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Next, we’d visited the Wymonds’ property. The drive had been empty. Dented trash cans lined the curb, Kelly’s bike lay on its side in the yard, the front tire flat and hanging off the spoke wheel like a necklace.
I’d banged on the door. Silence had responded, followed by loud buzzing as a pair of yellow jackets harassed me.
After fighting off my sting-happy attackers, we’d trampled through the overgrown grass into the backyard, peeked in the dirt-rimmed windows of Jeff’s tool shed, and frowned at the baby-doll head floating face-up in the brown water of a kid’s pool.
We’d left and headed back to town, raced through the aisles of the Piggly Wiggly, poked our heads in the Adams Museum, marched through the headstones up on Mount Moriah, waded through children at the mini-amusement park at the south end of town, and even stomped around Wolfgang’s yard, making sure the root cellar door remained locked up tight. All for naught.
Addy seemed to have disappeared off the planet. I gnawed on my thumbnail. My stomach roiled, nauseated, the remains of my lunch threatening to crawl up my esophagus and escape screaming out of my throat. “How long until I can go to the police?”
Harvey shrugged. “Honey, you can go to the police any time.”
Doc’s Camaro rolled into the lot. I was out of the Bronco and standing beside his car door before he shifted into Park.
“Anything?” I stood back as he pushed open his door and climbed out.
He didn’t need to answer. The lines criss-crossing his face said it all. “Sorry. I checked in the casinos, too, and talked to some of the floor-walkers. Nobody has seen her.”
“Oh, fuck!” I covered my face with my hands. My heart ached from being ripped in half. “Where is she?”
A pair of arms wrapped around me. I lowered my hands and buried my nose in the soft cotton of Doc’s T-shirt, his woodsy scent cocooning me. “She’ll show up, Violet.”
“What ifhehas her?” I whispered, my voice trembling. “I just want my Addy back,”
“You’ll get her back.” Doc’s voice sounded so certain as he stroked my back.
“How do you—”
“Violet,” Harvey called from the Bronco’s passenger side window. “You have a phone call.”
I pulled back from Doc and squinted in the late afternoon sunlight at Harvey. “Who is it?”
“He didn’t say.”
“Tell whoever it is I’ll call him back.”
“He says he needs to talk to you immediately.”
I strode back to my Bronco, Doc on my heels, and grabbed the phone from Harvey. “Yes?”
“Hello, Violet Parker,” Jeff Wymonds said in my ear.
“Listen, Jeff, I don’t have time to talk right now.”
“I think you’re going to want to hear this.”
“Really?” If this was more about his soon-to-be ex or death-obsessed daughter, I wasn’t in the mood to play psychiatrist. “What is it?”
“Your daughter.”
I gasped. “What about her?”
“I have her.”
* * *
The Northern Hills Hospitalhad served the communities of Deadwood, Lead, and the surrounding silver and gold-mining settlements through boom and bust since the 1870s. I had often imagined the famous and infamous patrons that had dragged themselves through its doors, bleeding from bullet wounds, knife gashes, and all of the other violent ways to end a crooked card game or saloon brawl.
Not once had I imagined myself following in their footsteps. Yet here I was, Bronco tires squealing as I skidded into a parking spot and stomped on the brakes.
