First Touch

by Teyla Branton

  “Yes.”

  “Well, Miss Rain, I guess we’ll see.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to tell him to call me Autumn, but maybe I didn’t want to give that favor to a man who so obviously mistrusted me.

  He left me alone in a room with four chairs surrounding a table. A short time later he reappeared with a little girl’s pink bicycle that was completely covered in clear plastic. “This is the only evidence we have,” he told me. “It was found in a park about ten blocks from the child’s home.”

  I stood up from the table and approached the bike. “Isn’t that a little far for a ten-year-old to go alone?”

  “According to the parents, she’s never allowed to go farther than around the block, if that. It’s a nice area. Safe. Nothing should have happened to her.”

  “Yet something did.”

  He nodded, his face tight. “Of all abducted children who are murdered, nearly ninety percent are killed and found within the first day.”

  “Maybe she’s not with someone who would hurt her.”

  “Now that we’ve ruled out family, that’s the hope. But of all stranger or near-stranger abductions, only about sixty percent are recovered.”

  It was far lower than I’d hoped. “So you’re sure it’s not a family member?”

  “As sure as I can be. All the extended family are close and accounted for.” The lines on his face seemed deeper now. “The biggest problem is that three days is a lifetime in a kidnapping. Plenty of time to hide the child—or to hurt them.”

  Poor little Alice. I touched the bicycle handle through the plastic. A faint imprint of two-day-old frustration reached me—not through the plastic but on the plastic itself. The emotion wasn’t strong enough to identify anything about whoever left it.

  “I’ll need to remove the plastic,” I said.

  “Shouldn’t you sit down? I can bring it over to a chair.”

  I did usually read imprints sitting down on the stool at my counter, though only a few had been so strong as to require me to sit—the imprint from a woman who left her husband, and another from the backpack of a child who had run away to avoid bullying at school. Those cases had both resolved with happy endings, but this case was far more serious. For the first time, I worried about what I might find on the bicycle and how it would affect me. At my shop, I always kept my parents’ book of poetry around in case I felt the need for revitalization, but here I had nothing like that except my four oversized antique rings. They contained faint feel-good imprints, and protected me just a little when I ran across imprints I wasn’t expecting, but they wouldn’t do much against strong negative emotions.

  “Okay.” I walked back to the table and pulled out a chair to sit. Then I removed my antique rings and set them on the table, close enough to reach for if I needed them.

  Shannon Martin was removing the plastic when Officer Elvey poked his head in the door. “We’re out here now, so anytime you want to begin. But the mic isn’t on.”

  “Thanks.”

  Detective Martin flipped a switch near the door before wheeling the bike over to me. My heart started pounding. What if I found nothing? I wasn’t worried about the detective’s scorn, but I was worried about the father. I wanted to assuage his grief.

  “It’s been thoroughly examined for fingerprints,” the detective said. “We didn’t find any, but I hope that won’t interfere with your . . . uh, thing.”

  “It shouldn’t,” I said. “Not even washing would make a difference unless it’s clothes Probably because washing destroys the fibers a bit.”

  “That’s interesting.” He was watching me intently, and it felt a little too intimate.

  Better put this behind me. The handle was the natural place to start, so I reached out and placed my fingers on the one nearest me.

  The man jumped out in front of my bike before I even saw him. Fear shot through me as I slammed on my brakes. He reached for me. My heart pounded. One big hand closed over my arm.

  Terror. Mommy! Daddy! Help! He pulled at me. I clung to the bike. I opened my mouth to scream . . . and something filled it. Something soft.

  A strong sweet smell made my stomach lurch. I was drowning in it. My hands and arms started to tingle. I was going to die.

  His arm went roughly around me. I kicked hard.

  Blackness.

  Chapter 3

  “Miss Rain! Miss Rain!” a voice called from very far away.

