Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, the fairly recent memory of my TEVOC training flashing through my mind as I merged onto the freeway.
I didn’t have the lights and sirens that would clear a path for me as I sped toward the fairgrounds, but that didn’t stop me from pressing harder on the gas pedal.
There was no time for caution. No time to call for backup. No backup to call.
“Slow down!” Gracie shouted from the passenger seat, clutching the ‘oh shit’ handle as I swerved around a Prius and pushed the accelerator to go faster.
“If Hadley shares a unique blood marker with Lexi, then whoever killed Lexi is very likely after Hadley now,” I said, glancing sharply at Gracie to catch the flicker of fear in her expression—the shift from terror for her own life because of my driving to terror for her daughter’s.
“And if it is who I think it is, he’s not going to stop until he gets what he wants from her… or he’s behind bars.”
“Who do you think it is?” Kenna asked from the back seat.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gracie lifting her phone to her ear. A part of me wanted to tell her not to call 911, but this wasn’t about me. It wasn’t my life. It wasn’t my daughter.
“If I’m right about this,” I said, changing lanes and speeding past a semi-truck that was slowing us down, “then it’s Dr. Milo Lombardi.”
“Who?” Kenna asked—just as Gracie’s voice rose sharply. “The phlebotomist?”
“Ellie Lombardi, his sister, also has the Rh-null gene,” I explained, remembering the conversation between Ellie and Lila while I was getting my hair cut.
I didn’t know all the details, but if I was right about what Milo was up to, we didn’t have time to look into them.
The GPS instructed me to take the next exit.
We were close—so close. “According to her, she’s got some kind of rare bone marrow disease.
Which is why I was asking about transfusions.
You just said that if she needed one, it would have to come from someone else with golden blood. ”
“Someone like Hadley,” Gracie said, lowering her phone with a curse and tapping the screen before raising it to her ear once again. “Come on, Shep. Answer your damn phone.”
“If we want to find Hadley before Lombardi does, then we’re going to have to split up,” I told the other two as I followed the navigation’s instructions and turned into a dirt parking lot on my right.
There were hundreds of cars lined up in neat rows. It wasn’t likely I’d find a spot near the entrance, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t about to waste time finding a legal parking spot when there was a crime in progress—especially not one I had the chance to prevent.
“Kenna, you head left and follow along the fence. Keep an eye out for Hadley but make sure the perimeter’s secure. Gracie, same for you on the right side. I’ll go straight down the middle and check each game and ride. Gracie, you should also call the cops.”
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Kenna asked from the back seat.
I caught her worried gaze in the rearview mirror.
Her concern about calling the police was directly tied to what she thought she knew about my situation.
It was sweet—but I wasn’t about to let my complicated position be the thing that led directly to someone else getting hurt.
“If Detective Shepherd isn’t answering his phone, there’s a good chance Dr. Lombardi’s already done something to incapacitate him,” I said as I pulled up to the fairground’s front entrance and threw the car into park.
I turned to meet both women’s eyes, looking between them.
“I don’t want to scare you, but if we don’t find Hadley here, we need to make sure there are people already on their way to handle what comes next. ”
“Okay,” Kenna said softly. From the quietness in her voice, I could tell I had scared her. Good. As much as I didn’t want to be the reason the two of them were afraid, fear would sharpen their senses—make them faster, more alert if something went wrong.
“Let’s go,” I said, throwing open my door. The three of us headed toward the main entrance. Kenna already had a wad of cash out by the time we reached the gate, tossing it at the ticket counter before we barreled through.
Inside the fair, the two women peeled off as instructed—Kenna to the left, Gracie to the right, her voice already trailing away as she spoke to the police. Then it was just me and my rapidly beating heart.
The fair was massive, a Ferris wheel looming at the back over roller coasters and striped tents. The air was thick with the smell of fried food and sugar. I forced myself to stay at a slow jog, scanning the crowd and the grounds for anything out of place.
I passed the duck pond game where goldfish swam in plastic baggies as prizes, and I wondered if Hadley was too old for that now—or if there was still enough of a child in her to find it fun.
Then it hit me—I didn’t even have a photo of her.
I couldn’t just walk up to a carnival worker and ask if they’d seen a little Black girl.
There were hundreds of kids wandering around with or without parents, and the chances of anyone remembering one face among all of them were slim, even if I had a picture.
I kept my eyes up as I jogged, scanning the face of every man I passed. If I could spot the doctor before he found Hadley—or if he already had her but hadn’t gotten the chance to leave yet—the odds of identifying him in this crowd were much higher than spotting her.
Seconds bled into minutes as I made my way toward the back of the fairgrounds. Nothing looked off. No signs of struggle, no screams, no chaos. If anyone had seen the doctor with Hadley or?—
There. There he was.
“Detective Shepherd!” I called out, picking up speed.
The man turned toward me, surprise flickering across his face—but not fear. Not the panic of a man whose daughter was missing.
“Can I help you?” he asked.
I blinked, realizing he didn’t recognize me. The last time we’d crossed paths was at the bar, when Kenna had called him to deal with Ezra. He hadn’t known I was the one who tipped off Noah about Lexi’s body. Even his offer of employment back then clearly hadn’t left much of an impression.
