Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(11)

“Which means what?” Gretchen asked.

The handler shrugged. “Not sure. But because it wasn’t continuous from inside the park, along the fence to the pavement and outside the park, it could mean someone picked her up and hoisted her over the fence—or she hopped the fence herself. Then it stops here completely on the sidewalk. Usually when the scent stops abruptly, it’s because the person got into a vehicle.”



* * *



Gretchen said, “You think she was abducted?”

The handler replied, “I can’t make that determination. I can only tell you that her scent was in the park, on the carousel and it ends here. Like I said, when the scent stops, it’s usually because the person got into a vehicle and left the area.”

Gretchen jotted something down in her notebook and thanked the handler. Together, they trudged back to the tent. Josie said, “Someone took her.”

Gretchen said, “It appears that way, but how did she get from the carousel to the sidewalk without anyone seeing anything at all?”

“We have to be missing something,” Josie said.

Inside the tent, Colin was still there, arms folded over his body, his chin resting on his chest. He snored lightly.

“Hey,” Noah said, waving her over to where he sat in front of the laptop.

She sat beside him, feeling the exhaustion in her body and the ache in her nose for the first time. “You don’t have to stay,” she told him. “I can take you home—or to my house. You should put your leg up.”

His fingers worked along the laptop keyboard. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’d rather be here. Keeps my mind off… well, you know.”

It had been less than two months since Noah’s beloved mother was murdered and his family torn apart. He’d been spending all of his time at Josie’s house. She knew he was struggling to come to terms with all that had happened and that he would struggle for a long time. She also knew it was especially hard for him to manage with a broken leg. She reached over and squeezed his thigh. “It’s good to be of use.”

“Yes,” he said, bringing up a series of photos on the laptop. “Look, I’ve organized all the photos from the other parents. Unfortunately, no one took pictures once the carousel stopped.”

“What about photos of elsewhere in the playground after Lucy went missing? Any chance she was caught in the background?” She told him what the search and rescue dog handler had said.

Noah frowned. He started clicking through the photos. “No, not that I can see.”

Each photo featured a different child—smiling, laughing, running, playing. As Noah moved through them, she studied the people behind each child, looking for telltale signs of Lucy’s pink shirt or her butterfly backpack. She found herself and Harris in the background of a couple of photos but no Lucy.

“Videos?” she asked.

“Two of the carousel while the ride was still in motion. Neither captures Lucy or Amy Ross once the ride stops. Once it was over, the parents stopped taping. There is another one that is more promising.”

Noah closed out the photos and clicked on a small video icon. As it started to play, Josie could see that it had been taken pretty far from the carousel, but the spinning horses were clearly visible in the background. The little girl in the video was doing cartwheels across the grass. Her mother’s voice could be heard encouraging her and complimenting her on her form. Behind the girl, the carousel rolled slowly to a stop. On the right-hand side of the frame, Josie could make out the rear end of the blue horse. Lucy’s sparkly butterfly backpack caught the light as she scurried down off the horse and took off toward the other side of the platform. Josie followed her progress to the left side of the screen. The ride was crowded and twice Lucy was completely out of sight behind other riders and the horses. Josie caught a glimpse of her golden hair and her colorful butterfly backpack one last time before she disappeared around the other side of the column.

“It’s her,” Josie said. “It’s definitely her. Play it again.”

Noah played the video several more times and each time they watched it, Josie picked up more details. Amy, on the horse beside Lucy’s but slightly in front, had got tangled in her safety belt, giving Lucy precious seconds to race away from her mother. Colin could be seen on the right side of the frame briefly as he paced back and forth, phone pressed to his ear. The other riders were preoccupied with getting out of their own safety harnesses and exiting the ride. The exit was on the left side of the screen, and people filed out of it in a steady stream, but the woman taking the video was following her daughter’s cartwheel and jerked the camera away from the exit before all of the riders had left. It was impossible to say whether Lucy had exited the ride through the gate or if she had gone around to the other side and somehow hopped the fence. But why would she? Josie wondered. She thought of Lucy nimbly climbing the slide. She probably could make it over with no problems, but she’d been on the carousel already that day—Amy and Colin had said that—so why would she have left the ride any way but through the actual exit?

“Damn,” Noah groused as they watched the last few seconds of the video for the fourth time. “We really don’t know where she went once she ran around that column.”

“Play it one more time,” Josie instructed. “The whole thing.”