Little Girls Sleeping: An absolutely gripping crime thriller

by Jennifer Chase

  “Why would you pull that case?” asked the detective.

  “Why not? It’s what we do, Detective. I read over these cold cases, and I reassign them to whoever I want for a fresh perspective and a chance to find new evidence, question witnesses again, and do whatever it takes to close them.”

  “And Chelsea Compton?”

  “Unfortunately there’s no reason at this point to reopen the case. It would take a major new development to convince me otherwise.”

  Templeton nodded his head in agreement.

  “Is there anything else, Detective?”

  “No, you’ve answered my questions.” Templeton hesitated, as though he was going to say something else, then opened the door and walked out, shutting it quietly behind him.

  Sheriff Scott shook his head and glanced at the photo of Katie, then picked up his pen to continue his work.

  Ten

  Katie’s second week was mostly similar to the first, but now she had the confidence not to ask as many questions. The department ran smoothly, the work was fairly straightforward, and there seemed to be an enjoyable mundane quality to it. The ten-hour day moved at a brisk pace.

  Her heaviest workload seemed to come at the beginning of the shift and then again after lunch. She finished her first half-shift duties quickly, so she decided to use the free time to follow up on her own investigations.

  The truck that Terrance Price had allegedly seen Chelsea get into wasn’t known to her family or friends, which meant it might have belonged to someone she knew but her family didn’t. Katie decided to look up the middle school Chelsea had attended and search for teachers, counselors, coaches, and community-services officers who were employed there four years ago.

  Using the government database had become easier for her; she knew how to use shortcuts and move around with ease. Sometimes she went off the database and onto the Internet. She managed to access the Pine Valley Middle School website and looked at the teachers and other employees. She mainly searched for men, based on the fact that most big pickup trucks were driven by men, and statistically the abductor was more likely to be male.

  She’d never thought much about it before, but most of the teachers were women. Scrolling through, she studied each male teacher and ran a preliminary background check on them if they were employed at the school at the time Chelsea disappeared. Only one came up with a record: for possessing a controlled substance fifteen years ago. The community police officer assigned to the school four years ago was Deputy Scott Schneider. His file didn’t reveal anything unusual or indicate a red flag. There were three teachers who no longer worked there and two substitute teachers who were employed on a semi-regular basis. She made quick notes for her files.

  Almost as an afterthought, she decided to run a search for news articles about the previous missing girls. Several local papers had the same brief stories, as if they cut and pasted the articles from one newspaper to the next. There was nothing new to add to her notes. The girls didn’t resemble one another. Nothing stood out. There was no information about family, friends, hobbies, medical ailments, problems in school or at home, or anything unusual leading up to the disappearances. It seemed that the abductions were not family-related, but rather carried out by strangers—a strong piece of evidence in itself.

  She let out a sigh. None of her quiet investigative work meant anything if there was nothing to compare it with. It would only prove useful once new clues or suspects became available, and especially if Chelsea was found.

  She looked at a stack of well-worn file folders waiting to be returned to the vault. It was as good a time as any, so she grabbed them up and headed down the hallway leading to the room where the stored files were housed.

  She realized how dark the hallways were and wondered why. Was it to save on rising energy costs? Was the maintenance department overwhelmed and they hadn’t had a chance to change the bulbs? As she contemplated the reasons, she picked up her pace until she reached her destination.

  The door of the archived file room was closed. When she opened it, the light was on, but the room appeared to be vacant. The musty smell of an old basement accosted her senses instantly.

  She headed to the area where the “R” files were located to return a folder. The cheap metal filing cabinet squeaked as it opened. As she thumbed through to find the right place, she heard someone move behind her. A swish and a light bang followed.

  Thoughts of someone hiding to scare her plagued her mind, triggered by her experiences of waiting for long periods of time on patrol in the army. A creeping sensation of anxiety assailed her.

  “Hello?” she said tentatively, bracing her back against the cabinet.

  A man with cropped hair, wearing casual khakis and a long-sleeved shirt, came around the corner, barely looking in her direction. He clearly knew she was there, but didn’t have the inclination to engage in pleasantries or idle chit-chat. Katie glanced at his identification badge but couldn’t read the name; she assumed he was one of the detectives.

  A slight smile crinkled his face as he passed her. “Afternoon,” he said, and was gone.

  Katie slipped the file into its correct space, closed the drawer, and then peered out the doorway. There was no one in sight. She didn’t know what to think of the man in the vault, but dismissed it from her mind. There were more important things to worry about. Things like finding Chelsea.

  Eleven

  It was barely seven a.m. on Friday morning, her off day, and Katie was already dressed and showered. She finished her high-protein breakfast, then began to gather everything she needed for the day.

  Cisco didn’t want to get up as early as Katie did, and stayed on his warm doggie bed, but he perked up when he saw the preparations she was making. He realized she meant business when she unlocked the gun case and retrieved two weapons: a shotgun and her favorite semi-automatic choice—a Glock 19. He followed her around the house in close proximity as she packed.

