Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(8)

As she circled back to the playground, the park’s overhead lights blinked on. Gathered around the entrance to the park were a number of officers, including Gretchen and Noah. As Josie got closer, she saw that both Amy and Colin were there as well as Denton’s Chief of Police, Bob Chitwood. All had donned jackets. Colin held his wife against his chest with one arm while his other hand clutched his cell phone.

“Anything?” Josie asked Gretchen as she joined the group.

A grim set to her mouth, Gretchen shook her head.

Mettner jogged up behind Josie. He quickly looked around the group, assessing the situation. He said, “Not even a sign of her?”

Gretchen said, “No. Nothing.”

“Can we ask for an Amber Alert?” he asked.

Josie and Chitwood answered at the same time. “No,” they said.

Josie continued, “We have no evidence that she was abducted. As far as we know, she ran off. Amber Alerts are specifically for abducted and endangered children. We can call the state police, though, and the sheriff’s office to ask for assistance.”

Chitwood held up a cell phone. “I already did. I asked for bodies to search through the night, and the sheriff is bringing their K-9 unit.”

Gretchen addressed Amy and Colin. “Can you go home and get something that smells like Lucy for when the dogs get here?”

Amy’s head lifted from her husband’s chest and swiveled in Gretchen’s direction. “Yes,” she said.

Josie nodded toward one of the uniformed officers who escorted the parents out of the park. She turned to Gretchen and Chitwood and said, “We should call the FBI.”

Chitwood scoffed. “No one is calling the FBI, Quinn.”

Josie put a hand on her hip. “They have a rapid deployment team for missing children.”

“Isn’t that just for abducted children?” Mettner asked.

“Yeah,” Chitwood added. “It’s called the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment team—CARD.”

“No, not just abducted children,” Josie said. “Any disappearance of a child of tender age. That means under twelve years old. Their CARD team was deployed in North Carolina last month when a four-year-old boy disappeared from his backyard.”

“That’s right,” Noah said. “They found him alive in the woods.”

“And we’ll find Lucy Ross alive in this park tonight,” Chitwood said. “There’s no need to call the damn FBI. We’re equipped for this, and we’ll have the Staties and the sheriff helping us.”

“Sir,” Josie protested. “The CARD team could be here in less than two hours.”

“For the love of God, Quinn,” Chitwood said. Everyone stared at him, mostly because he hadn’t yelled at her. He always yelled—at everyone. But now his tone was low and frustrated, almost like he didn’t have the energy to argue with her. “Not every disappearance is an abduction.”

“Children don’t just disappear into thin air,” Josie pointed out.

“You have no proof that this was an abduction. Believe it or not, Quinn, kids do wander off.”

“If Lucy Ross wandered off, someone would have found her by now.”

Chitwood turned to Noah. “Fraley, how long did it take the CARD team to find that boy in North Carolina?”

Sheepishly, Noah said, “Four days.”

Josie suppressed her eye-roll. “That was an extremely rural area. In any direction you go through this park, you come out in a residential area. The college campus is at the north end. Someone in this city would have seen her by now. There is not enough ‘wilderness’ for her to get lost in.”

Chitwood stepped toward her, his arms crossed over his thin chest. Even in the dull yellow light, Josie could see wisps of his thinning white hair floating over the top of his balding head. “We’re going to find this kid, Quinn. We don’t need the damn FBI.”

“Sir, with all due respect—”

“Quinn,” he cut her off. “When you start a sentence like that, I know you’re going to say something to piss me off. Why not save us both the trouble of me threatening to remove you from your job?”

Josie felt heat sting her face, but she couldn’t stop herself. “If you’re refusing to call the FBI because you don’t want it to look like you can’t handle your own city, I urge you to consider that the life of a seven-year-old girl is more important than your pride.”

In the low light of the park’s overhead lamps, she could see his acne-scarred cheeks flush beneath his stubble. Again, she waited for his loud, angry tirade, but it didn’t come. Instead, he swallowed several times, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Then in a tight voice, he said, “Quinn, this has nothing to do with my pride. I’ve been at this a long time. Since you were in diapers. We have the manpower and the resources to handle this. You don’t need to take every situation to a ten, Quinn. We can handle this. We don’t need the FBI.”

Gretchen stepped forward. “Then we need the press.”

Josie felt a wave of relief. Surely, Chitwood could not refuse them press coverage to help search for Lucy. She also knew—as did Gretchen—that the FBI’s CARD team didn’t need to wait for the local police department’s invitation if they were made aware of the disappearance of a child under twelve. There was a good chance that if they somehow saw the news coverage, they would descend on Denton whether Chitwood liked it or not.