Little Girl Lost: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery- Book 1

by Alexandria Clarke

  An office door creaked open, and Officer Scott and Mackenzie Hart—or Mac as I’d come to know her in the last week or so—joined the other officers in the refrigerated bullpen. I strained to catch the tail end of their conversation, but their words were inaudible from across the station. Scott patted Mac on the back and returned to his office. Her shoulders sagged. She turned around, caught my eye, and made a beeline for the front desk.

  “Hey, Bridget,” she said brightly, tugging me up from the bench and piloting me toward the door. “I almost forgot about our brunch plans!”

  “We have brunch plans?”

  She tipped her head toward the dozing Poitras and muttered, “Just go with it.”

  “Right!” I said. “Brunch plans. Yep. That’s why I’m here. I could kill for a stack of pancakes. You ready to go?”

  “Ready as ever.”

  Poitras grumbled beneath his hat. “Damn kids. You ever actually work at your desk, Hart?”

  “I’ll bring you a doggie bag, Poitras.”

  Mac ushered me out onto the street and led me beyond the scope of the police station’s glass windows. She studied me like a trail of footprints leading from a crime scene. “Jesus, did you go for a swim or something?”

  I flapped out the wrinkles of my sweaty shirt. “It’s hot. I’m surprised you haven’t grilled me about last night yet. Autumn said you were freaking out.”

  “I called the hospital earlier this morning,” she explained. “They reported that you were in stable condition.”

  “Stable, huh? In theory, I guess. What did Scott want with you?”

  We walked to the nearby dog park, where our conversation was muted by furious barking and the occasional sit or stay command. Mac leaned against the fence, took off her Belle Dame P.D. ball cap, and fanned herself with it.

  “A higher-up noticed that someone accessed Holly’s case file without permission,” she told me, her lips set in a grim, straight line.

  “That’s bad, isn’t it?”

  “It’s not good,” she admitted. “I could get fired for something like this.”

  I hung my head. “Shit. Mac, I’m so sorry. I never should’ve asked you to do that for me. If Bill and Emily had just clued me in on what was happening with Holly—”

  She waved off my apology. “I know you don’t have the best relationship with your foster parents. Don’t worry about it. Thankfully, Scott’s on my side. He knows I was just trying to help you out. He’s going to take care of it.”

  A golden retriever puppy gamboled by, tripping on its own ears as it chased after a wayward butterfly.

  “So you won’t get in trouble?” I asked.

  “Scott told me to take this as a very serious warning,” Mac replied, unable to suppress a grin as the puppy stopped near her feet and began to lick the toe of her boots through the chain-link fence. “They’re going to be watching me. It’s going to be a bitch to get any more information for you, at least at the station.”

  I reached for my pocket, where the corner of the Polaroid picture peeked out over the denim. “What about outside the station? You ever do your own research at home?”

  Mac followed the movement of my hand. “I like to think I’m pretty savvy. Why, you got something?”

  “Holly sent me a message.”

  She turned to face me, pulling her boot away from the fence. The puppy whined and pawed at the ground. “What kind of message?”

  I freed the picture from my jeans but kept it hidden in the palm of my hand. “Before I show you this, you have to promise not to judge me for who I was a few years ago.”

  Mac’s cocoa-colored eyes solidified in a hard glare. “All right.”

  “You should know—”

  A harsh vibration interrupted me as my phone, tucked in the opposite pocket of my pants, beeped out a message notification. I drew it out and swiped the touch screen to open the text. It was from a blocked number: Keep your cop friend out of it or Holly dies right now.

  I swallowed hard, my fingers tightening around the Polaroid.

  “Bridget? What is it?”

  “Nothing.” I deleted the message and, in one swift movement, tucked both the phone and the picture back into my jeans. “Never mind.”

  Mac arched a wary eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  I pushed off from the fence, backed away from the dog park, and stumbled over the curb. “I gotta go. I’ll let you know if anything comes up. Thanks, Mac.”

