Slipping the flashlight in her belt, Rachel hurried over and dropped to a knee beside the terrified girl, wrapping one arm around her shoulders and pulling her close while keeping her .45 caliber pointed at the dark woods.
The girl wore nothing but a thin T-shirt, pink leggings, and ragged socks. No wonder she was shaking. She didn’t even have any shoes on. The socks and leggings were shredded from running through the woods, and she was bleeding from myriad cuts and scrapes. But it was the deep, bloody lacerations crisscrossing the kid’s back and one arm Rachel was more concerned about. The girl had a hand clasped over the wound on her arm, but blood was still leaking out from between her fingers.
Rachel let the girl go long enough to reach up and thumb the button on the mic attached to the webbing on her vest. “Dispatch, this is 220. I need immediate backup and EMS at my location. One female victim with severe lacerations across her back and arm as well as possible hypothermia. Unknown assailant.”
The dispatcher asked a few questions about Rachel’s exact location in the graveyard and how far she was from her patrol car, but the best she could do at the moment was provide a general direction and distance from the entrance. She also couldn’t answer the most pressing question—whether the scene was secure.
“Who did this to you?” Rachel whispered to the girl, glancing quickly at the wounds along the girl’s back before looking off into the trees again. “Do you know where he is?”
The girl only cried harder, latching her arms around Rachel’s waist and holding on for dear life. The poor thing might have been too traumatized to even speak.
“It was a clown,” she whispered brokenly, her face buried in Rachel’s shoulder.
Rachel thought for a minute she’d heard wrong. Then she started praying she’d heard wrong. But when the girl lifted her head and looked up at her with terror on her face, she knew she hadn’t heard wrong at all.
Crap.
“A clown?”
The girl nodded, seeming to draw strength from Rachel’s presence. “He wasn’t wearing a mask though. He had on face paint. Like you see in a circus. I was in the backyard near the fire pit, talking to my friend on the phone, when he grabbed me and dragged me into the woods. I tried to fight him, but he had a knife. I thought he was going to kill me.” She swallowed hard. “I still can’t believe I got away.”
“Where is he now?”
The teen shook her head. “I don’t know. I hit him in the head with a rock, but I didn’t knock him out. I heard him come after me.”
Cursing silently, Rachel called the dispatcher again with an update on the attacker, saying there was a man somewhere in the cemetery wearing clown makeup and carrying a knife. The dispatcher immediately put the information out on the radio. A moment later, officers began calling in their location and ETA—estimated time of arrival—to Forest Lake Memorial. Unfortunately, they were all on the far side of the city, which meant Rachel was on her own for at least ten minutes.
That might not seem like much, but those ten minutes were a lifetime when there was some weirdo out there with a knife.
She didn’t hear anything right then that made her think the clown was nearby, but that didn’t provide much comfort. The truth was that she hadn’t heard a peep out of the girl either, and she’d been hiding in the woods twenty feet away. Rachel sure as hell didn’t like the idea of the clown being that close to her and the kid.
Rachel couldn’t stay out there in the middle of the graveyard waiting for help to arrive, letting the girl bleed to death. She needed to get the girl back to the car and put some bandages over those wounds.
“What’s your name?” she asked gently, sliding her free arm around the girl again while still keeping one eye on the fog-shrouded night.
The girl stared at Rachel for all of a second before a slight smile graced her face. After everything that had happened, it was amazing she could still smile. “Hannah,” she said even as her teeth chattered from the cold. “Hannah Freeman.”
“Nice to meet you, Hannah. My name is Rachel. What do you think about getting out of this place? I have a nice warm car waiting back at the entrance. How does that sound?”
Hannah’s smile widened for a moment but then disappeared. “That sounds good, but I’m not sure if I can walk that far.”
It was Rachel’s turn to smile. “No problem. I can help you.”
Hannah’s legs were complete rubber. There was no way she’d be able to walk back to the cruiser, even with help. Rachel had no idea how the girl had made it this far.
Hating to do it but having no choice, Rachel holstered her weapon then scooped Hannah up in her arms. The girl cried out softly in pain as the sleeve of Rachel’s uniform jacket scraped against the open wounds on her back.
“I’m sorry,” Rachel whispered as she turned and headed back toward her patrol car. “I know this hurts, but there’s no other way to do this.”
“I don’t care.” Hannah’s hand came up to clutch Rachel’s jacket in a death grip. “Just don’t let him hurt me again. Please.”
“Shh.” Rachel’s heart seized in her chest at the pain in the girl’s words. Damn that effing clown, whoever he was. “I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.”
Hannah buried her face in Rachel’s tactical vest, somehow making herself even smaller than she already was. A few more sobs that sounded almost like relief slipped out and all Rachel wanted to do right then was squeeze her tight and make her feel safe again. But giving her a hug wouldn’t do that. Getting her back to the car and some medical help wouldn’t, either. Finding that damn clown and getting him off the streets was the only thing that would do that.
Rachel moved quickly, glad Hannah was so petite. Rachel was strong—you had to be with this job—but if the girl had been any heavier, there was no way she could have carried her. She considered retracing her steps back to the car but then realized it would be a long trip with Hannah in her arms. Plus, keeping to the roads and gravel pathways would force her to go past several areas heavily shrouded in trees. With that damn clown still out there somewhere, it was a risk she wasn’t willing to take, especially since her hands weren’t free.
Hoping she was making the right decision, she turned off the path she was on, heading straight across the fog-shrouded cemetery in the direction of the main building and the front entrance. It was risky, going cross-country like this, but if her sense of direction was right, they’d be back at her patrol car in half the time it would take if they went the long way around.
