I scan the area.We’re right across the street from the marina entrance, and the only cameras there are pointed at the boats—not the street.Dread twists my insides.“Katelyn was supposed to be home.”I turn toward him.“She never arrived.”
Leopold’s mouth flattens into a tight line.“Okay.Where was she coming from?”
“The diner.”
He looks past me.“Phillips!”
“Yes, Captain?”he asks as he runs toward us.
“Go talk to Maddie and Ed.Find out if Katelyn Ellis is still at the diner.If she’s not, get me the time she left.”
“You’ve got it.”He turns and rushes down the street toward the diner while my gaze narrows on the blood.
It’s not so much that I worry she already bled out, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a life-threatening injury.It’s entirely possible whoever took her moved fast.
“Easy, Holt.We don’t know that it’s her.”
“We don’t know that it’s not,” I reply.
“Let’s get the facts first, okay?”
He turns to talk to a woman wearing a black windbreaker with the words STORMWATCH CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATOR printed in bold letters on the back.All while my world crumbles.
It’s her.
I know it in my gut.
So when Deputy Phillips comes back toward the scene, a grim look on his face, I don’t need his answer.
“When?”I ask.“When did she leave?”
“Twenty minutes ago.A few minutes before the call came in.”
Twenty minutes.
One mile.
This shouldn’t have happened.
“Captain, we found this.”Another officer rushes forward with a purse in his hand.Katelyn’s purse.
Leopold opens it and pulls out a cell phone and wallet.He checks the ID, then slides both back into the bag before giving it back to the officer.
Everything moves in slow motion as the realization sets in: Katelyn is gone.
Taken.
“Garrison,” Leopold says softly.“Where is her son?”
“Baseball camp.”
“Okay.Do you know if she had any local family?Someone who can go pick him up?”
I shake my head, the shock settling over me like concrete.“No family.I, uh, I can get him.He knows me.”
“You should do that,” he says, then clasps a hand on my shoulder.“We’ll find her, okay?”
I turn toward him, my own resolve filling me with one single purpose.There is not a place in this world I won’t go to get her back.“I know we will.”