Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(12)

This time, as she watched, Gretchen and Mettner appeared behind them, watching the footage as well. Something had been bothering Josie from the very first time she had watched Lucy hop down from her horse and take off. She hadn’t been able to pinpoint it until now.

“She’s running toward someone or something,” Josie said.

“What do you mean?” Mettner asked.

Josie touched Noah’s arm and he reset the footage and played it again. “Look,” Josie told them. “It’s like she can’t wait to get off her horse. She throws off the harness, jumps down and races off like a shot.”

“Away from her mother,” Gretchen noted.

“And her father,” Noah said. He pointed to the right side of the screen where one of Colin’s legs could be seen in the corner.

“Look how slowly all the other kids are moving,” Josie said.

“Cause they don’t want the ride to be over,” Gretchen said.

“Right,” said Josie. “But Lucy is moving with purpose.”

“So she saw someone she knew?” Mettner asked.

“I don’t know,” Josie said. “Maybe.”

“Could someone have walked out of the park with her—or lifted her over the fence to the sidewalk—before you shut the ride down and gathered the parents?” Noah asked.

“Yes,” Josie said with a sinking heart. “It’s very possible.”

“We still have no actual evidence that anyone took her,” Mettner said. “Only suspicion.”

“True,” Josie conceded, but in her heart, the word rang hollow.

“Boss,” Mettner said.

Josie looked at him. He wore a grimace. “Whatever it is, Mett, just say it.”

“You think maybe you’re leaning toward abduction because of everything that went down during the missing girls’ case a few years back? Like maybe you see everything through the filter of that case?”

Noah said, “You’re out of line, Mett.”

“It’s okay,” Josie said. She met Noah’s eyes. A silent flood of communication roared between them. Noah wanted to make sure she really was okay with Mettner’s accusation—gently delivered though it was—and Josie wanted him to know she was just fine. She flashed him a brief, wan smile. Her heart warmed at the thought that even in his grief, Noah was sticking up for her.

Mettner’s hands were in the air. “I didn’t mean any offense. Really. I just know, you know, that case was hard on you guys.”

Noah said, “Some of us have scars from that case, it’s true, but Josie has great instincts and those are not filtered in any way. If she thinks that something more is going on here than a little girl wandering off and getting lost, I believe her. Plus, the dog-handler thinks Lucy may have gotten into a vehicle.”

Mettner’s hands were still in the air. “Fair enough.”

“It’s fine, Mett,” Josie told him. “No offense taken.” She turned back to Noah and the laptop. “Can we watch it one more time? Can you slow it down? Maybe go frame by frame from the time she jumps down from the horse to when she disappears from the screen?”

“Sure,” Noah said, resetting the video.

Josie, Mettner and Gretchen all leaned in to watch as Noah clicked from frame to frame. As Lucy reached the left side of the screen again, Josie saw something dark edge out toward her from the column in the center of the ride. “Stop,” she said. She gestured to it. It looked like the point of something extending toward Lucy from behind the column.

“What is that?” Noah asked as he tried to zoom in.

They all leaned in closer, squinting as though that would make it clearer. The closer Noah zoomed, the grainier the picture became.

“It can’t be a hand or a leg,” Mettner said. “It looks like the corner of a square.”

Gretchen and Josie spoke at the same time. “It’s the door.”





Eight





They raced back out to the carousel, flashlight beams sweeping the area. Noah trailed behind, going as fast as he could on his crutches. Josie and Gretchen showed them the door. Mettner climbed inside as Josie had done earlier. There was nothing there. Josie said, “Someone call Hummel and have the Evidence Response Team come out and process the inside.”

Mettner closed the door and pulled his phone out. The four of them ambled back to the tent. Gretchen said, “You think she went in there?”

“I don’t know,” Josie said. “If she was hiding in there, she would have still been in there when we started looking for her.”

Noah said, “Wouldn’t someone on the ride have noticed the door opening?”

“You would think,” Gretchen said. “I’ll call everyone on the list of parents whose kids were on the ride tomorrow morning and see if anyone remembers seeing the door open.”

Mettner hung up his phone. “Hummel will be here in fifteen. What if someone else was inside the door?”

Noah said, “I thought you weren’t down with the kidnapper theory.”

Mettner shrugged. “I never said I wasn’t. I just said we didn’t have any evidence that she was kidnapped.”

Gretchen said, “It seems unlikely that a kidnapper could successfully take a seven-year-old from inside the carousel. I mean, the only way out is through that door.”