Relief washed over me. Not only did he have no idea who I was—he had no clue his daughter was in any danger at all.
“Where is Hadley?” I asked, cutting to the chase. He sent me a wary look, and I wanted to shake him. We didn’t have time for this. “Gracie has been trying to get a hold of you, and your daughter is in danger. Where did you last see her?”
“She’s on the rollercoaster,” Shepherd replied, pulling out his phone to find the missed call from Gracie on his screen. Proof that I was telling the truth, and that his daughter really could be in danger.
“Come on,” I said, headed towards the exit for the roller coaster as I squinted at the passengers riding it, trying to make out Hadley amongst the others.
“What’s going on here?” he asked as we waited for the roller coaster to go around the tracks once more. It was going too fast to pick out Hadley, but if Detective Shepherd was confident she had gotten on the ride I could take a moment to explain.
“The man who killed Alexandra Tate is going to try to kidnap your daughter,” I said, glancing over Shepherd’s shoulder to scan the crowd for any sign of Dr. Lombardi.
“Gracie received a call just now confirming that Hadley has a rare blood trait in common with Lexi and we believe that Dr. Lombardi knows this. That he was the one who killed Lexi and is going to make a second attempt to cure his sister of a rare bone marrow disease.”
“That’s quite a leap in logic,” Shepherd said, crossing his arms. “What evidence do you have that this doctor was the one who killed Lexi? You can’t just accuse someone of a murder without evidence.”
I froze, his words sinking into me like ice sinking to the bottom of a glass. I was doing exactly what had been done to me, accusing someone of a crime I had no proof they had committed.
Before I could grapple with that, the roller coaster coasted to a stop and the safety bars released, children pouring out of the exit gate and heading towards their waiting parents with huge smiles on their faces.
Then the crowd cleared, and we were left standing there with no sign of Hadley in sight.
“Hadley?” Shepherd called, confusion and panic combining to make his voice higher as he pivoted, looking around as though she had simply wandered off to buy a snack and would be back any moment.
I knew better. Moving to stand where Shepherd had been when I first found him, I scanned the line to the roller coaster, looking for any point in which Lombardi could have taken Hadley without his noticing.
And there, right near the front of the line, there was a huge sign set out that warned riders they had to be a certain height. It was just big enough to block the view to those who were next in line to ride.
Running to the fencing, I scanned the ground for any clues where Lombardi could have taken Hadley once he had her. There were too many people at the fair though, too many footprints in the dusty ground to identify which direction he would have taken her.
Hadley was smart, though, and she might know him as a trusted adult, but she wouldn’t have allowed him to take her very far from her father without causing a scene.
I scanned the area again from this new vantage point, and spotted the piece that didn’t belong.
Just a few feet away from the line to the rollercoaster but hidden behind a white and red striped booth that boasted a ridiculous game of darts and balloons, was a pristine white cloth sitting on the ground.
I glanced back at Shepherd, but he was on the phone. Whether with the police or with Gracie didn’t matter. There was no time to wait for backup now. Lombardi had taken Hadley and there were only minutes left until our window of opportunity to get her back would disappear.
Kneeling behind the booth, I pulled another doggie bag out of my pocket and grabbed the cloth, sniffing it lightly to confirm the smell I knew would be attached. Chloroform.
Not only did he have her, but Hadley wouldn’t be fighting back.
From the outside she would simply look like a little girl who had too much fun and fell asleep in her parent’s arms. But I would have seen the two of them if he had headed towards the front, and criminals rarely used front doors when there were other options available.
Pivoting, I tied up the chloroform cloth in the doggie bag and shoved it into Lachlan’s hands as I ran past him towards the back entrance.
Dodging and weaving through the crowd I felt the familiar burn in my lungs, but this wasn’t a race against myself or even against an arbitrary countdown clock. This was a race for a little girl’s life, and I wasn’t going to slow down until I had her safely back in the arms of her parents.
I was smart, though, and well trained. I knew better than to tip a criminal off that they were caught if I wanted to avoid erratic behavior, so I slowed down right as I reached the gates.
Slipping through the back entrance at more of a sedate pace, I scanned the rows and rows of cars before me, looking for any movement.
Any sign of my suspect. This parking lot wasn’t as full as the front had been, but there was still plenty of activity.
A group of teenagers were off to the left, heading towards the carnival, and an older couple was getting into their car in the first row.
And there, three rows in, was Dr. Milo Lombardi. His pale skin and dark hair were unmistakable, and it took everything in me not to run straight at him. I didn’t have a badge, a gun, or even a knife. All I had were my wits and a scant few moments to stop the kidnapping progressing in front of me.
Lombardi was standing on the passenger side of his SUV with the back door open.
As I carefully made my way between the cars I watched him close the door and head around the front of the vehicle towards the driver’s side.
Knowing there wasn’t much time to act, I sprinted towards the back passenger door and flung it open just as he reached the driver’s side.
We locked eyes through the interior of the vehicle as Hadley Shepherd groaned something incomprehensible from where she was laid out on the back seat. Unconscious, but alive.