Chapter 11

  Adam quickly paid for Sierra’s and his meals at the Chinese restaurant and said to her, “A fourteen-year-old girl, Melissa Baeyer, was grabbed at a shopping plaza just down the street from here. The car description was for a blue Ford sedan.”

  As they headed outside, Sierra’s phone buzzed. She looked at the Amber Alert on her phone and frowned. “The license plate and description of the car used in the kidnapping of the girl is of my car.”

  “Hell, your car isn’t here.” Not believing Sierra’s car had been stolen to commit a kidnapping until he verified her car wasn’t in the parking lot, Adam quickly called it in to Tori. “The car involved in the kidnapping of the juvenile is—”

  “Sierra Redding’s car. We just got word.”

  “Right. Stolen from the parking lot at the Chinese restaurant where we were having lunch.” Adam gave her the name of the restaurant and its location.

  “I’m already on my way there to pick you up. Be there in a few minutes.”

  “Tori’s coming to pick us up,” Adam told Sierra. She looked like she was ready to run down the street and find the car on foot if she had to.

  “I can’t believe someone would steal my car and kidnap a child!” Sierra sounded as frustrated as he felt.

  “I know. At least you were sitting with a police detective when it happened, so no one can accuse you of doing the deed yourself, if that’s any consolation.”

  “It is. But only if we can find Melissa before anything further happens to her.”

  “Amen to that.”

  It seemed like it took forever before Tori showed up and stopped so they could jump into her car and take off. They listened to the radio as they headed in the direction where the car had been spotted. Adam began to get an eerie feeling about this when they ended up in Sierra’s neighborhood, only a block from her home.

  “Go to my house.” Sierra gave the directions to Tori.

  “Okay, so what am I missing? Your car is stolen, used to kidnap a child, and then what? Deliver her to your house?” Tori asked.

  “There is only one person I can think of who would want me to take the rap for kidnapping a child. A guy I put in prison,” Sierra said. “Dover Manning.”

  Adam recalled the postcard Sierra had received before she went on her flight to Texas, and he called it in to the boss. “Sir, we believe the kidnapping could be the work of the man Sierra testified against, Dover Manning. He was angry that no one believed he only saw a dog in her hotel room.”

  “He’s in jail,” Adam’s boss said.

  “Right. I told you about the postcard she got.”

  “Hell, okay. Keep me informed.”

  “Will do.”

  When they reached Sierra’s house, Adam really had expected to see her car sitting in the driveway, but it wasn’t. He was praying that the kidnappers had pulled the car into the garage and the girl was inside, safe and sound. Tori parked in the driveway.

  Sierra was getting out of the car, but Adam told her to stay. She gave him the pass code for her house and he headed to the house, Tori following behind him. As soon as he unlocked the door, he and Tori had their guns out and headed inside.

  They found the girl gagged and tied to a chair in the dining room, her brown eyes wild with fear. Adam and Tori quickly showed her their badges, and then Tori began to untie her and pulled the gag off her while Adam searched the house for any sign of the culprits. He found a broken window in the laundry room, glass on the floor inside, and when he returned to the dining room, he saw that the kidnappers had torn up all of Sierra’s artwork. He felt sick for her, worried she would be heartbroken about it. Tori was already calling in that they had the girl at Sierra’s house, and she was unharmed.

  Adam smelled a woman’s and a man’s scents that hadn’t been in the house before, and he was certain they belonged to whoever had kidnapped the girl. He checked the garage, but Sierra’s car wasn’t there either.

  He also called in the situation, saying that the kidnappers were gone, the girl was safe in their custody, and the car was still missing.

  “Did they hurt you?” Tori was asking the girl as she untied the rope around her ankles.

  “No,” she managed between sobs.

  “Officers are contacting your parents. You’re safe now,” Tori said, giving the girl a hug. “Tell us what happened.”

