Count to Three

by T. R. Ragan

  Ali had texted her sister back that day, told her she was only a few minutes away and would be home soon. When she looked up from her phone, she nearly rammed into a man who was opening the back of his cargo van. “Sorry,” she muttered.

  He smiled, his dimple catching her attention. She’d seen him somewhere before but couldn’t remember where. Twenty-nine, maybe thirty. His body was lean. He wasn’t too tall or too short. He had kind eyes, a strong jaw, and nicely toned biceps. She had blushed, her cheeks burning hot.

  “Nice day we’re having, don’t you think?” he asked.

  “Don’t talk to strangers,” one of her mother’s favorite sayings, had been beaten into her skull. So she smiled but didn’t respond. Just kept walking. That’s when she spotted a boy riding his bike. He did a wheelie off the curb just as a car whizzed by. She squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the screech of tires and squealing brakes. But the kid made it to the other side of the road safely, and the car disappeared out of sight.

  Two seconds later, a hand holding a damp rag reached over her head and covered her nose and mouth. The odor was horrifying. She couldn’t breathe and panic set in fast. Eyes wide open, all she’d seen was a crazed look in the man’s eyes as he dragged her back toward the van.

  Her first thought had been, Where is the man with the dimples and friendly smile?

  She’d struggled to free herself, slapped and kicked, dug her fingernails into flesh, but it was no use. He was strong. She was weak.

  Her screams for help were muffled by the smelly cloth. In her attempt to escape, she’d planted her foot on the bottom frame of the cargo door.

  She pushed.

  He grunted.

  Dizziness overcame her.

  Out of the corner of her eye, just before all was lost and she was tossed into the dark abyss, she saw the boy on the bike across the street, half-hidden beneath the shade of a leafy tree. Their gazes met, his expression grim, worried.

  Or maybe her imagination had been playing tricks on her, giving her hope where there was none.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was Saturday morning, the air still cool and crisp, when Dani slipped the key into the door of her agency’s office and stepped inside. Quinn’s sweater and backpack were hanging on the coat hook near her desk, but her car was nowhere to be seen, which was odd.

  The door leading downstairs was open and the light was on, so Dani shut the main door and headed that way. In the basement she found Quinn on a stepladder, using tape to hang pictures.

  “Hey there,” Dani said. “I didn’t realize you were coming in today.”

  “I was bored. Grandma took the car to go see her friends at Eskaton Village in Carmichael and dropped me off on her way.”

  The new LED bulb made a huge difference in brightening the room. Two dusty bins were on the floor near the wall where Quinn was working. After signing a rental agreement when she’d opened her agency, Dani had cleared out part of her garage at home and brought the bins here, thinking she would go through them when she had time, and had forgotten all about them.

  One wall, Dani noticed as she moved closer, was already half covered with pictures and articles about people who had gone missing, mostly teenagers. Some had disappeared five or more years ago.

  “It’s sad, isn’t it?” Quinn asked. “How many missing persons cases do you think are most likely due to a homicide?”

  Dani didn’t like to think about those sorts of things since it always seemed counterproductive, so she said nothing.

  “There’s a backlog of more than two hundred fifty thousand unsolved murders nationwide,” Quinn went on. “The National Institute of Justice has called it a ‘cold-case crisis.’ The backlog grows every time a homicide isn’t solved. Police departments all across the country are lucky if they can clear sixty percent of their cases.”

  “Not a good trend,” Dani said.

  “Not at all,” Quinn said.

  Dani began to read aloud one of the articles Quinn had taped to the wall. “Eight hundred thousand children are reported missing in America. Some are lost, injured, have run away from home, or are abducted. More than ninety-nine percent of children reported missing in America in recent years have come home alive. But of the estimated one hundred fifteen children abducted by strangers, only fifty-seven percent of them come home alive, forty percent are killed, and the rest remain open cases.”

