The Taking Of Carly Bradford. Ramona Richards

case had grown colder as early spring rains washed away the last semblance of evidence. There were, in fact, no leads at all, and even now no evidence that she’d been kidnapped. Not even a clean indication of a crime scene.

      Yet everyone in Mercer knew that the happy princess had not run away. Tyler ached to prove it. To find her.

      He shifted in the chair. Stop whining. Focus on the facts. What few there are.

      The Bradfords had no known enemies. Jack and Nancy Bradford were beloved members of the community with no apparent enemies. Even though Jack was a Portsmouth surgeon, he’d been out of medical school only a few years. He’d never been sued and only had one complaint against him registered with the American Medical Association—and the AMA had cleared him in that case. Nancy had given birth to Carly when she and Jack were still in college, barely making ends meet. They were a family made close by hardship, and they adored each other. Almost no one Tyler interviewed had a bad word to say about them.

      Carly often played in the woods, but at no set time. The only conclusion anyone could draw was that it had been a random act, a moment of opportunity. A cruel stranger who had happened to see the lovely child skipping along after her dog and decided to…

      “Tyler?” The voice came from behind him, and he turned. The young woman who stood there—tall, blond and exceptionally thin—could have been mistaken for a model, except for the white coat and the perpetually exhausted look of an E.R. physician. As police chief of a small town without a hospital, Tyler knew all the E.R. docs in Portsmouth and Manchester. “Hello, Anna,” he said quietly.

      Her warm smile was genuine but looked as tired as her eyes. “Hi, Tyler. She one of your Mercer folks?”

      “Yes. And a friend.”

      Anna nodded. “Then you might want to keep an eye on her for a few days.” She slipped her hands into her jacket pockets and her doctor mode took over. “She took quite a blow across the face. She says it was from a tree branch, and I don’t doubt that. No sign of concussion, though, which is good news. As you can see, we’ve stitched up the cuts and given her something for the pain.”

      “Pain.” Tyler took a deep breath. “Will she be coherent if I talked to her about what happened?”

      Anna paused, focusing on his eyes, considering the question. After a moment, she glanced at Dee, then shook her head. “She has a lot of meds in her now, but she’s asleep, not unconscious. She should stir soon, but she’ll still be loopy. She didn’t make a whole lot of sense before the meds, but now, you may not be able to tell when it’s Dee talking and when it’s the drugs doing the speaking. She needs to rest for a day or so, but she’ll be okay and far more able to tell you her story tomorrow. The nurse is prepping the release paperwork, so they’ll bring her out in a few minutes. Mostly, she needs quiet.”

      Tyler nodded. “Thanks. We appreciate your help.”

      Anna paused, then put a hand on his forearm. “If she needs me, page me. I’ll meet you here.”

      He wrapped his fingers briefly around hers, then she returned to her work.

      When Tyler returned from the treatment area, Maggie stood immediately. “How is she?”

      Tyler held up the two plastic bags the hospital had loaned him, one holding a pair of white sandals, the other the contents of Dee’s pockets. “Shook up. Her face is all scratched up, and her left eye is black and swollen shut. Her doctor thought she’d broken her nose, but it’s just badly bruised.”

      She looked up at Tyler, then pointed at the bag with the sandals. “What are those?”

      He motioned for her to sit, then dropped into a chair next to her. “She kept mumbling about these all the way here. I couldn’t even get her to let go of them. She kept repeating that she’d heard a voice in the woods, demanding that she drop the sandals. She ran, but the voice chased her.” He paused, watching her closely. “She says they’re Carly’s.”

      Maggie fell back in the chair as if she’d been punched, and her voice became a tight, hushed whisper. “Carly’s? How could they be Carly’s?”

      He shrugged. “She said she found them by the stream.”

      Maggie straightened. “That’s impossible. We searched every inch of that stream bank, the entire run of it. The whole town did.”

      “I know.”

      She shook her head. “And we’ve had other false finds. They can’t be Carly’s.”

      “I know.”

      “It’s almost too weird to believe.” She paused. “If I didn’t know Dee, I’d think she was…” Her voice trailed off, and she seemed to sag a little.

      “Hallucinating?” Tyler asked.

      Reluctantly, Maggie nodded.

      “Except she didn’t smack herself in the face.”

      They fell silent a moment, then Maggie pointed at the other bag. “What’s in that one?”

      “The stuff from her pockets.” He turned the bag so they both could see the contents: a cell phone, keys, a pack of mints and a Swiss Army knife. He frowned at them. “She carries a Swiss Army knife?”

      “Everywhere she goes. I think it belonged to her husband. Dee isn’t crazy about carrying a purse.” Maggie looked down at the floor a second, then back up at him. Squaring her shoulders, she stood. “What if she’s right? What if these are Carly’s and someone did attack Dee? What then?”

      Tyler rose as well, watching her face closely, trying to read her meaning. Was this about Dee? Or the fact that those woods bordered the retreat’s property? Fletcher had once told Tyler that Maggie seemed to adopt all the writers at the colony, taking them under her wing no matter what their age. Encouraging, sympathetic, and patient with the creative egos, Maggie became their sister, mother, or daughter, depending on their needs. He also knew that Dee held a special place in Maggie’s heart. Tyler saw that in her now, the light of deep compassion in her hazel eyes.

      He took her hand in his. “Then we’ll protect her. We’ll get her story and investigate. We’ll call the FBI and ask for their help again. We’ll have to revisit a lot of what we’ve done on Carly’s case.”

      Maggie breathed deeply, her voice barely above a whisper. “If they are…I mean…would this mean she could still be in the area? Does this mean that Carly is still alive?”

      THREE

      Somewhere over her head a door slammed violently, and a scream of pure fury echoed throughout the house. Carly Bradford whirled away from the narrow window of the basement room and dropped back down on the bed beneath it. She scooted close to the headboard and drew her knees up close to her chest, waiting, her eyes locked on the overhead vent that allowed in cool air and a lot of noise from upstairs. She followed the booted footsteps as they crossed the ceiling, then thudded down the stairs into the basement and across the short passage outside her door. There was an odd sound of rustling metal that she could never quite figure out, then keys rattled, the lock scraped and the door swung open.

      Her captor entered, face red with anger, and Carly knew immediately that the sandals had not been found.

      “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to drop them…” She stopped, and Carly’s eyes widened as she took in the bruised face and the streaks of mud on the legs and chest of the sweat suit her captor always wore into the woods. Something had happened.

      Carly flinched, a new wave of fear surging through her, and she hugged her legs tighter. “Please don’t hit me again.”

      “Someone took them. I tried to stop her—” Her captor waved a hand in dismissal. “Never mind. I want the dress.”

      Carly pointed, hand trembling, to a trunk in the corner. “It’s still there.”

      Shortly after her captor had locked