  “Cisco, give me some space. I’ll make sure there are some treats with your water supply.”

  She assembled a day’s worth of food—power bars, various nuts and seeds, plain sandwiches with turkey and cheese, and plenty of water—and loaded a small duffle bag with some basic tools, ropes and climbing gear, binoculars, a digital camera, a compass, and her iPad. She knew that her Jeep had everything she needed in case of car trouble or needing to change a tire. She lined it all up at the front door and spent a few moments deciding if she needed anything else.

  Hurrying to her bedroom, she quickly selected a change of clothes with extra socks and some warmer layers. The weather looked mild, but she didn’t want to be taken by surprise by a cold snap. She rolled up everything tightly, taking her back to the battlefield, where your belongings needed to be compact and carried on your body.

  Cisco ran in and out the front door as she packed the car. The breeze picked up and blew leaves across the long driveway.

  When she was done, she stood in the front yard and surveyed the property. The trees and low-lying bushes were dense and growing prosperously. Everything looked different after a few years away.

  After being in combat conditions, Katie had perfected her gut instincts and honed her powers of observation. It was a matter of paying attention to the smallest details in order to make the biggest impact.

  For some reason, today her nerves were heightened, as if someone was watching her and studying her habits.

  “Cisco, here,” she called.

  The dog obediently trotted out the front door and jumped easily into the Jeep, settling himself on the passenger seat.

  Katie double-checked the front door, then locked the deadbolt with her key. With her semi-automatic sidearm secured in a holster under her lightweight jacket, she walked toward her car. The search areas that she had mapped were extremely rural, and you never knew who you might run into or what their motivations might be. She wasn’t going to be caught without a practical plan of action. She was prepared.

  She was ju
st about to climb into the Jeep when a strong instinct kicked her into high gear. She turned and scanned the front yard, then shut the car door and decided to take a quick walk around before she left.

  Cisco stood up, peering out the window, and watching every move she made.

  She walked casually down the long, slightly curving driveway. Her nerves tingled and her muscles twitched. There was no doubt that her senses had amplified during her time in the army.

  She heard Cisco’s high-pitched whine from inside the car.

  The sides of the paved driveway were exposed soil, which still had visible signs of raking from the gardener’s last visit. The bushes and rose bushes had been recently pruned, resulting in exposed branches. As she turned the corner, she spotted fresh impressions of footprints from a common work boot. Glancing at them, she estimated they were at least a size ten or twelve. Out of habit, she photographed the impression with her cell phone.

  She continued to walk the property, surveying anything that might prove unusual, and then began her walk back. It was certainly possible that the boot print had been made by her uncle, but he hadn’t been here over the past week and a half, and it looked more recent than that.

  As she got into her Jeep and started the engine, she decided it didn’t warrant any more thought or examination. She eased the car down the driveway, ignoring the doubts she’d previously had.

  She set her GPS and began the forty-minute drive to the first area on her search map. As she drove in solitude, she reflected on Chelsea Compton and what was on her mind when she left her friend’s house and started her walk home.

  Was she thinking about what her mother was making for dinner that night?

  Was she excited about some event that she would be going to before school started?

  Did she have a school crush?

  It was a double-edged sword for Katie that struck her violently in the gut. Every time she thought about Chelsea, it was forever sewn together with her camp friend Jenny.

  There were so many other similar victims and cold cases nationwide that it appeared to Katie to be an epidemic for the law-enforcement world. The layers of social depravity were growing like cancer. Everyone needed to keep children safe. No cold case involving a child should ever be relegated to a file full of paperwork, left in a cabinet to be forgotten.

  She concentrated on the busy traffic, cars darting in and out. Slowly it became more sparse, with only the occasional vehicle passing. Before long, she was on the back-country roads, almost devoid of any other cars. Houses too became less frequent, and the landscape grew denser and more fierce. In many places, driveways were clear, but the houses themselves were hidden in the deep recesses of the forest.

  She had started out with optimism and a sense of doing what was right, but now, as she headed northeast, studying the vast countryside, her mission seemed implausible and foolish.

  “Oh Cisco, what am I doing?” she asked the dog.

  A couple of times she was tempted to turn around and head back to town. But there was always a reason to continue forward, and she kept to her personal pact. She remembered her drill sergeant at boot camp, who’d hammered at the new recruits never to give up. She pressed the accelerator harder and the car sped up the dusty road.

  A sign indicated that Eagle’s Ridge was less than a mile ahead.

  The road had been the victim of excessive rain from last season, leaving deep chuckholes in the surface. Katie and Cisco bounced, bobbed, and weaved for almost a half-mile. The Jeep was a champion at handling off-road conditions, never hesitating or grinding into a wrong gear, and they inched their way forward.

  The GPS made a chiming sound, indicating that Katie had reached her designated area.

  Cisco barked.

  She pulled the Jeep into a flat area for parking, leaving the engine idling, and studied the map. She wanted to work in two- to three-mile quadrants, making it a strategic search instead of wandering around without any type of blueprint. The region appeared to be accessible—rated three out of five for hiking.

