Missing in Texas, page 2
“I was waiting here for my daughter, Amanda,” the woman said. “She got off the school bus with two of her kindergarten friends. They were all walking toward me when a car pulled up and stopped. The man inside got out, grabbed one of the little girls, yanked her into the car and drove off. It all happened so fast.” Her voice broke. “I froze. I couldn’t make sense out of what was happening. That poor child.”
Grim-faced, Rayna brushed back a stray wisp of her red hair. “What color and kind of car?”
“White. Four-door,” the woman answered. “I think it was a Honda Accord.”
“Thank you.” Rayna nodded. “Where is Amanda now?”
“There.” The woman pointed to a small group of children clustered around two adults.
“May I talk with her?” Rayna asked.
“Yes, certainly. Amanda. Come over here, honey. Ms. Coombs wants to talk to you.”
The little girl hurried over, her pinched expression giving away her inner tension. “Yes, ma’am?”
So polite, Edie thought, trying to focus.
“I understand you saw everything,” Rayna said, her voice gentle.
Amanda nodded, appearing as if she might be about to cry at any moment. “I did.” She swallowed hard. “It was scary.”
“The girl that the man grabbed, what was her name?” Rayna asked.
“Laney,” Amanda replied, starting to cry. “He got my best friend, Laney Beswick.”
Edie’s knees buckled. “Noooo,” she cried. As she collapsed, the woman who had hugged her earlier caught her before she hit the ground.
When Edie opened her eyes again, she found herself in Rayna’s cruiser, sitting in the front seat, passenger side.
“Are you okay?” Rayna asked. “You passed out.”
“No,” Edie answered. “I’m not okay. I won’t be until I have my little girl back in my arms.” She took a deep breath, then told Rayna about the man who had stopped by the bakery earlier, searching for his own child. “I think he might have been the one who took her,” she said.
“Why? What are you basing that on?”
Edie shook her head. “Long story. But keeping it short, there’s a decent chance my Laney might be his kid.”
To her credit, Rayna didn’t ask for details. Instead, she took a moment to consider before speaking.
“I met Jake Cassin,” Rayna said slowly. “He’s former law enforcement and seems like a stand-up kind of guy. He stopped by my office looking for clues about his missing daughter.”
Edie closed her eyes and took a deep breath before opening them. “We’ve got to find my Laney.”
“I agree.” Rayna clearly understood the need for swift action. “Follow me,” she told Edie. “He’s staying at the Landshark. Let’s go pay him a visit.”
* * *
Back in his motel room, Jake Cassin couldn’t stop thinking about the woman he’d met earlier in the bakery. Not due to her beauty, though she certainly had that. But because something had changed in her expression when she’d viewed the photo of Noel. Subtle, and maybe he’d imagined it, but he’d seen the way her eyes widened and she’d swallowed hard before shaking her head and sliding the picture back to him.
All his inner alarms had gone off. She knew something.
Had she been lying? Or, like all the other wild-goose-chase leads he’d followed, might it just be wishful thinking?
In his former career in law enforcement, Jake had become quite good at sniffing out information. Following various leads, he’d tracked Noel to Pocatello, Idaho, but there the trail had gone cold. He’d learned that a woman named Gina, who’d turned out to be one of Jake’s former wife’s friends, had lived in an apartment there with a little girl she’d called Laney.
But Gina had died, and no one seemed to know what had happened to the little girl.
Jake had wasted a lot of time trying to find out where Noel had gone after that. Finally, he’d located a man who’d dated Gina, who swore a relative had shown up and taken the little girl to some small town in West Texas with a weird name.
Not much to go on, and Texas was huge. But at least he had a geological region, even if it was larger than many other entire states. And he’d come to learn many of the cities and towns had unique names, so he made a list and begun visiting them one at a time, staying west of Fort Worth.
Using his law enforcement connections, he’d visited sheriff’s offices and police departments in small towns with names like Cut and Shoot and Gun Barrel City. He’d met a lot of good men and some not so great, but no one knew of anyone who’d suddenly acquired a little girl.
Meanwhile, time went by, both slower and faster than Jake would have liked. It had taken him the better part of a year to track Noel to Idaho, and his travels around the big state of Texas ate up even more time. He’d had to work the occasional part-time job, too, just to pay for food, gas and lodging. He’d worked as a carpenter, a painter and various other things.
Before he knew it, four years had passed. And a woman in a bakery’s imperceptible reaction was all he had to show for it. He was no closer to finding Noel than he’d been when he started.
Except maybe, he might be.
Again his thoughts returned to the woman in the bakery. Despite the instant spark of attraction between them, he knew he hadn’t imagined her reaction. He could spot someone who wasn’t being entirely truthful a mile away.
A sharp series of knocks on the door startled him. Peering through the peephole, he spotted the sheriff of Getaway, Texas. His heart skipped a beat in his chest. Had she learned something?
Fumbling with the chain, he opened the door. “Afternoon, Sheriff,” he began. And then he spotted the woman from the bakery standing behind her. She looked both furious and terrified, her gaze locking on him with a singular intensity.
