by Sara Davison
Sharleen rang the bell two more times before Daniel caught the faint sound of shuffling feet on the other side of the door. They waited through a pause, likely while whoever was on the other side looked out the peephole, before the door was yanked open. A woman with tousled, shoulder-length brown hair and crooked teeth, yellow in the dim porch light, clutched a pink robe to her throat as she stared at them. “What is it?” Her voice was deep and raspy—clearly a career smoker.
“Ma’am, I’m Detective Grey and this is Detective Roberts from Toronto Police Services.” He flashed his badge and nodded toward the house. “May we come inside?”
The woman closed the door a little. “Not until I know what this is about.”
Daniel drew in a deep breath. Every second counted, and they were ticking away far faster than he would like as they stood there on the porch. “Do you have a child living here with you?”
“She’s not mine, she’s my husband’s girl, but yes, she lives here.”
“Is your husband at home?”
The woman snorted. “The only home he belongs in. Cirrhosis got him last year, like I told him it would.”
“So you are the girl’s guardian?”
“Apparently.” The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Why? Did CAS send you here again? That girl is fine. The only ones harming her are those social workers that keep poking their noses into our business.” She uttered a few choice words that made her opinion on Children’s Aid workers abundantly clear. Daniel’s jaw tightened. “Ma’am, is the child at home?”
She frowned. “Of course she’s home. It’s one o’clock in the morning, and she’s five years old.”
“Would you mind checking to make sure?”
Her features hardened and for a moment he thought she’d refuse. Then she rolled her eyes. “Whatever.” The door slammed in their faces and the sound of shuffling feet receded.
Daniel looked at Sharleen. “Wow.”
“No kidding. Not exactly mother-of-the-year material, is she?”
“Not my initial impression, no. She sounds more than a little resentful that her dearly departed husband’s child has been thrust upon her.”
Even through the closed door, they could hear the woman stomping around upstairs, calling out the girl’s name, Mia.
Sharleen inclined her head in the direction of the sounds. “Not that we’re here to investigate her, but it’s worth noting that she’s obviously had some run-ins with CAS, like the parents of the other kids who have disappeared, which confirms that’s relevant, as we’d suspected.”
“It definitely looks like it.”
The tromping of footsteps grew louder, and the door swung open. Even in the dim light of the cobweb-encrusted bulb on the porch, the woman’s face was ashen. “Mia’s not in her bed. What’s going on?”
Sharleen pressed a palm to the doorframe and leaned in a little closer. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but we believe she may have been taken.”
“Taken?” The woman’s voice was approaching hysteria, and Daniel shot a glance down the quiet street. “Did those CAS—”
He held up a hand before she could launch into a full-blown tirade. “No ma’am. CAS doesn’t break in and sneak children out of their homes in the night. We think Mia might have been abducted by the same person, or persons, who have recently taken three other children in the city.”
The woman swayed on her feet. “I think you better come inside.” She spun around and headed into the living room.
Daniel held out a hand for Sharleen to go ahead, then followed her in and shut the door. The smell of second-hand smoke assaulted his nostrils.
“Have a seat.” The woman flapped a hand in the direction of the couch. “You think she’s been kidnapped? Why? Who would take her? I don’t have any enemies, or any money for ransom. Why would they bother with her?”
Interesting choice of words. Daniel sat down beside Sharleen on the couch. The acrid smell of cat urine rose from the cushions to compete with the smoke. He tried to ignore it—and the thick layer of animal hair that coated every visible surface—as he pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket. “That’s what we’re trying to find out, ma’am.”
She flapped a hand again. “Enough with the ma’am stuff. It’s Darlene.”
He clicked open his pen. “Last name?”
“White.”
Sharleen cleared her throat. “Is Mia’s mother in the picture?”
Darlene sank onto a chair and retied the belt on her robe. “Not really. I mean, she’s alive. Doesn’t have much to do with her daughter though. She comes by to see her every few months, whenever she gets herself straight.”
