by Laura Scott
“I’d offer you some coffee, but it’s not very good.”
She shook her head. “I’ve had more than enough.”
Naomi was a bit of an enigma. Unfortunately, his job wasn’t to figure out what made her tick but to help her identify the men who’d kidnapped her.
Dropping into his desk chair, he made the call to Dave Campine, the sketch artist, who surprisingly answered despite the early hour. “Dave? I need you to come in to do a sketch as soon as possible.”
“Yeah, okay, give me fifteen minutes.”
Sawyer glanced at his watch. “Sounds good, thanks.”
When that was finished, he placed a call to Turner, but the detective didn’t answer. While he waited, he performed a quick computer search on towing companies. He found two that were likely prospects.
“Naomi, what is the make and model of your vehicle?”
“I drive a 2013 blue Toyota Camry.”
He typed in the information. “What’s the license plate number?”
“Um.” She frowned. “I think it’s QEP 603. Or maybe the numbers come first.”
“Close enough.” He picked up the phone and made the calls. The second towing company had her vehicle. “We’ll be there later this morning to pick it up,” Sawyer told the guy. “Did you find any personal belongings in the vehicle?”
“Nothing,” the guy said. “There’s minor damage to the rear end, and the frame of the door is bent inward, preventing the car from being driven. Oh, and one of the tires is flat too.”
Great. He glanced at Naomi who was listening intently to his side of the conversation. “If you can fix the bent frame and the tire to make it drivable, I’d appreciate it.”
“Sure, no problem. Won’t take more than an hour.”
He replaced the phone and smiled. “Good news, we’ll be able to pick up your car very soon.”
“But they didn’t find my purse?”
“No, sorry.” He glanced at his watch again, anxious to get back out to the dirt road to nowhere. “Let’s worry about one problem at a time. Getting your car repaired is the first step. From there, we’ll figure out the rest.”
She sighed and nodded. “I know, I truly am glad they found my car.”
He stood and gestured to his chair. “Why don’t you sit here and make the calls to your bank and credit card company to report them as stolen? Once Dave gets here to work on the sketch, I’m going to head back out to the dirt road.”
“Can’t I come with you?” Her blue eyes pleaded with him. “I’d like to be there if you find Kate.”
The odds of him finding Kate, or Louisa for that matter, this quickly were a zillion to one. “I’m sorry, but I can’t bring you along, Naomi.”
“But . . .”
He lifted a hand to stop her. “No. Please trust that I’ll let you know the minute we find her.”
She grimaced and reluctantly nodded. “I do trust you. I just want to be there for Kate.”
“I know. But first we have to find her.” And Louisa, he thought grimly.
True to his word, Dave arrived to work on the sketch. When Sawyer had Dave and Naomi situated in an interrogation room to work on the drawing, he went to find someone to accompany him back to the dirt road.
“Kevin, do you have time to take a ride with me?” He found Officer Hine kicking back and drinking a cup of super strong coffee.
“Where to?” Kevin set the cup aside and rose to his feet.
Sawyer filled him in on Naomi Palmer’s escape from the two men who’d run her off the road, then kidnapped her. “We found a dirt road that leads into the woods, but then just stops dead.”
“Probably a place where kids go to make out,” Kevin pointed out.
“Okay, but that doesn’t explain how the kidnappers knew about it,” he argued. “The guy actually said something about looking for the road.”
Hine nodded. “Point taken.” Kevin Hine settled his hat on his head. “All right, let’s check it out.”
“Thanks.” Sawyer led the way outside to where he’d left his squad. He figured it would take at least an hour for Dave Campine to work with Naomi on the sketch of the guy she referred to as leering man. He and Kevin would hopefully be back by then. And Turner should be in by then too.
Sawyer knew it wasn’t likely they’d find anything. Still, he felt the familiar kick of adrenaline as they parked their squads on the dirt road to nowhere and climbed out.
“I’ll go left, you take the right,” he told Hine. “Radio me if you find something.”
“Got it.” Hine gamely trudged through the thick undergrowth to the right of the dirt road.
Sawyer did the same, the slight burst of excitement quickly fading. It was clear that no one had come this way in the recent past. There was some evidence of trampled foliage and broken branches, but he knew they could be the result of animals moving through the area. Not necessarily a human.
He scowled. This was likely nothing but a wild goose chase, still he pressed on, knowing he wouldn’t be satisfied until he’d cleared the area for himself.
When he stumbled across a path, he followed it, quickening his pace. As he came around a large boulder, he abruptly stopped when he caught a glimpse of a wooden shanty.
It looked like something that might be used as a deer blind by a hunter. He didn’t follow his own order to radio Hine about what he’d found. Instead, Sawyer pulled his weapon and edged closer to the shanty, listening intently for any sound that would indicate someone might be inside.
All he heard was the sound of a woodpecker hammering at a nearby tree.
Easing up to the shanty, he kept his back against the rough wooden boards while moving toward the small opening. He was six feet tall, and the opening was right at his eye level, which seemed odd if the shanty belonged to a hunter.
Didn’t most hunters sit down to wait for their target to show up?