  “My mother had gone into a dress store and I didn’t want to go. She was buying something for my grandmother for her birthday. So I was sitting on a bench waiting for her, texting my friends. A woman grabbed my arm and said my father had been hurt in an accident, that she was a friend of my parents. I told the woman we had to go inside the store to tell my mom. She said my mom would meet us there. It didn’t make any sense.

  “Of course I was worried about my dad, but I was reluctant to leave without my mom. Then a guy grabbed me and shoved me into the back of the car and said if I screamed, I would be dead. My mom and a couple of people in the store ran out and chased after the car, but the woman was driving too fast. My mom was on the phone right away and someone else was writing something down, so I hoped the police would hurry after us.

  “We didn’t go very far when they pulled into the driveway of the house. The two of them hurried me inside and then tied me up with the ropes and gagged me. They said they would be sitting outside the house, waiting on someone, and not to make a move or they would kill me. Then I swore I heard the car start up and they drove off. I was trying to get free, but I couldn’t. The ropes were too tight, and I couldn’t remove the gag.”

  Adam went outside and waved to Sierra to come in.

  “Can I ask the young lady what they looked like so I can draw a sketch of them?” Sierra asked, joining him at the front door.

  “Yeah,” Adam said. “Don’t touch anything.”

  “How long have I been doing this?” Sierra asked him, her brow raised as she walked into the house.

  Tori smiled.

  “Right. We just don’t want to contaminate the scene further.”

  “The woman’s and man’s scents are new,” she said. Then she spoke with the girl in the living room. “Hi, I’m Sierra Redding. I work for the police bureau as their sketch artist.”

  The girl’s eyes were huge, and she glanced at Tori, as if silently asking her to protect her from the new threat. Sierra frowned. “I don’t have a police badge, but I really do draw pictures of the bad guys so we can share the pictures all over and catch them. The two detectives know me.”

  “The woman looked just like you…but…she had a tattoo of a snake on her neck. And her hair was fake. A wig.”

  Dover had a tattoo like that too. Because he and this woman had been lovers? It seemed like too much of a coincidence. “But the same color as my hair?” Sierra asked, sounding worried.

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, after they stole my car from the restaurant where I was having lunch with Detective Holmes”—Sierra motioned to Adam—“they grabbed you, as far as we understand it, and brought you here to my home. So I couldn’t have had anything to do with kidnapping you. Where else did they go, besides being in the dining room where they tied you up and—”

  Three police officers arrived then. Tori had gone to get her camera out of her car and returned to take pictures of the scene with the chair, bindings, and gag. Adam had two of the officers set up crime-scene tape to secure the area and told the other to make sure no one other than people with official business got beyond the tape.

  “They said that the picture of a dog on the fireplace mantel was the dog that threatened to kill Dover.”

  Sierra glanced at the picture of her family that had been thrown on the floor and stomped on. The one with her brother was gone. “They took the one picture?”

  “Yeah. They said it matched the dog that was in the hotel room—the dog that you said didn’t exist. Then they went into your other rooms, looking for stuff,” the girl said.

  “My gun!” Sierra hurried down the hallway and reached her bedroom, Adam right behind her. Drawers were open in her bedroom and her bathroom, cabinet doors open, stuff tossed all over the place.

  “Sorry, I should have warned you about that. Where was your gun?” Adam asked.

  “In the bedside drawer. And yeah, it’s gone.” She sounded so dejected that he squeezed her arm consolingly.

  “I’ll need your serial number on the gun.”

  “Yeah.” Then she headed back to the living room and asked Melissa, “When they left, were they carrying anything with them?”

  “I was turned the other way, my back to the kitchen. I couldn’t see anything they took in the kitchen, just heard what they were doing.”

  “Then both of them went to the bedroom?”

  “They both went down the hall. The woman said she was checking out the bedroom. He said he would check out the other rooms.”

  “When they returned, were they carrying anything?” Sierra asked.

  “A gun. I couldn’t tell if they had anything else. I mean, except the picture. They just hurried really fast out of the house, though before they left, the guy warned me not to move an inch from where I was tied up—as if I could.”

