Lady in Red

by Stacy Claflin

  Just as Ari put the last pancake on the pile, Tinsley, Ayla, and Hanna appeared in the kitchen, all bleary-eyed.

  “Do I smell hot cocoa?” Hanna asked.

  “I love hot cocoa.” Tinsley looked around.

  Ariana pointed to the pancakes. “I put so many chips in these, they’re more chocolate than pancakes.”

  “Pancakes and cocoa?” Tinsley asked.

  Guilt twisted Ari’s stomach. “I can make some.” She turned to Genevieve. “Is that okay? Do you have some?”

  Genevieve flipped an omelet and then stirred the hash browns. “Sure. In there.” She nodded to one of the cabinets.

  “I’m going to wake Parker and Ava!” Hanna bounded out of the room.

  Tinsley and Ayla set the table while Ariana got the hot drinks ready. Before long, everyone was gathered around the dining room table, filling their plates. Even with so many people eating, there was still space for more.

  Anytime Tinsley ran out of anything, Ariana was quick to meet the need before she said a word about it. She ignored the shared glances between Nick and Genevieve. All she wanted to do was make right what had happened the night before—and prove to everyone she was still the responsible person she’d always been.

  Chapter 8

  Alex sipped the last of his peppermint mocha, which was more chocolate than coffee, and tossed the cup into the garbage. He powered on his laptop and waved to Mary, the clerk who made the best coffee in the station.

  The door to the captain’s office squeaked open. Nick headed his way.

  Alex typed his password then spun around. “How’s Tinsley?”

  “Good. But that’s not what I’m here to discuss.” He dropped a file onto Alex’s desk. “We have a child abduction, and I need you to go with Garcia to the scene.”

  Blood drained from Alex’s head. A kidnapping. Just two days after the whole fiasco with Tinsley and after Alex had shut down his blog.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Nick said. “I’m sure it’s unrelated. And remember, the feds are on the other case.”

  “We don’t know they’re unrelated.” Alex clenched his jaw as he gathered his things. “I need to go speak with Cal Jones.”

  “He’s behind bars. Not our guy.”

  “But he’s our only link to the kidnapping ring! And now we have another child abduction—right under our noses!”

  Nick nodded. “You can’t walk in with any assumptions. Push everything out of your mind before you start drawing conclusions that aren’t there. I can trust you to do that, right?”

  “Of course.” Alex closed his laptop and looked around for Garcia. “Anyone else coming to the scene?”

  “Yes, to process it. You and Garcia need to get what you can from the family.”

  “How old’s the kid?”

  Nick nodded to the file, which held all the information. “Keep me updated.” He walked away.

  Alex sighed. There was no way it was a coincidence. Especially not in a smallish town like theirs. There had been too many abductions over the years for it to be a coincidence, especially now that they knew about the ties to the dark web.

  “You ready?” Garcia’s voice pulled Alex from his thoughts.

  “Yeah, let’s go.” Alex grabbed the file, and they headed to the back parking lot. He was already planning his visit to Cal, Damon’s dad. The connection drove him nuts—his daughter dating the son of a hardened criminal. But the kid hadn’t given him any reason to doubt he was the opposite of his father. Not that Alex would let Ariana and Damon be alone for even a moment.

  “Earth to Alex.” Garcia started the cruiser.

  “What?” Alex pulled himself from his thoughts.

  “Details from the file?”

  “Right.” Alex opened it and scanned the paperwork from the call into 911. “Girl, age seven, taken from her bedroom. An older brother was in the room, not taken. The mom discovered the missing child when she went to get the kids up for school.”

  “Did the sibling see anything?”

  Alex scanned the papers again. “Nothing listed in the preliminaries.” He glanced at the navigation system. “But we’re almost there. We can ask them in a minute.”

  Garcia pulled up to the curb of a white split-level with a slightly overgrown front lawn and a skateboard near the porch. The place looked so normal, nobody would ever suspect a crime had been committed there.

