Without a Trace Page 2

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Cop

  ELLIE

  It started with a phone call, buzzing on the bathroom sink as I painted my eyes with charcoal liner.

  “Makeup? Is that wise?” My mother was leaning on the doorframe, watching me get ready for work. Even though she retired from teaching five years ago, she still got dressed up like she was going to work each morning. Today she was wearing a creamy, salmon-colored pantsuit with brown pumps and a string of pearls.

  “Just stop, mom.” I rolled my eyes, dusted off my right palm, then took the call. It was Sergeant DelGrande, so loud and brash my mom could probably hear his words clear as day, even if she hadn’t been standing right by my side.

  I mumbled ‘yes’ a few times, adjusting my thick brown ponytail in the mirror as I balanced the phone between my shoulder and cheek. I hung up and tucked the phone in my back pocket.

  “What was that about?” my mother clucked, pretending she hadn’t heard.

  “Nothing to worry over. See you at dinner.” I kissed her on the cheek then hurried out the front door.

  “Be safe,” she added as I left, almost too quiet for me to hear.

  As I climbed in my cruiser and buckled my seatbelt, she was perched like an eagle behind the curtains, keeping watch as I reversed down the driveway.

  Most parents would be proud of their twenty-eight-year-old daughter who was just starting out in the police force, but Barbara James wasn’t your usual mother. She was Catholic and came from a strict family, and she had tried to raise me much the same way.

  When I told her I was taking the law enforcement entrance exam, she had laughed. But when I passed the test and entered the police academy, that laughter had turned to tears.

  Not only was she worried because the job was dangerous, but she was also concerned about my reputation. What will people in the parish think when they find out you want to be a cop? she’d asked.

  First off, I didn’t give a damn about my mother’s parish. Part of me relished the thought of their gaping faces when they learned about my new job.

  Secondly, I’d reminded her that I didn’t want to be a cop. I am a cop now, I’d told her. And there was nothing Barbara James, or anyone else in Northfolk, including the parish, could do about it.

  I’d always been fascinated by people. I wanted to help them. Understand them. And as corny as it sounds, I wanted to make a difference in the world. At first, I’d considered psychology or social work. But what better way to make a difference than to help the one group of people that no one gives a damn about? The incarcerated.

  But Eddyville Penitentiary was hours away, and it paid more to be a cop than a corrections officer. It started out as a small dream, but once I’d entered the academy, it became an obsession. An obsession that, once upon a time, stretched beyond being a small-town cop in my tiny town of Northfolk…

  But my views on helping and understanding criminals were looked down upon by my peers, and I was reminded at the academy, more than once, that it was my job to help the community, not the criminals who muck it up. I understood their point of view, but I was idealistic—couldn’t I help the community and try to make a difference in people’s lives? Was it really impossible to do both?

  Northfolk was a close-knit mountain town, comprised of less than five thousand people. Nevertheless, it was riddled with poverty and with that came heavy drug problems, specifically heroin and meth. Besides drug crimes, sometimes I had to cite people for shooting off unregistered guns or riding ATVs on private property. Domestic disturbances and petty thefts occurred occasionally, too, but they were the exception, not the norm.

  I’d only had one serious incident since joining the force, but it was enough to change all those well-thought-out plans I’d previously made. Four weeks into my new job, I’d been called to the scene of a domestic disturbance. I didn’t recognize the red-faced, frazzled woman who opened the door, but I did recognize her husband. A well-known cop, Ezra Clark, was accused of assaulting his wife. I had no choice but to call it in…and to arrest him. But what happened next…well, let’s just say that Ezra didn’t take too kindly to a new, young, female cop trying to take him into custody. He was angry and drunk, and although the scuffle between us only lasted a few seconds, the results had caused long-term effects. Possibly, lifetime effects. Memories of that day came floating back…the pounding pop when I fired my own gun, the burning smell of gunpowder in my nose. On my lips…

  Would I ever be able to forget that day? And most importantly, would my colleagues and the residents of Northfolk…?

