Thrills: Vol.2

by Jason A. Joseph

  “I don’t understand! Ashlyn is my daughter! How could I kidnap her!” Martha cried out as the officer led her out to the cruiser on the curb.

  Neighbors began to look out of windows and wander out onto the sidewalk. Everyone knew that Ashlyn was missing. Now they thought that Martha had something to do with it. She was humiliated as the officer shoved her in the back seat. Martha buried her face in her lap as the car pulled away. There was no way that she could ever show her face in this town again. Everyone felt like she was the one who took her own daughter. Tears soaked her jeans as they drove the short distance to the police department.

  After they had settled Martha in an interrogation room, they stood outside the door to gather her file and talk a little about the turn in the case.

  Now that it was known that she had taken her own daughter, this was going to be an easy case to close, even if they didn’t find the child. Obviously she had hidden the fact that she had kidnapped her, who’s to say that she didn’t kill her as well?

  “Ms. Anderson, I’m sorry for the way we had to bring you in, but we had a tip that there was something in your past that we needed to look into. Do you understand that the kidnapping charges makes this look like you’re responsible for Ashlyn’s disappearance?” Chief Wilson asked.

  “You can ask anyone. I love my daughter. Besides, I was at my job when she disappeared. How could I be responsible for that?” she asked with a cold edge to her voice.

  “Just because you were at work doesn’t mean that you didn’t play a part in it. Is there anything else you would like to tell us before we find it out ourselves?” Wilson didn’t pretend to hide his sarcasm.

  “I just spoke with Ashlyn’s father yesterday. I didn’t know that he had filed charges on me because I moved out of state with our daughter. The custody case had been closed, and I had full custody of her. I know he planned to appeal it, but he could do it whether I was in Arizona or not.

  This is just Derek’s way of getting back at me for trying to give our daughter a better life!” she exclaimed.

  “Well, the charges are clear here, ma’am. It looks like her father wasn’t so happy about the changes that you had in mind. Unless he decides to drop the charges, we have to follow the law.” He smirked over the table at her.

  “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you? You’re still upset about the fact that I found out more information about what happened to my daughter before you even thought to look into it! I want a lawyer!” she screamed at him.

  Wilson calmly collected his papers and left the room. He told his secretary to call in a public defender. This was going to be a sticky situation, but he had a feeling he would finally get some answers to his questions.

  As the situation at the police station unfolded, another one was taking place forty-five miles up the Poudre Canyon. A small group of boys decided that they wanted to go fishing for the weekend before the groups of campers decided to come up. It was still cold in the mountains in early spring. They packed up a Jeep full of camping supplies and headed up to Red Feather Lakes. Knowing that they would be in for a cold weekend, they had packed extra sleeping bags and clothing.

  “It’s so great to get away! I’m so glad our parents agreed. I just didn’t want to spend another weekend playing video games!”

  “I like video games!”

  “Trust me, you’ll like fishing too!”

  The four teenage boys chatted excitedly as they wound their way up the canyon. There wasn’t much traffic, and they knew that the fishing would be great.

  After the two hour drive, they unpacked and set up their tents. Wanting to get in some good fishing before it got dark, they hurriedly gathered their supplies and walked down to the nearest lake.

  “Hey, Greg, I’m going to go down the shore a little bit! I think I see a good spot over there!” one of the boys yelled at his friend. He confidently maneuvered the shore of the lake. The foliage was becoming more dense as he made his way to the little inlet he had seen from up the hill. As he rounded a curve, he caught a glimpse of something pink floating in the water. Pink wasn’t a usual color to be seen in nature, so he stepped closer to the object.

  He realized as he stared down at it, that it was a young girl’s tennis shoe. Taking a fallen stick from a nearby tree, he lifted it out of the water and set it on the shore.

  Something told him that this wasn’t just a case of a little girl missing a shoe. At that moment, all the news reports came back to him in full force. Ashlyn Anderson was said to have been wearing pink shoes the day she disappeared. He quickly turned back and made his way back toward his friends. They had to get to a place where they could call the police.

  Hours later by early evening, search lights flooded the shoreline of the lake. Investigators had already taken the shoe for evidence. They spent hours combing the water around where the shoe was found, but nothing else turned up. When shown the picture of the shoe, Sarah identified it as her niece’s. With that picture in her hand, she knew that something bad had happened to little Ashlyn. She shook with fear. However, she hoped that they would find her soon, dead or alive. At dawn the next morning, the search for Ashlyn began at the lake. They brought in blood hounds to sniff out her scent, hoping that they could lead the investigators to the little girl. The search teams patiently followed the dogs through the rugged terrain that surrounded the lake. Knowing that they had caught her scent, they feared the worst. If she was in these woods, she more than likely wouldn’t be found alive.

  Within the past few weeks, the temperatures had been freezing at night, and according to the child’s mother, she didn’t have anything with her besides a jacket.

