’t reach her on her cell?”

“She doesn’t have a cell.”

“Oh.” Madison walked through the living room toward the kitchen. “We’ll need to talk to her as soon as she returns. She might have seen something and not realized its importance.”

“Yeah, I told Bob that. He’ll call when she comes home, which should be anytime now.”

While Madison went into the kitchen, J.T. hung back, watching her introduce herself again to Kirk and Rachel, even though they had all worked on last year’s murder case together. His daughter sat at the table, a couple of bites taken out of the ham sandwich sitting on a plate before her. Her pale features, too-shiny eyes and hunched shoulders revealed the strain the past few hours had taken on her. Unless Ashley was found soon, he knew the stress had only just begun.

“Besides canvasing the neighborhood, what other searches have been done?”

Although Madison had asked Kirk the question, J.T. moved into the room and said, “We have searched the usual places kids like to hang out and any place Ashley is familiar with. We have checked with all her friends and classmates.”

Madison turned toward him as a flash of lightning, followed almost immediately by a clap of thunder, rocked the house. “How about the area behind your yard?”

With a box in his hands, Kirk skirted around Madison and headed toward the front of the house. “I’m in charge of organizing a search of that area all the way to the lake and the lake itself first thing tomorrow morning. The terrain is rough and would be difficult to search properly in the dark even with lights. We’ve got some firefighters and police coming from Central City to help us. We’ll be using Central City’s K-9 unit along with some search-and-rescue teams. They should be here an hour or so before dawn. Hopefully the rain will let up by then. That’s what the weather report says.”

“Isn’t it likely if there was a kidnapper, that he took her out that way since none of the neighbors saw anything unusual?” Madison asked Kirk as she trailed after him.

In the living room away from Kim, J.T. caught Madison’s arm and halted her progress. Another rumble of thunder vibrated the air. Tension whipped down his length. “There’s no if in this. Ashley has been kidnapped.”

Madison glanced down at his hand on her then back up into his eyes. He instantly dropped his arm away as though touching her had burned him.

“I agree this is most likely a kidnapping, J.T. Until we discover otherwise, our standard procedure is to assume a child is in immediate danger and act accordingly. It’s better to do that rather than think she’s missing or a runaway. We don’t want to miss any clues.”

She was giving him information he already knew, but he realized it was her way of keeping a rein on his emotions, which could so easily run rampant if he allowed them. “I want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

She stepped closer and laid her hand on his arm, the touch meant to reassure. Strangely it did. “We are. I promise you we’ll do everything humanly possible to bring your daughter home.”

Day one, 5:00 a.m.: Ashley missing for ten and a half hours

Madison scrubbed her hands down her face. Her eyes stung from the sleepless night spent at the sheriff’s office, now the command center for the missing child case. The rest of the FBI agents had arrived right after they had moved to the station to set up the new command post away from the victim’s house.

Just the mere thought of the word victim, in reference to J.T.’s little girl, chilled Madison. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the anguish J.T. and his family were going through, and yet he was in the middle of the investigation as though the child missing was someone else’s. Professional. Staunch.

She’d tried to get him to back off and let his deputies and the FBI work the case, but he wouldn’t. Since he was the sheriff as well as the parent, he wanted to be in on it every step of the way. There was a part of her that understood his need, and yet she also knew the danger of being so emotionally invested in a case. Ashley wasn’t her child, but she knew the little girl from the summer before. J.T. and his family had made her feel welcome when she had been here with this department working on the murder. Her emotions were involved more than she wished.

Madison found J.T. standing in front of the time line her boss had constructed on a large dry erase board. At the moment there was little information about Ashley posted. The bleak look in J.T.’s expression spoke of how taxing the situation was for him. But he was going over the information on the board with Matthew Hendricks as though this wasn’t his daughter they were discussing.

J.T.’s faith was strong like hers. Was that what was holding him together? What a test of his faith! Throughout the past night she’d prayed silently on a number of occasions for Ashley’s safe return. From the distant look that would appear from time to time in J.T.’s eyes, she suspected he had, too.

Heavenly Father, give us some kind of direction. We’ve got everything set up and ready to go but no leads to speak of. Where do we start? Where do we go from here?

“I made some fresh coffee.” Susan placed a steaming mug in front of Madison. “That’s the least I can do since I returned to the station. There’s no arguing with J.T. when he sets his mind on something. I didn’t want to go home to sleep.”