  Sergeant DelGrande’s instructions circled back through my mind. He’d asked me to go directly to 8418 Sycamore Street, where a woman had called in, claiming that her ex-husband had stolen her child right out of bed. It sounded like a domestic disturbance, but I wasn’t familiar with the address. It was near the old Appleton farm, but no one lived out there besides the Appletons, as far as I knew.

  As I pulled down the gravel drive to the property, I was instantly met by a running woman. Thick black hair swept across her face, a silky pink robe blowing back like a cape in the wind. I closed my eyes, fighting back images of Mandy Clark opening the door that day…if I let myself think about it long enough, I could still remember the smoky smell of Officer Clark’s flesh as I pulled the trigger…

  The events of that day were still such a blur. One minute, I was sliding the cuffs on his wrists, and the next, it was me being slammed against the hood of my cruiser. You think you’re tough, don’t you? You don’t know shit, rookie. He let me go, but then he did the unthinkable: he reached for my gun. Afterwards, my fellow officers would claim that Ezra was probably just teasing, trying to show me I was ill-prepared as a new cop…but he was wrong about that. When he reached so did I…and moments later, one of us was lying dead on the ground…

  Cautiously, I parked and emerged from my patrol car. While most of my male colleagues would have itched their fingers over their guns at the sight of a hysterical person, my instinct was to go to her, to calm her down. She was clearly distraught, her cheeks streaked with tears, her skin blotchy. I couldn’t shake off images of Mandy Clark’s distraught face, her battered skin stretched over her face like a ghoulish mask…

  “Sh-she’s gone,” the robed woman choked out the words, all the while fighting with the hair around her face. “M-my Lily’s gone.”

  The wind howled, blistery cold for September, causing me to stumble a bit with the heavy belt weighing down my mid-section. I shook off my whirling thoughts about that day with Ezra Clark and tried to focus. “Ma’am, let’s go inside and talk. Would that be okay?”

  She hesitated, giving me the once over as though I were a stranger asking to use her phone. Her eyes were wild, shell-shocked. Maybe she knows who I am. Maybe she knows I shot a colleague, I thought. But that’s ridiculous, I chastised myself, immediately. This woman was new to Northfolk; she couldn’t possibly know about the Clark incident.

  “I’m here to help. You called us,” I gently reminded her.

  Shakily, she led the way inside. The cabin was sparsely furnished, a small arm chair and rug in the center of the living room. Everything looked worn but clean, and not recently used.

  There was no TV, no pictures or personal effects.

  “How long have you lived here?” Awkwardly, I tried to adjust my belt, then took out a notebook and pen from my back pocket. The pages were blank, which for some reason, made me feel embarrassed.

  “I just moved in yesterday. Me and my daughter, Lily. She’s f-four.”

  “And your name?”

  “Nova Nesbitt.” The words were like whispers, strained.

  “And your ex-husband, how long have you two been divorced?”

  Nova shifted from foot to foot, chewing on a stray piece of hair and looking around the room with those wide, wild eyes. “Well, we’re not. I mean, I-I only just left him y-yesterday.”

  I clicked the bottom of my pen, open and closed. It was a nervous habit
.

  “Does he live in Northfolk, too?”

  “No. He’s b-back in G-Granton, Tennessee. I can g-give you the address though.”

  After I scribbled his name, address, and phone number down, I closed my pad. “Ma’am, if you’re not legally divorced and you both share custody of the girl, then it’s not a crime for her to be with her father.”

  Nova was pacing now, her skimpy undergarments exposed as the robe shifted back and forth across her thighs. She was a tall woman, but painfully thin. I thought about that expression, the one about a stiff breath of wind blowing someone away.

  She stopped moving, her face twisting with desperation as her eyes searched mine. “L-listen, you d-don’t understand. He was abusive. He is abusive. That’s w-why we left. I d-don’t know how he knew we w-were here…he must have followed me! And w-while I was asleep, that bastard t-took my daughter. She’s in d-danger. You have to b-believe me. Her life depends on it! He will hurt her to get to me, m-mark my w-words.” It was painful watching her mouth twist and struggle to form the words.