  Several hours into the hike up the hill and they found a backpack. The pink and purple striped bag contained a note to Ashlyn’s mother about the need for a parent and teacher conference soon. The search party’s stomachs began to sink as they realized that they were closer to discovering what they had hoped hadn’t happened.

  The dampness of the woods made it difficult to hike the path that the dogs led without slipping.

  However, the searchers felt compelled to continue, no matter what the outcome would be. The answer to everyone’s questions was found less than one hundred yards from where the backpack was found.

  The call came down the hill on the portable radios.

  Ashlyn had been found. Investigators and the crime lab hiked up the hill to where the remains of the child were lying. The search team came back down, most of them with tears in their eyes. Most of them had never seen anything so wrong in their entire lives.

  What they had found had shocked and sickened them. The remains of the little girl were decomposing, and they could tell that several animals had found a meal from her. Bite marks were found up and down her limbs.

  What could be recognized as her face showed severe bruising. No one could imagine what had happened to her.

  Far worse, no one wanted to tell her aunt and her mother that little Ashlyn had been found. There would be no easy way to tell anyone that a little girl’s life had been taken so suddenly.

  Meanwhile on the other side of town Martha had managed to get out of jail on bail. Not wanting to talk to anyone, she had returned to the mobile home and waited in silence for the next shoe to drop.

  She sat at her kitchen table reading the newspaper when the phone rang. Since she had received so many hateful phone calls, she let the machine pick it up. She didn’t want to hear about what a horrible person she was today.

  “You horrible woman. I bet you killed your own daughter! You will rot in hell!” yelled the man on the other end. As the call ended in a beep, a loud knock came on her front door.

  Reluctant to see who was on the other side, Martha shuffled towards the door. Every time she answered the door, it always seemed to bring terrible news. She just wanted the world to go away. Looking out the window at the side of the door, she saw three uniformed officers on her doorstep.

  Fear wrenched her stomach as she turned the knob
. Were they there to arrest her again, or did they have the news she feared would be coming?

  “Ms. Anderson, could we come in for a moment?” the young officer at the front of the group asked.

  “Yes, of course.” She stepped aside and allowed the three men to enter. Motioning toward the small couch and chair in the living room, she seated herself on another chair near the kitchen.

  “We have some news concerning your daughter,” the young officer spoke again.

  Hope welled up in Martha’s chest. They had found her baby!

  “I’m afraid that we found her remains up near Red Feather Lakes late last night. It appears that she has been deceased for some time.” He looked down at his hands as he let the news sink in.

  “Her remains? You mean she’s dead?” Martha’s head started spinning. She felt like she was going to pass out right in front of the officers. How could she be dead? What had happened to her little girl?

  Martha felt her whole world spinning around her. She thought that she would pass out in front of the officers, but she tried to do everything she could to keep herself together. She wouldn’t believe that it was Ashlyn until she had seen it with her own two eyes.

  “I’m afraid so, ma’am. We are beginning to investigate it as a homicide. We would like your full cooperation in the matter.” He continued to stare down at his hands. The young officer had never had to tell someone that their child had been murdered before.

  “How can I help? I don’t know what to do. She was just a little girl!” Martha couldn’t control the anger and tears as they came over her like a tidal wave. Did they think that she had killed her own daughter?

  She was crying so hard that she could barely breathe. She felt every inch of herself shaking as the sobs took over her.

  One of the officers walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. They needed to give her just a moment before they asked her any questions.

  However, as she sat there and continued to sob, they didn’t know if she would calm down enough to make that possible. After about ten minutes, the sobs began to cease and she was able to take a drink of water from the glass that one of the officers had gotten for her.

  She looked up at them with bloodshot eyes and just stared at them in wonder and horror.

  “We need you to tell us about the last day you saw her. The more that you can remember, the better we can piece together what happened to her,” one of the officers said gently once it seemed that she would be able to carry on a conversation.

  Martha just nodded. She would do whatever she could to make sure that her daughter got justice.

  “I took her to school that morning. I told her I would pick her up in the afternoon. I went to work after I took her to school. A coworker called in sick, so the manager asked if I would work a double.

  We needed the extra money, so I called Sarah’s cell phone and asked her to pick her up. When I got home late that night, Sarah thought that Ashlyn was with me, and I thought that she was with Sarah. I can’t remember much else.” She tried as hard as she could to provide the officers with more details, but that day seemed like a deep dark memory, the start of a living nightmare.

  “Why did Sarah think that she was with you?”

  “When she got to the school, Ashlyn’s teacher told her that I had picked her up. She thought that to be the case until she saw that my car was still at the restaurant. She came home and started looking for Ashlyn here, but couldn’t find her.

  Ashlyn can be impulsive at times, so she thought that maybe she had gone to the park or somewhere else. She rode her bike around town, but couldn’t find her. Sarah was really frightened when I got home.”

