No One Saw

by Beverly Long

  Kara shrugged. “He would have. Steven would have convinced him.”

  There was a quick knock on the door. It opened and Chief Faster motioned for A.L. and Rena to come into the hallway. “They’re at the house. Emma isn’t there. She was there. Dogs verified that. But both she and her kidnapper are gone.”

  “Fuck,” A.L. said.

  “Let’s have Kara call her sister,” Rena said.

  “Do whatever you need to do. I want to find this kid,” Chief Faster said as he walked away.

  A.L. and Rena walked back in. “317 Brookline Drive has been searched. Emma isn’t there. Neither is your sister. I need you to call her and find out where the hell they are.”

  He could tell the news shook Kara. Her hands fumbled with her phone.

  “Put it on Speaker,” he said. “And don’t warn her about the police.”

  It rang three times. “Hey, sis,” a woman answered. “I was just about to text you.”

  “Why?”

  “I just dropped the kid off like we discussed. She should be walking out of the cornfield in ten minutes.”

  “You were supposed to do this at noon.”

  “I know, but she was getting cranky and crying and I just couldn’t stand it a minute longer. So she gets back a couple hours earlier. People will be happy. I’m heading home.”

  A.L. motioned for her to end the call.

  “Okay, Catherine. I’ll talk to you later.” Kara hung up before her sister could respond.

  “What was the fucking plan, Kara? Where was she getting dropped off? What cornfield?” A.L. demanded.

  “The cornfield that backs up to the learning center playground. Catherine was to get her started on a row and tell her to keep walking in a straight line. My job was to make sure somebody saw her when she emerged.”

  A five-year-old was alone in a ready-to-harvest field, where the corn easily stretched a foot or more above her head. It would be very easy for her to get disoriented. To lose her way.

  They’d pick up the sister later. She’d said she was heading home. Now the priority had to be finding Emma. He’d get another officer to babysit these two. “You stay here,” he said, looking at Kara and her lawyer. Then he focused solely on Kara. “You better hope we find Emma and that nothing bad has happened to her.”

  Twenty-Four

  He pushed back from the table and was out the door. Rena was on his heels. They ran to the parking lot and got in his SUV. Then he drove fast. While he did that, Rena was on the phone, giving updates, getting officers mobilized to search the immediate area of the learning center.

  “Do Troy and Leah know?” A.L. asked when she finished.

  “Yeah. They’re aware that 317 Brookline was searched and found empty and that Emma may be walking on her own. I suspect we’ll see them at the learning center.”

  He didn’t want to have to look at them if they lost Emma at this point. He knew there was no guarantee that she was still in that field. Two minutes after Catherine had left her, she might have gotten scared and backtracked and could now be wandering anywhere.

  Five minutes later, they pulled into the lot. There were six or seven other police cars already there. Somebody was handing out water bottles. “For Emma,” they said. “If she’s out for any length of time, she could be dehydrated.”

  It was a hot September day. Close to ninety degrees. A.L. and Rena both took off their suit coats. He grabbed two water bottles—one for Emma and one for himself. He wasn’t coming out of that field until somebody found her. Rena did the same. And when one of the FBI agents pointed and said, “We need more bodies over here,” the two of them headed in that direction.

  “Stay in one row. Look left and right as you go, to cover three rows at a time,” the agent instructed. He pointed for A.L. to start in one spot with Rena a few rows over.

  It was hot. And the drying leaves of the corn stalks slapped them in their faces. The vegetation produced a dense cloying smell that made A.L. want to throw up. “Come on, Emma. Come on, honey,” he said. He walked at a fast pace but not so fast that he couldn’t carefully scan right and left. A curled up five-year-old could get very small. Within minutes he had sweat running down the back of his neck. Ten minutes later, he emerged from the end of the row. Rena was seconds behind him.

