Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(3)

As another wave of nausea rocked Josie’s stomach, she wondered how mothers handled the whole parenting thing. The more independent Harris became, the scarier everything seemed. She was watching his grip on the chains on either side of the swing when she first became aware of Amy Ross’s voice in the distance. She was calling out for her daughter.

“Lucy? Lucy!”

Josie looked over at the carousel and saw Amy still on the ride as people were slowly making their way off the platform and out of the metal fence that surrounded it.

Her tone became louder and higher-pitched. “Lucy! Lucy!”

Colin stopped pacing and pulled his cell phone slightly away from his ear, as though tuning in to the panic in his wife’s voice.

“Lucy!”

Amy raced round and round the platform, weaving in and out of the horses, more frantic with each passing second.

Without realizing it, Josie had stopped Harris’s swing. “JoJo?” he asked, looking up at her.

“It’s okay, buddy,” she mumbled, scooping him out of the seat and walking toward the carousel.

People continued to spill out of the perimeter as Colin tried to walk in through the exit. The teenager who had been monitoring the ride stood by the entrance gate, gawking at Amy. The line of people behind him waiting to get on stared as well. As if sensing so many eyes on her, Amy stopped moving and looked at them. “Did anyone see my daughter? She was just here. She was on the blue horse. I was on the purple one. She got down before the ride stopped. Did anyone see her get off? Lucy?”

No one answered. Colin, phone still in hand, was now on the platform, working his way through the horses and stopping to look inside two chariots with red velvet seats facing one another. “Where the hell did she go?” he asked.

Amy said, “Did you see her come out?”

“No, I didn’t see anything,” Colin said. “I was on the phone.”

Amy again appealed to the people waiting in line. “Did anyone see a little girl get off the carousel alone? She’s seven. She has blonde hair. She was wearing a bright pink unicorn shirt and a butterfly backpack.”

A few people shook their heads, but no one volunteered any information. Josie was at the fence now, studying the carousel. There really was nowhere to hide. She thought back to when Amy’s voice first caught her attention. A crowd of people had flooded through the exit gate. Josie didn’t remember seeing Lucy among them, but she could have raced out before Josie looked over.

“Amy,” Colin said, approaching his wife. “Where the hell is she?”

“I don’t know!” his wife shouted. “She was right here. She was with me. I only looked away for a second. Oh my God.” She reached both hands to her temples, and her next words were a screech. “Somebody do something!”

Josie shifted Harris on her hip and moved inside the gate. She caught the eye of the dumbfounded worker. “Shut the ride down,” she told him.

“What?”

“Shut the ride down. No one gets on or off until this child is located.” She turned to the Ross parents. “If she’s not here, she’s elsewhere in the playground.”

Amy’s eyes searched the playground behind Josie. “I don’t see her. She’s not out there.”

Josie said, “Look at me, Mrs. Ross.”

Amy met her eyes.

“Let’s fan out, we’ll check the rest of the playground. She could be inside one of the jungle gym areas.”

Colin and Amy raced out of the carousel enclosure, calling for their daughter. A few people who were in line to get onto the ride joined them, calling out Lucy’s name. Josie followed, shifting a squirming Harris from hip to hip. “Down, JoJo,” he said.

“Just a minute, love,” Josie told him. “We’re trying to find a little girl, okay?”

“I help?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “You stay with me. That’s how you’ll help me.”

Amy flashed a photo she had taken of Lucy only minutes earlier when she climbed onto her carousel horse. Josie’s arms ached with Harris’s weight, but her anxiety wouldn’t let her put him down. A feeling of dread seeped into her skin, making her feel clammy and uncomfortable.

“She probably just wandered off,” Josie told Amy when she started to become hysterical again, but with each moment that ticked by with no sign of Lucy, Josie began to suspect something far worse.

Josie walked the perimeter of the playground. Behind the carousel was a tall chain-link fence that separated the play area from the softball field on the other side. A few people played toss in the outfield. Josie walked the length of the fence to make sure there were no breaks in it. Where the fence ended, waist-high shrubs separated the park from a strip of pavement and the street beyond. Bungalows sat peacefully across the street. Although many cars were parked along the sidewalk, no traffic went by in either direction. She followed the shrubs to the play area’s entrance, a wide walkway beneath an arch that read ‘Denton City Park Playground’. Beyond that more shrubbery separated the play area from the sidewalk for several yards until it terminated at a wooded area. Josie knew that on the other side of the trees was one of the jogging paths that ran through the dense forest of the park. A child could easily slip into the woods. The treeline ran the rest of the length of the play area until it met with the beginning of the fence on the other side. Still, Lucy would have had to exit the carousel and cross a significant area before running into the woods. Surely someone would have seen her.