Martha gave the police department the numbers to Ashlyn’s father and his family. They hadn’t spoken in months.
However, before Martha left Arizona, they had been arguing for custody of Ashlyn. He had remarried and his new wife wanted to make a home for his daughter. What if he decided to just come and pick her up without letting Martha know? She hadn’t told him where they were going just for that reason, but she knew that people could find things out if they wanted to.
Even though the police had told her to let them handle it, Martha printed out fliers and started walking the main street. She talked to anyone she could and posted the fliers anywhere that allowed her to do it. If anyone had seen anything, she needed to know about it. She couldn’t just sit there and watch as the time slipped away.
However, a few days had passed and no one had the slightest idea as to what had happened to the little girl. Groups of volunteers began to canvas the areas around town where she might have wandered.
The crops had just been planted, so it was relatively easy to see for a great distance. Farmers took their dogs and walked the drainage ditches, but still nothing turned up.
Ashlyn had seemingly disappeared into thin air.
Derek Reynolds received a phone call late on Friday afternoon, one day after Ashlyn had been abducted. He had just returned home from work and was getting ready to take his afternoon jog. Seeing that it was an out of state caller, he picked it up with curiosity.
“Hello?”
“Hello, this is Chief Armin Wilson with the Wellington, Colorado Police Department. Is this Derek Reynolds?“ the voice on the other end asked.
“Yes this is Derek Reynolds. I don’t understand. You’re calling me from Colorado?“ Derek was confused. He didn’t know anyone who lived in Colorado.
“It seems that your daughter, Ashlyn Anderson, has gone missing. Her mother gave me your contact information. I need to ask you a few questions,” Chief Wilson stated.
“Ashlyn’s missing? I haven’t seen my daughter in three months. Until now, my ex-girlfriend hasn’t even told me where she was taking her. What happened?” Derek began to panic. In just seconds, the panic began to turn to anger. How dare Martha take their daughter away!
“Well, Ms. Anderson stated that you had quite the custody battle before she moved away. Is this the case?” Even though no one could see it, Chief Wilson was oddly excited by having a high profile case. He sat at his desk as the smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“Martha and I were trying to figure out the best arrangement for raising Ashlyn. I had just recently married, and my wife and I could provide a more stable home for her. However, the judge decided to give her full custody. I decided to file again, but before we could start the process, Martha took off with Ashlyn.” Derek could feel himself losing control. Martha was lucky that she was hundreds of miles away from him at that moment.
“Ms. Anderson feared that you might have come and picked up your daughter. Am I correct in assuming that that is not the case?” Wilson was trying to get any kind of reaction that he could from the man on the other end of the line.
“Of course not! As I just told you, I didn’t even know where she had taken Ashlyn. Could you just do me a favor and start looking for my little girl? The more time you spend looking at me, the more time you’re missing finding the person who took her!” Derek angrily slammed down the phone. How dare she do this to him!
Chief Wilson hung up his end of the line and smirked. He had gotten the rise he needed out of Derek Reynolds.
Meanwhile at Martha’s house
Martha sat at her kitchen table and stared out at the setting sun. It had been three days since Ashlyn had gone missing, and no clues were to be found. She had done everything she could to make sure that everyone was watching out for her. Holding a framed picture of her sweet little girl, she began to cry again.
Hope was beginning to fade as the days passed.
The police guessed that someone picked her up and drove away with her. What made it difficult though, was the fact that the town was on the interstate and there were hundreds of unfamiliar vehicles that went through there each day. The best anyone could hope for was that someone in another city recognized Ashlyn’s toothless smile…
Every night, Martha and Sarah sat in front of the television as reports of the search for Ashlyn continued. Chief Wilson had become a sort of friend to the family, checking in on them frequently and making sure they were holding up okay. On this level, Martha was able to forgive his initial nonchalance to the case. He still seemed smug and overly confident, but at least he was doing his job and making an effort to right his initial wrong.
It broke Martha’s heart to see her daughter’s picture on every station. She just hoped that someone, anyone would be able to recognize her and give them a clue as to where Ashlyn was.
However, the calls that did come were sketchy and didn’t amount to much in the way of details. Numerous callers said that they saw her in Fort Collins, Denver, and someone even said they sighted her being led onto an airplane at DIA. However, those leads all turned out to be nothing, and the false hope that had risen in Martha’s chest crumbled once again.
At the News Station
The lights turned on as the pretty young news anchor took her seat in front of the cameras. She put on her most concerned face and began with the story that had been in the headlines for several days.
“As the search for Ashlyn Anderson enters its fourth day, there are still very few clues as to where the little girl could have gone. Search teams have been searching the area around the small town of Wellington, but no clues to her whereabouts have surfaced.
“We are going to switch over to a press conference with Chief Armin Wilson, the head of the Wellington Police Department. This should give us some ideas as to where the investigation is going.”