“A few people needed to get some sleep. I hope you were able to.” Madison put her hands around the warm mug.

“Not much, but I did manage to close my eyes for a while. Then I’d see Ashley’s face and I just couldn’t get any sleep. She is so dear and sweet. J.T. dotes on her. You should see them together when she comes down to the station. Such patience, showing her what he does. I just don’t understand how someone could take—” Distress on her face, Susan shook her head. “Sorry. I shouldn’t go on like that. And certainly J.T. doesn’t need to hear me carrying on. He’s got enough to deal with.”

“I don’t see how anyone could ever take a child, but it happens and the parents’ lives are never the same.”

“Even when the child is found?”

“Their sense of security is stripped away.”

A thoughtful expression appeared on Susan’s face. “Ah, I never considered that.”

The aroma of the brew flavored the air and for a few seconds Madison shut her eyes and relished the smell. “Thanks for the coffee. I was about to tape my eyelids open.”

J.T.’s secretary chuckled. “I know the feeling. It’s been a long night for everyone here.”

“And today will be a long day.” Madison rose from the desk she had commandeered from one of the deputies. “How’s J.T. holding up?” She’d been reviewing the neighbors’ statements and had been working on a list of people to interview again while J.T., her boss and Kirk had finalized the search protocol and gone over the case to date.

“I don’t know how he keeps going. I would have fallen apart hours ago.” Susan walked to the next desk to hand one of the FBI agents a mug of coffee.

Madison again searched for J.T. in the large room, realizing that periodically throughout the night she had done that very thing. By the time she’d left last summer they had become friends. She hated seeing a friend going through such pain. She wished she could do more for him.

J.T. moved away from the dry erase board and stopped in front of a table where a map of the region was spread out. He pointed to an area and said something to Matthew. The lead agent nodded, then gestured to another place.

Exhaustion carved deep lines into J.T.’s face—a face that under normal circumstances had a lot of character. At the moment it just looked plain tired. Even in the middle of the murder investigation last year, J.T.’s gray eyes would sparkle with life and humor. What she saw now was a dull pewter color. A sudden urge to comfort him flooded her. Surprised by the emotion, she turned away and picked up her list to give to Rachel.

“These are the people I want to interview again, with Mrs. Goldsmith at the top.”

Rachel glanced up. “She usually gets up early.”

“So six-thirty won’t be too early then?”

“Nope, and knowing Mrs. Goldsmith, she wouldn’t mind being awakened—if she even got any rest.”

“I suspect there are a lot of townspeople who aren’t sleeping right now.”

“Yeah, J.T. is a good sheriff and friend to many.” Rachel clicked the computer program she was working in shut. “You aren’t going to participate in the search of the lake area?”

“Not until I’ve interviewed all these people. They may remember something they didn’t last night.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No, I’m sure even with the added volunteers from Central City J.T. could use everyone possible to help in the search. He’ll need you there.”

“First, I’ve got to finish up here. Then I plan on being in the thick of things. I’d do anything for J.T. He believed in me when no one else did.”

“He did?”

“Yeah, I’d always wanted to be a law enforcement officer, but no one around here thought I would be any good. Too petite, not to mention the fact I’m a woman.”

“I always wanted to be in law enforcement, too.”

“It wasn’t easy at first. I had to prove myself, but each one of these guys is my friend now. Everyone at the station would do anything for J.T. and his little girl.”

She knew what Rachel meant. She could feel the respect and friendship when she watched J.T. work with his staff. She hadn’t been with the FBI long enough to form that kind of bond yet. She was the one who was the new kid on the block and had to prove herself.

Madison peered over her shoulder at J.T. He now stood at the window with the blinds open. With his coffee mug cupped between his hands, he stared into the dark, as though holding vigil until dawn appeared. His lonely vulnerability drew her across the room. They had less than an hour until the sun came up and everything that could be done had been done. Now they just had to wait for dawn.

His rigid stance told Madison more than words what a toll the past hours had taken on J.T. Susan might think he was holding himself together, but Madison knew it was a very fragile connection that any second could give way.

She came up beside him with her own mug nestled in her hands, relishing the heat that warmed her cold body. She faced the darkness and saw their reflections. He was only a few inches taller than her five feet eleven inches, but where she was slender, almost reed thin, he was broad shouldered and muscular.

