by Bonnie Vanak
“The man who said he was a family friend?”
Belle sighed. “Anna told me he was much more and planned to marry Rosa, her mother. Do you think he is the one who abducted her?”
“Could be. Or maybe he was selling her to someone.” Kyle squinted at the triangle. “Homeless, huh? Probably a tent. Had you ever seen this John Smith before in the clinic?”
“No, but remember, I don’t normally work on Saturdays. And John Smith said they last saw Dr. Patterson.”
He’d tried contacting the doctor, but all calls went to voice mail. Not odd if the man was out of town for a family funeral.
Still, it didn’t cast Dr. Patterson in a good light.
He tried to remember which local parks offered camping. “Camping on a permanent basis is one step above sleeping on the street. In the season, it’s much cheaper than a hotel, although with all the tourists visiting here in the winter, reservations are hard to find at the more desirable locations.”
“For recreational vehicles, yes. But tents...” Belle set down her mug on the coffee table before them. She reached into the pocket of her lab coat. Using a latex glove, she handed him a slip of paper. “This fell out of my pocket after I dug out the drawing. I wasn’t certain if it was important.”
Kyle silently swore. The receipt, for seven days at a campsite at a local park, was critical. “Why didn’t you tell me about this on the phone or when I first walked in the door?”
Every moment was critical in finding a missing person.
Her mouth thinned. “I didn’t know. I wasn’t certain it belonged to Anna, or if it was something else. I send my lab coats out for cleaning and someone could have slipped it in there by mistake.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He softened his tone. “She could be miles from here by now. But this gives us a starting point.”
Kyle downed his coffee. He called Roarke, relaying what Belle had found.
The news his partner relayed made his stomach clench.
“Someone left a message in Spanish on the missing-persons hotline. Female, voice sounded in her twenties. Said she recognized John Smith yesterday at the clinic and had seen him at a local playground, alone, last month staring at all the kids. She thought he was INS, got spooked and told the other mothers to grab their children and leave,” Roarke told him.
He gave the address of Hideaway Park. “Meet me there.”
After hanging up, Kyle slipped the receipt and the drawing into a large plastic baggie and zipped it. “Thank you for your help,” he told Belle.
As he headed out the door, she followed, locking up and saying goodbye to her dog. Belle clutched a garage-door opener. “I’m going with you.”
“I don’t think so.” Kyle opened his car door.
“You can’t stop me.”
Stubborn civilians. He gave her a stare that had known criminals quaking in their cheap shoes. “No.”
“You don’t know what she looks like. Or what her mother looks like.” She frowned. “Or this John Smith.”
More than likely he was not. Much as he hated admitting it, he needed her to ID Anna.
“Your brunch?”
“Already canceled.” Her smile held a note of triumph.
Kyle clenched and unclenched his fingers after closing his car door. “Okay. But you’re staying in the car after we get there. Deal?”
“Yes. Only if you don’t need my help.” Belle pressed the garage-door opener. “We can take separate cars.”
The garage door slipped upward, revealing a new red Corvette sitting inside, shiny and sparkling. Whoa. Sweet. Kyle’s jaw dropped. “Well, damn.”
Belle sighed. “Graduation present from my parents. And a bribe to nudge me into a residency in cardiology.”
“I got a pocketknife when I graduated.”
For a few precious seconds, he remained lost in thought, staring at the car. Seventeen again, a sweet cherry-red convertible, when life was great and all he needed was the open road ahead of him. Reckless and filled with confidence, the times when he didn’t have an up close and personal acquaintance with the horrors people could inflict on innocent children. The times before he knew the anguish of watching his wife’s body lowered into a cold grave, the sleepless nights spent at Kasey’s bedside, praying for a miracle doctors failed to deliver...
Kyle shook himself out of the past. “You know where the park is?”
Belle gave him a look that all but said, Seriously?
“Don’t speed in that thing,” he warned.
“I’m a doctor.” She gave another smug smile. “I can always use that as an excuse.”
“Yeah, and I don’t want to have to bail your cute butt out of jail.”
Inside, he nearly groaned. Did he actually call her bottom “cute”?
Far from looking insulted, the faintest smile touched her pink-glossed lips. “Okay, Agent Cowboy.”
Minutes later, he was behind the steering wheel, zipping down the road toward the park as Belle followed. Her car looked as if it drove like a dream.
Even if they headed into a nightmare.
Please let Anna be there—let everything be okay.
The silent mantra had been played over and over in his head countless times in the past. Most times, the kids were okay.
He hoped Anna was a drama queen craving attention, and all they’d find was an annoyed mama and a little girl looking guilty for causing such a stir.
When he reached the area, the campgrounds had only a few people. A family cooked breakfast on the charcoal grill, and a father and son fished in the lake bordering the campsite.
At tent number eight, he parked. The space was empty. Kyle had a bad feeling about this. He went to Belle, who rolled down her window.
“Stay in your car and let me check things out first,” he told her.
Near the back of the tent, he paused and squatted down, staring at a darkened patch of grass. Kyle became aware of footsteps crunching on the undergrowth, and the delicate scent of perfume.