  She called after me as I sprinted away, but I pretended not to hear, my heart pounding in time with the beat of my sneakers against the burning pavement.

  3

  The Game Begins

  The local motel in Belle Dame wasn’t seedy, but it definitely didn’t match the level of cleanliness or coziness of the bed and breakfast down the street. Temporarily, it was home, and I had stayed in far worse places over the course of my international travels. At least this place didn’t have bedbugs. As I approached the door to my room, I drew out the phone again. The text was gone, but the message lingered in my head. Someone was watching me to make sure I did what they wanted, but how could I play along to a game with no rules?

  The answer arrived shortly. As I drew out the keycard to unlock my motel room, a postcard wedged into the door frame caught my eye. I snatched it up, swiped the keycard, and locked myself in the room—flipping the latch of the door jammer—before giving the postcard my full attention. It was a black and white photo of an underground chamber. The Paris Catacombs, a network of caves and tunnels that stretched hundreds of miles beneath the city, housed the remains of over six million bodies. I first learned of the mass tomb when I was nineteen, and my macabre sense of curiosity had sent me into the depths of the unknown.

  I trekked along at the back of our tour group, running my hands along the damp stone walls as we made our way toward the burial sites. It was a lengthy walk, one that the website warned wasn’t for the faint of heart. Ahead, the tour guide yammered on in solid French. Most of the group ignored her, opting to listen to the provided handheld audio guides instead. They, like me, were foreigners, but I had a better grasp of the language than most. My high school French classes came in rather handy, and I’d spent the better part of several months perfecting my accent as I traversed the less popular areas of the country. I prided myself on being able to keep up with the locals. They were moderately pleasant to tourists who didn’t butcher their native language.

  It had been roughly two years since I’d left home. Sometimes, it felt like two months. Sometimes, it felt like ten years. I’d dreamed of Paris in the same way that everyone else did—heart-stopping romance, distinguished wine, fresh baguettes, and the Eiffel Tower—but the experience ended up being entirely different than expected. This was better. This was an adventure to get to know myself better, and the underground chasms beneath the streets sounded like a great way to confront my fascination with death. I went alone. The other college-aged students at the hostel I was staying at refused to tag along. They claimed that the catacombs were haunted. That was fine with me. I wasn’t scared of ghosts. I’d practically been one ever since my parents died.

  Up ahead, several people gasped aloud. At long last, we had reached the interesting part of the tour, a section of the mass grave that was available to the public. As the group filtered into the room, I craned my neck to see over the heads of the others until we had shuffled far enough forward for a full glance. My jaw dropped in awe. Human bones lined the walls, stacked from the floor to the ceiling like a morbid jigsaw puzzle. Skulls encircled stone signs etched with the French language. Some explained where each set of bones had originated from, while others displayed poems and words to remind the visitor of their own mortality.

  “There were what we were,” an accented voice read out loud behind me. “Dust in the wind, fragile as men, weak as nothing.”

  I read along in French as the owner of the voice stepped up to my side. He was more beautiful than handsome, with the delicately angled face of a male runwa
y model rather than the rugged square jaw of most men. His pale blond hair, short on the sides and longer on top, was swept neatly but casually away from his face, revealing a pair of icy blue eyes. He was tall too. The top of my head reached his collarbone, which was impressive considering my own athletic build. A tattoo peeked out from beneath the sleeves of his thin cotton shirt, winding around a well-defined bicep.

  “Je peux lire,” I told him with a smirk.

  He glanced down at me in surprise. “She speaks French,” he said, his voice lilting with that hardwired Parisian superiority. “I’m impressed.”

  I rested a hand across my heart in mock gratitude. “It’s been my lifelong goal to impress a Frenchman. I can die happy now.”

  His laugh echoed through the chamber, startling some of the other tourists. “Paris must adore you, mademoiselle. You fit in so well.”