Madison remembered J.T.’s two older children reluctantly agreeing to go home with Reverend Colin Fitzpatrick and his wife, Emma, to get some rest. She’d also seen the silent struggle waging within J.T. Did he allow his children to go or stay with him where he could keep an eye on them, possibly protect them from whomever had taken Ashley? J.T. was sure his youngest daughter had been kidnapped, and after going over what evidence they had, she agreed. Deep down it felt like an abduction.

She turned toward him, her arm brushing against his. The brief contact riveted her attention on him, causing a catch in her throat. “I’m glad the rain finally stopped a while ago.”

“Yeah.” J.T. sipped his coffee.

“Did you have a chance to talk with Colin when he picked up Kim and Neil?”

“Just a few minutes. He’s bringing my son back at dawn, so Neil can help with the search.”

“How about Kim? I want to talk to her again.”

“Emma will stay with her at Grace’s house. Between those two they should be able to—” he cleared his throat “—take care of her, keep her safe.”

“If I recall correctly, Grace was a drill sergeant in the army before she retired.”

“Yes. I have to know Kim’s in good hands or—” He worked his mouth but no other words would come out.

A tightness clogged her own throat. She put her mug on the windowsill and faced him. “Let us take care of everything. I don’t know how you’re keeping yourself together.” She reached out and touched his arm, wishing she could take his pain away, wishing she could do so much more.

His muscles tightened beneath her fingertips. His gaze bore into her. “No! My daughter is missing. I will bring her home.” His mouth firmed into a fierce expression. “You don’t need to worry about me falling apart. I won’t allow it. I have the most important job of my life to do and nothing will stand in my way.” His savage tone, directed more at the situation than at her, never rose above a loud whisper.

When he brought his mug to his lips, her fingers slipped from his arm, but not before she noticed the hand holding his coffee quivered slightly. “We all have a breaking point.”

Over the rim of his cup, he glared at her but didn’t say a word.

Determined to make him see he had his limits, she didn’t back down from him. “I’m available if you need someone to talk to. And I’m sure Colin is, too.”

“I know.” The hardness in his features melted some. “I know you’re worried, but don’t be. I haven’t been a sheriff of a small town all my career. I’ve seen bad situations before.”

“But none that involved your own family.”

A distant look flared in his eyes as though a memory surfaced, best left in the past. “I know what I have to do, Madison. I won’t fail Ashley.”

His professional facade, locked in place, shut down any further discussion about how this was affecting him. Madison drew in a calming breath. “Okay. Then let’s talk business for a moment. I see Eric Carlton on the list of people you interviewed, but nothing was written down under his name. Why?”

“Because we couldn’t find him. I have two deputies out looking for him right now. He’s the only person in Crystal Springs that has been convicted of a sex crime. He lives outside of town near the lake. One of the teams with a dog from the K-9 unit will be concentrating around his cabin.”

“Then he’s your prime suspect at the moment?” Although she felt out of the loop, she had to remember she was just one agent and could do only so much. For the past hours she had concentrated on going over what physical evidence they had, then looking at all the logs of the interviews so she could talk with each person and possibly discover something that could help the investigation.

“The only suspect at the moment unless you count all the people I’ve put away who are now out of prison. Your boss has one of your agents over at Carlton’s cabin waiting for him in case he decides to return home.”

“Do you think he will? Or will he flee?”

“I think he’s long gone. I put an APB out on him and his black Ford truck. Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will pick him up.”

“How about any other sex offenders from the surrounding towns or Central City?” He flinched as she asked the question which had to be asked. The thought of a sex offender having Ashley terrified her, so she could imagine how J.T. felt.

“I have Rachel working on that.”

She studied his thoughtful expression, his creased forehead. “But you don’t think that’s it?”

He looked long and hard at her. “No. Someone came into my yard and took Ashley, probably through my back gate that leads to the woods and lake. It feels calculated to me.”

“So you’ll start the search at your back gate?”

“No, the swing set, although I think the trail will lead to the back gate. Our goal will be twofold. We’ll look for any evidence left behind and for a trail that leads to Ashley’s whereabouts.” His gaze shifted to the window. “Last night before it become totally dark, I checked out the immediate area by my gate. I didn’t see anything, but the shadows could have hidden something.”

Madison twisted around and saw the shift in the degree of darkness. “While you’re searching, I’m going to canvass your neighbors again, especially Mrs. Goldsmith. Maybe she’ll remember something about that car she saw pull out of the side street near your house. After that I want to talk with Kim.”

He squeezed his eyes closed for a few seconds. “She’s not taking this well. She blames herself. I’m hoping Colin can help her. He’s especially good with teens.”