  “It seems like I’m always reading about how rare stranger abductions are because they are only one percent of the total number of cases,” Quinn said. “But one percent equals hundreds of children. That’s way too many.”

  Dani nodded as she made her way to the wall opposite where she’d been standing and came to a picture with the name ALI CROSS written with a red marker in all caps. Underneath the picture were articles and newspaper clippings. The teenager had been missing for over a week. Dani’s heart went out to the girl’s friends and relatives, and especially to her parents.

  “I put her on that wall because she hasn’t been missing very long,” Quinn explained. “The police investigated but decided there wasn’t evidence to indicate foul play. She falls under the header ‘Runaway Or Foul Play?’”

  Dani nodded. She knew that if she did a quick search on the internet, she would find a similar header in every state, if not every city. In fact, Quinn’s mom, Jeannie Sullivan, fell into that same category. One sunny day, eight years ago, Jeannie had been home folding laundry, and the next day, she was gone. So was her car, an orange Volkswagen Bug, along with her purse. Quinn’s father, years older than his wife, told police Jeannie had not been happy for a while; he was convinced she’d run off to find a better life. Quinn’s grandma had never been close with Jeannie and agreed with her son’s assessment. But Quinn thought otherwise. She loved her mom and was convinced she would never have left Quinn without talking to her first. The event changed her life, setting her on a path to find Jeannie Sullivan and prove everyone wrong.

  Dani had known Quinn for nearly five years now. Their relationship was complicated. Dani had a tendency to want to mother her, protect her, and give her advice, even when she hadn’t asked for it. Quinn, on the other hand, would share only so much with Dani. There were times when Dani sensed she wanted to vent or talk but held back, like an abandoned and starving dog who won’t eat until its rescuer walks away. For the most part, their relationship was defined by loss and hope.

  Dani’s chest tightened when her attention fell on multiple pictures of Tinsley. Her little girl was always so sweet—kind and gentle, curious and happy. Dani missed her, ached to hold her in her arms.

  Quinn looked over her shoulder at Dani. “Have you thought more about when you’re going to make me partner?”

  “I have,” Dani said. “I’m not sure if you’re ready.”

  Quinn climbed down the ladder and plunked her hands on her hips. “What? You promised.”

  “I don’t make promises. You know that.”

  “Well, you hinted strongly that the idea was viable.”

  “I don’t think I said that.” Dani hoped she would let it go, but chances of that happening were slim. Quinn was stubborn. She was also a conundrum—sweet and sour. Bossy but friendly. Controlling sometimes, and yet also strangely submissive.

  Quinn’s gaze bored into her. “Why don’t you think I’m ready?”

  “Because you’re young and inexperienced, and you get too emotionally attached.”

  “What! That’s not true.”

  “You spent four weeks looking for the neighbor’s missing dog,” Dani reminded her.

  “And I found him, didn’t I? Dexter is adorable, and he would have starved to death in that guy’s barn if I hadn’t been persistent.”

  That much was true. The only reason the dog had survived so long was because it had rained and the barn roof had more than one leak. “It’s not just Dexter,” Dani said. “What about the workers’ comp case you helped me with?”

  Quinn’s eyebrows squished together.

&
nbsp; She was trying to play dumb, Dani thought, but it wasn’t working. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. The woman—Claire—turned out to be the real deal. She wasn’t faking her injuries, and you felt so badly about anyone having doubted her that you took it upon yourself to take care of her.”

  “That’s not fair,” Quinn said. “She was elderly—”

  “She was sixty.”

  “Okay, fine. She wasn’t old, but she was definitely in pain. She could barely get to her mailbox, so I helped her out a little. I don’t see the problem.”

  “The problem is you spent the next month doing everything for her. You took her to the grocery store, cooked and baked for her, and mowed her lawn.”

  “I still got all my work done. And besides, I meet all the requirements. All I need is a criminal background check, and I’m good to go.”

  Saved by the bell, Dani thought when she heard the tinkling sound of the door being opened upstairs. “We’ll talk about this later. I better go see who it is.”