  “I’m working on it,” I told him. “I’ve only been here for two days. Don’t worry though. I’m confident in my ability to woo the rest of your charming city. I’m off to an excellent start, wouldn’t you agree?”

  The tour group continued deeper into the cavern, and I followed along behind them without waiting for an answer from my new companion. When his footsteps hastened to catch up with me, my lips found the curve of a smile.

  “I would not dare to offer an alternate opinion,” he replied. “Tell me, does your boyfriend know that you seek a darker path than the one you walk with him aboveground?”

  “Wow,” I whispered back, pretending to listen to the tour guide’s spiel. “That’s the line you’re going with? ‘I can show you the world?’”

  His answering chuckle spread a warmth through my stomach. “Perhaps. But you did not answer the question.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Ah. How intriguing.”

  “And I have no need to seek out a darker path,” I added. “I’ve already found mine.”

  His lips curled up in a mischievous beam. “Oh, you know nothing of the dark. This is just the beginning of the catacombs. This tour covers a mere fraction of these tunnels. If you want to get the real experience, you have to come back when the City of Light extinguishes its torches.”

  “That sounds legal,” I quipped.

  He winked. “Nothing fun is ever legal.”

  I bit my lower lip, hiding a smile. “I don’t disagree.”

  His eyes flickered toward my mouth. “Meet me tonight. I’ll show you what it really means to be Parisian.”

  “I don’t know you.”

  “But you could,” he pointed out. “I get the feeling it is very simple for you to make friends.”

  We had fallen behind the rest of the group, but I had no desire to catch up with the other tourists. I studied the outline of my acquaintance, tracing his slim build and listening to the impulsive hum of attraction as it buzzed through my veins like an amphetamine.

  I offered my hand. “I’m Bridget.”

  His fingers slipped into mine and caressed my wrist. “Everyone calls me Fox.”

  I shook off the memory and flipped over the postcard. Next to the address of the tour group in Paris—where any normal person would’ve written a quick note about their experience in the catacombs—was another message from Holly, the loop of her letters rattled and messy.

  Tell Bill the truth about the barn fire.

  My stomach flipped over. This was the game. Holly’s captors wanted to play puppet master. They knew things about me, things that few others were aware of. Belle Dame was full of burnt bridges for me. Apparently, that wasn’t torture enough. The first step toward getting Holly back was to demolish the remaining pieces of one said bridge, possibly beyond repair.

  The motel room safe, hidden in the closet, had a programmable code. I made quick use of it, depositing both the postcard and the damaged Polaroid before closing the thick door and ensuring that it was securely locked. Then I drew out my phone again. I hated technology. The deleted message had been moved to a trash file, not erased from the phone’s history. The blank number teased me from the screen. I created a new text.

  What do you want from me? I typed out.

  Not a minute later, the reply came. You have your instructions.

  My fingers raced against the touch keyboard. Bill will have me arrested if I tell him the truth. How am I supposed to play your game from the holding cell at the police station?

  The phone remained silent. My new pen pal had no other advice for me. I tried again.

  Is this Holly?

  Nothing. I threw the phone across the room, panicked when it smashed against the far wall, and rushed over to rescue it. The screen had cracked, but everything else was in working order. I shoved it into a pocket to protect it from future outbursts. It was my only point of contact with Holly’s captors.

  I paced in front of the door. My fingers worked through my hair, yanking out strands in stressful clumps. Holly’s handwriting flashed before my eyes. Tell Bill the truth about the barn fire. I took a deep breath, pondering my limited options. This was the game. This was Holly’s life. Play the game, get to Holly. That was the deal. I yanked open the motel door and walked out into the sun again.

