What would Vance Township be like without Pete?
Zoe shifted away from the window and didn’t realize she’d groaned out loud until Earl gave her a concerned glance. “Are you okay?”
“No. Not even close.” But she wouldn’t allow the pain of losing Pete and her home to distract her from what mattered most. Finding Maddie.
Less than ten minutes later, Earl turned into the park on the hill overlooking Phillipsburg.
Zoe had vague memories of her dad bringing her here when she was a tot, pushing her on the swings, catching her at the bottom of the sliding board. As a teen, the picnic benches in the grove of trees had been a prime make-out spot. And the pool was always a welcome reprieve in the heat of summer. This evening, the usually peaceful recreation spot had transformed into yet another major emergency response scenario.
Both the Phillipsburg borough’s and Vance Township’s fire departments were on scene. The volunteers weren’t wearing bunker gear, but carried walkie-talkies and were working their way through the trees and underbrush bordering the park. State troopers, county police, Vance’s and Phillipsburg’s officers were scattered about, speaking with groups of picnickers, swimmers, and families, whose plans for the summer evening clearly had not included this.
Zoe picked up the mic. “Control, this is Medic Two. Show us on standby at the Phillipsburg Park.”
“Ten-four, Medic Two. Twenty forty-two.”
Almost nine o’clock. If Maddie was still here, somewhere, it would be dark soon.
Nausea slammed Zoe in the pit of her stomach. If Maddie was still here, what condition was she in? And if she wasn’t here, who had her and what was he doing with her?
Earl took the mic from Zoe and clipped it to the dash. “Stop imagining the worst.”
She looked at him. “You do have a crystal ball, don’t you?”
He opened his door. “Nope. Like I said before. I have kids. If it was my daughter out there…” He shook his head as he climbed out.
Zoe fell into step at Earl’s side. They headed toward the center of all the action where a pair of State Troopers, Bruce Yancy, and Pete gathered around a map spread on the hood of one of the county police vehicles.
“Is there anything we can do?” Zoe asked.
All the men glanced up, but her eyes stayed on Pete.
She expected him to chastise her for getting involved in the case, and she was ready to dig in yet again. But instead he asked, “Any word on Farabee?”
She relayed what she’d heard from Cindy.
The fire chief shook his head. “That family has been through hell in the last week.” Yancy aimed a pencil at her and Earl. “You two should stay here at the staging area. If we find the girl and she needs medical help, I don’t want to have to track you down and drag you out of the woods to treat her.”
For once in his life, Yancy had the tact to not mention the possibility of needing her deputy coroner training.
“Chief Adams,” someone called out.
They all turned. Seth was hurrying toward them, leading two women and three fair-haired little boys.
“What have you got?” Pete asked.
Seth motioned to one of the women, a short, rotund bleached blonde wearing a huge blue t-shirt, which hung almost to her knees and covered whatever shorts or bathing suit she had on under it. “Mrs. Carter may have seen Maddie.”
Zoe’s heart quickened. “Where? When?”
Pete held up a hand to her without looking away from the woman.
The blonde pointed in the direction of the pool. “Sherrie and I were sitting on a bench over there watching the boys swim. I spotted a man leaving with a little girl.” She nodded to Seth. “The same little girl in the picture he showed me on his phone. I’m sure of it.”
“What picture?” Zoe whispered.
Pete shushed her. “What time was this, Mrs. Carter?”
“About an hour ago. I thought it was odd because I’d seen the little girl with Bonnie Romanakis and her kids just before that and the man hadn’t been around then. I just figured maybe the dad came to pick her up.”
Zoe resisted telling her “the dad” was currently fighting for his life.
“What did the man look like?” Pete asked.
The blonde shrugged. “I didn’t pay too much attention. He had on khakis, I think, and a dark polo shirt.”
Pete produced a photo. Zoe caught enough of a glimpse of it to know the man in the picture was Ryan Mancinelli. “Is this the man?”
Mrs. Carter squinted at the photograph. “I honestly don’t know. I only saw him walking away from me.”
“But you’re sure it was Maddie Farabee with him?”
“Positive. She turned and looked back as they were walking away and I thought she looked a little upset. Like she really didn’t want to leave yet.”
Or like she didn’t want to go with this man. “Was she resisting him?” Zoe asked.
“You mean like he was taking her by force?” Mrs. Carter said. “Oh, no. He held her hand, and they walked away as nice as can be.”
Pete moved closer to the woman. “Did you notice what kind of vehicle they got into?”
“Sorry. No.”
“Is there anything else about this man you can tell us? Anything at all?”
She pondered the question. “Well, I did notice one thing.”
“What?”
Mrs. Carter gave an apologetic grin. “He was very…nicely put together. You know? Like he worked out a lot.”
Zoe pictured Ryan Mancinelli standing on his porch Friday night during the traffic accident in front of his house. Tanned and muscled from days of construction work in the hot sun, “nicely put together” definitely described the man.