  I tried to open my eyes, but they wouldn’t obey me. My heartbeat was still rapid from the terrifying imprint. Finally, I pulled together the strength to open my eyes.

  “What happened?” I asked. Somehow I was on the floor. Or the bottom half of me was. The other half was in Detective Martin’s lap.

  “You appeared to faint.” Skepticism filled the detective’s voice.

  Was that why he was sitting on the floor holding me? He smelled great and his arms felt safe—until everything came rushing back. The man jumping out in front of me. The terror.

  “Oh, dear God,” I prayed.

  “What?” Detective Martin demanded.

  “She was taken. By a man. He had this creepy smile . . . and dead eyes.” My chest convulsed with tears poor Alice hadn’t had time to shed. “He stepped in front of her when she was riding her bike on the sidewalk. He held something over her mouth. Something that smelled sweet and strong. It was suffocating.”

  The detective helped me back up to the chair. “Where was it? Did you notice anything more?”

  Tears kept coming as I forced myself to replay the scene in my mind. “She was by a house with a big tree in the front, one with roots above the ground.”

  “Not at a park?”

  “No. There was a car stopped ahead on the road. A pale tan, or off-white. Parked on the wrong side of the street—the right side—with the driver’s door next to the sidewalk.”

  “Is that all?”

  “She was so . . .” Belatedly, I remembered her father listening outside the room. I lowered my voice. “Afraid.”

  “And you’re sure that’s all?”

  Imprints never changed, but sometimes I missed things. And since I’d fainted before the end of it there might be more. I didn’t want to touch the bicycle again, but I knew I had to. For Alice.

  I must have knocked the bike over because it was on its side. With a shuddering breath, I pushed myself off the chair and knelt beside it on weak knees, grabbing the handle before I could talk myself out of it.

  The imprint replayed, the horror every bit as potent as the first time. I tried to notice the houses Alice passed, or anything else that might be a clue, but I could only see what the imprinter saw, and Alice didn’t care about houses. Or license plates.

  The imprint cut off again as her hands were ripped from the handlebars, but this time I didn’t faint. Her limbs were tingling and she was disoriented, but I didn’t think she’d lost consciousness at that point.

  Another imprint followed from not more than ten minutes before the abduction.

  This was the most awesome bike ever! When I got home I was going to kiss my parents and tell them how much I loved it. Super cool. There was my friend Caleb watching me ride by. I straightened my princess crown and waved. He was a nice boy, and I would have invited him to my party if we hadn’t been painting fingernails and dressing up. Boys weren’t interested in stuff like that. The wind was in my hair, and I reached up to make sure the crown didn’t fall off.

  That was all. When the abduction imprint began to replay, I pulled back my hand.

  “She was wearing her princess crown. She loved the bike, the wind in her face. About ten minutes before the man jump out in front of her, she waved at a friend named Caleb.” Tears were still leaking down my face, but I didn’t care.

  The detective stiffened. “How did you know about the crown?”

  Was he an idiot? “There were two imprints. It was in the second, which means earlier. I always see the most recent first.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He ha
uled me none-too-gently from the floor and into the chair. “We didn’t tell anyone about the crown. How did you know?” He was practically screaming at me now.

  Adrenaline raced through my body, cutting through the weakness left by Alice’s last imprint. I jumped to my feet and lifted my chin. Our faces were inches apart. “Because I saw it!”

  “Or maybe you’re involved!”

  “What?” I clenched my fists, which I wanted to ram into him. “Are you crazy? I hadn’t even heard of the kidnapping before you walked into my store.”

  “And why’s that? It’s been all over the news.”

  “Which I don’t watch! Besides, three days ago I was in Kansas.” With Tawnia and Bret, actually, visiting my sister’s adoptive parents. “You can check that I was on the flight. But this is insane. Shouldn’t you be looking for the guy I saw? Or the tree? Or even talking to her friend? It would make a lot more sense than blaming me.”

  Whatever else he’d been going to say died on his lips. “You can identify the man?”

