Kim reached across the table and clutched Madison’s hand. “I need to help in the search. Make Daddy see that. Please.”
The desperation in the girl’s voice tore at Madison’s composure. Knowing the people involved in this tragedy made her job doubly hard but doubly important, too. “Kim, I want you to think back to yesterday. Close your eyes if it will help you visualize the scene with Ashley in the backyard.” After the teenager did as she was instructed, Madison continued, “Now, do you see anything unusual, anything out of place?”
A long minute passed with a heavy silence filling the air, spiced with the aromas of bacon and biscuits.
When Kim opened her eyes, her forehead wrinkled and she tilted her head to the side, as J.T. did when he was thinking. “There was something shiny by the bushes along the back of the fence where Ashley’s fort is.”
“Could you tell what it is?”
“No,” the girl answered slowly, then more definitely, “No.”
The ringing of Madison’s cell phone pierced the quiet. She quickly answered it.
“It’s J.T. I told you I would call if we found anything. We discovered Ashley’s clothing in a pile behind a set of bushes forty feet from the back gate. There was a dart from a tranquilizer gun at the bottom of the pile. That’s why Kim didn’t hear a scream from Ashley. We’re bringing in a cadaver search dog.”
The implication of bringing in a dog that specialized in finding dead bodies, even ones buried in the ground, caused her to draw in a sharp breath. “I’ll be right there.”
Day one, 7:30 a.m.: Ashley missing thirteen hours
Madison hurried to the area where some of Ashley’s clothing had been found. She stopped at the perimeter of the taped-off section, spying J.T. directly across from her about fifteen yards away. The grim look on his face as he watched the crime scene techs process the evidence and comb the ground for any more clues highlighted the anguish he had to be feeling, standing to the side, unable to do anything but watch.
She skirted the edge of the taped area and came to his side. “Have they found anything else?”
“No,” he said in such a tight voice she was afraid he would shatter any second. “Finding her clothes, folded in a neat pile, like that—” His voice came to an abrupt halt, his jaw clenched so tight a nerve twitched on his face.
Why would the kidnapper remove Ashley’s clothes, leave them here for them to find? Was it some kind of ritual he needed to perform? Was he toying with J.T., trying to break him? Was the little girl molested? Question after question bombarded Madison, with no real answers. The only thing she knew was the effect it was having on J.T. Color leached from his normally tanned features and the despair in his expression as he watched one of the crime scene techs remove the evidence bags to their van illuminated how effective the kidnapper’s technique was if he was after revenge.
She didn’t care that they were standing among a swarm of people. She took hold of his hand, hoping to impart some support. He needed to know he wasn’t alone through this. “We may be able to find some clues on the clothes that will help us.”
He closed his eyes for a long moment as though he had to shut out the scene around him in order to keep going. “The kidnapper came prepared. He brought a tranquilizer dart to silence Ashley. As I suspected, this wasn’t spur-of-the-moment. He planned it, possibly for years while he was in jail.”
J.T. was so positive it was a criminal he had put in jail, and frankly she was beginning to think that was the most likely prospect. This case was becoming more personal as the hours passed.
He turned toward her, breaking their linked hands apart. “Another search team found a trail off to the left that ended at the road. But I don’t know if that means Ashley was taken in a car somewhere or if she went that way to play sometime recently.” Frustration marked his face. “The trouble is her scent is all over the place. She loved to play here which isn’t making it easy for the dogs.”
“When will the cadaver search dog be here?”
He checked his watch. “A half hour. I should have had it here from the beginning. It’s just…” Not finishing his statement, he snapped his jaw closed, every line of his body conveying the anxiety that gripped him.
Madison lay her hand on his arm, hoping to draw his attention to her and away from the techs still working the crime scene. Again she wished she could take some of his pain away and felt helpless because she couldn’t. No one could but God. J.T. faced the bushes where Ashley’s clothes were found, his mouth set in a frown.
“It’s rough having to admit the possibility there could be a body. You weren’t thinking along those lines.” She gently squeezed his arm, imparting her support the best way she could.
“I need to think more and feel less.”
She moved in front of him and blocked his view, forcing him to look at her. The brief anger that flashed into his eyes dissolved into a solemn expression. “No matter how much you want to be totally the sheriff right now you won’t be able to do that. It’s not possible to forget you’re the parent as much as you would like to. We all understand.”
The tic in his jawline increased its twitching. “How do you know what I’m going through?” He swept his arm wide to indicate the people around them. “How do any of them know?”
“This isn’t my first missing child case, J.T. Matthew Hendricks has dealt with quite a few abductions in his career. We’re here to help, and as much as we can, we do understand what you’re going through.”
“Then understand this. It’s the sheriff in me that will bring my daughter home safely.” He pointed toward where the clothes had been found. “All I want to do right now is begin digging with my bare hands everywhere nearby until I find her—” he swallowed hard “—or there’s no place left to dig.”
As a career law enforcement officer he knew the importance of processing the scene first, but whether he wanted to admit it or not, his emotions were involved in this case and if he wasn’t careful that could become a big problem. “They might discover something to help us. When we find this guy we want the evidence to be sound, not tainted,” she said as a gentle reminder of what the crime scene techs were doing at that very moment, even though it took precious minutes away from searching the area.
He sent her a look that iced her blood as though he were saying the man responsible would never be taken alive. Again the urge to help in more ways than she was already flooded Madison. Was Colin right? She was beginning to wonder if the Lord had led her to this case because J.T. needed someone to be there for him through the ordeal—someone who could understand the pull he was experiencing. He was a sheriff, and from all she knew a good one, but he was also a parent who desperately wanted to protect his family even to the point of taking the law into his own hands. She couldn’t allow him to do that. He would pay for that the rest of his life.
She smiled, pointing toward the direction she had come in. “C’mon. I noticed Susan at the staging area. She’s got some doughnuts and coffee. You need to eat something.”
J.T. sidestepped so she didn’t block his view. “I need to stay here.”
She got in front of him again and thrust her face close to his. “You need to take care of yourself or what good will you be to Ashley?”
His glare snagged hers. “I can’t eat at a time like this!”
She didn’t back down. She toughened her expression and voice. “You know how important it is for the family, especially the parents, to take care of themselves through an ordeal like this. That goes for you, too. Just because you’re the sheriff doesn’t make it any less important. What good can you do if you collapse from exhaustion and lack of food?”
His mouth slashed down in a frown. “I’ll go, but as soon as the dog arrives, I’m returning.”
“And I’ll