Holding his breath, Sawyer peered through the opening. The place was empty.
He backed off, then used his radio to get Keven. There were scuffled footprints on the floor, and there wasn’t a chair or other furniture inside.
Sawyer wasn’t sure what this place had been used for, but he didn’t think it was for hunting. At least, not recently.
Unfortunately, if the runaway girls had been brought here at some point, they were long gone now.
Chapter Four
Naomi shifted uncomfortably in her seat as the man named Dave Campine began sketching on his pad. He asked dozens of questions about the man’s head shape, hair, jaw, eyes, nose, mouth, until she wanted to scream with frustration.
As much as she’d thought she’d gotten a good look at leering man, she was seriously doubting her ability to create a reasonable likeness. Her fault, not Dave’s. She was doing her best but feared that this endeavor was a waste of time.
“What about his eyebrows?” Dave eyed her curiously. “Bushy or thin and curved or not very?”
“Bushy and straight.” She honestly hadn’t paid much attention to leering man’s eyebrows. “But he didn’t have a unibrow either. There was a gap between his eyebrows.”
“Okay, that’s good.” Dave often gave her encouraging comments even though she suspected he was frustrated with her lack of detail as much as she was.
She wondered what Sawyer had found on the dirt road to nowhere. He’d promised to call if he found Kate, but of course, she hadn’t heard a word since she began working with Dave. Sawyer would have to call someone here in the precinct as he didn’t have a way to contact her directly.
Not having a cell phone made her feel vulnerable and alone. No way to stay in touch with anyone. Even to get help in replacing her stolen credit and debit cards along with getting access to cash.
Not that she planned on calling her ex, Tony Baldwin. Tony had been a jerk, and she’d made it clear she wanted nothing more to do with him. Although she wouldn’t have minded his expertise in fixing cars. Tony was good at all things mechanically related and really could be
doing far better for himself than working at the carpet factory.
Not that his career choice or lack thereof was her problem.
“How does this look?”
Dave’s question brought her attention back to the issue at hand. When he turned the sketch to show her, she gasped in shock. “That’s him.”
“You did a great job feeding me details, Naomi.” Dave held her gaze. “Is there anything you think I should tweak?”
She stared at leering man’s likeness. “His nose was a little bigger and his lips thinner.”
“Okay.” Dave didn’t seem irritated with her changes but erased and redrew the man’s features. “Is this better?”
She slowly nodded. “I’m shocked at how much it looks like him.”
“Do you want to try doing a sketch of the driver?” Dave asked.
Initially she’d told Sawyer and Dave to focus on leering man as she hadn’t gotten a very good look at the driver. But now, she nodded. “It can’t hurt. I probably won’t have as many details, but we can give it a try.”
“Let’s do it.” Dave carefully pulled the sketch off the pad and set it aside. Naomi had to tear her gaze away from leering man to focus her brain on remembering as much as she could about the driver.
The work seemed tedious. Or maybe it was just that she was feeling impatient because she had no idea what Sawyer had discovered. Probably nothing, although if that was the case, where was he? Shouldn’t he have returned to the precinct by now?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get a good look at his mouth,” she said when Dave moved on to sketching the driver’s face. “Can we start with his eyes? They were close together and narrow, compared to leering man.” She’d glimpsed the driver’s eyes several times in the rearview mirror.
“Okay,” Dave agreed. He sketched for a few minutes, then asked about the eyebrows.
“Not very bushy and more curved. Again, no unibrow.”
Naomi provided as much as she could remember about the driver’s nose and mouth, but she could only describe them as normal, nothing unusual about them. By the time Dave turned the sketch toward her, she knew without being told it was far too generic to be much help.
“I’m sorry.” She shrugged helplessly. “I was in the back seat and never got a good look at his face.”
“It’s okay, at least one of the sketches turned out really well,” Dave assured her.
Noise from outside the room drew Naomi’s attention. Seconds later, the door opened. She was relieved to see Sawyer standing there.
“No sign of the girls,” he said, answering the unspoken question in her eyes. “How did the sketches turn out?”
“This is leering man.” She pointed to the sketch full of detail. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good look at the driver.”
“This is great, Naomi.” Sawyer picked up leering man, nodding at Dave in approval. “Good work.”
“Naomi is a wonderful witness.” Dave grinned. “And it’s not her fault if she didn’t get to see the driver’s face clearly enough.”
“Of course not,” Sawyer agreed. “I’ll get this sketch distributed to all patrol officers.”
Naomi was glad to be of some help, even though she felt certain leering man and the driver were far away from Chattanooga by now.
Unless they were still in the process of moving the girls from one place to the next.
Her stomach clenched as she imagined Kate being taken along with the others.
“Naomi, do you need to use the phone to contact your bank?” Sawyer asked.
“Yes.” She rose and followed him from the interview room. “I was able to put a hold on the credit card, but the bank wasn’t open.”
“Any unusual charges on your card?” Sawyer glanced at her.
“No.” At the time she’d been relieved, but now she understood that if leering man had used her card, they’d have more to go on to pinpoint their current location. “I’m hoping the same is true for my debit card.”
