And her.
Their gazes met. She couldn’t tell the color of his eyes from this far away, but she could make out their shape—narrow, wide set.
She held her breath, frozen with fear, then demanded herself be brave. She made a step forward, lifting the bat. She’d…throw it at the windshield. She’d…
But the tires squealed into acceleration and sped off before she could do anything.
They were gone.
ROYAL WASFIRSTon the scene. He’d just gotten on duty when the call had come out. Potential kidnapping in Hope Town.
He pulled up to the parking lot behind the bakery and saw the woman from a few weeks ago standing in the glow of the parking lot light. She was in pajamas, barefoot, and held a baseball bat.
Dawn was a hint on the horizon, and nothing about the bakery or the parking lot looked particularly amiss, but he parked his patrol car and got out.
The woman rushed forward. “You have to follow them,” she shouted at him. “You have to find her. They went that way.”
“Who is they?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know. It was an SUV. She didn’t want to go with him. She was fighting him. She… You have to go after them.”
“We will. What kind of SUV?”
She blinked up at him, eyes lost and panicked. “I… I wrote down a description of the car, the plate. It’s upstairs.”
“Good. Good. Let’s go.” He took her gently by the arm, nudged her toward the side of the building and the stairs. Once she took the nudge, she seemed to get a hold of herself and then she rushed—jogging up the stairs two at a time, so Royal followed.
Into the apartment, through a tidy living area that included the bookcase from a few weeks ago, now full of books. She went into a room, a bedroom and straight for the bed. She bent down, picked up a notepad from the ground and then shoved it at him.
She had neat, printed handwriting. A clear description and license plate number. “This is good,” he told her reassuringly. He radioed the detailed description of the SUV, the plate number so dispatch could get it sent out. Stop the car wherever it was headed.
“I—I couldn’t see who it was, but if he pulled her from the bakery at this hour it had to be Albennie or Lia. They always work the morning shift. Albennie Ward and Lia Blair. Lia owns the bakery, or maybe she rents it from Mr. Simmons. I’m not sure, but she runs the bakery.”
“That’s all good information. Let’s go back downstairs. You can show me exactly what you saw.”
She led him through it. She was shaky, sometimes rambling a bit, but she recounted the crime with enough clarity Royal could see exactly how it had played out.
Gard was the second officer to come to the scene, and he helped Royal cordon off the area. Day was breaking and some of the townspeople were coming out, asking questions. Royal got relegated to keeping people out of the way. Occasionally, he caught a glimpse of his witness. She just sat, by herself, at the bottom of her staircase watching the goings-on and looking miserable.
He felt an odd wave of sympathy for her, but didn’t have time to really deal with it.
When the detective showed up, Royal and Gard walked over to his car to fill him in. The fact it was Copeland Beckett had Royal remembering the moving truck. Still, he focused on the case. That was the job.
Bringing home the woman who’d been kidnapped.
“I’ve done a welfare check on both the names the witness gave me,” Royal said to Copeland. “It seems most likely our victim is Albennie Ward. She works morning shift at the bakery. Unknown assailant, but the witness gave us a description of the suspect and the car he drove away in. Dispatch has radioed out car and descriptions. You have those?”
Copeland nodded.
“I guess you know the witness.”
Copeland’s gaze moved from the parking lot to Royal. “Yeah, Franny’s my fiancée’s cousin.”
“You always help your fiancée’s cousin move house?”
Copeland gave him an odd look, confusion laced with distrust. No guilt. “When my fiancée asks me to.”
Which left Royal a little confused himself, like maybe he’d somehow…misjudged? Before he could determine how he felt about that, another car pulled up. Not a police vehicle,at least not marked and not one Royal recognized. He also didn’t recognize the man who got out—but that gait, that grim expression. To Royal that readallcop.