  “How did they get inside? The house was locked.”

  “One of them went around back and I heard the glass break.”

  “The laundry room window is broken,” Adam said.

  Sierra frowned.

  “We’ll get it taken care of pronto after we gather any evidence at the crime scene.” Adam had already texted the wolf they called on for replacing windows.

  “You said the woman looked like me.” Sierra sat down to begin sketching the kidnappers.

  “With the fake wig, yeah. But she was really dark-haired. Her eyebrows were dark. And she plucked them way too much. They were really skinny.”

  “What about her mouth? Did she smile at all?”

  “No. She acted annoyed with the guy. She kept calling him an idiot. ‘Stop being such an idiot. I don’t know why you have to be such an idiot. If you were any more of an idiot than you are right now, we would be sitting in jail.’”

  “How did he react to that?” Adam asked.

  “He said it takes one to know one.” The girl shrugged. “He didn’t sound mad, just like it rolled right off him. Oh, and she said that if he didn’t get some smarts, he would end up just like Dover or Fish.”

  Sierra glanced at Adam. “So Dover Manning, who is in jail, is in cahoots with some guy who goes by the name of Fish. Maybe Fisher?”

  “And they were looking for a dog. A big dog. Part German shepherd, the guy thought. They were supposed to kill it. I was so glad they couldn’t find the dog that was in the picture,” Melissa said.

  “I don’t have a dog,” Sierra said. “Those are old pictures of dogs we owned a long time ago.”

  “Oh, they were sure that was the one that had threatened him.”

  “Did the woman have a long chin like me? Shorter chin?” Sierra asked, getting back to sketching the female kidnapper’s features.

  “Shorter.”

  “Wide cheek bones? Oval face? Round?”

  “Heart-shaped.” The girl smiled when Sierra looked surprised that she would know the different shapes of faces.

  “I studied art. I study people’s faces. The policewoman has an oval face like you. The policeman has a diamond face shape. Did you know that shape for a man is supposed to be hot?”

  Sierra’s brows shot up. Tori laughed. Adam smiled. He liked the kid.

  “The guy had a widow’s peak. His hair was light brown and it was cut short. He had a tattoo of a heart on his”—she looked down at her hands—“left hand. He was as tall as the policeman, but his shoulders weren’t as broad. He wore jeans and a gray T-shirt with a crow on it. He had on heavy boots with steel toes.”

  “You’re doing great with the descriptions,” Sierra said.

  “I kept telling myself if I lived, I had to be able to describe them in detail. Every time I saw them, I would try to memorize another detail. Oh, the woman was wearing a sparkly gold and diamond bracelet and big gold hoop earrings, a gold ankle bracelet and a gold ring, like she was dressed up for something. Um, her shirt had a rounded neck and she was”—she glanced at Adam and her face turned a little red—“like guys like.”

  “Big-busted?” Sierra offered and smiled at Adam.

  He held up his hands in defense. “Not all guys see a woman in that way.”

  The girl scoffed and tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulders. “Sure, you don’t.”

  She was certainly precocious. And he hoped neither Sierra nor Tori would rib him about it later.

  “Was she narrow shouldered like me? Or have broader shoulders?” Sierra asked.

  The girl frowned, studying Sierra’s shoulders, and said, “About the same as yours. But she was taller. And skinnier. She was wearing pink jeans with a pink short-sleeved top, and she was about your age, I guess.”

  “Thirty?”

  The girl shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” Melissa looked down at the drawing. “Her mouth was thinner. Meaner looking. And she has long, dark hair. When she tied me up, I saw a couple of dark brown hairs clinging to her shirt and they were long. Down to her…chest. They looked like the same color as her skinny eyebrows.”

  “Okay, good.” Sierra sketched some more.

  “They didn’t have any reason to grab you personally, right?” Adam asked.

