He stood.
“I’m coming.”
Natalie watched him.
“What happened?”
“They found the truck.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Where?”
“About eight miles outside town.”
“Was Andrew inside?”
Marcus looked at her.
“No.”
The search team reached the flooded roadway shortly after one in the morning.
Rain had turned the dirt shoulder into mud.
The river had spilled over the low banks and swallowed portions of the road.
Emergency lights reflected red and blue across the standing water.
Andrew’s blue pickup sat abandoned at an angle near a concrete barrier.
The driver’s door was open.
One tire was half-submerged.
The windshield was cracked.
And the inside of the truck was soaked.
Marcus approached slowly.
“Any sign of him?”
A deputy shook his head.
“Not yet.”
Marcus climbed carefully into the driver’s side.
The keys were still in the ignition.
The engine was dead.
The driver’s seat was empty.
On the floor lay a small paper pharmacy bag.
Inside was a prescription bottle.
Ashley’s name was printed on the label.
Marcus stared at it.
The prescription had been filled that afternoon.
Four days ago.
He looked at the timestamp on the pharmacy receipt.
4:41 p.m.
Andrew had bought Ashley’s medicine.
Then he had driven toward the river.
But why?
Marcus opened the glove compartment.
Nothing.
He checked beneath the seats.
Nothing.
Then Natalie shouted from outside.
“Marcus!”
He climbed out.
She was standing beside the passenger door.
“Look.”
A thin smear of blood ran along the inside edge of the door.
Marcus crouched.
“How much?”
“Not enough to tell us anything yet.”
He followed the smear with his flashlight.
It ended near the passenger seat.
There, wedged between the seat and the door, was a tiny piece of pink fabric.
Natalie carefully pulled it free.
It looked like part of a child’s jacket.
Marcus stared at it.
“Ashley’s?”
Natalie shook her head.
“She wasn’t wearing a jacket when I found her.”
Marcus’s face hardened.
“Bag it.”
The rain intensified.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Then one of the search officers called from farther down the roadway.
“Detective!”
Marcus turned.
The officer was standing beside the flooded ditch.
“There’s something over here.”
Marcus and Natalie followed.
The ditch was almost completely underwater.
A flashlight beam moved across the reeds.
Then stopped.
“There.”
Something dark was caught against a fallen tree.
At first, Marcus thought it was a branch.
Then the current shifted.
And they saw a hand.
The search team moved immediately.
They pulled the object from the water.
It wasn’t Andrew.
It was a backpack.
A child’s backpack.
Pink.
Soaked through.
Marcus stared at it.
“Open it.”
Natalie crouched beside him.
Inside were several things.
A coloring book.
A small plastic flashlight.
Two granola bars.
A child’s sweater.
And a folded piece of paper sealed inside a plastic sandwich bag.
Marcus carefully opened it.
There was only one sentence.
Written in Andrew’s handwriting.
If anything happens to me, don’t let them take Ashley.
Natalie felt cold despite the heavy rain.
“Who is ‘they’?”
Marcus didn’t answer.
He was staring at the backpack.
Because beneath the folded paper was something else.
A photograph.
It showed Ashley standing beside her father.
But Andrew wasn’t smiling.
He was looking over his shoulder at something outside the frame.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a date.
And beneath it were four words:
You were warned before.
Marcus slowly looked toward the dark river.
For the first time that night, the case no longer looked like a father abandoning his daughter.
It looked like someone had been trying to make sure Ashley was found.
And someone else had been trying to make sure she wasn’t.
At 3:18 a.m., Ashley finally woke.
The hospital room was dim.
A nurse sat beside her bed.
“Ashley?”
The little girl’s eyes opened.
“Where’s Buddy?”
“He’s right here.”
The nurse placed the stuffed puppy beside her.
Ashley hugged it immediately.
“Where’s my daddy?”
The nurse hesitated.
“We’re looking for him.”
Ashley stared at the ceiling.
“He told me not to tell.”
The nurse leaned closer.
“Tell me what?”
Ashley squeezed Buddy.
“He said if a man came to the house, I should hide.”
The nurse’s expression changed.
“What man?”
Ashley shook her head.
“I don’t know his name.”
“What did he look like?”
The little girl closed her eyes.
“He had a scar.”
“Where?”
Ashley touched the side of her neck.
“Right here.”
The nurse reached for the call button.
But before she could press it, Ashley whispered something else.
“He wasn’t looking for Daddy.”
The nurse stopped.
“Who was he looking for?”
Ashley opened her eyes.
And for the first time since she had entered the hospital, there was something besides fear in them.
Recognition.
“He was looking for me.”
Outside the room, unseen by Ashley, a man stood at the end of the hospital corridor.
He watched the nurses through the glass.
A scar ran along the side of his neck.
And in his hand was a photograph of Ashley.