  “Of course. I saw exactly what Alice saw.”

  He glared at me for long seconds before saying, “Okay, let’s play this your way.” He turned to the two-way mirror where presumably Mr. Craigwell and Officer Elvey were watching. “Get me a sketch artist in here pronto!”

  I sank back into the chair, my stomach growling and my emotions fragile. I’d do what I could to describe the man and hope they didn’t lock me up. One thing about imprints—I could check them any time, so the details wouldn’t change. As long as Alice saw him correctly, we would get an accurate image of the man who’d taken her.

  “Stay here,” Detective Martin said. “I’ll be right back.”

  Do I have a choice? But I didn’t say the words aloud because this wasn’t for him, it was for the little girl.

  He was probably going to talk to Mr. Craigwell, and I didn’t envy him that job. Meanwhile, I had every intention of simply sitting here and recovering. Someone had taken up drumming inside my head, and it took effort to think.

  I stared at the bicycle. It hadn’t been in a park, which meant some other kid had found it and ridden it there. Or the kidnapper had left it at the park himself. That would mean he’d have to touch it. He hadn’t been wearing gloves when he’d grabbed Alice, so maybe he’d left an imprint on another part of the bike. Unlike a necklace or a pair of scissors that could be held in one hand, the bike had numerous parts, and it was conceivable that different imprints might be left on other parts of it. Even if he wiped the bike down to remove his fingerprints later, the imprints would remain.

  “Okay, then,” I whispered to myself. “If he moved it, where would he touch it?”

  I stood over the bike, holding out my hands, considering. Not the handle bars because they would move. No, I’d grab it on the back of the seat and on the short expanse of bar right below the handlebars next to the front reflector.

  I touched both places at the same time.

  I picked up the bike, walking it over to the open trunk of my sedan. I’d drop this at the park where it would be far enough away that I wouldn’t be suspected. With a little luck, it might be stolen, and that would give me more time. It had taken far longer than expected for the chloroform to do its job, but it was easier than the last time without the chloroform. Pretty little thing. I couldn’t wait to get her home.

  The imprint ended as the man put the bike into the trunk.

  I sat abruptly on the hard tile floor, breathing heavily. It was easier than the last time. If that meant what I thought it did, Alice wasn’t okay, and she might never be okay again.

  The door flew open. “What did you see?” Detective Martin was staring down at me, his eyes a mixture of anger and concern.

  “It’s not the first time,” I said. “Alice is the second child he’s taken.”

  Chapter 4

  I carefully checked the bicycle for more imprints, without success, and then spent the next two hours with a sketch artist. He helped me create a computer composite before he refined the drawing with an electronic pen directly on his tablet. When he finished, he’d gotten it perfect, from the dead eyes and frightening smile to the dark brown hair and pasty skin. Everything else about the perp was commonplace, from his ordinary looks to his average height and weight. A person no one would look at twice but for those dead, colorless eyes.

  I checked the bicycle to be sure I had it right, leaving my finger on the handlebar only long enough to see his face. “It’s him,” I confirmed.

  That must have been Detective Martin’s signal to enter the room. He studied the rendering on the screen. “Let’s get this out to the tri-county area immediately.”

  Nodding, the forensic artist grabbed his tablet and left the room.

  “Did you find anything about another missing child?” I asked Detective Martin.

  “We have several dozen outstanding missing children cases. We’re researching all of them to see if there are any similarities to this case.”

  “It’s probably a little girl.”

  “That’s what we think. But then, most children taken by strangers are girls. Look, I’d like you to go with me for a drive around the Craigwells’ neighborhood. See if you can locate that tree. There might be evidence in the street, or at least we can start canvassing the area from that point. If he moved the bike as you say, it could have been to protect where he’s living.”

  As you say. I ignored his clear implication that I might be lying.

