The Taking Of Carly Bradford. Ramona Richards

can’t be Carly’s! We went over that ground with a fine-tooth comb. There’s no way we missed something as important as her shoes! He stopped and bent over, bracing his hands on his knees and stretching his back and thighs. “Right?” he asked Patty again.

      Patty decided a telephone pole was more interesting and tugged on her leash. He relented and as he waited ran his hand through his close-cropped hair, his deep-seated frustration rising again. His jogs normally pushed it away, but not today. He let out a long breath and resumed walking.

      As he turned onto his street, a dark, nondescript sedan pulled up next to him, and the passenger window slid down. Fletcher leaned over and called to him. “Get in. We’ve been looking for you.”

      Tyler opened the back door and motioned for Patty to get in, then he got in the front. “What’s going on?”

      Fletcher turned the car toward downtown. “Wayne called the lodge when he couldn’t get you on the phone. Someone’s found Carly’s dress.”

      FOUR

      Thin bands of white moonlight brightened Dee’s room and fell in stripes across her face. She stirred and blinked, easing awake in the silent room, confused as to why the moon seemed to be in the wrong position. The bed, the night table, also wrong. She jerked up as a short burst of panic flared in her. Where am I? The jerk produced pain in her face, neck and shoulders, and it all flooded back again—the day, the attack, the fuzzy ride home from the hospital.

      Oh. Right. The lodge house, not my cabin. Dee pressed her head against the pillow and closed her eyes, aware that the pain, dull and throbbing, must have awakened her. She touched her face gingerly, a bit surprised at how much even the lightest touch hurt. Twin tears slipped from the corner of each eye, moistening her temples and disappearing into her hair.

      What was I thinking, why didn’t I just drop the sandals? Stupid! He could have killed me. Yet, even as she scolded herself, Dee knew why.

      Carly. Whoever attacked her must have Carly. Dee now knew that fact as certainly as she knew her own name. No one else would know yet that she had found the shoes. No one else could know whether they were really Carly’s. No matter how crazy it sounded, it had to be true. They were Carly’s.

      But would Tyler believe her? She’d seen the look in his eyes, and that doctor’s, when she’d told the story in the E.R. They thought she was crazy.

      Still crazy. Tyler must think I’ve had a relapse. Maybe I have. Dee did know she couldn’t get Carly out of her head. She’d thought of almost nothing since she’d found the sandals. In and out of her grogginess at the hospital and, later, here, her mind had replayed every newspaper article she’d read, every television report she’d seen. Carly is eight, the same age Joshua was. We have to find her. We have to!

      Dee knew that Carly now threatened to be lodged in her mind and spirit, almost in the same way Joshua had been. And Mickey. Even after they died. But Carly…Carly might still be alive. And that—person—knows. I know what I heard. I heard it. I didn’t make it up. He has to believe me.

      “Tyler,” she whispered. Dee opened her eyes as she remembered the trip home, how he’d lifted her at the hospital, then again here. Lifted her as easily as if she were a child. He’d been so tender with her, as if she were fragile as well as injured. His chest and arms had been firm, radiating a comforting warmth, and he’d smelled like…. Dee closed her eyes again and inhaled, as if he were still next to her. He smelled like soap and freshly cut wood.

      And there was something else…a whispered phrase. Even now she felt uncertain that she’d actually heard it.

      Ride easy, Dixie Dee.

      She smiled, which hurt, making her thoughts return to Carly. “You have to believe me.” Her words slipped away unheard as sleep took over again, and she drifted away with one last thought. I have to talk to the Bradfords.

      “Where?” Tyler demanded as Fletcher put the car in gear.

      “Downstream from where Dee found the shoes. That stream apparently runs behind a subdivision a few miles down—”

      “Ryan’s Point. It’s one of the older neighborhoods in Mercer. Some of the houses date back to the nineteenth century.”

      “A woman found it in her garbage bin. Said she’d noticed someone in her backyard earlier, but didn’t think anything about it at first. Then she went to take out the trash, opened the bin, and there it was. She knew it wasn’t hers and had seen enough of the news that she called the station. Wayne caught the call.”

      “Is he at the scene now?”

      Fletcher took another turn and speeded up. “On his way.” The older detective’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “Said the woman told him she’d seen enough of those true crime TV shows that she knew not to touch anything. Maybe they are good for something.”

      Tyler snorted. “Now if they’d stop convincing jurors that DNA is the answer to everything. Who’s the woman?”

      Fletcher pulled a slip of paper from his shirt pocket and handed it to Tyler, who unfolded it. Directions to the house, scribbled in Fletcher’s bold, angular scrawl, cluttered most of the page. At the bottom, capital letters spelled out “Jenna Czock.” Tyler said the name.

      “You know her?”

      “I know everybody in Mercer.”

      Fletcher’s mouth twisted. “Small-town cop. I need to get you into New York sometime. I meant more than by sight.”

      “Nah, there are too many strangers in New York. Jenna runs the florist shop on Fourth, which she started after her divorce about twenty, twenty-five years ago, so my mother tells me. Jenna’s maybe mid-fifties, dark hair. I don’t know her well, but she sometimes eats lunch at Laurie’s the same time Dee and I do.”

      Fletcher glanced sideways at his friend. “You and Dee eat lunch together?”

      Tyler felt his cheeks burn. “I mean, we eat there at the same time. It’s not like—” He broke off, stumbling over the explanation and deciding to change the subject. He didn’t want to explain that he’d started timing his lunches so he’d be there when Dee arrived. “You need to turn here.” He pointed.

      “Directions said—”

      “This is faster.”

      Fletcher followed Tyler’s instructions, letting a few seconds of silence pass. “You know, I can be distracted, but I don’t forget.”

      “Take the next left. We need to focus on the case.”

      In the silence that followed, Patty stuck her head between the front seats and Tyler scratched her chin. “OK. Go ahead and say it.”

      Fletcher remained silent.

      Tyler filled in the empty air. “This makes Dee’s claim a lot more credible.” He pointed at another street.

      Fletcher turned the corner, still quiet.

      “Do you have any idea when I’ll stop screwing up this case? I should have jumped on those shoes and got them to the lab last night.”

      Fletcher glanced sideways again, then back to the road. “Don’t give yourself so much credit. You’re not screwing up anymore than the rest of us. This case is a jumbled mess and has been since Day One. You were right not to send the shoes last night. You know as well as I do how many false reports we’ve had about the shoes. It would be worse to jump the gun on these, especially given how fragile Nancy Bradford is right now. We need to find out if they are Carly’s before we stir anything else up.” Fletcher took a deep breath. “What I want to know is why pieces of Carly Bradford’s last known set of clothes are suddenly being scattered up and down the same stream of water.”

      Tyler’s gut twisted. “She’s dead, and her killer is getting rid of evidence.”

      “But if Dee is right, then the shoes