“I told you to stay in the car,” he snapped.
“And I told you I would, unless you needed my help.” Belle sucked in a breath. “That’s blood.”
He withdrew his pistol and followed the faint trail to the lake bank.
Partly hidden by saw palmetto bushes and scrub, a woman lay half-submerged in the lake. He hurried toward the prone figure, praying he wasn’t too late. As he reached the body, Belle gasped.
“That’s Rosa! Anna’s mother.” She whipped her head around. “Where’s Anna?”
Deep in his gut, Kyle knew the truth.
Anna Rodriguez was gone, and now they had another missing girl to find.
Chapter 5
All her medical training kicked in as Agent Anderson hauled Rosa’s body out of the water. As he called 911, Belle searched the woman’s pale face and blue lips. Not breathing. She checked for a pulse.
Nothing.
“Help me,” she urged him. “Do you know CPR?”
Without answering, Kyle straddled Rosa’s body and began chest compressions. Belle let him. He was far stronger and could keep trying far longer than she could. “Fifteen compressions, then two breaths,” she ordered.
Belle tipped back the woman’s mouth as Kyle counted. Dark bruises ringed her neck. At fifteen, he stopped and she pinched Rosa’s nose and breathed into her mouth.
Nothing.
“Again,” she snapped.
They repeated the process.
They had no idea how long Rosa had been submerged, or had gone without oxygen. Yet every bone in her body urged her to try and keep trying.
Please live. Don’t die on me.
Her body and brain went on automatic as she kept trying. Seeing Agent Anderson grew tired, Belle nudged him aside.
“Switch places.”
&
nbsp; CPR was hard, tiring work and yet she kept at it. A person could live ten minutes without oxygen. At least the compressions would give Rosa a fighting chance as the heart was forced to pump blood through her body.
Muscles burned and ached. As she began the fifth round of pushing on Rosa’s chest, she felt a helpless sense of unreality.
“I don’t know if we can save her,” Belle told him.
Expression tight, he shook his head. “No! Keep at it! I’m not losing her!”
Sirens whined in the near distance. A group had gathered nearby. They were circling them, like vultures, the curious park visitors who gaped at them. Belle’s anxiety rose. “Need space. Give us room,” she told them.
A cool, hard stare at the crowd and Agent Anderson snapped out an order in his deep, authoritative voice. “Get back now.”
Bystanders stepped away. A park ranger drove up in an all-terrain vehicle and jumped out. “What can I do?” the ranger asked.
“Take over compressions,” Anderson ordered.
Belle didn’t argue. Her muscles ached and she lacked the strength of the more robust ranger. Instead, she stayed close, listening for breath sounds.
Rosa gagged. Rushing to her side, Belle gently turned Rosa’s head to one side as the woman began to vomit out water and mucus.
“Anna,” the woman said, moaning.
Rosa fell into unconsciousness once more as the ambulance pulled up. Agent Anderson snapped at the crowd to clear out as the emergency medical technicians raced forward.
Numb, Belle recited the case history. Female, approximately twenty-five years old, mouth full of water...
Bruises on her neck, indicating her attacker first tried to strangle Rosa.
As the medics worked on Rosa, relief filled her. She had a pulse and was breathing. I did it.
Belle glanced at Agent Anderson. No, we did it.
His gaze softened at her. “Come on. You look a little shocky.” He pointed to the ATV. “Mind if we borrow it?”
They rode in the ATV a short distance to the park office, which had a vending machine. Kyle bought her a can of cola and they rode back.
“Thank you, Agent Anderson.”
“Kyle,” he told her. “My name is Kyle.”
Belle drank the soda, the caffeine and sugar shooting through her system and clearing her mind. His big presence felt oddly comforting. Like a sentry standing guard, protecting her from the police now dispersing the crowd and clearing the scene.
The ambulance whined as they carted Rosa away.
“What are her chances?” he asked.
“Depends. She’ll need a hundred percent O2 and blood-gas analysis. If they can manage the hypoxemia and acidosis, she has a fighting chance. We don’t know how long she was out, so they’ll probably intubate her in the ambulance to keep her breathing.”
Kyle’s brow wrinkled. “Acidosis?”
“Buildup of carbon monoxide in her bloodstream. Hypoxemia is low O2 in the blood.”
“So questioning her is out for the moment.”
Belle lowered the soda can from her mouth. “We just saved her life and you want to question the woman right now?”
Cold, callous. Yet she understood his attitude. Professionalism was needed when one worked. Otherwise, the work couldn’t get done. She’d been taught as a doctor to turn off emotions while working with patients.
It was a skill set she had yet to master.
“We know Anna is missing. Rosa is the last one to see her alive. She can help fill in the missing pieces.” A muscle twitched in his strong jawline. “The difference between an hour and two hours could mean the difference between finding Anna dead. After one day, eighty percent of the missing children turn up dead.”
Belle shuddered. Saving lives was in her blood. The thought of discovering Anna dead in a ditch somewhere, imagining how she had cried out for her mother...
“I don’t know how you can do this kind of work,” she muttered.
Kyle took the soda can from her hand, drank deeply. He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand and returned the can to her. “You just do it.”