  Alex’s stomach knotted. He understood the pain the parents were going through, and that was probably why Nick had wanted him to go with Garcia. Alex was usually chosen to be the first on scene in cases like this one.

  Garcia got out of the car first and marched up the walkway. Alex caught up and tried to push aside memories of abductions of his loved ones. Those were in the past, and this was now. There was a girl to find, and he needed to be at the top of his game.

  Alex started to knock but Garcia just opened the door, which was apparently unlocked already. He gave the detective a questioning glance. Garcia gestured across the street where two other cruisers were parked behind a forensics van.

  Alex hadn’t even noticed. He really needed to pull himself together. It wasn’t like he was still the “new guy” on the force, either. That title now belonged to the obnoxious Deputy Davidson. Thankfully, Nick hadn’t paired Alex with him.

  Garcia introduced himself and Alex to the distraught man and woman huddled on the couch—Selena and Drew.

  Alex shook their hands and expressed his regret for what they were going through.

  The woman leaned against her husband, who put his arms around her. Garcia asked some questions, which solidified what Alex had read in the file.

  “You don’t have any footage?” Alex asked. “No security cameras? Doorbell cam? Anything?”

  Selena shook her head and wiped her eyes.

  Drew answered. “It’s a safe neighborhood. We thought we were okay.”

  Garcia nodded. “We’ll speak with the neighbors and see if any of them caught anything. You have a son who sleeps in the same room?”

  She sniffled again. “We’re remodeling Trixie’s room, so she’s staying with Elias until it’s ready.”

  Alex’s gaze darted around the room. “And is Elias here now?”

  Drew looked down the hall. “He’s hiding in our bed. The poor kid feels like it’s his fault.”

  “Mind if we talk to him?” Alex asked.

  “He didn’t see anything,” Selena said. “He’s already traumatized enough.”

  Alex and Garcia exchanged a glance before Garcia spoke. “We do need to ask him a few questions. You’re more than welcome to be with him while we do.”

  “You’re not going to get anything out of him,” she said. “He didn’t see anything.”

  “We still need to speak with him, ma’am.”

  She rose, clenching her fists. “We’ve already been through enough! Don’t put him through this!”

  Alex stood slowly and kept his expression soft. “We’re going to do everything we can to find Trixie. But in order to do that, we need to ask your son a few questions. Not to intimidate him, but to find out if he saw or heard anything.”

  Her lips wavered. “He already told us he doesn’t know anything.”

  “Do you mind if I ask him?” Alex asked. “I have three kids, so I understand your urge to protect him. I promise I’ll treat him as if he were my own.”

  She glanced back and forth between Alex and her husband, who nodded. “I’ll go get him.” Her tone made it sound like she was agreeing to send the boy to a guillotine.

  The three of them sat in silence for what felt like forever. Alex looked down the hallway. “Maybe I should check on them.”

  “Elias might not want to come out. He wouldn’t come out from under the covers when we asked him to earlier.”

  Garcia nodded. “We can speak with him in there if it’d make him more comfortable. It’ll only take a few minutes.”

  He frowned. “Selena won’t be happy, but if you think it’
ll help.”

  “It will.” Alex held his gaze.

  Drew relented and led them down the hallway, knocking on a door near the end. Across the hall, the forensics team were busy in a children’s bedroom.

  “Selena.” Drew knocked again. “The officers are willing to talk to him in there.”

  “Drew! Give me a minute!”

  Alex and Garcia exchanged raised brows.

  Drew glanced at them. “Hold on.” He slid into the room, not waiting for a reply.

  Alex took a step back and glanced at the closed door. “What do you think?”

  Garcia shrugged. “Hard to say. People act weird under pressure.”

  “Weird?” Alex exclaimed. “I’ve had a missing daughter, so I get it. But I did everything possible to help find her—and I wasn’t even much of a dad then. Only saw her once or twice a year.”

  “You?”

  “I wasn’t always involved.” Alex grimaced, thinking of his youth and the many idiotic decisions he’d made. “Or responsible.”