  There was another FBI agent at that end. He pointed at two more rows and A.L. and Rena started a return route. They did it four more fucking times. By that point, they’d both emptied their water bottles and grabbed two more from one of the cases that somebody had left on the ground for just that purpose.

  Nobody was stopping for more than a few seconds at the end of the row before plunging back into the dense field. A.L. spent the time mentally kicking his own ass. If they’d been a half hour earlier, maybe they’d have stopped Catherine before she’d left her house. If they’d have somehow ferreted out that Kara had a biological sister. If they’d have realized that Claire Potter wasn’t off in her suggestion that Kara and Steven had something going.

  Should have. Would have. Could have. And now a five-year-old’s life hung in the balance.

  He picked up the pace, almost jogging. His heart was beating noisily in his chest, reverberating in his ears. Maybe from exertion. Maybe from fear. That combined with the thrashing of other officers working their way through the field almost made him miss it.

  But there it was.

  “Help.”

  A small voice.

  And there she was. Dressed in the same outfit that had been described in a thousand posters and email posts. Sitting on the ground. Looking up. Streaks of dried tears on her dirty face.

  He knelt down. “Emma, I’m a police officer. You’re safe. I’m going to take you back to your mom and dad.”

  She said nothing. But she did look at the water bottle in his hand.

  “Are you thirsty, honey? You want a drink?”

  She nodded.

  He twisted the lid off the water bottle and put it on the ground halfway between the two of them. She picked it up and took a big drink. She did not give it back to him.

  He held out a hand. “Will you take my hand and let me lead you out of this field? Will you let me take you back to your mommy and your daddy?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice very faint. But when she stuck out her hand, it was steady. And she didn’t flinch when he gently engulfed it in his own.

  And together, A.L. and Emma walked out of the cornfield.

  * * *

  It was many hours later, just before 5:00 in the afternoon, when normal people were just leaving their day jobs, that he finally crawled into bed. He’d been up for more than thirty-five hours but he wasn’t that sleepy. He suspected, though, that once the adrenaline wore off, he’d sleep like the dead.

  Troy and Leah Whitman had been waiting together and had gathered Emma in their arms. After a long and tearful hug, Leah had stepped back, looked for her mother and motioned for her to step in. Then the four of them had held each other tight.

  The little girl had been checked at the scene and then later transported to the hospital but had already been released. Physically, she was fine. Emotionally, time would tell, but the experts had said that she was likely going to be okay. While it had been a despicable act to take her, Emma had food and shelter and had not realized the peril she was in.

  None of that mitigated law enforcement’s anger with Kara Wiese, Steven Hanzel and Catherine Wood, who’d been picked up at her house without incident. Catherine and Kara were being charged with kidnapping and other assorted lesser charges and Steven Hanzel as an accessory.

  Troy and Leah had listened to the story with a stunned look on their faces. “I’m sorry, Leah,” Troy had said, his voice thick with tears. “This was my fault.”

  After just a moment of hesitation, she’d reached for his hand. “No. Not your fault. Their fault. Three crazy
people who thought it would be easy to fool a five-year-old.”

  A.L. sort of thought the Whitmans might have a chance.

  A.L. smiled at the woman next to him. Tess had hurried home from the title company when he’d finally been able to call her and tell her it was over. Now she was naked in his arms.

  He kissed her. “You know, I recently met a psychic. She says it’s important to have all your energy centered, not spread too thin.”

  She moved his hand to a spot where he liked to put his hand. She was warm and wet. “Feel my energy?” she whispered.

  It was going straight to his head. Making him want to say things and make big promises. “Tess,” he said. “I—”

  She kissed him. Drew him in. “Focus, A.L. What was that you said about spread?”

  He moved between her legs. Slipped inside. “I’m doing my best work here,” he said, his lips hovering at her collarbone.

  “Plenty good,” she murmured, moving against him. “Plenty good for right now.”

  * * *

  Don’t miss Beverly Long’s previous book featuring A.L. McKittridge, Ten Days Gone, available now from MIRA Books!

