Without a Trace. Carissa Lynch Ann

One minute, I was sliding the cuffs on his wrists, and the next, it was me being slammed against the hood of my cruiser. You think you’re tough, don’t you? You don’t know shit, rookie. He let me go, but then he did the unthinkable: he reached for my gun. Afterwards, my fellow officers would claim that Ezra was probably just teasing, trying to show me I was ill-prepared as a new cop…but he was wrong about that. When he reached so did I…and moments later, one of us was lying dead on the ground…

      Cautiously, I parked and emerged from my patrol car. While most of my male colleagues would have itched their fingers over their guns at the sight of a hysterical person, my instinct was to go to her, to calm her down. She was clearly distraught, her cheeks streaked with tears, her skin blotchy. I couldn’t shake off images of Mandy Clark’s distraught face, her battered skin stretched over her face like a ghoulish mask…

      “Sh-she’s gone,” the robed woman choked out the words, all the while fighting with the hair around her face. “M-my Lily’s gone.”

      The wind howled, blistery cold for September, causing me to stumble a bit with the heavy belt weighing down my mid-section. I shook off my whirling thoughts about that day with Ezra Clark and tried to focus. “Ma’am, let’s go inside and talk. Would that be okay?”

      She hesitated, giving me the once over as though I were a stranger asking to use her phone. Her eyes were wild, shell-shocked. Maybe she knows who I am. Maybe she knows I shot a colleague, I thought. But that’s ridiculous, I chastised myself, immediately. This woman was new to Northfolk; she couldn’t possibly know about the Clark incident.

      “I’m here to help. You called us,” I gently reminded her.

      Shakily, she led the way inside. The cabin was sparsely furnished, a small arm chair and rug in the center of the living room. Everything looked worn but clean, and not recently used.

      There was no TV, no pictures or personal effects.

      “How long have you lived here?” Awkwardly, I tried to adjust my belt, then took out a notebook and pen from my back pocket. The pages were blank, which for some reason, made me feel embarrassed.

      “I just moved in yesterday. Me and my daughter, Lily. She’s f-four.”

      “And your name?”

      “Nova Nesbitt.” The words were like whispers, strained.

      “And your ex-husband, how long have you two been divorced?”

      Nova shifted from foot to foot, chewing on a stray piece of hair and looking around the room with those wide, wild eyes. “Well, we’re not. I mean, I-I only just left him y-yesterday.”

      I clicked the bottom of my pen, open and closed. It was a nervous habit.

      “Does he live in Northfolk, too?”

      “No. He’s b-back in G-Granton, Tennessee. I can g-give you the address though.”

      After I scribbled his name, address, and phone number down, I closed my pad. “Ma’am, if you’re not legally divorced and you both share custody of the girl, then it’s not a crime for her to be with her father.”

      Nova was pacing now, her skimpy undergarments exposed as the robe shifted back and forth across her thighs. She was a tall woman, but painfully thin. I thought about that expression, the one about a stiff breath of wind blowing someone away.

      She stopped moving, her face twisting with desperation as her eyes searched mine. “L-listen, you d-don’t understand. He was abusive. He is abusive. That’s w-why we left. I d-don’t know how he knew we w-were here…he must have followed me! And w-while I was asleep, that bastard t-took my daughter. She’s in d-danger. You have to b-believe me. Her life depends on it! He will hurt her to get to me, m-mark my w-words.” It was painful watching her mouth twist and struggle to form the words.

      “Do you have a restraining order against him?” Part of me was secretly glad he wasn’t here. The thought of getting directly involved in another domestic dispute made me more uneasy than I’d like to admit.

      Even though she was looking right at me, it seemed like Nova was seeing straight through me now. Her eyes turned smoggy and lost.

      She mashed her hands down on her hips, and muttering under her breath, she said something about a piece of paper being unable to keep someone safe.

      I could see her point but having a legal document that prevented her husband from taking the girl would have made my job much easier.

      “Have you tried calling him?” I asked, unsure what my next move should be here. I had been so confident when I’d started this job—maybe too confident—but lately, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was like a little kid playing dress-up in my cop’s uniform. After the incident with Ezra Clark, none of my colleagues trusted me or wanted to work with me…and lately, I’d found that I was struggling to trust myself…

      Domestic situations were always tricky, and sometimes the parents used their kids as pawns, or weapons, to hurt each other. Was that what was going on here?

      Nova shook her head. “I-I haven’t c-called him.” She reached for the arm of the sofa, stumbling to catch herself from collapsing to the floor below.

      I kept my eyes on her as I flipped through a couple blank pages in my notebook. Still gripping the couch arm for dear life, she closed her eyes. She was muttering under her breath, counting, I think…

      I was close enough to smell her breath and I noticed it was hot and stale. But I caught a whiff of something else, too. Alcohol crossed my mind, but this smelled more minty, possibly like mouthwash. Did she wash out her mouth with mouthwash before I came?

      That didn’t seem like something a distraught woman would do, I thought. But looking at Nova Nesbitt, there was no question in my mind: this woman was freaking out. She seemed scared. Skittish.

      Scanning her face again, I looked for signs of drug use. Although heroin was the main drug of choice in these parts, I’d been around a lot of meth users, too.

      She was acting strange, but her pupils were normal-sized. She didn’t appear to be on drugs, but then again, it wasn’t always easy to tell.

      “He’s d-dangerous,” she repeated, rocking back and forth on her heels. “Very dangerous.”

      “Can I see where Lily was sleeping?”

      Without answering, Nova drifted down a shadowy hallway, dragging her robe along like a bridal train. Cautiously, I followed behind, looking for anything out of order. We passed a master bedroom and bathroom. Both looked empty and pristine.

      When we entered the child’s room, I immediately noted that it was neat but bare, like the rest of the house. There was only a twin-sized bed and dresser in the room. The bed unmade, there was a creamy blue blanket folded neatly at the foot of it.

      “Found this.” Nova held up a strange, stuffed toy. I took it, turning it over and back in my hands. It was odd, unlike any sort of stuffed animal I’d played with as a girl. A rabbit, and a downright ugly one at that, with eerie button eyes and worn out brown fur. It had plastic black claws on its hands and feet and two jagged white teeth protruded from the bunny’s mouth. There were a few pieces of gray string protruding from its head. It almost looked…cruel.

      “Is this your daughter’s toy?” I set the creepy rabbit back down.

      Nova was pacing beside the child’s bed. She stopped and threw up her hands in disgust. “No! Why aren’t you listening? I found it! My husband…he calls Lily his ‘little bunny’. I think he left this here to taunt me. He’s dangerous! Please, you have to take me seriously!” In Nova’s angry outburst, the stutter had all but disappeared.

      The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I stared at the forlorn toy. Little Bunny. What a creepy thing to leave behind if he was the one who took her, I thought. Suddenly, this seemed less like a custody dispute, and more like a kidnapping…but the last time I got involved in a domestic squabble, a