  “We made a drawing of the tree too,” I said. “But sure, I’ll go with you.” Jake would probably be close to closing my shop now. No use in heading back there. “But could we stop someplace and buy something to eat? I didn’t have lunch.” And all they’d offered me during the long hours I’d been here was a bottle of water.

  He blinked. “Oh, right. We have a vending machine.”

  I sighed. “You know what, I’ll wait. I’m sort of a health nut.” I preferred to think of it as health conscious, but many people didn’t see it that way. Preservatives, GMO foods, and the like were never on my menu.

  “We’ll rustle something up.”

  “You sound like you live on a farm.”

  “Not quite, though I do own an acre on the outskirts of town.”

  Well that was a surprise. Did that mean he had another life that didn’t involve tracking missing persons or solving homicides? I wondered if he owned a dog. Maybe he got his rugged good looks from running around his place and not from working homicide and missing persons.

  He led me out of the room and put me at his desk again to twiddle my thumbs. He had a package of salted almonds on the desk, so I opened them and began eating, though they weren’t the most healthy version. The jittering feeling inside me eased.

  Absently, I rubbed my hand across a basketball-shaped paperweight on the desk. An imprint came to me, at least five years old.

  I held the paperweight, surprised at the heaviness of the object. “Congratulations, Shannon,” the chief said as she slapped me on the back. “You win most valuable player. Finally, we beat the firefighters.” Everyone around us cheered.

  “Okay, I’m ready.” This from the current-day Shannon, who appeared so stealthily behind me that I almost spilled the almonds.

  No, he wasn’t Shannon, he was Detective Martin to me, no matter how seeing from his eyes made the separation between friend and acquaintance obsolete.

  “What about your partner?”

  “He’s still with the dogs. This is only a reconnaissance drive. We’ll grab something to eat on the way.”

  “Great,” I stood, my finger grazing a notebook on the desk.

  Writing a letter to a man named Shannon, a man who’d saved my grandfather’s life and who I’d been named after. My family owed him a lot, but what to say to him? He’d been like an uncle to my father, but I hadn’t known him all that well. I should make it a point to visit him in England while he was still around. My grandfather would have liked that.

  I snatched my
hand away. The emotion the detective felt was more for his grandfather than the man he’d been named after, and the strength of it surprised me.

  “Something wrong?” Detective Martin asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “No.” I tossed a few more almonds into my mouth before shoving my hands into my jacket pockets. I wasn’t going to touch one more thing in this precinct, if I could help it.

  True to his word, we stopped for supposedly organic sandwiches which he, or someone at the precinct, had called ahead and ordered. We ate as he drove, with me downing my entire sandwich before he finished even half of his. The only person I knew who could out eat me was my sister—and that was because she was pregnant.

  He chuckled, and I glanced over to see him watching me as we waited at a stoplight. “What?” I asked, lowering the iced tea that he’d also bought with my sandwich.

  “You want the rest of mine?”

  He probably thought I’d say no. I picked up his second half from the compartment that separated our seats, next to the large silver coffee mug he’d brought from the precinct. “Sure, thanks.”

  His chuckle deepened. “Glad to be of service.” He pulled forward as the light changed. “So how did you get into the imprints business?”

  I shrugged. “It just found me.”

  “How long ago?”

  “After the bombing. On the day of Winter’s funeral.”

  “Winter?”

  “My father.” I stifled my normal urge to share that he’d actually been born Douglas Rayne and that everyone had called him Winter because of his prematurely white hair. When he’d fallen in love with Summer, he’d officially changed his name to Winter Rain. He’d told me it was fate.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. What about you? How did you become a detective?”

  “My dad was a beat officer. But he’s retired now. Lives in Florida with my mother.”

  “So it’s a family thing.”

  “Not really. He hated it. He did his twenty years and retired to Florida to run a bed and breakfast. It was my grandfather who gave me a love of mystery. He taught history in college for forty-five years, and was a huge Perry Mason buff.”