One of the Phillipsburg police officers had located a second witness to Maddie’s exit from the park. This witness, a teenaged girl, was equally positive the child in question was Maddie, but her description of the man was even vaguer than Mrs. Carter’s. The teen did, however, see the vehicle they got into. A big pickup. Possibly black. Or maybe dark blue. Or it might have been brown. And it might have had printing on the side, although she wouldn’t swear to it.
Pete knew Mancinelli drove a black Ram pickup, but as for make and model, the girl didn’t even know what those terms meant.
Pete put out an Amber Alert with Maddie Farabee’s photo, courtesy of the babysitter as Zoe had suggested. Included in the report going out across the tri-state area was the possibility she might be with Ryan Mancinelli in a dark-colored pickup.
The search was called off, although a few die-hard firefighters broke out their flashlights and continued traipsing through the underbrush on their own. Pete figured it was their way of managing the sense of helplessness.
The same helplessness he’d seen in Zoe’s face when he’d sent her back to the ambulance garage with a promise to keep her in the loop. She’d promised the same.
Keeping each other in the loop was something they’d both failed at miserably as of late. Maybe if they’d done a little more sharing—no—if he had been a little less pig-headed, Maddie Farabee might not be in danger right now.
Pete was feeling his own share of helplessness. Instead of going back to the station, he called Nancy to come in and man the phones. She’d agreed without hesitation. No doubt she was suffering the same affliction as everyone else. Maybe worse, since her brother-in-law was involved. He’d asked her if she was okay with working under the circumstances, and she’d insisted her only concern was getting the missing girl back. From the tone of Nancy’s voice, the legal system would be the least of Mancinelli’s worries if he harmed a hair on little Maddie’s head.
The night dragged on into early morning. Pete monitored the radio chatter while cruising the township. Activity was light, as though the entire county
was holding its collective breath, waiting for a break in the case. The only emergency call came around three a.m. for a one-vehicle crash. Nate responded and radioed in only minor injuries to the driver, although the ambulance crew was transporting him to Brunswick just in case. The airwaves once again fell quiet.
Unlike Pete’s brain.
Where would Ryan Mancinelli take Maddie? And why? This case was playing havoc with Pete’s gut. He’d sensed something was hinky from the start, and nothing had happened in the last week to convince him otherwise.
His cell phone rang as he coasted to the stop sign next to Parson’s Roadhouse. He dug in his pocket.
Wayne Baronick’s name flashed on the screen. “Hey, Pete. I just spoke to the lab.”
“At this hour?”
“Yeah, well, the tech owed me. The gun next to Holt Farabee in the motel room? Registered to Ryan Mancinelli.”
Pete eased into the parking lot. “Guess their friendship went sour.”
“There’s something weird though.”
Of course. “Weird? How?”
“No prints. The gun had been wiped clean.”
Pete rolled that one around in his already upset gut. “If you’re going to shoot your buddy with your own gun, why wipe it clean and leave it there for the cops to find?”
“Been wondering that myself. One other thing, although it may not mean much.”
“What?”
“All the stuff we collected in Zoe’s basement? Mostly it was trash. Old stuff. Probably been down there for eons.”
“Why do I sense a ‘but’ in there?”
“But there was one scrap that seemed new. Clean. A torn piece of black plastic.”
“What kind of black plastic?”
“Like from one of those big trash bags. Only heavy. Really heavy.”
Pete’s phone pinged. “Hold on a second. I’ve got another call.” He tapped the screen. Incoming call from Nate. “What have you got?”
“What I’ve got,” the officer said, “is Ryan Mancinelli.”
The fact Pete’s suspects kept turning up as victims crossed his mind. “Please tell me he isn’t dead.”
There was a long pause—too long—before Nate responded. “Well, not yet.”
Twenty-eight
The clock in the ambulance service’s office read a few minutes after four in the morning. Two crew members were asleep in their bunks. Two more were in Medic One heading for Brunswick Hospital with a patient who had crashed his car into a pine tree.
“I feel like I should be doing something.” Zoe drummed a blank notepad with a pen while listening to snippets of static and conversations on the scanner. She’d taken a break from pacing the ambulance garage’s office to sprawl in the chair at the dispatcher’s desk.
“Every cop in the area is looking for her.” Earl, eyes closed, slouched on the vinyl upholstered bench across the room, one ankle crossed over the other knee, his head resting against the window behind him. “There’s nothing for us to do but wait.”
The scanner hissed, stuck on one channel too weak to draw in anything comprehensible. Zoe turned down the volume and clicked a button, skipping the offending frequency and sending the radio through its loop again. “There’s no reason for you to sit up with me. Go to bed.”
“I can’t sleep either.”
“You can’t keep your eyes open.”
“And I can’t shut my brain off.”
She huffed. “I hear you. Maybe we could get in Medic Two and cruise the county. We can be on call while driving around.”
“What do you think we’d see in the dark? We could pass Mancinelli’s truck and never know it.”
Zoe let out a growl.
How dare her partner be so rational—and right.
Someone tapped on the office’s front door. Zoe jumped, and Earl sat up, blinking. Sylvia opened the door and stuck her head in. “I was driving around and saw the office light on. Do you mind?”
Zoe waved her in. “Welcome to the regularly unscheduled meeting of Insomniacs Anonymous.”