“Any siblings?”
“Nah. She’s an only child. Thank—” She pressed her lips together as though she’d realized she might be saying too much.
“Can you tell us what she was wearing?”
“Her Little Kitty pajamas, I think. White with pink letters on the front.”
“She appeared to be wrapped up in something. Does she have a blanket?”
“Yeah. She always slept with an old, worn out knitted blanket her mother gave her one time. Light blue, although pretty faded now.”
Daniel scribbled down that detail. “Do you have a picture?”
The woman frowned. “I think she brought one home from school a while ago. I’ll see if I can find it.” She stood and crossed the room to a sideboard covered in books and papers.
Daniel glanced around the room. Two small running shoes lay on their sides near the door, a hole in the bottom of each. Not a lot of protection from the snow. No boots? He couldn’t see any from where he sat.
After a moment of rummaging through piles, the woman pulled out a plastic bag. “Here.” She carried it back and thrust it at Sharleen.
His partner tugged out a proof photo, turned it in his direction, then, when he nodded, shoved it back in the bag. “Is it all right if we take this with us?”
The woman shrugged. “Sure.”
Sharleen set the bag down on the coffee table in front of them. “So you didn’t hear any noises in the house in the last twenty or thirty minutes?”
“No. I was asleep. I go to bed at eleven and don’t wake up until it’s time to get the kid off to school.”
The kid? Daniel studied her. Just what kind of relationship did the two of them have, anyway? Obviously not a terribly warm and fuzzy one.
She shifted under his intense gaze. “Mia, I mean. Look, I’ll do whatever I can to help. I worry about her, always falling and hurting herself so I have to take her to the hospital. She’s real clumsy, you know? I have to keep an eye on her all the time.”
A five-year-old that falls and hurts herself so badly that she repeatedly has to go to the hospital? That doesn’t sound suspicious at all. Daniel frowned. It was tough not to get cynical in his line of work, but sometimes that was a good thing, made him pay closer attention to body language, and to what a suspect wasn’t saying, as much or more than the words they were spewing. Not that this woman was a suspect, as Sharleen had reminded him. “Do you mind if we go upstairs and take a look around?”
Her face darkened a little. “I guess not. Mia’s room is the second one on the left.”
“When we come back, we’ll need to get contact information for her mother, if you have it.” He headed for the stairs without waiting for a response.
Sharleen followed him up to the little girl’s room. Daniel flipped on the light switch. Several worn Barbies, one missing a leg and another a head, and two dolls, both naked with short, jagged hair, as though they’d been shorn with dull child’s scissors, were scattered across the floor. Whoever the intruder was, if he hadn’t used a light, Daniel was surprised he hadn’t tripped or made any sound while making his way over to the bed. Several candy wrappers, an empty juice box, and other bits of garbage littered the floor around the bed. The sheets were rumpled and looked like they hadn’t been washed in a while. Otherwise, the room appeared to be a fairly ordinary little girl’s
room, the mess a result of playtime, not a struggle. “Why wouldn’t she have cried out?”
Sharleen had been examining the window, which was closed. She turned when he asked the question. “What?”
“Wouldn’t she have woken up when he wrapped the blanket around her and picked her up? I’m surprised she didn’t scream or call out for Darlene or something.”
Sharleen lifted her shoulders. “Maybe she did, and her step-mother is a really deep sleeper.”
“Maybe.” His phone vibrated, and Daniel pulled it from his shirt pocket and glanced at the screen. “Forensics is here. Hopefully they’ll be able to find evidence we can’t see, because nothing looks out of the ordinary to me.”
Sharleen sighed. “Me neither. Let’s go get that contact information and see if the mother can offer any insight into who might have taken Mia.”
“Yeah. And I’d like to look into the fact that CAS has been involved with all four kids, see if we can connect those dots to find out what that means.”
