I reached into my pocket and pulled out the necklace and set it on the table. “This is the necklace Mallory was wearing. It belonged to Emily.”
Randy stared at the necklace for what felt like forever. When he lifted his gaze to mine, he said, “Holy. Shit. Wereallyneed to report this, Liam.”
I shook my head. “I’m with Mallory on this. Whoever this is, Randy, we likely know them. They could very well work right alongside you.”
His face went white as a ghost.
“Do you think you can take Mallory’s DNA, and maybe run it or her fingerprints? See if anyone has reported her missing? We’re pretty sure her first name is actually Mallory.”
“How do you know that?” Randy directed his question to Mallory.
“Well,” she said, twisting her napkin in her hands. “He called me Mallory, and I had a brief memory of an older woman in a kitchen also calling me Mallory.”
Randy stood. “Do you have a notebook?”
“Yeah, let me go grab one,” I said as I quickly made my way to my office. When I got back, Mallory and Randy were clearing the table.
“Leave all of that,” I said, as I motioned for the two of them to come into the living room.
Randy took the notebook as he sat on a chair, opposite me and Mallory on the sofa. He opened it and started to jot somenotes. As he wrote, he said, “This goes against everything I stand for, Liam. Everything inside of me is screaming to report this. I could lose myjobfor not following police procedure.”
“But…?” I asked, knowing there was one.
He exhaled. “But you’re right. Whoever this is, we probably know them. That is theonlyreason I’m going to keep this quiet. And obviously, I can’tmakeMallory report it.”
I nodded and took Mallory’s hand in mine and gave it a light squeeze.
Randy looked up. “The average person can run about a mile and a half to two miles without stopping. Since we don’t know how physically active you were before you were kidnapped, I’m going to assume strictly by looking at you that you’re in pretty good shape.”
Mallory shrugged. “I know I ran for a long time without stopping. When the first storm hit, I hid under the trees in some overgrowth-type bushes. I drank the water coming off the leaves. Once the storm stopped, I started running again. I tried to pay attention to the sun when it was out, but couldn’t always tell what direction I was heading most of the time because it was so cloudy.”
“Do you know how long you were in that basement? You said it was a basement, right?”
“Yes, it was a basement. I could see light coming through one of the boards above me, so I knew when the sun set and rose. I know for sure I was there two days. I’m not sure how long I was there before I woke up on that mattress, and I had a terrible headache…still do, if I’m being honest. It’s not as bad, though, more of a dull ache.”
“She has a bump on her head still, and a gash that’s healing.”
“Headache still, you said?” Randy asked.
Mallory nodded. “It is still tender, but I can tell it’s going down.”
“I would like for someone to take a look at her, check her for a concussion, but I guess that’s out of the question.”
I knew Randy was doing his job, but there was no way I was taking Mallory to a doctor. “What if I have Bubba look at her? He’s the only other person who knows she’s here. He was a medic in the Marines.”
Randy frowned, then said, “If Mallory will agree to it.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Good. Good. I don’t honestly know how we can figure out how far you ran. You didn’t see any landmarks, which makes it hard to know what way you came from. Adrenaline would have been on our side, so if the average fit person can run a minimum of let’s say two miles a day across uneven terrain, I’d hazard a guess you ran twice that, but you didn’t have shoes on, so that would have slowed you down. If you kept running until exhaustion.”
“She wasn’t very far onto the ranch when I found her. It was sheer luck, honestly, that I took that route home,” I said, as I looked at Mallory and smiled.
“Do you have a map of the area, Liam?”
“I’ve got one in my bedroom.”
As I went to get it, I heard Randy ask, “Are you sure it was only two days of running, Mallory?”