“There’s a fresh pot of coffee in the kitchen,” Earl added, rubbing his eyes. “Can I get you a cup?”
Sylvia closed the door behind her. “That would be wonderful. Thanks.”
Earl climbed to his feet and snatched Zoe’s empty cup from the desk without bothering to ask. She smiled. He knew her all too well.
The scanner squawked out a garbled exchange between a police officer and a dispatcher on the other side of the county pertaining to downed power lines.
Zoe reached over to adjust the squelch dial. “Do I need to ask why you’re driving around at four in the morning?”
“I couldn’t sleep thinking about that darling little girl out there somewhere. And I couldn’t just sit and wait for the phone to ring.”
“I know the feeling.”
Sylvia dropped her handbag onto the bench next to where Earl had been sitting and approached Zoe, wringing her hands. “I need to apologize to you—about earlier.”
Pete was moving to Hawaii. Zoe had been pretending the conversation hadn’t happened. It was a mistake. A misunderstanding. “You have nothing to apologize for.”
“Yes, I do. I was mad at you. Blaming you for driving Pete away.”
Zoe ducked her face away from Sylvia, busying herself with some wayward paperclips.
“I know it’s not your fault,” Sylvia continued. “When he stopped at your farm on Saturday, I told him he was going to lose you if he didn’t watch out.”
Zoe tried to respond. Wanted to act casual and unaffected by Pete’s leaving. But words stuck in her throat. The scanner cycled back to the channel filled with nothing but static, and Zoe snapped the radio off.
Earl returned to the office with two steaming mugs and looked back and forth between the two women. “Did I miss something?”
Zoe stood up to take her coffee from him. “No.”
“By the way,” Sylvia said to Earl as he handed her a cup. “You mentioned something earlier I didn’t understand.”
“What?” he asked.
“You said Zoe wouldn’t have to leave Vance Township since Pete was moving to Hawaii.” Sylvia swung back to Zoe. “Were you planning to move too?”
Zoe sighed. “Yeah. Still am. The Krolls are selling the farm.”
“Oh dear.” Sylvia’s eyes narrowed, and her focus seemed to shift somewhere far away. “I was afraid of that.”
“He’s inside and he’s got a gun.” Nate leaned against his cruiser, resting his forearms on its roof, keeping his gaze fixed on Ryan Mancinelli’s house.
Pete was the second on the scene. Baronick had said he was on his way. Before long, the stretch of road in front of the Mancinelli and Naeser houses would be jammed with police vehicles from a variety of jurisdictions.
But for now, it was just Pete and Nate. “What about the girl?”
“Haven’t seen her. And other than coming out on the porch with a revolver stuck in his pants and brandishing a shotgun, yelling for me to go away, I haven’t seen anything else of him either. He sounded like he’s been hitting the bottle pretty hard. ”
Pete studied the dark house and thumbed toward the one next door. “What about his wife and in-laws?”
“I told them to stay inside with the doors locked. The women are in hysterics. Ashley claims she never saw him come in. Didn’t know he was there.”
“How did you know?”
Nate glanced at Pete without turning his head and chuckled. “I knocked on his door.”
Pete huffed a short laugh.
“Figured it couldn’t hurt. Didn’t expect to get an answer. Sure didn’t expect to hear someone chambering a round into a shotgun.”
“It’s a sound that gets the message across.”
“Damn straight. I decided a hasty retreat was in order.”
“Wise move.” The last thing anyone wanted was shots fired if a ten-year-old girl was in the house with him. Pete pulled out his cell phone and punched in the number he had for Mancinelli. After four rings, a machine picked up with Ashley’s cheery voice asking the caller to leave a message.
Pete hung up. “Give me your bullhorn.”
Nate reached into the open window of his cruiser. “I was about to use it to contact him when you pulled up.”
Sirens shrieking in the distance signaled backup was on its way.
Pete lifted the bullhorn. “Ryan Mancinelli. This is Chief Pete Adams. I’m trying to call you. Do yourself a big favor and answer this time.” He handed the horn back to his officer and redialed Mancinelli’s number.
This time he picked up. “Go away and leave me alone.”
“You know we can’t do that. Not while you have Maddie Farabee in there.”
For a moment, Pete thought Ryan had hung up. Then he said, “What are you talking about?”
Pete’s gut knotted. “Are you telling me you don’t have her?”
He was greeted once again with silence, but this time it was broken by a strange keening wail. Or was that the sirens? No. Ryan Mancinelli was crying.
“Ryan? What’s going on in there?”
“I screwed everything up. Now just go away and let me end it.”
End it? Pete sure didn’t like the sound of that. “Ryan, don’t do anything foolish. As long as you haven’t hurt the little girl, we can still get you out of this mess.”
“Hurt her?” Mancinelli was in full-blown blubber mode. “I might as well have killed her myself.”
“Is she in there with you?”
“No. I told you she wasn’t.”
“Is anyone else in there with you?”
“No, damn it.”
Pete blew out a breath. They didn’t have a hostage situation on their hands. “Do you know where Maddie is?”
Annette Dashofy - Zoe Chambers 03 - Bridges Burned Page 25