  Quinn followed close behind.

  When Dani reached the landing, she saw a young male standing inside the office near the door. He was bony, just under five feet tall. Dani guessed his age to be hovering around twelve, but he had a street-smart look to him that made her think he could be older. His dirty-blond hair was on the long side and hung over his eyes and just past his chin. His denim pants were worn and ripped, but not in a stylish way kids considered cool these days. He wore a gray, short-sleeved T-shirt with a faded American flag on the front.

  “Hello,” Dani said. “Can I help you?”

  “Um, are you a private eye?”

  “Yes,” Quinn blurted. “She’s an investigator. And I am her assistant, at least for now.”

  He flipped his head to one side in what looked like a practiced motion that made his hair follow suit, making it possible to see his eyes, which were sort of squinty and very blue. He reminded Dani of a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

  Dani didn’t know what to make of the boy. He looked harmless enough, and yet there was something unsettling about him, as if he’d somehow squeezed a hundred hard-lived years into twelve.

  Dani gestured toward the chair in front of her desk. “Would you like to have a seat?”

  He looked from the chair to Quinn, then back to Dani before finally walking toward her and taking a seat. He slouched, his back pressed up against the wooden slats, his knees spread wide.

  “So why don’t you tell us what’s on your mind,” Dani said.

  “That girl who’s missing—the one—”

  “Ali Cross?” Quinn asked from across the room.

  He looked at Quinn. “Yeah. Her.”

  “What about her?” Quinn wanted to know.

  “I saw it happen,” the boy said. “I saw him take her.”

  “Who took her?” Quinn asked, her voice high-pitched and anxious.

  Dani’s instinct was to tell Quinn to settle down, to relax, but she knew it probably wouldn’t help matters, so she said nothing.

  “Some guy,” the boy said. “I couldn’t see much of his face, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen him around town before. He was a little taller than you,” he told Quinn. “And he was wearing a dark-blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. His hair was dark brown, shorter than mine.”

  “Was he in a car?” Quinn asked next.

  “No. It was a van. White. With double doors in the back. That’s where he was . . . at the back of the van when the girl walked by. I was across the street on my bike, kind of hidden in the shade of a tree. Something seemed off. And then I saw him drag her to the back of his van, his hand clamped over her mouth. She was struggling, but all I really saw were her eyes and the look of desperation before she went limp and he tossed her inside.” The boy looked at his feet. “I should have yelled something or rushed to help her, but I froze.” He looked up and met Dani’s gaze. “Instead of helping, I stood there and watched the guy jump in behind the wheel and take off.”

  “Did you go to the police?” Dani asked, her heart pumping faster.

  “Yeah. I filled out a form—a report—or whatever they call those things. I was there for a few hours while they asked me the same questions over and over, as if they were trying to confuse me and throw me off. They made me feel as if I’d done something wrong.” He shrugged. “After I left, I thought maybe they would call me with updates, let me know if they found any leads at the site, but nothing happened. Nobody ever contacted me again. So a few days ago, I called the police department, told them who I was, and asked them if they found the girl yet. They said it was an open investigation and they couldn’t tell me nothing.”

  “You don’t think they took you seriously?” Quinn asked.

  “Nope.”

  Dani frowned. “Are you sure Ali Cross was the girl you saw?”

  “Positive.”

  “Do you mind if I call the station to ask them about your report?”

  He stiffened. “You don’t believe me?”

  “I don’t know you, and I certainly don’t know enough about what happened between you and the investigators to have an opinion either way. I am having a difficult time imagining the police not following up with an eyewitness to an abduction.”

  “Go ahead and call,” he said. He stood, flicked his hair. “I’m going to go outside and have a smoke.”

  Dani had to stop herself from lecturing him about smoking. She picked up her phone as she watched him head outside. She waited a minute to see if he took off, but he didn’t. He sat on the bench outside the window, pulled a cigarette and a lighter out of his pants pocket, and lit up.