“Are you blaming yourself?”

He stiffened. “Kinda hard not to. I think someone from my past has decided to make me pay for putting him behind bars. While working in Chicago, I received some threats, usually when the criminals had been convicted and were going to prison. They like to blame the cop who caught them rather than themselves.”

Her heart broke at the desolate expression on his face. “Is anyone making a list of people you caught who are now out of prison?” In Chicago when she’d jumped at the chance to return to Crystal Springs to help find J.T.’s daughter, she hadn’t realized how hard it was going to be to keep herself from becoming emotionally involved. Nearly impossible.

“Rachel. She’s good with the computer.”

“I want both her lists when they are compiled.”

After he put his mug next to hers on the sill, he rolled his shoulders then worked the kinks out of his neck. “Let her know. If the search doesn’t produce anything, that’s where I’ll be concentrating next.”

“You know, something is bothering me about this whole situation.”

He slid his gaze to her, his head tilted. “What?”

“From the gate at the back of your yard to the swing set is a good twenty feet. If a stranger had come into the yard, wouldn’t Ashley have reacted? Screamed or something? Which means Kim or a neighbor would have heard her.”

His eyes widened. “You’ve got a point.” He glanced behind him at the throng of people in the large room, all waiting for the first rays of light. “That would mean the person who took her was someone she knew and possibly trusted.” The hand he pushed through his hair trembled.

“It’s something we need to consider.”

“Which would blow my theory out of the water. Because I know no one in this town has been in prison because of me. I grew up in Crystal Springs. I came back here five years ago and I know everyone. I have a hard time believing it could be someone I know. It’s more likely an ex-con.”

“The evidence says otherwise. Prove me wrong.”

He straightened. “I will.”

The door to the sheriff’s office opened and Colin, followed by Neil, came into the station. J.T.’s eighteen-year-old son looked almost as bad as his father. Dark circles under his eyes gave him a haunted look. And from Colin’s appearance, Madison surmised no one got any rest at the Fitzpatrick household.

J.T. strode toward the pair and enveloped his son in a bear hug, patting him on the back. Madison stayed off to the side for a few seconds while father and son exchanged some words. When she finally approached the threesome, both J.T. and Neil had their emotions under control.

“Dad, any news?”

J.T. shook his head.

“No ransom demand?”

“No, son.”

Neil perked up. “Then Ashley might just be missing.”

“That’s a possibility.”

The way J.T. had said the sentence left no doubt in Madison’s mind that it was a distant possibility, and his son picked up on that fact. Last year during the murder investigation J.T. would never have allowed his tone of voice to give any hint of what he was thinking unless he had wanted it that way. Now however, exhaustion and a father’s love had stripped him of his usual defenses.

“You don’t think it is, do you, Dad?”

“I’m not gonna lie to you. No, I don’t.”

“But if the person doesn’t want money, what…” All the color drained from Neil’s face. He collapsed back against the desk behind him and clutched its edge to keep himself upright. Tears sprang to his eyes.

J.T. grasped his son’s shoulders and forced Neil to look him in the eye. “Nothing is going to happen to Ashley. I will bring her home alive and safe. I won’t lie to you and I won’t mince words with you. I think some felon from my past has taken Ashley to get back at me.”

“Then she could be dead,” Neil said in a raw whisper.

“No!” J.T. pulled away and placed his fist over his heart. “I would know in here. She’s alive.”

As J.T. talked with Neil in a low voice, their heads bowed in prayer, Madison moved to Colin’s side. The emotional impact from the brief encounter between father and son left her reeling.

“Okay?”

The reverend’s question forced her to acknowledge what this case was doing to her. “No, I’m having a hard time distancing myself from this one. I wanted to come to Crystal Springs to help in the search for Ashley, but maybe I shouldn’t have.” The constriction in her chest rose into her throat. “His pain—it must be unbearable.” She twisted toward Colin. “If I’m having this much trouble keeping my personal feelings under control, how in the world is J.T. going to manage to keep his professional perspective?”

“One moment at a time. That’s all he can do. He knows God is with him and will take the burden from his shoulders. They will face it as one.” Colin took her hands. “The Lord has already eased J.T.’s load. He brought you here to help. You two worked well together last year.”

Madison glanced over at J.T. and saw him put an arm around his son’s shoulder. She prayed the reverend was right. A little girl’s life hung in the balance.

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