Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(23)

Josie went over and climbed onto the blue horse, panning around. With a sigh she climbed down. “You’re right.”

Noah said, “By the time the ride stopped, he would have been outside of the park anyway. That’s where she headed—out of the park—if the K-9 unit is to be believed.”

“The video footage backs that up,” Gretchen remarked.

Josie retraced Lucy’s steps. Gretchen and Mettner followed her. She left the blue horse behind and followed Lucy’s path until she reached the door. She opened the door until Noah shouted for her to stop. “Right there. That’s how it was in the video,” he said.

The door was only open six inches. Plenty of room to reach in and snatch up a sweatshirt from the floor. Gretchen said, “That might be why no one noticed the door opening. She didn’t open it very far.”

“Only far enough to reach her hand in,” Mettner agreed.

“She was quick about it, since only seconds later she appeared on the other side wearing the sweatshirt,” Josie added. As she went to close the door again, something colorful caught her eye. She froze.

“Boss?” Mettner said from behind her.

“Oh Jesus,” Josie mumbled.

Mettner and Gretchen crowded in beside her. Slowly, Josie opened the door all the way. “What the actual—” Gretchen didn’t finish.

“What’s wrong? Mettner asked, craning his neck.

Josie and Gretchen parted so that he could get a good look inside the column.

“Oh damn,” Mettner blurted.

There in the center of the column floor lay Lucy Ross’s bright, sequined butterfly backpack.





Thirteen





“Don’t touch anything,” Josie said. “Call Hummel. Wake him up if you have to. Have him come back out to process this again.”

Gretchen made the call while the three of them retreated outside the carousel fencing to where Noah stood. When Josie told him what they’d found, he said, “Whoever put that there did it today.”

“I know,” Josie agreed.

“That’s pretty bold,” Mettner said.

“It was probably easy,” Josie said. “No one’s focus was on the carousel today. The search teams were working their way outward. We didn’t have anyone guarding the carousel. Why would we?”

Noah said, “He took a chance leaving that in there if he was leaving that here for us to find. What if we hadn’t come back out here? The carousel would probably be closed a few more days and even then, does the operator actually need to go into the column to start the ride up?”

“No,” Josie answered. “He does everything from his little booth.”

“Maybe he disabled something inside the column so that when the operator tried to fire the ride up, it wouldn’t work and he’d have to go inside,” Mettner suggested. “Like Fraley said, assuming he wanted us to find this.”

“He wanted us to find it,” Josie said. “I’m sure of it. Why else take the chance of coming back here to this crowded scene to put it here?”

“The boss is right,” Gretchen said. “I’m going to call the park director, get him out here to have a look inside the column once Hummel’s done processing to see if anything has been disabled.”

She stepped away to make the call. Noah limped back to the tent so he could sit down. Fifteen minutes later, Hummel arrived with Officer Jenny Chan, another member of their Evidence Response Team, and all the equipment they’d need. Josie and Mettner hung back, waiting and watching as they processed the inside of the column and Lucy’s bag. An hour later, all of them gathered in the tent, standing around a table as Hummel set a brown paper bag in the center of it. With gloved hands, he pulled out the butterfly backpack and put it down on the table. “We didn’t get anything from this. No prints, obviously, cause it’s impossible to get prints from this cloth. No DNA, nothing. But, you’ll definitely want to see this.”

He pulled out several items in plastic bags and laid them out: two tiny toy caterpillars, a watermelon-flavored lip gloss, a hair tie, a tiny stuffed ladybug on a keychain and finally, a sheet of white copy paper with some writing on it, scrawled in blue ink. “These are the contents of the purse,” Hummel said. “You can confirm this with her parents and we’ll know for sure it’s hers, although given the circumstances, and this note, I’m one hundred percent sure this is Lucy Ross’s backpack.”

Josie leaned over the table and read the handwritten note, her skin growing colder with each word.

Little Lucy went away.

Little Lucy cannot play.

You can see her if you wait.

You must go home without debate.

Answer each call or

See Lucy not at all.





Mettner gave a low whistle. “Boss was right,” he said.

“I’ll get the paper in and process that for prints,” Hummel said.

Josie took her phone out and snapped a picture of the note. She could barely hear over the thundering of her heartbeat. She tried to slow her breathing. Beside her, Gretchen said, “This isn’t typical. People who abduct children do it for selfish reasons—usually to gratify their sick, sexual needs.”

“So what are you saying?” Noah asked.