“A little girl was abducted a few miles from here,” Rayna informed him, her tone brusque and businesslike. “Not even thirty minutes ago. Do you mind if we take a look inside your room?”
At first, it took Jake a moment to make sense of her words. When he realized she thought he might have stolen a child, he shook his head and stepped aside. “Come on in.”
The sheriff was quick and thorough, methodically searching the small room without making too much of a mess. The bakery woman stayed out of her way, twisting her hands in front of her and clearly trying to keep her act together. Jake couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. “Was it your daughter?” he asked.
She stared at him before slowly nodding. “I don’t know what I’m going to do if we can’t find her.” And then she broke down, crying in loud gut-wrenching sobs that shook her entire body.
He considered doing the only thing any human being could in those circumstances. With anyone else, he would have pulled her into his arms and tried to soothe her. After all, he knew exactly how she felt.
But he knew she likely wouldn’t let him touch her. He was lucky to be allowed to stay inside the room as it was.
Rayna returned from searching the small bathroom. “She’s not here,” she announced. The moment she spoke, the girl’s mother pushed herself away from Jake and made a herculean effort to get herself together.
“Of course she’s not,” Jake replied, meeting Rayna’s gaze and crossing his arms. “Why would either of you think I would abduct a child when I’m here searching for my own daughter?”
Both women stared at him silently. It took a second, but he suddenly understood. “This missing girl. Does she...resemble my Noel?”
Slowly, the bakery woman nodded. “That picture you showed me earlier...”
The sheriff stepped forward, looking from one to the other. “Edie, you and Mr. Cassin need to have a long talk. Meanwhile, I’ll get an Amber Alert started for Laney. Mr. Cassin, if I have to leave, would you mind driving Edie home?”
“Call me Jake,” he said automatically. “And no, I don’t mind at all.” He could hardly believe that now, after all this time, he might have a solid lead. Except if this woman’s Laney turned out to actually be his Noel, then she’d just been abducted yet again.
Once the sheriff stepped outside, Edie dropped into the chair by the window air conditioner. To her credit, she appeared to be holding herself together pretty well, considering. She began to speak, telling him about her cousin Gina in Pocatello, Idaho, who’d died from a brain aneurysm. Since Edie herself had been adopted, she’d raced up there and taken immediate custody of little Laney.
“I fell in love with her the instant I saw her,” Edie said. Holding his gaze, she swallowed hard. “She was the spitting image of that photograph you showed me earlier.”
Her words made his chest hurt. “I tracked my daughter to Pocatello,” he said. “And the only thing I could find out was that a relative had taken her to a small town in West Texas with an unusual name.”
“What is your daughter’s name?” Edie asked quietly.
“Noel.” Just saying it out loud brought a rush of emotion. He sighed, feeling tears pricking his eyes. Blinking them away, he waited the space of two heartbeats before continuing. “She was born right before Christmas. That was actually the only name her mother and I instantly agreed upon.”
“I’m sorry.” She took a deep breath. “Can you tell me what happened? How’d Noel get abducted?”
He must have blanched or made some involuntary expression that had her taking a step back.
“You don’t have to,” she said. “I understand if you find it too painful to talk about.”
“Too painful?” He gave a short bark of humorless laughter. “Reliving it feels like a knife between my ribs each and every time. Yet I’ve told this story so often at numerous police stations and sheriff’s offices all over West Texas that you’d think I would have numbed up a little by now.”
Nodding, she glanced at the door, almost as if she hoped Rayna would reappear with news that her daughter had miraculously been found. Oh, he could definitely relate to that. A day never went by that he didn’t feel something similar.
When her gaze met his again, he saw both sadness and resolve. “Then tell me,” she said. “I need to think about something else or I’m going to lose it.”
“It was a beautiful spring day,” he began. “My wife Marina decided to take Noel to a nearby park and—”
“Local to where?” she interrupted.
“The Woodlands. It’s a city north of Houston.” He swallowed, that old familiar ache building in him. “Everything was blooming, and Marina loved taking photos of the flowers with her phone. She said she must have gotten distracted, because when she looked up, Noel’s stroller was empty.”
Edie’s eyes filled with tears. She covered her mouth and took a moment to get herself under control. When she spoke again, her voice came out rough. “She blamed herself, didn’t she?”
All he could do was nod.
“What about you?” she asked, suddenly fierce. “Did you blame her, too?”
He hung his head, momentarily ashamed. “I’m only human,” he said, admiring the way she championed a woman she’d never met. “So, in the beginning, in the awful, screaming void where we struggled with the knowledge that our child was missing, I did. Eventually, I came to realize that Marina was only human, too. She never could have imagined—we never could have imagined—that something like this would happen.”
Now Edie began to weep in earnest. “Laney!” she wailed. “We’ve got to find my daughter.”
“We will,” he said, meaning it. After all this time, he refused to come this close and lose everything a second time.
For the first time, he realized what his appearance here would mean to this woman, to her family. Because if Edie’s Laney turned out to be his Noel, he wouldn’t be leaving here without her.