  After ten years, Bill’s weekend routine had not altered. On Saturday mornings, he ran errands for his business. I located him at the feed and supply store at the edge of town. The store was more of a warehouse than a building. The low ceiling hovered over your head like a storm cloud ready to burst. Massive bags of livestock feed were stacked on wooden pallets shoulder-high. The sheer number of trucks parked in the dirt lot outside might have baffled out-of-towners. Here in Belle Dame, the community relied on local livestock and farming to feed their families. They wore the responsibility with badges of honor and proud smiles. Saturday morning at the feed store was more of a social event than a necessary outing. Everyone knew everyone else, and as they shopped, they talked about everything from picky horses to natural pesticides to the questionable existence of the one vegan restaurant in town.

  Bill Miller, the less prepossessing half of the couple that had collected me and Holly from the foster care system after the car crash that killed our parents, was a big man. People parted in the aisles to let his corpulent belly pass, tipping their hats at a steep upward angle to compensate for his giant-like height. His boots thudded against the polished concrete floor as he pushed a utility cart piled high with horse feed past the other customers. Almost everyone greeted him. Bill owned one of the largest farms in Belle Dame, and he made a point to stock fresh items from smaller businesses to sell in his store. Getting on his good side was a surefire way to pull in some extra revenue, and the locals knew it. Bill sealed deals the old-fashioned way, with a gruff verbal agreement and a firm handshake, because no one dared take advantage of his benevolence. It was a shame the same kindness didn’t extend to some of the children he and his wife, Emily, fostered.

  I followed him at a distance through the store, pretending to read the label on a fifty-pound bag of goat snacks when he glanced over his shoulder and squinted down the aisle for an item he’d missed on his first pass. There was no way to tell him about the barn in private. Bill could spend hours in the supply store, and if I wanted to get this over and done with as quickly as possible, I’d have to muster up the audacity to tell him the truth between the tractor maintenance tools and the big-and-tall workwear clothing racks. He turned a corner and disappeared out of sight. I sped up, but as I rounded the towering shelves, I ran smack into the firm, muscled chest of my childhood friend, Emmett Marks.

  “Bridget?” A bewildered expression crossed his husky, handsome face as he steadied me by the shoulders. “What are you doing here?”

  “I needed overalls.”

  “Yeah, right,” he scoffed. “You shouldn’t be racing through these aisles. It’s dangerous.”

  “I love to live in fear,” I replied. “Or did you forget?”

  He grinned, and his dimples popped into existence, playing with my feelings like they always did
. “How could I? You proved that again last night at The Pit. I helped load you into the ambulance. How much did you drink anyway?”

  I decided not to mention that the reason for my collapse was rooted in an inexplicable telepathic connection with my younger sister rather than an unplanned brush with alcohol poisoning. “I lost track. It wasn’t my finest moment.”

  Emmett unstuck a sweaty strand of hair from my forehead and brushed it behind my ear. “I’m really glad you’re okay.”

  “Me too.” I peeked around him to keep Bill’s enormous figure in my line of sight. Part of me was glad for Emmett’s distraction. I wasn’t ready to confront my foster father just yet. “What are you doing here anyway?”

  Emmett held up an obscure engine part for a riding lawnmower. “I had to pick something up for my job.”

  “On a Saturday?”

  “My boss is a stickler,” he said. “What’s your excuse?”

  “I told you.” I reached for the nearest pair of coveralls and held the hanger up to my neckline as if to check the size. The pant legs completely hid my feet. “I’m passionate about farm town fashion.”

  Emmett, bless his heart, went along with my insanity. “Well, my dear, I think you’d better have a look at the waders for ladies in the next aisle over. Might be a better fit. Plus, the camouflage patterns are to die for.”

  “I hear camo is all the rage this season.”

  He rolled his eyes with a smile. “I should get going. My boss is expecting me.”

  “Yeah, of course. Sorry.”

  I stepped out of the way, unblocking the path to the checkout line, but Emmett hesitated.

  “Bee, listen,” he said. “I know this week has been really hard on you, what with Holly gone and your birthday being a disaster, but I feel like you coming back to town after so long was kind of a sign. I missed you. A lot.”