  Keep reading for an excerpt from In the Rancher’s Protection by Beth Cornelison.

  In the Rancher's Protection

  by Beth Cornelison

  Chapter 1

  He’d found her. Again.

  Carrie French stared out the dirty window of the hole-in-the-wall motel where she’d been hiding for the past week. Frustration and fear bit her stomach. Acid climbed her throat until she thought she might vomit.

  Instead, she pulled a deep breath in through her nose and blew it out slowly through pursed lips, seizing her composure with both hands. If she panicked, she’d hurt her ability to think clearly. She had a few precious moments before Joseph would discover her here in room four. She could picture him flashing a wad of hundred-dollar bills to the front-desk clerk as he presented her picture and demanded to know where Carrie was.

  Because she was used to having to run on a moment’s notice, Carrie had kept her bag packed, her shoes lined up and ready to stuff on her feet, her burner phone fully charged. With a few quick motions, her cell was unplugged, her feet covered, her bag in hand and she was scrambling to the door. She cracked it open, peeked out.

  Joseph was still in the small office, his back to the window. She had no time to waste.

  Covering her head with the hood of her jacket, she jammed her sunglasses in place, shouldered the strap of her canvas bag and fled the room. She didn’t bother closing the door, didn’t look back. She ran for the car she’d parked around the corner, out of view of the office, and whispered a prayer for divine intervention. Help me get out of here. Don’t let him see me. Please!

  “Hey! Carrie? Stop!”

  Her heart sank as she pushed her legs to go faster, fumbled the ignition key one-handed while she tossed her bag on the back seat. So much for not being seen.

  She locked the doors, and tears blurred her vision as she cranked the engine. He was at her window in seconds, pounding his fist on the glass. “Damn it, Carrie! Get out of the car!”

  She tried to ignore his presence, his feral growl as he shouted at her. With trembling hands, she shifted the transmission to Reverse. Twisted to look behind her as she backed out of the lot.

  A loud thump and sound of glass cracking drew a startled gasp from her. She spun to see what he’d done. Her windshield had a spiderweb break and a long fissure snaking across the driver’s side. He held a rock, his arm raised, ready to smash it against her window again.

  Carrie stomped the gas pedal. The car rocketed backward. The rock he held slammed down on her hood, leaving a dent, then tumbled to the ground. Joseph made a grab for the door handle as she wheeled a hasty Y-turn and raced out of the side parking lot.

  A car horn blasted as she cut into traffic and sped away, and from the motel parking lot, she could hear him scream, “Give up, Carrie! I will always find you!”

  Carrie shuddered. Five years ago, that promise might have sounded like a romantic movie line. Now, after sixty months of watching everything she’d believed about the man she’d married melt away, she knew the shouted vow for what it was. A threat.

  And all the reason she needed to keep running. Keep hiding. Because if Joseph ever caught her, she knew he would kill her.

  * * *

  Hours later, when she felt certain she’d escaped Joseph, Carrie stopped at a fast food restaurant in a tiny Oklahoma town and released a shuddering breath. Once she’d thought she could flee her abusive and manipulative husband simply by leaving him, filing for divorce and getting on with her life. Now she knew Joseph was a bad dream that would keep returning, no matter the lengths she went to. Desolation sat on her chest, suffocating her. What hope she’d had for a fresh start had eroded, little by little, each time he’d caught up with her.

  She smacked her hand on the steering wheel, bitter tears stinging her eyes. How in the hell did he keep finding her? She didn’t use credit cards. She changed burner phones every time he found her. She didn’t use her real name when she paid cash and checked into motels at night. She’d driven hundreds of miles, randomly picking small towns or thriving cities to stop. She’d dyed her hair so many times, all the conditioner in the world would never rescue it from the brittleness and split ends. She glanced in the rearview mirror, reminding herself what color she’d last used. That’s right...a boring shade of light brown.