Her mouth hovered over where he had drunk, the spot warm from his lips. Belle imagined his mouth and the hot pressure of it on hers...
Scowling, she set the can down on the ATV’s dashboard. “You can’t question Rosa. I’m telling you, even if she gains consciousness again, she won’t be able to talk.”
“Leave that to me when the time comes.”
* * *
Ticktock. The clock was running. If they didn’t find the girl in twenty-four hours, her chances of remaining alive dwindled.
No emotions. No guilt, anger or fear that he was going to lose another one, just like he’d lost Kasey. Cold, hard professionalism kicked in as the local police cordoned off the crime scene. If Dr. Belle had taken his pulse, she’d have been stunned to see his heart rate rise above sixty.
Roadblocks had been set up and deputies searched each car that left the park, and every car for a vicinity of five miles. Park rangers were working on identifying everyone in the area. Interviewing them about anyone they might have seen, cars that were in the campground, how Rosa and her daughter acted while they were here.
Kyle needed a list of everyone who’d been in this park from the day Rosa and her daughter arrived. Delivery people. Construction workers. Other campers. Motive was important. If the kidnapper grabbed her as part of a child-trafficking operation, she could have been tossed into a van and headed for the state line to be smuggled out.
Crime-scene techs were working the scene. The local sheriff’s office had mobilized and brought in every available deputy. In most cases, he worked closely with local law enforcement, letting them take the lead because they knew the area and could prove immensely useful. Forensic evidence could give them clues of the struggle that had ensued, and the suspect’s identity.
Kyle hoped Anna might have run off and hidden if she witnessed the violence against her mother. But his gut, which always proved him right, warned otherwise.
They had a witness who could tell them everything...if she were conscious. The deputy sent to the hospital to check on Rosa had reported back the woman was as Belle indicated—intubated and in a coma.
Maybe he should have gone to the hospital. But he tried to avoid them unless absolutely necessary. The antiseptic smell of bleach combined with bodily fluids...the anguish on faces of waiting relatives coiled his guts into a knot. Never thought he’d be the one waiting on a hard chair, tensing each time the door swung open and a nurse came out to inform relatives of a status update.
He scanned the crowd. Deputies were taking names, questioning possible witnesses. Someone had to have seen something.
“A police sketch artist is on her way for you to give a description of the man who brought Rosa and Anna to the clinic. We’ll feed it into the local, state and federal databases,” he told Belle.
After mobilizing the local authorities and setting up a command post, he and Roarke had begun coordinating the investigation.
Belle had already given a description of Anna so they could put out an Amber Alert. Kyle pulled Belle over to a nearby picnic table and sat her down.
“You’re the only other person besides Rosa who interacted with Anna and this John Smith. I want to know everything about this man. How did he act? Did he have any scars, tattoos, identifying marks? What was he wearing?”
Kyle jotted down details as Belle closed her eyes and rattled them off. Height about five feet, seven inches. Brown eyes.
Belle frowned. “Neatly dressed, with a white button-down business shirt, jeans. His shoes were scuffed but looked like faux leather. Laced up. Dirty blond hair, and I mean dark as well as greasy, beneath a ball cap with some kind of tractor logo.”
“International Harvester?”
Belle closed her eyes. “J
ohn Deere.”
“Detailed,” he murmured.
“I have a photographic memory.” Her carnation-pink mouth lifted briefly before her lower lip wobbled again. “Helped get me through medical school.”
Or did she state details to throw suspicion off herself and the clinic? Kyle couldn’t be certain.
“Anything else? Did he say anything about where they were headed? Did Anna tell you? Sometimes kids going on a trip are so excited they’ll talk nonstop about it.”
“No. She only mentioned they were moving soon as John Smith came into some money.”
Belle pressed two fingers to her temples. “Can you get anything on the car he was driving? Even if it was stolen?”
“It’s on the Amber Alert and the sheriff’s office issued a BOLO, but chances are this Smith guy will ditch it or switch plates. At least it’s a lead.”
“BOLO?”
“Be on the lookout.”
“What next?” Anxiety tightened Belle’s pretty face as she watched techs scour the area and leave markers indicating possible forensic evidence.
“They’ll look for hairs, fibers, fluids, anything that might lead us to the kidnapper’s identity.”
“You already know that. It was John Smith, the man who said he was their friend and took them both to the clinic.”
“We have to rule out everything,” he told her. “And everyone. We’ll use the map to ID registered sex offenders in the area.”
Blood drained from her face. “Sex offenders, here?”
Kyle’s guts coiled tight. “Park’s a few miles away from a retirement community.”
Belle frowned. “I’ve heard of STDs being prevalent among the elderly because believe it or not, they have a lot of sex, but sex offenders?”
“Many are prohibited from living without a thousand feet of a school, day care, park or any other place frequented by children. They seek out age-restricted retirement communities, especially if they have a parent or grandparent already living there.”
She gave a delicate shudder. “I never imagined that.”
Dr. Belle North wouldn’t, of course. In her sensible high heels and blue sleeveless dress, a string of expensive pearls around her slender throat, she appeared more at-home at a social tea.