  She cut the engine and got out of the Jeep. When she walked to the lookout point, she could see that the trees and rolling hills went on for miles. It was picturesque, but an immense amount of countryside to search. She knew there was a decent cell-phone signal due to the tower about thirty miles away, which gave her some relief in case something were to go wrong.

  Cisco followed his team leader, but was more interested in some bushes and relieving himself than the beautiful view.

  Katie encouraged herself with positive thoughts. Some fresh air and exercise would be good for her, without having to worry about enemy forces with bombs intruding on her walk. Her mind lingered on the possibility of having a panic attack, but she quickly dismissed that idea and concentrated on the vast forest.

  Her cell phone rang.

  Seeing the call was from her uncle, she decided to ignore it for now. He would want to know what she was doing and could sense in a second when she was being evasive. He was a great cop who could read people like an open book, and Katie didn’t want to be that book at the moment.

  She returned to her car and loaded up the essentials in a small backpack. She calculated that each section would take approximately two hours, giving her enough time for three sections.

  She retrieved her small field notebook, which had graph-like pages that enabled her to sketch her routes and indicate anything unusual or potentially useful in her investigation. She had used this type of technique in the army when tracking the enemy, and it was now a part of her investigative and deduction skillset.

  After engaging the alarm lock on the Jeep and checking her compass, she set out on the first hiking trail, with Cisco walking to heel beside her. She opted to have him off the leash for convenience, but if something were to arise from other hikers or loose animals, she would leash him.

  Katie enjoyed the solitude and the meandering walk up and down the trails as the day progressed. The previous year’s rain had helped the environment immensely, leaving everything lush and green. It was a clear, cool day, but the sun’s rays beamed down on them. She peeled off her hoodie and tied it around her waist, leaving her bare arms exposed in a tank top. It relieved some of the heat, but she had forgotten to apply sunscreen and knew she would be burned by the time she returned home.

  The first quadrant of the search area didn’t reveal anything that would raise suspicions. Nothing was out of place or unusual. She noted her findings—gauging the possibility of locating anything of importance, which kept her mind alert and thinking forward—and made sketches of the trail as she walked.

  Not knowing exactly what she was looking for, she slowed her pace to study the undergrowth to either side of the pathway. It was dense, almost impenetrable, and she decided it would be next to impossible for someone to dispose of a body there.

  She kept heading steadily northeast. Glancing at the sky, she spotted several buzzards circling, reminding her that if Chelsea’s body had been dumped anywhere in the vicinity, the wildlife would take care of any evidence—even the bones would be scattered.

  Unusual cleared brush caught her eye, and she stopped and studied some portions of upper and lower leg bones, femur and tibia, deducing they were from a medium to large animal—most likely a deer or cow. The rural area was brutal to every animal in the food chain. When she stood up, she took a three-hundred-sixty-degree view. Frustration welled up inside. Finding the remains of a body or a gravesite from four years ago was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Doubt clouded her objectivity and made her frustrated as she moved forward along the trail.

  She finished two of the grid searches she had mapped out without coming across anything of interest. She stopped for some water, giving Cisco a well-deserved break as well. The breeze shifted direction, bringing a cooler temperature and relief from the heat. After walking for more than four-and-a-half hours, she felt fatigue beginning to set in.

  The trail transformed into a steeper walk, much more so t
han she had imagined from her research. Rocks, loose gravel, and sand made each step unsteady, as if she was part skiing and part riding a skateboard. She had to stop and make Cisco slow down, not wanting him to hurt himself.

  Mad at herself for not having realized that a number three trail would turn so quickly into a full stage five, she moved forward with caution, contemplating whether to turn around. She peered ahead down the steep slope, straining her already stiff neck. It was clear that this particular hiking path hadn’t been travelled in quite a while; it was heavily overgrown, making it even more difficult to negotiate.

  She took one step… two… and on the third step her right leg slipped out from under her body, like walking on ice, followed by her left leg, leaving her to flail her arms in an effort to stop the momentum. She let out a garbled yell as she slid downward, hitting several protruding rocks. Reaching her hands out, she tried to grab anything that would stop her, but it was not until she slammed into a large dead bush that she came to a halt.

  She moaned, winded and dazed. For a moment she couldn’t breathe; the same feeling as when she’d had the wind knocked out of her after a large bomb blast. At least her backpack had helped to protect her and had eased some of the bumps and scratches on the way down.

  Cisco barked incessantly from above. He must have been trying to get to Katie, because fine dirt and gravel sifted downward, covering her body. He continued to bark, deep and rapid.

  Taking a breath for the first time in a couple of minutes, Katie was able to yell up to him. “Stay… Cisco, stay…” she told him. “Bleibe, Cisco,” she repeated in German.

  Trying to maintain focus, she concentrated on examining her body, running her fingertips along her arms and legs. She quickly assessed that nothing appeared to be broken, though there were some scrape she was bleeding from her left wrist and the right side of her leg, and she tasted some blood in her mouth.