The Sheriff's Secretary. Carla Cassidy

depths of her eyes. “No…nothing. Please, you need to do something. Jenny wouldn’t do this to me. Something is wrong.”

      Lucas looked at his watch. Almost ten-thirty. He hadn’t realized how late it had become. For the first time since he’d gotten the call from Mariah, a whisper of deep concern swept through him.

      Sure, Jenny had pulled some stunts in the past that had made him want to wring her neck, but he couldn’t imagine her pulling this kind of disappearing act with eight-year-old Billy in tow.

      She turned back to the counter to pour them each a cup of coffee, but Lucas was suddenly in no mood to sit idle. The fact that his phone remained silent indicated that none of his deputies had run across them. Conja Creek was a small town, and it shouldn’t take this long for his men to find her…if she was someplace where she could be found.

      He drew a breath of relief as his cell phone rang. He grabbed it from his shirt pocket and flipped it open. “Sheriff Jamison,” he said. There was a moment of silence. “Hello?”

      “Twinkle twinkle little star, only I know where they are. A game of hide-and-seek we’ll play. Let’s see if you can save the day.” The voice was deep, guttural and sent shock waves through Lucas. Before he could reply, the caller clicked off.

      Chapter Two

      Mariah saw the blood leave Lucas’s face as he checked the caller ID box, then slowly closed his phone and placed it on the table. Rich, raw fear invaded her, chilling her to the bone. She sank into the chair opposite him, afraid her legs would no longer hold her up.

      “Did they find them?” Her head pounded with nauseating tension. “Please, tell me. Is he…are they…” She couldn’t say the word.

      “No! No, that wasn’t one of my deputies,” Lucas said hurriedly. A muscle ticked in his taut jaw, and for the first time since he’d arrived, she saw a touch of something deep and dark in his eyes. That frightened her as much as anything.

      “Then who was on the phone?” She didn’t want to know, was afraid of what he was going to tell her, and yet she had to know. She drew a steadying breath.

      “I don’t know who was on the phone. The call shows up as private on the ID. The caller indicated that he has Jenny and Billy and that a game of hide-and-seek has commenced.”

      She stared at him for a moment, unable to make sense of his words. Hide-and-seek? That was one of Billy’s favorite games. But this wasn’t a game. This was something awful. As she tried to absorb what he’d just told her, he called the sheriff’s office.

      “Wally,” he said into his phone. “Get all the men together and meet me at Mariah Harrington’s house. We have a situation here.”

      A situation. Is that what this was? She swallowed against the scream that threatened to rip its way out of her throat. Billy. Where was Billy and who had taken him?

      Calm. Stay calm, she told herself. It wouldn’t do any good to fall to pieces. She had to stay calm and focused for whatever came next.

      “What happens now?” She was surprised by the composure of her voice when inside she was quietly shattering apart.

      He rose from the table. “I’ll take a closer look around. We can talk to neighbors and see if anyone saw anything here today.” His dark eyes gave away nothing of his thoughts.

      Did he feel the same panic for his sister as she felt for her son? Oh, God. As the full impact sank in, she began to tremble. “What can I do? Shouldn’t I be out asking questions? Looking for him?”

      Lucas placed a hand on her shoulder as if to steady her rising hysteria, then returned to his chair in front of her. “Can you tell me if Jenny was seeing anyone in particular?”

      She frowned and tried to focus on his question. “You mean dating?” She shook her head. “She was still nursing her wounds from when Phil Ribideaux broke up with her a couple of months ago.” She twisted her fingers in her lap. “But, I don’t know what she did or who she saw while I was at work every day. Do you think somebody she was seeing might be behind this?”

      “I’m not sure what to think at this point.” He got up once again. “I’m going to go check around again. We’ll find them, Mariah. Try not to worry. We’ll find them.”

      He left her there, and she knew he was going back to Jenny’s room. Try not to worry? Was the man insane? She got up from the chair, unable to sit still another minute longer.

      Why on earth would somebody want to kidnap Billy? As her mind whirled with suppositions, she realized she didn’t want to go there. Too many of the answers were too terrifying.

      A sob choked up from the depths of her as she moved to the window and peered outside into the black of night. Billy didn’t like the dark. Now he was out there somewhere, being held by someone so he couldn’t come home.

      Cold. She’d never felt so cold. She squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to remember every moment of that morning. She’d been in a hurry. She’d overslept and had rushed around to get ready for work.

      When she’d awakened Billy, and he’d complained of a sore throat, she’d barely taken time to console him. She’d taken his temperature, which had been normal, had given him a brisk pat on the head, then had left for work knowing Jenny would handle things for the day.

      All she wanted to do now was turn back the hands on the clock, somehow retrieve the precious morning. This time, when Billy complained of a sore throat, she would call in to work and take the day off. She’d stay home with her son and make him chicken noodle soup for lunch and peanut butter sandwiches with the crust cut off just the way he liked them.

      She’d stay home, and he’d be safe. Another sob escaped her and she pressed her fingers against her lips in an attempt to suppress it.

      She turned away from the window and headed to his bedroom. As she entered, the first thing that caught her eye was the inhaler on the nightstand, along with the nebulizer that had gotten Billy through a rough attack on many nights.

      She whirled out of the bedroom and bumped into Lucas coming out of Jenny’s room. “Lucas, Billy has asthma and they didn’t take his inhaler. If he gets stressed or scared he’ll have an attack and…” Her voice trailed off, the sentence too horrifying to finish.

      “Mariah, what I need from you is a recent photo of Billy.” His voice was calm, as if he hadn’t heard what she’d just told him.

      “Billy has asthma,” she repeated.

      “I heard you.” His dark eyes held her gaze intently. “But we can’t do anything about that right now. We have to stay focused on the things we can do. Now, I need a picture of Billy.”

      Somehow his words penetrated through the veil of despair that threatened to consume her. She nodded, grateful for something, anything to do.

      She went to the desk in the living room and grabbed the framed photo that sat on top. It was the school portrait taken last year. She stared at it. Until this moment she hadn’t realized how much he’d changed in the past several months. His dark hair was longer than it had been when the photo was taken, and his face was thinner. He’d been missing a front tooth then. Imagining his beautiful little face in her mind once again brought the press of tears to her eyes.

      She set the photo back on the desk and began to dig through the top drawer. It suddenly seemed important that she find the perfect picture of her son.

      In a frenzy she searched, more frantic with each second that passed. Her fingers finally landed on an envelope of photos she’d recently had developed. She opened the envelope and pulled out the photos.

      The most recent one she had of Billy was of him and Jenny together. She picked it up and traced a finger over Billy’s dark, unruly hair. His smile was filled with mischief as he grinned into the camera while making horns with his fingers behind Jenny’s head.