  But no matter how smart she thought she was being, no matter how far she drove or how random her path, Joseph always showed up within days. Then he’d gloat. And he’d try to drag her back to Aurora, Colorado, with him. Often, he’d smack her around, taking out his frustrations over her determination to be free of him. One time, he forced her back to their sprawling estate outside Aurora, and she’d had to devise a new plan to slip away undetected.

  The process was physically exhausting, emotionally draining and increasingly challenging. She had to find new ways to dodge him. New places to hide. And she felt herself becoming more and more isolated as she cut off contact with more and more of her friends.

  The few friends that had a hint of her predicament had offered to take her in, but she refused to put them in danger, drawing them or their families into the line of fire. Joseph was too well connected, too cold and calculating.

  Earlier in their marriage, when Carrie had confided in her best friend, Hanna, and taken refuge at Hanna’s house after an argument with Joseph turned violent, Joseph had taken his revenge by getting Hanna fired from her management job and kidnapping Hanna’s Yorkie from the doggie day care. Peanut had never been found.

  Besides, Joseph knew most of the same people she did, so she didn’t see those friends and business associates as safe places. She was one of the few who knew Joseph’s dark side. He was good at presenting a charming, confident and gracious facade. After all, he’d fooled her before they were married, hadn’t he?

  Now, she sat at the edge of the gas station/minute market parking lot and stared through her cracked windshield at the rural Oklahoma terrain. She felt conspicuous in her black BMW M4 coupe with the broken windshield, as if she had a neon arrow pointing to her. Flash. Out of place. Flash. On the run. Flash. Sore thumbsville. She shrank down in the driver’s seat, wishing she could simply disappear.

  She watched a teenage couple climb out of a pickup truck, laughing and playfully poking at each other before exchanging a sloppy kiss and entering the store. Next came the man in the Sooners T-shirt, then a petite woman with two small children who were begging her in loud voices to buy them each a sugary frozen drink. Ordinary people with ordinary lives. She envied them. They had a place to go home at night. No one chasing them, wanting to hurt them. Or did they?

  She knew that, to outsiders, she probably looked like the normal one. Appearances meant nothing. Just like wild animals, people learne
d to hide their vulnerabilities, their wounded hearts.

  As she cranked her engine, preparing to get back on the road, a billboard across the road advertising the local rodeo snagged her attention. The ad featured pictures of both a cowboy and a cowgirl competing, and her thoughts flashed to a friend from high school who’d been a rodeo champion—until a car accident had left her severely injured and relearning how to walk. For years, she and Nina had stayed in touch. Carrie had visited Nina several times through her rehabilitation and cheered the progress of Nina’s recovery. How long had it been since she’d heard from her old friend? Two years? Three? Since she’d broken ties with so many of her old friends, deleted her Facebook and Twitter accounts, and essentially erased her past connections—to protect them from Joseph.

  A sharp pang for her former life, for her dear high school and college friends, for days when her biggest worry was whether the Taylor Swift concert would sell out before she and her gal pals could land tickets. Carrie huffed a sigh of resentment toward Joseph and all the ways he’d wrecked her life. Taylor Swift concerts being the least of those ways. He’d stolen her freedom, her happiness, her peace of mind.

  Blinking back tears, she continued to stare at the rodeo billboard, remembering how inspirational Nina’s attitude and determination to heal from her setback had been. Nina had stayed so positive. She buoyed those around her as much as her friends had encouraged and comforted her. Carrie missed that mettle. Missed Nina.

  Her heart beat faster as an idea tickled. Last she’d heard, Nina was in Colorado. Colorado was within a day’s drive of here. Joseph didn’t know Nina. Not well, anyway. She’d talked to him about her friend’s remarkable accident recovery, but she’d given him few details.

  She’d give almost anything to spend a few days with Nina and pretend for a short while that she was eighteen and carefree again. Too risky. The warning whispered in her head, while a desperate longing and nostalgia wrenched in her chest.