LITMIR.BIZ

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called to check on your niece Cissy to see how she and your daughter were doing,” Foley answered. Behind him, his partner wandered away from them, moving past the paramedics and out of view. Sam found his attention wandering with her, wondering if she knew something she didn’t want him to know. Something bad.

      Foley’s voice dragged him away from his bleak thoughts. “When your niece didn’t answer her cell phone, he tried your landline, with no luck. So he came by to check in person and found the front door ajar and your niece on the floor here in the foyer, unconscious.”

      Movement to their right drew the detective’s attention for a moment. Sam followed his gaze and saw the paramedics putting his niece onto a stretcher. His chest tightened with worry. “How badly is she hurt?”

      “She’s been roughed up a little. There’s a lump on the back of her head.” Foley looked back at Sam. “There’s some concern because she hasn’t regained consciousness.”

      Pushing aside his own fear, Sam walked away from Foley and crossed to his niece’s side, falling into step with J.D. “She’s a fighter, J.D. You know that.”

      His brother’s attempt at a smile broke Sam’s heart. “She’s a Cooper, right?”

      “Mom and Dad have Mike?” Sam asked, referring to J.D.’s eleven-year-old son. Poor kid, growing up without a mother and now facing another possible loss…

      “Yeah. I’d better call ’em.” J.D. headed out behind the paramedics carrying his daughter out to the ambulance.

      “Mr. Cooper?” Detective Foley stepped into the space J.D. just vacated. “We have some questions—”

      Sam turned to look at him. Foley’s gaze was tinged with pity disguised as sympathy.

      “What?” Sam asked impatiently.

      “What was Maddy wearing tonight?” Foley asked.

      “She was in jeans and a ’Bama sweatshirt when I left her in her bedroom with Cissy,” Sam answered, the memory of his daughter’s earlier goodbye kiss haunting him. “She didn’t want me to leave. Tuesday is extra-story night.”

      “We found those clothes in the hamper outside her room,” Foley said. “Maybe she’d already dressed for bed?”

      “Then she’s in Winnie the Pooh pajamas. Blue ones. She won’t wear anything else to bed. I had to buy three identical sets.” He fought a tidal wave of despair. He knew the odds against finding Maddy alive grew exponentially the longer she was missing.

      “We’ll put out an Amber Alert,” Foley said.

      Sam walked away, needing space to breathe. The thought that he might never see his daughter alive again made his knees shake and his chest tighten.

      “Mr. Cooper?” The sympathy in Foley’s voice was almost more than Sam could bear.

      “I need a minute,” Sam said.

      “Sure. Take all the time you need.” Foley stepped away. A few feet away, Sam saw the female detective edge toward the staircase. Her eyes met his briefly, her expression grim. Then she turned and headed up the stairs.

      Sam’s heart squeezed into a knot. Take all the time he needed? Time was the one thing he didn’t have. Not if he wanted to find his child alive.

      THE HOUSE WAS CLEAN BUT lived-in, the carpet runner in the upstairs hallway slightly askew, as if someone had hit it at a run. Kristen Tandy moved past Mark Goddard, one of the two uniformed officers tasked with evidence collection, and crossed to a door standing slightly ajar. “Checked in here?” she asked.

      Goddard looked up at her. “It’s a storage area. Full of boxes. Didn’t look like much had been touched, but I’ll get to it before we leave.”

      She donned a pair of latex gloves. “Can I take a look?”

      Goddard frowned. “Do you have to?”

      But she’d already opened the door and flicked on the light.

      Inside, the room was a mess. Stacks of boxes, mostly full, filled the spare bedroom. The Coopers hadn’t been living here long, she guessed. Hadn’t finished unpacking from the move.

      “Maddy?” She stopped and listened. She heard no response, but the hairs on the back of her neck prickled. She stepped deeper into the room, squeezing between two stacks of boxes. “Are you in here?”

      There was still no answer, but Kristen thought she heard a noise behind the boxes ahead. She froze in place, her head cocked. The sound of Goddard at work just outside the room mingled with a faint hum of conversation from downstairs.

      “When I was a little girl, my favorite game was hide-and-seek.” She formed the words from her frozen lips. “I was good at it, you see, because I was so little. I could go places nobody else could go. So they never, ever found me until I was ready to be found.”

      She eased forward, past a large box in the middle of the room, ignoring the tremble in her belly. “I bet you’re good at hiding, too, aren’t you, Maddy?”

      A faint rustling noise came from the back of the room. Beyond the stack of boxes in front of her, she spotted a door. The closet, she guessed.

      “My name is Kristen Tandy. I’m a police officer. I came here to help your cousin Cissy.”

      A faint hiccough sent a ripple of triumph racing through Kristen’s gut, followed quickly by a rush of sheer dread. Taking a bracing breath, she pushed aside a box to get to the closet and pulled open the door.

      Four-year-old Maddy Cooper gazed up at Kristen with tearstained green eyes, her face damp and flushed. “I want my Daddy,” she whimpered.

      Kristen crouched in front of Maddy, helping her to her feet. The little girl’s hands were soft and tiny, and up close, she smelled sweet. Kristen felt her knees wobble and she put one hand on the door frame to steady herself.

      Do your job, Tandy.

      She looked Maddy over quickly. No obvious signs of injury, she noted with almost crushing relief. “Are you okay, Maddy? Do you hurt anywhere?”

      “Kristen?” Foley called from somewhere behind them.

      Maddy Cooper flung herself at Kristen, her arms tightening around her. The little girl buried her tear-damp face in Kristen’s neck, shaking with fear.

      “It’s okay,” she soothed, fighting the primal urge to push the little girl away and run as fast and as far as she could—the way she felt every time she was this close to a child. Instead, she picked Maddy up and turned to face her partner. The scent of baby shampoo filled her lungs, making her feel weak, but she clung to her equilibrium.

      Sam Cooper stood by Foley, staring at her with eyes full of shock and fragile hope. “Maddy?”

      At the sound of her father’s voice, Maddy wriggled to get away. Kristen put her down, and the child weaved through the stacks of boxes to reach her father.

      He scooped her into his arms and smothered her face with kisses. “Oh, baby, are you okay?” Sam held his daughter away to get a good look.

      Kristen looked away, a powerful ache spreading like poison in her chest.

      “The bad man hurt Cissy!” Maddy wailed.

      “I know, baby, but the bad man is gone now. And Cissy’s getting help. It’ll be all right now, okay?” Out of the corner of her eye, Kristen saw Sam Cooper thumb away the tears spilling from his daughter’s eyes.

      “Mr. Cooper, we need to ask Maddy—” Foley began.

      “Enough, Foley,” Kristen said flatly, joining them in the doorway. “You might want to take her to the hospital, too, let a doctor check her over,” she said to Sam. “We’ll talk to you soon.” She grabbed her partner’s arm, tugging him with her as she headed out of the room. She couldn’t stay there one minute longer,

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