  “We’ve all been there. I remember when—”

  The bedroom door opened, and Drew poked his head out. “Come on in. Selena wants me to let you know it isn’t always this messy.”

  “We’re not here to judge.” Garcia took a step toward the room, and Alex followed.

  Drew opened the door, revealing a room that looked every bit under construction as the missing girl’s was said to be. There were ladders, buckets of paint, and personal items strewn around. Nothing to get so worked up over—at least nothing within sight was. Alex took in as much of the room as he could while also giving the young boy in the large bed a reassuring smile.

  Selena sat with him, surrounded by piles of covers. The boy’s head barely poked out.

  Alex knelt to his level. “Are you Elias? I’m Officer Mercer, but you can call me Alex.” He glanced at the boy’s parents. “They can’t, though. Just you.”

  Elias smiled.

  Garcia gave Alex a nod of approval.

  Alex held his hand out toward the boy, and he shook it. “You know where Trixie is?”

  Elias shook his head, his expression falling. He bit his lower lip and looked down.

  “It’s hard, isn’t it?”

  The boy looked up at Alex but didn’t say anything.

  “When I was a kid, my sister disappeared, too. It was kind of the same thing. We woke up one morning, and she was just gone. Is that what happened with you? You woke up, and she wasn’t in her bed? Or anywhere?”

  Elias turned and shrugged.

  Alex drew a deep breath. “Did you wake up and notice she wasn’t there?”

  The boy hummed a tune.

  “I was scared when my sister disappeared, too. But it wasn’t my fault, and it isn’t yours either.”

  Elias glanced at his mom before looking at Alex. “I woke up last night and Trixie was kicking things.”

  “You saw the person who took her?”

  The boy sucked on his lip and nodded.

  “What did he look like? The person who took her?”

  Elias held Alex’s gaze. “Not a he. A woman. She wore a long red dress.”

  Alex’s stomach dropped. The same description Tinsley had given.

  Chapter 9

  Nick’s office door burst open as soon as Alex rounded the corner. He waved Alex in. “Tell me everything!”

  Alex sat on the visitor’s side of Nick’s massive desk, pulled out his phone, then looked at the notes he’d made to make sure he didn’t forget anything.

  “The missing girl was taken by a lady in red? Just like Tinsley said.”

  Alex nodded. “The boy’s wording was that she was a woman in a long red dress.”

  “And he saw her take his sister? In the middle of the night?”

  “Right. He didn’t say anything right away because the lady threatened to hurt Trixie if he didn’t stay in bed.”

  Nick pulled on his hair. “You’ve got to be kidding me! This can’t be happening. Another serial kidnapper! What’s so special about our town? I don’t get it. Is there something in our soil that attracts the criminals?”

  Alex shrugged. “Just lucky, I suppose. But the kidnapping ring—one of their leaders was living here. That had to play into it.”

  Nick paused. “Speaking of which, seems we do need to pay Cal Jones a visit. See what we can get out of him.”

  “Believe me, I’ve already been planning how that’s going to go down.” Alex clenched his fists. “I closed down my blog like they demanded. They were supposed to go away.”

  Nick tapped his desk. “Could be unrelated.”

  Alex shook his head. “No way. They’re sending a message.”

  “Someone is.”

  “You don’t think it’s them? We took down Cal. My daughter’s dating Cal’s son.”

  Nick held his gaze. “If it is them, they’re going to regret it. It’s personal now. They lured out my daughter.”

  Alex nodded. “There’s an artist working on a sketch of the woman who took Trixie. You should have Tinsley look at it. Maybe it’s not even the same person.”

  Nick looked lost in thought as he responded. “She never got a look at the lady’s face. It was just the dress and hair.” He hesitated. “Did they find any shoe imprints on the scene? We could prove a connection if they match the ones found in my woods.”

  “I’m not sure about the shoes. Forensics was still on the scene when I left.”