The camera switched to show a full view of the front of the Wellington Town Hall. A middle aged man with thinning brown hair stood in front of a podium that had been set up for the press conference. The wind whistled in the background.
“Hello, and thank you all for coming here today. We just hope that the media will be a tool in helping us find this little girl.
“On Thursday, March fifteenth, Ashlyn Elizabeth Anderson went missing after school.” A picture of Ashlyn flashed onto the television screen. “She was last reported to be seen walking towards a vehicle about a hundred yards from the entrance. It has been stated that the girl believed that the vehicle belonged to her mother.
“There have been no witnesses so far as the where she went after she walked away from the school. Her teacher said that the girl spotted her mother’s vehicle and ran off to meet it. However, it has since been confirmed that the mother of the child, Ms. Martha Anderson, was at work at the time of the incident.
“We have no description of the vehicle that she ran towards, but we are guessing that the person in said vehicle drove off with her. It is also believed that the child knew that driver of the vehicle, as there have been no indications of a struggle at the abduction site. If anyone has any information concerning an odd vehicle in the area on Thursday afternoon, please call the number at the bottom of your screen.” Chief Wilson cleared his throat. “Any questions?”
“What are the next steps in the investigation?” a reporter’s voice called out above the crowd.
“We have determined that she is not in the area. We are widening our search into the Fort Collins and Cheyenne areas. The authorities in both areas have been extremely helpful so far.”
The background erupted into multiple questions, and Chief Wilson was trying to listen so that he could catch one that he could answer.
The program came back to the news anchor. “That was Wellington Police Chief Armin Wilson. As he stated, they are widening their search for seven year old Ashlyn Anderson. If anyone has any information that could help the authorities find her, please call the number at the bottom of your screen. We will return after a short br
eak.”
***The Man***
He sat in front of his television as the media covered the disappearance. Feeling smug about what he had accomplished, he smiled as the search became more frantic. He had done a good job of taking her.
Absolutely no one had seen him pick her up.
The only fear he had was that the clerk at the ice cream shop might recognize the little girl. However, the pimple-faced teenager seemed more intent on trying to find his next batch of drugs rather than serving the couple in front of him. So far, that kid hadn’t put the pieces together.
Impatience filled his being though. He wanted them to find her so that he could see his work once again. Why wasn’t anyone seeing the clues he had left near the crime scene? Someone had to find her soon.
As he flipped through the stations and saw the picture of the girl he had taken flash over his screen over and over again, the day that he had taken her filled his mind. The memory of that moment of shock when she realized that they weren’t going to the river to see the rabbits still gave him goose bumps.
He smiled and felt like he was on top of the world. He had never had that feeling before, but he could definitely get used to it…
***
About a day after Ashlyn’s disappearance went on national news, the phone calls started. Martha couldn’t understand the sick people who lived in the world. However, each call brought unendurable torture. The first one almost made her lose her mind.
Early on the Sunday morning after Ashlyn disappeared, the house phone rang. They were unable to afford caller identification, so Martha immediately answered it in hopes that it would be the authorities with some news.
“Hello?” Martha held her breath as she waited for the response.
“Mrs. Anderson? Do you realize that by neglecting your daughter, you have caused her death? You are a horrible and rotten excuse for a mother! If they do find that child, I hope she gets put with a family that will actually care about her!” The line went dead after the shrill female voice on the other end had finished her tirade.
Martha stared at the phone receiver in shock. How could someone accuse her of being a bad mother? That woman had no idea how much she did for her daughter and her younger sister. She gingerly hung the phone back up and took a seat on the nearby couch. After a few minutes, the self-pity began to sink in, and the tears came in rivers that could not be controlled.
She had to face the facts; she blamed herself for what happened to Ashlyn.
In the days that followed, she received call after call informing her that she was a bad mother.
Calls also flooded her line about how the caller knew where Ashlyn was and would tell her if she would pay a large reward. Finally, Martha went to the nearest department store and purchased an answering machine. At least she could delete the hateful messages.
Chief Wilson was overwhelmed by the volume of calls that came into the station within the first few days after the disappearance.
From people who claimed that they saw the little girl at a convenience store to those who claimed that they had her, the calls ranged from bizarre to frightening. However, each call needed to be considered as a lead, and the chief sent out his investigators to check surveillance videos and home addresses. Each lead ended up with a dead end.
They tried to use search dogs to pick up her scent, but as they expected, her trail ended about a hundred feet from the school. That made it clear that she was picked up by some vehicle.
When the teacher was questioned, she admitted to being so distracted by the conversation that she was having that she couldn’t give any details about the vehicles that were around the school that afternoon. About a week after the child disappeared, the most disturbing lead of all came through the dispatcher. Chief Wilson picked up the phone and answered that one personally when it was transferred over.