Chapter 2
Edie managed to get herself back together in time to answer when Rayna rapped on the door. She let the sheriff in, hoping against hope that the other woman would have good news.
Instead, Rayna’s grim expression told Edie she did not.
“I got the Amber Alert issued,” she said. “Even though the description of the suspect’s vehicle is kind of murky. Those things are very effective. The instant someone spots her, law enforcement will be notified.”
Because all she could do was remain hopeful, Edie nodded. “Let’s hope this happens soon. I remember reading somewhere that it’s critical to locate missing children within forty-eight hours of an abduction.”
“Seventy-two hours,” Rayna corrected. “I promise you, we’re doing all we can.”
“Thank you,” Jake said. “I really appreciate that.”
Rayna nodded, glancing from Jake to Edie and then back again. “I’m just going to go ahead and ask this to save time. Is Laney the same child you’re looking for, Jake?”
Edie’s breath caught in her chest as she glanced at Jake. He watched her quietly, clearly ready to let her reach her own determination. “It’s likely,” Edie finally said. “As much as I hate to think this of my cousin.”
“We’ll find her,” Rayna promised, squeezing Edie’s shoulder. She looked at Jake and made him the same promise.
“Now, do you want a ride back to your car?” Rayna asked. “Or do you and Jake here have more to discuss?”
“I think we’ve talked enough for now,” Edie said. “I’d like to go back to my car and head home, just in case.”
“Wait,” Jake said just as she turned to leave. “You have my number, right?”
Slowly, she nodded.
“Do you mind giving me yours?” He lifted his phone. “Just shoot me a quick text so I can store it.”
What could be the harm? After all, they definitely had something in common. She dug his card out of her pocket and typed his number in his phone, saving it as a contact before sending him a text with her own name.
Once his phone pinged, he glanced at it. “Thank you,” he said.
With a jerk of her head to acknowledge, she followed Rayna outside.
Rayna stayed quiet for the entire drive. Edie appreciated that. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk, and endlessly rehashing what had happened would only send her into a panic.
Back at the subdivision entrance, the crowd had already dispersed.
“Here we are.” Rayna pulled over behind Edie’s vehicle. “Are you going to be all right?”
Edie nodded, though she knew she wouldn’t be anything close to all right until Laney was back in her arms.
“Call me if you need anything.”
Of course, Edie promised she would.
Once she got into her SUV, she didn’t go home. Instead, she found herself driving around town, looking for a white Honda Accord and hoping for a miracle. She called her mother and left a voicemail, only asking for a return call as soon as possible. Since her parents had handed over the bakery to Edie, they embraced retirement with gusto. They’d bought a motor home and spent nine months of the year traveling around the country. Right now, Edie thought they were somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. She knew they’d come rushing back to Getaway once they learned what had happened to their granddaughter. Honestly, she dreaded even telling them.
Four hours later, she forced herself to go home. Once she pulled into her garage and killed the engine, she sat in her vehicle a moment trying to muster up the energy to go inside.
Finally, she did. Entering the house, flicking on lights as she went, the absolute silence hit her hard. Normally, Laney would be chattering up a storm, talking about her day. She’d been begging for a pet lately, vacillating between a dog or a cat. Now Edie seriously regretted always saying no.
She knew she should make herself something to eat, but her appetite had disappeared when her daughter did.
Wandering into Laney’s room, she sat on the edge of the twin bed and fingered the purple and pink comforter decorated in unicorns. Laney had chosen that particular one herself, declaring that someday she planned to find a unicorn, even if people did say they weren’t real. The closet door was open, and Laney had tossed two clean T-shirts onto the floor, discards from that morning when she’d tried to decide what she wanted to wear.
Panic made Edie hyperventilate. She pushed to her feet and forced herself to pick up the shirts and hang them in the closet. Her hands were shaking, but she managed to complete the simple task.
This couldn’t be happening. It had to be a bad dream, the worst kind of nightmare. At any moment, she’d wake up and find her daughter asleep in her bed, safe and sound.
Except she knew she wouldn’t and it wasn’t. Laney had really been abducted. And if this Jake Cassin was telling the truth, not just this time but once before.
Around nine, Edie forced herself to drink some bone broth and to take her customary shower before bed. Since she ought to open the bakery in the morning like usual, she tended to go to sleep early and get up at 4:30 a.m. She needed to give the yeast dough time to rise and get the first batch of donuts cooking. She liked to have the front display case mostly stocked before she opened at 6:00 a.m.
For the first time since she’d taken over the bakery, she debated leaving it closed. Only the thought of how much her regulars depended on her for their morning fix of coffee and a donut had her even considering trying to open.
If her parents had been in town, she’d have gotten them to handle it. How could she even think of trying to run her business and act normally when her little girl was missing?
She didn’t even bother trying to go to sleep. The instant she closed her eyes, she knew she’d only replay Laney’s abduction over and over in her mind. Her baby must have been terrified. Edie could imagine her calling for her mother, which shattered her heart. She felt like she’d failed her daughter, because she should have been able to protect her. The fact that this wasn’t even logical didn’t escape her, but she couldn’t make herself feel any other way.