Daniel trailed after his partner as she headed out into the hall. In the doorway, he turned for one last look at the room. A Barbie in a long golden gown and glittering crown, the only new-looking thing in the room, lay beside the pillow. Probably Mia’s favorite. Was she asking for it, even now? She had to be terrified, although she hadn’t appeared to be moving when the abductor handed her off to the person in the back seat. Daniel’s chest squeezed. Had the man killed her? He scanned the room again, looking for a hint of blood or anything else that might indicate violence, but saw nothing. Maybe she was a really deep sleeper too. Or the abductor had drugged her. That thought jogged a memory. On a hunch, Daniel walked back across the room, his gaze fixed on the floor. As he approached the bed, a tiny object on the wooden floor, almost hidden beneath a doll’s dress, caught his eye. Daniel took the pen out of his pocket, crouched down, and poked the dress aside.
Sharleen came up behind him. “What is it?”
“I got to thinking that, since she didn’t make any noise, maybe the girl had been drugged. Then I remembered seeing a tiny piece of plastic on the floor with the other garbage. What do you think, does it look like the right size to cover the tip of a needle?”
“Possibly. Make sure you mention it to forensics. Maybe they can get something off of it.”
“Here’s hoping.” Since he’d lost the chance to provide a DNA sample to them when the suspect grabbed back his ski mask, Daniel would be very happy if he could supply it to them some other way. The suspect had been wearing gloves when he saw him, but it was possible he’d left prints earlier, when preparing the needle. He straightened up, and he and Sharleen picked their way carefully to the hallway.
Darlene was waiting for them at the bottom of the stairs. “Here.” She held out a crumpled piece of paper. “Mia’s mother’s name and the last number I had for her. Can’t guarantee it’s still good, though.”
“Thanks.” Daniel took it and stuck it into his jacket pocket. “Is she in Toronto?”
“Last I heard.”
A knock sounded on the door. Darlene turned toward it, a scowl twisting across her face. “Now what?”
“That’s the forensics team.” Daniel gave her an apologetic look as Sharleen went to open the door and let them in. “They’ll be going all over Mia’s bedroom, and anywhere else in the house the intruder might have been, hoping to find evidence.” He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a card. “Here’s my contact information. If you think of anything else that might be helpful, please give me a call.”
“I will.” She stuck the card into the pocket of her robe then grabbed his arm. “Do you … will you be able to find her, do you think?” Her voice wavered, and for the first time, Daniel saw fear in her eyes. Maybe she cared about the girl a little more than it had seemed, at first. Or maybe it had occurred to her that she could lose her monthly child allowance check.
He patted her hand, which was ice cold. “I promise you we’ll do everything we possibly can to bring her home safe.”
Darlene slid her fingers out from under his. “Thank you.”
Daniel spoke briefly with the forensics team, filling them in on what little he and his partner knew as he took them upstairs and showed them the piece of plastic beside the bed. When he came back down, he and Sharleen headed out to the porch.
He contemplated what he’d said to the woman as he pulled the door shut behind them. He had every intention of doing everything in his power to keep his promise to her and bring Mia home.
The problem was, based on the disappearing acts he’d witnessed tonight, the possibility of finding Mia safe and sound felt terrifyingly slim.
Chapter Nine
“His hair was medium brown and cut slightly above his ears.” Daniel drew a line along the side of his head with one finger to demonstrate to the artist.
With his guidance, the woman penciled a sketch that Daniel really hoped captured the look of the alleged child abductor. It had been fairly dark in the backyard, and he’d only had a couple of seconds to take in the guy’s face, but what he saw on the paper seemed a decent likeness. It was the best the two of them could do, anyway. “That’s all I can remember. Looks good.” He stood up and stretched his arms above his head before crossing over to open the door of the room they’d commandeered down at police headquarters.
The woman started gathering up her supplies. “We’ll run this through our facial recognition software and get it out on the Internet as quickly as possible.” She closed the lid on her box of pencils. “With the amber alert still on, the public should be paying attention.” The artist zipped her bag closed and slung it over her shoulder before walking to the door. “Someone has to know who this guy is. Hopefully we’ll get some solid tips in the next few hours.”