  Martha still couldn’t understand why Sarah hadn’t tried to call her, but she had let the question fade away. Ashlyn was missing and there was nothing they could have done about it.

  “What happened when you arrived home?”

  “Sarah was really upset, so I asked her what was wrong. She told me that she couldn’t find Ashlyn and she didn’t know what to do. I felt that something was terribly wrong, so I called the police.

  The chief stopped by and assured me that children were impulsive and that she was probably at a friend’s house.

  By that time, it was around eleven at night. I knew that no parent would have their child’s friends over that late at night. He didn’t seem to take it seriously at all. I called him the next morning, and he acted surprised that she still hadn’t come home. I was furious and decided to talk to Ashlyn’s teacher myself and try to figure out what happened to her.” She continued her story about how she tried to get the news of Ashlyn’s disappearance out, even though it felt like the police weren’t that concerned at first.

  “Mrs. Miller was the last one to see your daughter before she disappeared. Was she able to tell you anything about that afternoon?” The officer seemed upset that she was accusing the police of doing nothing.

  They had all worked tirelessly on the case.

  “She didn’t seem to remember anything except that Ashlyn said I was there and ran towards a car. I think that you should ask her those questions yourself though. I want to see my daughter.” Martha sat in her chair as straight as possible, trying to portray the composure she didn’t feel.

  “I’m afraid that it’s not possible right now. They are still investigating the scene and the evidence. And quite frankly, ma’am, I don’t think that you want to see your daughter that way.”

  He wanted to prevent her from seeing the disturbing sight that would be a part of his nightmares for weeks, if not months.

  “I would still like to see her when I can. I need to make sure it’s her.” Martha slumped in her chair as the determination left her.

  “We will see. For now, I think that we need to talk with your sister. We need as much information as possible to figure out what happened to her.”

  “Of course. She’s at a friend’s house. I’ll ask her to come home.” She picked up the phone and called her.

  Sarah arrived home within minutes. From the look on her face, she already knew what was going on. The police had contacted her last night with the picture of Ashlyn’s shoe. She hadn’t wanted to face Martha until they had found everything out, so she had went to a friends house for the night.

  As Sarah entered the room, her worst fears were confirmed. She sat down in front of the officers as they again told her about how they had found Ashlyn and that they needed to get her side of the story. Any details that she could provide could make it easier to find the person who had committed the crime.

  However, by the time they had left, they had no new information on the case. No one seemed to have any details as to what had happened to little Ashlyn.

  They also got the distinct feeling that her mother and aunt had nothing to do with her disappearance.

  Martha sat in her living room chair holding the framed school picture of Ashlyn. Staring down at her daughter’s smiling face, she continued to cry. The tears never seemed to end. She would do anything to bring her daughter home. After the news had come about her daughter’s death, she had been given sedatives to help her to remain calm. They needed her in a good mindset in order to get answers from her.

  Even though she had insisted multiple times that she’d be able to identify her daughter’s body, the police continued to refuse. Chief Wilson tried to explain to her that the sight would not do her much good. She was still considered a suspect in the case, and that broke her heart No one believed that she would never hurt her own daughter.

  Derek and his wife flew in from Arizona the night that they had received the news. He had pulled Martha aside and yelled at her about what had happened. He blamed her for what happened because she had insisted on moving away with her and not telling him where they had gone. If she would have just let him and his wife take care of her, none of this would have ever happened.

  The accusations didn’t make the situation any better. It seemed like everyone was pointing their fingers at Martha, even
though everything that had happened was miscommunication. She really wished that someone would understand that. If Sarah would have contacted her sooner, they could have searched for her sooner, and maybe she would still be with them.

  The blame game went on for several days. Finally, as Derek decided to attack again, he realized that what he was doing wasn’t going to bring his daughter back.

  He sat on the bed in his hotel room and finally allowed himself to cry. Blaming Martha wasn’t making issues any better.

  Derek decided that in order for the family to make it through that tough time, they needed to comfort each other. After he had cried for about an hour, he washed his face and drove over to Martha’s house.

  He knew that she hadn’t left the house in days. Knocking on the door, he pushed himself inside and took Martha in his arms when she answered. At that moment, the barrier between them broke, and they cried together.

  Later that afternoon, he called the authorities and had the kidnapping charges dropped.

  ***The Man***

  He was happy that they had finally found her. The rush of being there and watching them search the scene and remove the body was exhilarating. It was like a drug that he was becoming addicted to.

  He enjoyed seeing his own work.

  The little girl was in worse condition than what he had left her in, but that was to be expected after a week in the wilderness. He had to hide the excitement he felt when he saw her again. They had been friends for such a short time, but he now owned her forever.

  The whole story of how she really died would be discovered soon, but until then, he began to think of his next friend. He might have to go into the city to be able to accomplish that one, though. The people in that small town were too on guard by what had already happened.