She approached a dingy window. A neon sign flashed: DORC T MOTEL.
“Dorcet! Good girl, Mandy. Good girl.”
* * *
Mandy looked around at her new place. At least it was warm and there was a bed for her to sleep on.
“Here, kid, drink your juice.”
Finally, the woman was awake. “Are you gonna take me home, lady?”
She didn’t look like any lady that Mandy had ever known, like Mommy or Grandma or any of the ladies at Sunshine Day Care. This lady had a mean look on her face and dots up and down her arms.
“Why do you have purple dots?”
The mean lady smiled, but it didn’t make her look nicer.
“Cuz I like how they make me feel. Don’t you have anything that makes you feel good?”
Mandy took a sip from her juice. “My mommy and daddy. And my friend Elizabeth and my toys.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t have a mommy and daddy or an Elizabeth.”
The lady poked a needle into her arm, but she didn’t start crying like Mandy did when she got a needle. The mean lady closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Mandy took another sip of her juice and looked around, wondering if the door was unlocked. Maybe she could try. Maybe she could find her own way home. It felt like so long ago since she was home. Was Mommy back home? Or was Mommy in heaven like the lady told her at the store? The lady who brought her ice cream on a stick.
She wondered what would happen if she tried to turn the doorknob. It was probably locked. Every time she tried to get away, she was always stuck.
After being in the room with lots of boxes and food on shelves, the nasty man took her to a zoo. It wasn’t a good zoo. There were no animals or ice cream anywhere, just a big empty cage. She didn’t stay there long. He ran off with her, just telling her to shut up. Then he put her in his car and drove her to this place. He had a fight with the mean woman until she finally threw her hands in the air and said, “Fine. But I don’t babysit for free.” The man handed her a plastic bag and left.
Mandy finished her juice and stood up. She walked to the door and reached for the handle, glancing over her shoulder to make sure the mean lady was still sleeping. This time, when she turned the knob, the door opened! And then she walked right into someone with big boots.
Glancing up, she saw a big gun, then a face that she knew. She gulped.
Chapter 15
“I never thought I’d be spending my Friday night on a stakeout.” Dawn was sitting beside Luca in his car. Empty burger wrappers littered the dashboard. They were parked across the street from the Dorcet, a seedy motel generally used by prostitutes and drug addicts. “Why can’t we just go in there and get her ourselves?”
“Babe, we can’t just waltz in there. It’s dangerous, and we have no warrant. We could be prosecuted for breaking and entering. We need to plan this out with people we trust.”
Luca was back to his old self, much to Dawn and Gabriella’s relief. He’d gotten the okay from his doctor to go back to work on Monday. He had never been so miserable as when he had to spend a whole week hiding out at home to look like he was healing as a human.
“What about Mary Beth and Joe?”
“I can’t put them in that kind of situation. They’re veteran cops, and what we’re doing could get me reprimanded or worse.”
“Can’t we tell the detectives on the case?”
“The last time I did that, they showed up and Mandy was gone. It’s really odd. It feels like this gang is one step ahead of us.”
“Maybe they have a psychic working for them,” Dawn joked.
Luca smiled, and then his eyes widened. “Or maybe they have someone on the inside working against us.”
“Are you serious? There’s a dirty cop on your force?”