“I hope so. Thanks.”
The sketch artist nodded and brushed past him. Raised voices in the room next door caught Daniel’s attention, and he propped a shoulder against the doorframe to listen, in case someone needed assistance.
“So, you understand that if you post bail, he will be able to come home, right? At least until we decide whether or not this will go to trial.”
Through the six-inch opening, Daniel caught a glimpse of a dark-haired man, a lawyer, from the sounds of it, sitting at a table, hands clasped tightly in front of him.
Daniel shifted slightly so he could see the woman, a bottle-blonde in a tight blue tank top, perched on the chair across from him. Two little girls, doll-like with strawberry curls and big blue eyes, shared the chair beside her and silently watched the man across from them.
“You’d be wasting your time if you dragged this into court. I over-reacted, that’s all. It was no big deal. I want him to come home.” Her eyes, rimmed with heavy dark make-up, traveled down the length of the man across from her and slowly back up. “That is, unless you’d like to come home with me. I could do with an upgrade right about now.” Her bag slid from her lap and several items spilled out across the floor. Letting loose with a string of curse words, she hopped off her chair and crouched down to shove everything back into the bag.
“Godzilla would be an upgrade, lady.” The man muttered the words, too quietly for the woman to hear him, but Daniel caught them. He pressed his lips together to keep from laughing. Whoever the guy was, Daniel liked him already.
The woman settled back onto her seat and looked him over again. “Well?”
He didn’t bother to respond this time, just leveled a cool stare in her direction.
After a few seconds she let out a harsh laugh. “Guess not, huh. Well, your loss.” She flipped her long, stringy hair back over her shoulder. “So, can we go or what?”
The lawyer pulled a piece of paper out of his briefcase and slid it across the table to her. “Sign this.”
“Umm, a pen would be helpful.”
The lawyer’s jaw tightened, but he pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and handed it to her.
Daniel admired his composure. His gaze drifted to the
little girls. The red welt on the cheek of the youngest one sent anger twisting through him. Was that what this was about? Was the woman refusing to press charges against her husband or boyfriend or whatever he was after he’d clearly pounded on this innocent child? His hands clenched into fists. Nothing should surprise him anymore, but the willingness of a parent to allow her child to be abused by another adult while she did nothing still always did. The lawyer managed a smile for the two little girls, but they only stared at him, eyes wide.
The woman scribbled something at the bottom of the page, then shoved the chair away from the table and grabbed her black bag from the floor. “See ya, sexy.”
Taking the hand of her little sister, the older girl pulled her toward the door after their mother.
The man jumped to his feet. Striding past the girls, he slapped a palm against the doorframe. The woman whirled toward him, eyes flashing.
Alarm bells went off in Daniel’s head. He took a step forward then stopped, waiting to see what would happen.
Leaning in, the lawyer locked his gaze on the woman’s. “You have one main job in life, to take care of your girls. That’s it.”
“My girls are my business.” She spat the words at him.
“If I see you in here again, maybe they won’t be.”
A flash of fear darted through her eyes before they turned insolent again. The lawyer stepped to the side as she stormed out of the room.
Daniel ducked into the space he’d been in with the artist. He watched the woman cross the lobby, her daughters on her heels. That tiny flicker of fear was a good sign. Maybe the lawyer had actually gotten through to her, and she would think about what he had said. Probably not, but maybe. Daniel stepped forward and peered into the other room. Rolling one shoulder and then the other as if to relieve the tension of the meeting, the man turned to grab his briefcase.
A disturbance at the front desk outside the rooms caught Daniel’s attention, and he turned to see what was going on. A man in a white undershirt, beer belly hanging out underneath, stood at the counter, clutching the arm of the girl's mother. “I told you I didn’t do anything. I’m gonna talk to my lawyer.”
