Mother and Daughter by James Caine

Author:James Caine [Caine, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23

Sarah

Within minutes of me calling the police, multiple cruisers arrive on the scene. The responding officer asks me to show him exactly where I found my daughter's hair ribbon. I do so and describe how I found it. He immediately asks me to leave the area so that a forensic team can look more into everything.

More police officers arrive, and soon, so does Detective Falls. She greets me and I explain again how I found the ribbon.

“We need to search around here for my daughter!” I plead.

Falls nods. “That's right, we’re going to expand our canvassing efforts to this area now as well. Now, I need to ask, how certain are you that this ribbon belongs to your daughter?”

“Very! I have more of the ribbon at home that matches this fabric. This is my daughter’s!”

I look around the dark alley. What was she doing here? Tears begin to form again. It's something I’m getting used to tonight. I’m surprised I have any more water left in my body.

“This is a good discovery,” the detective tells me. “Well done.”

“Did you find her?” I turn and my husband is storming into the alley, pushing past several officers. “I’m the girl's father. Get out of my way!” They do, and he comes right up to us. “Don't tell me you found her in this alley? My God.”

“No,” Falls answers. “Your wife found your daughter's hair ribbon here.”

“Where is it? Where was it found?”

Tears fall freely as I point to the pile of trash. “In the corner there,” I tell him.

Roger is about to go look for himself when the detective puts a hand on his chest. “We’re having a forensic team come and do tests now. If there’s any more evidence of anything in this alley, we’re going to find it, but you can't compromise that. That will hurt this investigation.”

Roger attempts to calm himself. He suddenly starts taking shallow breaths. “That piece of trash, the child predator. Jeremy, does he live around here?”

Detective Falls slowly nods. “He does.”

“Well, what the hell are we doing here?” he demands. “We need to go right now and talk to him. Kick his door down. My daughter is with him, isn't she? Oh, God.”

Detective Falls tries to reason with him. “No, Mr. Bradshaw, you cannot speak to him directly. That's what we’re going to do, immediately. But I can't have you come. If things get out of control, we could hurt this investigation. You don't want them to get away, right? So let me do my job.”

“Let us do something though!”

“What child predator?” I say, confused.

“I showed your husband a bunch of photos of known criminals who target children, and he believes he saw one a few days ago in a park near the daycare.” She turns to my husband. “Now, that doesn't necessarily mean anything. That doesn't mean this person is involved in what happened here. If you want to help my officers with canvassing this new area, I’ll have you talk to them, and they’ll tell you how you can help.

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