“Chief Wilson speaking,” he said impatiently into the receiver.
“Chief, I just want you to be aware that the kid’s mom isn’t as innocent as she seems. That woman has quite a past here in Arizona, and I suggest you look at her before you start any more wild goose chases.
“Do you get what I’m saying?” The line went dead before Wilson could ask any further questions.
Could Martha Anderson have a criminal past?
Could she have been responsible for the child’s disappearance? He had no idea, but he was intent upon finding out. After all, this might be lead he needed to break the case. He sat back in his desk chair and smiled. This would be a case that would get him promoted.
“Martha! How could you? You know that Shawna and I could have provided her with a better home! You didn’t have to run from Arizona! We wouldn’t have cut off your communication with her!” Derek shouted at her on the phone.
After the custody battle came into question, the authorities had contacted him in Arizona several times. He hadn’t heard a word from Martha in several months and was upset that he had no idea where Ashlyn was. Now, their daughter was missing, and the police were questioning him about her disappearance. He was absolutely furious.
“Derek, I can’t stand the thought of not having my daughter with me. I knew that you would take her away. That’s why I did what I had to. I’m sorry that I just left.” Martha was in tears on the other end.
“You are aware that there are kidnapping charges against you here in Arizona? I wasn’t going to sit back and let you disappear with our daughter. If anything bad happens to her because of her disappearance, believe me, you will be solely to blame!” he yelled into the phone.
“Derek, please don’t make this harder on me than it already is! I just wanted to do what was best for her! We were doing so well here!” she sobbed into the phone.
“Obviously, you didn’t think about anyone other than yourself. This isn’t over Martha! Just know that.” He hung up the phone without saying goodbye.
Martha hung up her phone as well. Could he be serious? Did he really press charges on her? She had legal custody of their daughter. She didn’t do anything wrong as far as she knew.
The custody battle had been hard on all of them. That’s why Martha had moved to Colorado. She felt that they had needed a new start. The biggest mistake that she had made was not telling Derek she was taking Ashlyn away. She had called a few weeks after they had settled into Wellington to let him know that they were safe.
I did the right thing, right? she kept asking herself. She stared blankly at her hands and just hoped and prayed that Derek’s threat about charges being filed against her weren’t true. She didn’t want anything else to worry about. Also, she hoped that the media wouldn’t get a hold of the information about the custody battle between her and Derek.
Meanwhile on the other side of town
Chief Wilson looked into this new lead with full enthusiasm. After that woman had made such a big deal about them not opening an investigation right away, could it be possible that she was behind this whole thing all along?
He went into the Arizona state database and pulled up her record. As soon as he looked at the page, he saw it; she had a warrant out for her arrest for kidnapping. She kidnapped her own daughter? Or was the little girl even her daughter?
Printing out her entire record, he smiled to himself. He may have just gotten a break in this case.
-NEWS REPORT-
“Breaking news: it has just been released that the mother of Ashlyn Anderson, Martha Anderson, has a criminal past. It has just become known that she has outstanding charges in Arizona. Three months ago, kidnapping charges were filed against her when she left Arizona with the child. We will update you as the details become available…”
***The Man***
He smiled to himself as he realized that this case was looking good for him. It just became known that the mother had a kidnapping charge against her.
If the suspicion was directed towards her, then he didn’t have to worry about being found out.
Sitting back in his recliner, he opened a can of beer
and drank it in huge gulps. For a little while there, he was concerned that the lack of leads would make it seem really weird when something finally did turn up.
He knew it was only a matter of time before they discovered exactly what had happened to the cute little girl. He sat back and pictured her toothless smile. Her brown eyes sparkled as she told him about how she and her father had gone to the mountains once to look at wildlife. She had seen a big bear, and it had scared her. He smiled as he remembered her excitement as they drove further into the mountains. It was sad that she had such an awful mother. Throwing the empty can aside, he picked up the barrette that she had worn in her hair the day they went for a drive.
He always wanted to remember the little girl and the fun that he had had with her.
***
A loud knock at the door brought Martha flying out of the kitchen. It had been days since the police had stopped by to question her about Ashlyn or to offer her any updates in the investigation. She was eager to know if anything had been discovered.
She opened the door to see Chief Wilson standing there with one of his officers.
“Hello, would you like to come in?” she stood aside and motioned for them to enter. Maybe had found something out and she would have her daughter with her that evening!
“That won’t be necessary Martha. We just want to make this as easy as we possibly can right now,” Wilson remarked. “Is something wrong? Did you find out something?” Martha felt her hands go numb. Were her feelings true concerning Ashlyn? Had something bad happened to her? “I did find something out, but it isn’t what you think. Martha, you’re under arrest for the kidnapping of Ashlyn Anderson. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law…” Wilson continued to read her her rights as the officer put her hands behind her and cuffed them.
Thrills: Vol.2 Page 18