“If these guys are pros, they’re not going to be tripped up by using stolen cards.” Sawyer gestured for her to take the seat at his desk. “But there’s also the possibility someone else might have picked them up.”
She nodded and quickly called the bank. They went ahead and put a hold on her debit card, reassuring her that there had been no activity on the card in the past twenty-four hours. She hung up and turned to Sawyer.
“You didn’t find anything around the dirt road?” she asked.
Sawyer hesitated. “I didn’t say that; I said there was no sign of any girls. There was a small shanty set up about fifty yards from the dirt road. The place was empty and could have been a deer blind used by hunters. It could be that the shanty isn’t being used for anything remotely criminal.”
“But if that’s the case, how did leering man know the road was there?”
Sawyer nodded. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. We’ve sent a crime scene tech out to see what they can find, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up that this will lead to us finding your sister.”
She slumped back in the chair, feeling dejected. “So, basically we have nothing.”
“We have your sketch, Naomi. And we’ll keep working the case. Detective Turner will need to take your statement, but your sketch will help the most.”
She straightened and stared at him. “Is this your way of telling me to go home?”
He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s really nothing more you can do here. In fact, it’s probably better for you to be home in case Kate manages to get away from her kidnappers and finds her way back.”
There was no denying his idea had merit, but she couldn’t just go home and go back to work without doing anything more to find Kate. “I don’t think I can leave, Sawyer. Not when I’m the only one who can identify leering man.”
His dark eyes held hers for a long moment. “We have your sketch, Naomi. If we find him, we’d certainly let you know.”
She looked away, not happy with his response.
“Let’s pick up your car, then decide our next steps. I understand how difficult it is for you to leave, but I need you to trust me. I won’t stop looking for Kate and Louisa.”
She wanted to argue, especially since there was no way to know for sure the two young women were together. But getting her car would be helpful. Not that she had a current driver’s license at the moment. Or money.
Maybe Sawyer was right. A trip back to Dalton might help get her back on track. Yet she really didn’t want to leave. She’d felt close to Kate here in Chattanooga. As if some force was telling her Kate was nearby.
But for all she knew that sense of closeness was nothing but a figment of her imagination.
“Come on, let’s pick up your car.” Sawyer stood and held out his hand.
She accepted his hand, keenly aware of the warmth and strength of his fingers around hers.
He escorted her through the precinct. The place was much busier now than it had been earlier this morning. Several uniformed officers were standing around talking and drinking coffee.
A flare of annoyance hit hard. Shouldn’t they be out on the streets? Searching for criminals, especially a man with a likeness to her sketch?
“They’ll be out on the road shortly,” Sawyer said, apparently reading her mind.
She pressed her lips together and followed him out to the squad. Soon they were on the road.
When they passed a drug store, she gazed longingly at it, thinking about how nice it would be to have a hairbrush. Then again, Sawyer wanted her to head home rather than stick around Chattanooga.
Dalton was a little less than forty-five minutes from Chattanooga. If her car was okay, she could head back home long enough to pack an overnight bag. She could also stop at the bank to get cash.
Sawyer couldn’t stop her from staying in Chattanooga for the next few days. After all, she planned to take a leave of absence from work, so they wouldn’t expect her to return until late next week.
It would be an unpaid leave, but she didn’t care. Nothing was as important as finding Kate.
Sawyer had a feeling Naomi wasn’t leaving town anytime soon. And while he understood her fear and concern for her sister, there really wasn’t anything else she could do to find Kate. And anything she tried would likely interfere in the police investigation.
Naomi’s near assault and lucky escape should have scared her enough to run screaming back to Dalton. She might believe God was watching over her, but he wasn’t convinced.
Living with the Preacher for five years had made him shy away from anything remotely religious. He’d rather depend on himself, and those working around him, than something he couldn’t touch or see.
He didn’t begrudge Naomi her faith. Yet he certainly didn’t understand it.
The tow truck company was just ahead. He glanced at Naomi, who was staring straight ahead, her mind obviously miles away.
“Naomi?” He pulled into the parking lot of the towing company. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She pushed open the passenger-side door and got out of the car. The summer air was warm, the sun burning away the mist.
The towing company wanted a hundred and fifty bucks to release the car, and another fifty for the bent frame and tire repair. Sawyer gladly paid, although Naomi grimaced at the amount.
“I’ll pay you back,” she repeated.
“I told you not to worry about it.” He didn’t mind helping her out. Joe had done so much more for him, he liked the idea of paying it forward.
The car’s rear end was definitely crumpled, the trunk stuck shut. “Do the taillights work?” Sawyer glanced at the owner. “If they don’t, we’ll need those repaired too.” Naomi wouldn’t make it all the way to Dalton with nonworking taillights.
“They work, and I used clear tape to repair the glass, see?” The tow truck owner showed off his handiwork.
“Good, thanks.” Sawyer handed the keys to Naomi. “Check to see how much gas you have. We can always top off your tank if needed.”
Without saying a word, she took the keys and slid behind the wheel. Then, without warning, she backed up the car and drove off.