  “Do you have a restraining order against him?” Part of me was secretly glad he wasn’t here. The thought of getting directly involved in another domestic dispute made me more uneasy than I’d like to admit.

  Even though she was looking right at me, it seemed like Nova was seeing straight through me now. Her eyes turned smoggy and lost.

  She mashed her hands down on her hips, and muttering under her breath, she said something about a piece of paper being unable to keep someone safe.

  I could see her point but having a legal document that prevented her husband from taking the girl would have made my job much easier.

  “Have you tried calling him?” I asked, unsure what my next move should be here. I had been so confident when I’d started this job—maybe too confident—but lately, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was like a little kid playing dress-up in my cop’s uniform. After the incident with Ezra Clark, none of my colleagues trusted me or wanted to work with me…and lately, I’d found that I was struggling to trust myself…

  Domestic situations were always tricky, and sometimes the parents used their kids as pawns, or weapons, to hurt each other. Was that what was going on here?

  Nova shook her head. “I-I haven’t c-called him.” She reached for the arm of the sofa, stumbling to catch herself from collapsing to the floor below.

  I kept my eyes on her as I flipped through a couple blank pages in my notebook. Still gripping the couch arm for dear life, she closed her eyes. She was muttering under her breath, counting, I think…

  I was close enough to smell her breath and I noticed it was hot and stale. But I caught a whiff of something else, too. Alcohol crossed my mind, but this smelled more minty, possibly like mouthwash. Did she wash out her mouth with mouthwash before I came?

  That didn’t seem like something a distraught woman would do, I thought. But looking at Nova Nesbitt, there was no question in my mind: this woman was freaking out. She seemed scared. Skittish.

  Scanning her face again, I looked for signs of drug use. Although heroin was the main drug of choice in these parts, I’d been around a lot of meth users, too.

  She was acting strange, but her pupils were normal-sized. She didn’t appear to be on drugs, but then again, it wasn’t always easy to tell.

  “He’s d-dangerous,” she repeated, rocking back and forth on her heels. “Very dangerous.”

  “Can I see where Lily was sleeping?”

  Without answering, Nova drifted down a shadowy hallway, dragging her robe along like a bridal train. Cautiously, I followed behind, looking for anything out of order. We passed a master bedroom and bathroom. Both looked empty and pristine.

  When we entered the child’s room, I immediately noted that it was neat but bare, like the rest of the house. There was only a twin-sized bed and dresser in the room. The bed unmade, there was a creamy blue blanket folded neatly at the foot of it.

  “Found this.” Nova held up a strange, stuffed toy. I took it, turning it over and back in my hands. It was odd, unlike any sort of stuffed animal I’d played with as a girl. A rabbit, and a downright ugly one at that, with eerie button eyes and worn out brown fur. It had plastic black claws on its hands and feet and two jagged white teeth protruded from the bunny’s mouth. There were a few pieces of gray string protruding from its head. It almost looked…cruel.

  “Is this your daughter’s toy?” I set the creepy rabbit back down.

  Nova was pacing beside the child’s bed. She stopped and threw up her hands in disgust. “No! Why aren’t you listening? I found it! My husband…he calls Lily his ‘little bunny’. I think he left this here to taunt me. He’s dangerous! Please, you have to take me seriously!” In Nova’s angry outburst, the stutter had all but disappeared.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as I stared at the forlorn toy. Little Bunny. What a creepy thing to leave behind if he was the one who took her, I thought. Suddenly, this seemed less like a custody dispute, and more like a kidnapping…but the last time I got involved in a domestic squabble, a man had ended up dead. And my nickname by my colleagues—“Cop Killer”—ensued.

  “I’m going to take a look around the rest of the house. That okay?”

  “Yes! That’s why I called you, isn’t it?” Nova huffed. She walked out of the room, mumbling to herself again.

  As I walked around the side of the bed, looking more closely at the room, I couldn’t help but be reminded of playing hide and seek with my cousins and friends when I was a kid. Could Lily be hiding somewhere?

