Chapter 6 #2
“Best night of my life, Kendall. Even better than I believed now that I know we created a beautiful daughter.” He couldn’t wait to meet his little girl. He just needed to find her.
“I haven’t had any regrets about that night, not even when I found out I was pregnant. What if…” She shuddered.
“Don’t. Don’t even think it. We’re going to find her, and she’s going to be okay.” He prayed to God that was true.
The GPS led them to a small apartment building in a not-great part of town.
There was a police car parked in one of the spaces.
He stopped next to it. “Stay here a minute.” He got out and approached the car.
The officer was writing something, a report probably.
At seeing Cooper coming at him, the officer set his paperwork aside, his expression growing alert.
Cooper kept his hands visible, and his own expression relaxed.
It was warm already, and the driver’s side window was down. “Good morning,” Cooper said, stopping a few feet from the car.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes. I’m Cooper Devlin, and I’m working with Detective Rossi from your special crimes unit. He gave me this location where a stolen van was found.”
“Okay.”
He heard the suspicion in the officer’s voice. “You can call him if you want to confirm that. All I want to know is, where was the van found?” He glanced around. “Which parking space?”
“Guess there’s no harm in telling you. It’s the space on the other side of my car.”
“Thanks.” Cooper walked to the middle of the space and looked around. There was a cigarette butt near where the driver’s door would be. Amanda had said the man in the grocery store smelled like smoke. The kidnapper could have dropped it, and the police should have bagged that for evidence.
He returned to the officer. “Our witness said the kidnapper smelled like cigarettes, and there’s a butt the man might have dropped. I need you to bag it and see that Detective Rossi gets it.” He gave the officer credit for not arguing with him.
Kendall opened her door after the officer drove away, and he walked over to her. “Let’s look around. Maybe we’ll spy a camera or find someone who might have seen something.”
They hit pay dirt at the second apartment they came to, and he eyed the angle of the camera. If it was a working one, it should have the van on their feed. As they were walking up to the door, two tween boys carrying skateboards came out of the apartment two doors down.
Cooper headed for them. Both had spiked hair, one with brown hair and one a blond, leather bands on their wrists, oversize shirts and baggy pants. “Dudes, sick boards.”
Grinning, they both held their boards up for his inspection, and one of the boys said, “They’re—”
“Santa Cruz boards.” He hid his grin when both their eyes widened.
He’d had a case with a teen boy who was an avid skateboarder.
He’d run away, intending to go to a competition where his idol was going to be.
After catching up with him, Cooper had concluded that the boy was going to keep running away until he met his idol.
He’d taken the boy to the competition, spent time with him and had learned more than he ever wanted to know about skateboards.
“Yeah, man,” the other boy said. “They’re the best.”
“Totally.” Kendall had walked up, and she was staring at him as if he were a green man from outer space. He winked at her before turning his attention back to the boys. “Listen, there was a van parked here earlier. Either of you see the man who drove it?”
“I did,” the blond said. “Dude parked it, took his little girl out and they got in a car.”
Next to him, Kendall gasped. He shook his head, signaling her not to say anything. “When was this?”
“Yesterday afternoon.”
“What kind of car did he get into?”
The brown-haired boy frowned. “Why you asking all these questions? You a cop?”
“No, but the man kidnapped that little girl, and—”
“For real?” the blond asked.
“Yes, and that little girl is our daughter. We’d appreciate anything you can tell us.”
“Please,” Kendall said.
“It was a white sedan, maybe a Nissan,” the blond said. “Never saw the van or the car before, so I don’t think he lives here. Never seen him before yesterday.”
“What did the man look like?”
The boy shrugged. “Fat. That’s all I remember. Didn’t really pay attention.”
“Every little bit helps, so thanks. The police are going to want to talk to you. They need to know what you told me.”
“Oh, man, I don’t want to talk to the cops.”
Kendall put her hand on the boy’s arm. “Do you have a sister?”
“Yeah. Two of them. They’re always getting into my stuff.”
“What if someone took one of your sisters, and what if I saw who did it? Would you want me to tell the police what I saw?”
The boy kicked at the grass. “I guess.”
“So you’re good with me giving the detective assigned to the case your name?” Cooper asked.
“Yeah.”
He got the boy’s name, phone number and address. After they left, he called Detective Rossi and passed the information on.
“I was headed out there to knock on doors this afternoon,” Rossi said. “Guess you saved me some time.”
“There’s a camera under the eaves of the apartment right in front of where the van was parked. We’re going to see if it’s working.”
“Wait for me. I’m headed that way now.”
He didn’t want to wait, but it was probably better to have a police officer with them to view the video if there was one.
No reason they couldn’t see if anyone was home.
No one answered the doorbell. He called Rossi back, told him that he and Kendall were leaving and asked the detective to call him if there was a video.
It would be great if the camera caught a tag number, but he’d be surprised if it did.
“What can we do now?” Kendall asked after they were back in the car.
“Let’s get some lunch and talk about that.”
“I’m not—”
“Hungry. I know, but I am.” He’d get her to eat something.
“I don’t know how you can think about food when our daughter’s missing.”
They were coming up to a grocery store, and he turned the car into the parking lot.
After stopping and turning off the ignition, he shifted to face her.
“One thing I learned growing up and in the military is that you eat when you can because you don’t know when you might get a chance to do it again.
Food is fuel, and without fuel, you won’t have the energy to keep going.
You need to stay strong for Livie, and that means taking care of yourself, too. ”
“What do you mean you learned that growing up?”
“That’s a story for another day. So, lunch?”
“Okay.”
“What sounds good?”
Her phone chimed, and she fished it from her purse. “It’s Amy, my neighbor.” She answered, then listened, then gasped. “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” She dropped the phone onto her lap. “Oh, God.”