  Quinn looked at Dani. “Why don’t you believe him?”

  “I never said that. I just want to know why the police didn’t follow up.” Dani pulled up Detective Whitton’s number on her cell and hit the call button.

  “Detective Whitton here. What can I do for my favorite PI?”

  She smiled. “Hi, James. How are things?”

  “My hips have seen better days. It doesn’t help that I’ve packed on a few pounds since I saw you last, but overall things are good. I know you’re not one for small talk, so what is it you’d like to know?”

  “I’ve got a young boy here who says he witnessed Ali Cross’s abduction and filled out a police report but nobody followed up.”

  “Ethan Grant,” he said, reminding her that she’d never asked for the kid’s name. “Hold on a minute. I’ll grab the file.”

  “It’s Saturday. What are you doing at the office?” she asked.

  “I could ask the same of you.”

  She chuckled.

  “I’ll get the file.”

  “Sure.” So it was true, Dani thought. The kid had gone to the police, just like he said.

  A few minutes later, James Whitton was back on the phone. “Ethan Grant. Twelve. Lives in the trailer park off Westacre Road with his alcoholic mother. He has a tendency to lie and steal, and he is not as socially advanced as his peers.”

  Dani said nothing as she waited to see if he had more to say, which he did.

  “Despite the kid’s story having a lot of holes in it, it appears they followed up and went to the spot where Ethan Grant said he’d witnessed the girl’s abduction, but there were no tire marks, no footprints or drag marks. Nothing to back up his story.”

  “What about other witnesses?” she asked.

  “They posted a couple of flyers in the area, asking for information, and talked to a few shop owners, but nothing came of it. I recall the lead investigator saying he thought the kid’s story was just an attempt to get attention.”

  “Hmm. Ethan Grant seems genuinely concerned for the girl,” Dani said.

  Dani could hear papers rustling on the other end of the line before James said, “They certainly did their homework. Investigators talked to Ethan’s teachers, neighbors, and a couple of kids at his school.” James whistled through his teeth. “I’m looking at a list of grievances a mile long.”

  Through the
front window Dani watched Ethan blow perfect smoke rings into the air. “What sort of grievances?”

  “Let’s see. He started a fire when he was ten, but someone caught him and was able to put it out before things got out of hand. His neighbor came home from work and found him in her kitchen making a snack. The boy took off his shirt in the middle of class because he was hot, called the principal a few choice words, got caught stealing cigarettes from a corner market. Shall I go on?”

  “No need.” She scratched her head. “It just doesn’t make sense, though, does it? That the boy wouldn’t just give up after he’d already talked to the police and filled out a report?”

  “Who knows what goes through a kid’s head at that age. I do know that his description of the van and the driver changed over the course of a few hours. First the man who took her was forty and then he was twenty-five. His hair color was dark, and then it was dirty blond. Same with the vehicle he was driving. It went from being a truck, to a minivan, to a cargo van.”

  “Trying to remember details can be a stressful experience, especially for a twelve-year-old kid talking to the police,” Dani said in the boy’s defense.

  “True. You know as well as I do that most eyewitness accounts are shockingly inaccurate and cannot be relied upon.” James sighed. “Not much we can do without a license plate number and no concrete description of the driver.”

  “Okay,” Dani said. “So that’s it, huh?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Forget about Ethan Grant,” Dani said. “Are there any suspects in the Ali Cross case?”

  “None.”

  “I read somewhere that detectives are now leaning toward her being a runaway. Is that right?”

  “Ali Cross and her mother did get in a fight the morning she went missing,” James answered. “So yes, it’s safe to say she isn’t a top priority at the moment.”

  “Then I guess I’ll just thank you for your time and let you get on with your weekend.”

  “Before you go,” James said, “any thoughts as to why the kid might have picked you to talk to?”

  “No idea,” Dani said. “Maybe he heard I have ‘sucker’ written across my forehead.”