  “Nope. I was alone, they saw me and grabbed me.” Melissa looked at the sketch of the woman again. “That looks just like her. I can draw, but not half as good as you do.”

  “Here, you sketch whatever your favorite thing is to draw.” Sierra handed the sketch pad to her after removing the two pages she had done of the kidnappers.

  Adam was impressed that Sierra would give Melissa her sketch pad to draw on, which helped to take the girl’s mind off her ordeal.

  Sierra said to Adam, “I’ll get you the serial number on the gun.” Then she headed back to the bedroom.

  “Were the man and woman wearing gloves?” Adam figured they would have been, but he had to ask.

  “No.”

  That was good news, if they could locate the car and the kidnappers hadn’t wiped it down. “When they grabbed you, did they leave the car running?” Adam asked.

  “Yeah. I guess so they could get away fast.”

  And because they didn’t have the keys to the car.

  Sierra headed into the kitchen, not touching anything but looking to see if anything appeared to be missing. “I can’t tell if they took anything else. Just the gun.” She returned to the living room, handed Adam a slip of paper with a serial number on it, and smiled at the picture Melissa had drawn of a horse running. “Now that is truly beautiful. I could never draw a horse like that.”

  “People are your thing then?”

  “I can draw landscapes and other things”—wolves and lots of them—“but horses, not so much.”

  “I bet you could if you practiced.”

  “You are so right. I’m so sorry for what they put you through.”

  “Thanks. You too.” Melissa glanced at Sierra’s torn-up drawings on the dining room table and scattered on the floor.

  “It’s nothing that I can’t do again. All that’s important is that you’re safe,” Sierra said.

  After they finished talking with Melissa, a policewoman took her to join her parents. Melissa had a couple of bruises on her arms where the woman and man had grabbed her, and the police had photographed them, but otherwise, she was fine. She just had to deal with the psychological issue of being threatened and taken hostage. Which was bad enough.

  Then Adam got another call.

  “They’ve found Sierra Redding’s car ditched about fifteen miles south of Portland, hidden in brush. No sign of anyone in the vicinity,” Jefferson, one of the officers working in the office, said.

  “Was it in good condition?” Adam asked.

  “Yes, sir. It looks like they just ditched it and tried to hide it.”

  “Okay, great. Impound it and dust for prints,” Adam said.

  “Will do, Detective.”

  “Were there any tire tracks anywhere?” Adam asked.

  “We’ve taken casts of the ones we found.”

  “Okay, good.” Then Adam and the officer ended the call. “Your car has been found. And it’s in good shape.”

  “Oh great,” Sierra said. “But it’s impounded now?”

  “Only as long as it takes to get prints off the car and take hair samples. Then it will be returned to you. I can get you back and forth to work until that happens,” Adam told Sierra.

  “Thanks. What about my house?”

  Adam frowned. “You can stay with me for the night. They’ll be finished going over the crime scene in a few hours.”

  “I would take you in, but nothing’s unpacked except my clothes and dishes,” Tori said.

  Sierra smiled at her. “We’ll help you get it straightened out. I felt the same way when I arrived, but at least I had a lot of wolf pack help.” To Adam, she said, “I just need to get a bag and throw in some clothes and toiletries to stay the night.”

  “Don’t touch anything—”

  “I can smell where they’ve been and what they’ve touched. I’ll be careful, Detective,” Sierra said and took off for her bedroom.

  “Detective,” Tori said, sounding amused. “Better watch out or she’ll be staying at someone else’s place tonight, and you’d better hope it isn’t with another bachelor male like Ethan.”

  Adam chuckled. He didn’t think Sierra was that annoyed with him. At least he hoped not.

  They left the house afterward and Sierra said to Adam, “So can you think of anyone named Fish that was involved in anything of this sort before?”

  “Yeah, a guy by the name of Jerry Fisher. He’s done a lot of robberies. I was surprised he could have done something like kidnapping a girl, but if he works for Dover, no telling what he would do next.”