  It was possible that the husband took her, but I hadn’t seen any signs of struggle or forced entry. How did he sneak the girl out?

  The window behind the bed was locked tight. I peeked beneath the bed. The wood floors were clean, no dust or debris underneath. Next, I checked out the closet and drawers. I was surprised to find them full. A neat row of children’s clothes hung from the rack. Removing a pale-yellow dress, I was surprised to find it still had tags attached. I sifted through the other outfits too—everything looked brand new.

  “Ms. Nesbitt?” When I stuck my head out of the bedroom, I was surprised to find her standing right there in the hall. As we came nose to nose, I jumped and made an embarrassing squeaking sound.

  “F-find anything?” She gnawed on her nails, shifting from foot to foot, reminding me of a toddler waiting to pee.

  “Did you buy new clothes for Lily?”

  “Oh. Yes,” Nova said, nodding. “We d-didn’t have time to pack m-much.”

  I nodded, then resumed searching. The first two drawers were full of underwear and socks and the bottom drawer contained books and toys. Again, all looked brand new. Some were even wrapped in their packaging still.

  Something about this whole thing felt off. I could understand having to buy new things when moving, but new everything? It seemed highly unusual.

  Next, I walked through all the other rooms, checking for broken or unlocked windows. I opened closets and looked beneath the few furnishings inside the house.

  A new thought was shifting around in my mind. “Lily wouldn’t wander outside on her own, would she? New house, new place. Maybe she went off to explore?” Images of dead, floating kids in ponds fluttered through my brain. And miniature, mangled bodies by the side of the road, the bent-back limbs protruding…

  I’d never seen any of those things in real life, but I’d seen plenty of ghastly images while studying at the academy. Some of the men in my class liked to “shock” me with them, sticking them in my locker and desk drawers during training. I was one of only two women in my class, and behind our backs, they liked to call us “the pretty one” and “the ugly one”. I think I would have preferred the latter.

  “No, she wouldn’t. I s-sat on her bed, r-reading to her until she fell asleep. And I ch-checked on her a few times before I w-went to bed last night. I was w-worried. I looked around outside b-before I called, but I-I know h-he took her…”

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nbsp; “How do you think your ex got in the house, if he didn’t have a key?” We were standing in the kitchen now. I stared at the child’s suitcase on the floor. It was decorated with smiley red cars, the one from that Pixar movie but I couldn’t remember the name of it. Not having a child myself, I suddenly felt unsure how to help this woman. My mother would know what to do and where to look, I thought. Instantly, I pushed that thought aside, feeling childish and incompetent.

  What I should do is call one of the officers back at the station, but they all hated my guts and didn’t trust me…

  I stared at the suitcase on the floor. Nova had time to hang up new clothes, but didn’t unload the suitcase, I noted. It was one more minor detail that made me think something was off…

  Nova chewed on her bottom lip and it looked like she was fighting back tears. “I don’t know. Maybe M-Martin picked the lock. He c-can be pretty clever when he w-wants to be.”

  “Do me a favor. Call him now, and I’ll go take a look outside. Okay?”

  Nova gave me a nervous nod, then opened one of the kitchen drawers. She took out a cheap flip phone and started dialing.

  “He w-won’t recognize this number. I left my cell behind when we m-moved. This was just a pr-prepaid ph-phone I p-picked up,” she explained, pressing the phone to her ear.

  Even though I’d said I was going outside to check, I stood still, watching her place the call. Please let the husband pick up the phone and say he has the girl, I hoped.

  What if someone from Northfolk took this child? That thought made me queasy. The last thing I needed was another run-in with a bad dude in Northfolk. But if someone from here did this…then I had to do something to help this woman and her child.

  Internally, I quivered at the thought. Why couldn’t some other officer have taken this call? I wondered, exasperated.

  “P-prick!” Nova snapped the phone back shut.

  “You didn’t leave a message,” I pointed out.

  “He never ch-checks his m-messages,” Nova explained, placing the phone on the kitchen counter.