“Yeah, nice car. I’m wonderin’ how the brass never got wind that you’re a dirty cop when your little girl drives around in a new red Corvette.”
“You better shut your fucking mouth, or I’ll make sure you end up in Walpole with a bunkmate named Rage.” Three men rounded the van.
Patricia froze. The box slipped from her hands. She glanced down and watched the animal cookies topple to the ground as though in slow motion.
“Mummy! My lion!”
She looked at her daughter. Her beautiful baby girl. She had to get them out of there fast. She knew the voice. She knew who that was.
“I’ll get you more later, honey.”
She jumped into the front seat—no time to fasten her seat belt—and hightailed it out of there.
“Get her!” the man she knew yelled.
In the rearview mirror, she could see the man now standing on the street, staring at her vehicle. The other two were jumping into the pick-up truck.
“Oh God!”
She had to get out of town, and fast.
Chapter 3
The squad room was solemn.
A woman had been found dead, and her little girl had apparently gone missing.
Everyone on the incoming day and departing night shift had gathered in the briefing room. Luca and Joe slipped in quietly while the captain was speaking.
“We typically see the estranged father kidnapping his own kid in cases like this. We’re ruling it out since the father was at work at the time of the incident and was not estranged from his wife. He’s here, cooperating and crying his eyes out.
“He told us he dropped his daughter off at the Sunshine Day Care yesterday morning at eight. His wife, a nurse, finished her shift at seven a.m. and went home to sleep for a few hours, then she picked up her daughter at one in the afternoon with the intention of driving to her mother’s place in Rockland for a few days.
“She checked in with her husband at the day care, and then told him she would check in when they arrived in Rockland. But they never got there.” The captain paused and cleared her throat as she regarded her notes. “Her vehicle hit a utility pole on Stilvan Street. The woman wasn’t wearing a seat belt and went clear through the windshield. Because the power went out, we can pinpoint the exact time of death to 2:05 p.m., and that means the father’s alibi holds up.
“We believe the girl had been strapped into the back seat but was not found in the vehicle. She is now presumed missing. We have reason to believe the woman had been chased down and lost control of the vehicle because of tire marks on the side of the road. At this point, we do not know if the child is alive, injured, or deceased.”
Luca dug into his pocket and retrieved the business card Dawn had given him yesterday. Maybe she could help. Maybe she could sense something like she did about the boy on the bike?
On the large screen TV, a picture of a four-year-old girl with blonde pigtails smiled back at them. Luca’s heart seemed to block his throat. These were the kinds of cases that everyone dreaded.
His eyes met Sergeant Craig Butts’, standing ramrod tall beside the captain, his arms crossed over his chest. Lisa’s father. If looks could kill, Luca would be a pile of ashes right now. Luca had a feeling Sergeant Butts had it in for him, and the only reason he could think of was that he had somehow found out about his relationship with Lisa. Had she told him? Was that the reason she’d broken up with him so abruptly? Damn! How in the hell was he going to function on the force if his own sergeant hated his guts?
“We’ll be sending this picture to the news outlets,” the captain continued. “I don’t need to tell you the first seventy-two hours are critical. Keep your eyes open. If you get any leads, you know what to do: call me or Sergeant Butts immediately.”
While the force had elite detectives who would do their utmost to find the girl, Luca had a special weapon in his arsenal. He could shift into his phoenix form and fly above the city, searching for her.
As soon as the squad was turned loose, he hopped in his car and drove to an old train station that looked more like a train graveyard. There, he could stash his uniform and shape-shift without being seen. Thankfully, his parents didn’t bug him about what time he got home anymore, so he didn’t have to check in with them.
He left his car in the parking area and jogged behind a rusting caboose. There was plenty of grime to cover his red and orange tail feathers and plenty of abandoned train cars in which to stash his uniform. About thirty seconds later, he simply looked like a gray and brown bird that flew out of the caboose’s broken back window.
An hour of flying over the city streets hadn’t turned up anything—except he’d spotted Dawn Forest walking toward the T station. She glanced around nervously and then upward. Could she sense him watching her? He landed on a high branch of an oak tree as she waited on the platform.
She carried a large baton with her keys, like she was ready to do battle if she had to. He wondered if she had already found out about the little girl. Did she sense something?
He decided to follow her. She got on a train marked “Prudential Center.” She must be going to work. He flew above the train and hovered at each stop. Finally, she got off. She was definitely heading to work, since ScholarTech was just a couple of blocks away in the Prudential Building.