  “They’ll be there a while. I’ll give Wallace a call, see if she’s seen anything, and make sure they look if they haven’t. These two cases have to be tied together.”

  “Don’t see how they couldn’t be.” Alex looked through his notes again to make sure he hadn’t missed anything important. “How’s Tinsley holding up?”

  “She seems fine, but it’s always hard to tell with her. So often, she keeps things to herself. But at least she does talk now. She isn’t completely nonverbal like she was when Genevieve first took her on.”

  “I can have Ari talk with her.”

  Nick nodded as he looked at something on his computer screen. “Sure. She’s more likely to open up to Hanna, though. Tonight, I’ll have to find out if Hanna knows anything she hasn’t told us.”

  Alex rose. “I’m going to fill out the report. I’ll call the prison about visiting Cal.”

  “No. I’m on that.” Nick’s brows drew together. “And that reminds me, I should bring the kids to visit their mom.”

  “I thought they didn’t want to see Corrine.”

  “They don’t, but taking them is the right thing to do.”

  Alex arched a brow. “You’re a better man than me. Not sure I would do that in your shoes.”

  “You would. It’s what the kids need, even if it isn’t what they want. I’m going to call about both visits.”

  “Okay. And I’ll make sure the feds know about this new case. If it’s linked to the kidnapping ring, they’ll want to know.”

  “What about that PI of yours?”

  “I’m not sure he would be able to find anything we or the feds can’t. The only reason I used him was because I couldn’t get any police resources.”

  “Keep him in mind for later, then.”

  “Okay.” Alex left, closing the door behind him. Exhaustion pressed every inch of him. He poured a cup of coffee then added flavored creamer before heading to his desk. After he settled, he looked over the notes from the previous related cases—everything in connection to the ring that he had access to without contacting the feds.

  Nothing about a woman in a red dress.

  It had to be a personal message. But why? He had done what they wanted. His blog was still down because he had to keep his family safe, but had he done the right thing? Cal had proven how easily he could get to Alex’s loved ones.

  A shudder ran down his back as the image of Cal forcing himself on Zoey popped into his mind. As hard as Alex tried, he couldn’t erase that picture from his mind. He still didn’t know how Cal h
ad managed to pull off a fake interview just to grope Alex’s wife and send him the picture.

  “Did you hear?” Garcia’s voice broke through his thoughts.

  Alex shook his head to clear it. “Hear what?”

  “Someone found Trixie.”

  “The missing girl?”

  “Yeah. In some bookstore in Seattle. Not sure why the woman would go so far to drop her off, but the good news is, she’s safe. She’s with social services there now.”

  Alex struggled to make sense of it. “Was she hurt? Did they do anything to her?”

  Garcia shook his head. “Someone working at the store found her in the kids’ section with an ice cream cone. She was just reading a book.”

  “A bookstore.” Alex leaned back in his chair, trying to figure out the significance of that. What message was that supposed to send?

  “Crazy, huh?”

  Alex nodded, lost in thought trying to connect the dots. But which ones? None of it made any sense. How did any of it link together? Tinsley made sense—she was connected to Alex. His best friend’s daughter. Or the woman could have even been trying to get Ariana, who had been in the treehouse at the time. But there was no connection to Trixie aside from her being in the same town.

  Unless there was a link Alex wasn’t aware of. Had he gone to school with either of the parents? Or something else? Unless this new attack was aimed at Nick. Did he have a connection to the family?

  “Alex?” Garcia waved his hand in front of Alex’s face.

  “Did you say something?”

  “I’m going to see if the parents want a ride to Seattle to pick up the girl. Want to join me if they say yes?”

  Alex could hardly pull himself away from his thoughts. “Maybe.”

  Garcia mumbled something as he walked away.

  Alex’s mind spun faster. He got up and knocked on Nick’s door. Went inside as soon as his friend waved him in.

  “Find something?” Nick asked.

  “They found the girl.” Alex paced the length of the office. “I keep thinking there has to be a link, but there isn’t a connection between me and that family. What about you?”