“Did they hurt you?” Tori was asking the girl as she untied the rope around her ankles.
“No,” she managed between sobs.
“Officers are contacting your parents. You’re safe now,” Tori said, giving the girl a hug. “Tell us what happened.”
“My mother had gone into a dress store and I didn’t want to go. She was buying something for my grandmother for her birthday. So I was sitting on a bench waiting for her, texting my friends. A woman grabbed my arm and said my father had been hurt in an accident, that she was a friend of my parents. I told the woman we had to go inside the store to tell my mom. She said my mom would meet us there. It didn’t make any sense.
“Of course I was worried about my dad, but I was reluctant to leave without my mom. Then a guy grabbed me and shoved me into the back of the car and said if I screamed, I would be dead. My mom and a couple of people in the store ran out and chased after the car, but the woman was driving too fast. My mom was on the phone right away and someone else was writing something down, so I hoped the police would hurry after us.
“We didn’t go very far when they pulled into the driveway of the house. The two of them hurried me inside and then tied me up with the ropes and gagged me. They said they would be sitting outside the house, waiting on someone, and not to make a move or they would kill me. Then I swore I heard the car start up and they drove off. I was trying to get free, but I couldn’t. The ropes were too tight, and I couldn’t remove the gag.”
Adam went outside and waved to Sierra to come in.
“Can I ask the young lady what they looked like so I can draw a sketch of them?” Sierra asked, joining him at the front door.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “Don’t touch anything.”
“How long have I been doing this?” Sierra asked him, her brow raised as she walked into the house.
Tori smiled.
“Right. We just don’t want to contaminate the scene further.”
“The woman’s and man’s scents are new,” she said. Then she spoke with the girl in the living room. “Hi, I’m Sierra Redding. I work for the police bureau as their sketch artist.”
The girl’s eyes were huge, and she glanced at Tori, as if silently asking her to protect her from the new threat. Sierra frowned. “I don’t have a police badge, but I really do draw pictures of the bad guys so we can share the pictures all over and catch them. The two detectives know me.”
“The woman looked just like you…but…she had a tattoo of a snake on her neck. And her hair was fake. A wig.”
Dover had a tattoo like that too. Because he and this woman had been lovers? It seemed like too much of a coincidence. “But the same color as my hair?” Sierra asked, sounding worried.
“Yeah.”
“Well, after they stole my car from the restaurant where I was having lunch with Detective Holmes”—Sierra motioned to Adam—“they grabbed you, as far as we understand it, and brought you here to my home. So I couldn’t have had anything to do with kidnapping you. Where else did they go, besides being in the dining room where they tied you up and—”
Three police officers arrived then. Tori had gone to get her camera out of her car and returned to take pictures of the scene with the chair, bindings, and gag. Adam had two of the officers set up crime-scene tape to secure the area and told the other to make sure no one other than people with official business got beyond the tape.
“They said that the picture of a dog on the fireplace mantel was the dog that threatened to kill Dover.”
Sierra glanced at the picture of her family that had been thrown on the floor and stomped on. The one with her brother was gone. “They took the one picture?”
“Yeah. They said it matched the dog that was in the hotel room—the dog that you said didn’t exist. Then they went into your other rooms, looking for stuff,” the girl said.
“My gun!” Sierra hurried down the hallway and reached her bedroom, Adam right behind her. Drawers were open in her bedroom and her bathroom, cabinet doors open, stuff tossed all over the place.
“Sorry, I should have warned you about that. Where was your gun?” Adam asked.
“In the bedside drawer. And yeah, it’s gone.” She sounded so dejected that he squeezed her arm consolingly.
“I’ll need your serial number on the gun.”
“Yeah.” Then she headed back to the living room and asked Melissa, “When they left, were they carrying anything with them?”
“I was turned the other way, my back to the kitchen. I couldn’t see anything they took in the kitchen, just heard what they were doing.”
“Then both of them went to the bedroom?”
“They both went down the hall. The woman said she was checking out the bedroom. He said he would check out the other rooms.”
“When they returned, were they carrying anything?” Sierra asked.
“A gun. I couldn’t tell if they had anything else. I mean, except the picture. They just hurried really fast out of the house, though before they left, the guy warned me not to move an inch from where I was tied up—as if I could.”
“How did they get inside? The house was locked.”
“One of them went around back and I heard the glass break.”
“The laundry room window is broken,” Adam said.
Sierra frowned.
“We’ll get it taken care of pronto after we gather any evidence at the crime scene.” Adam had already texted the wolf they called on for replacing windows.
“You said the woman looked like me.” Sierra sat down to begin sketching the kidnappers.
“With the fake wig, yeah. But she was really dark-haired. Her eyebrows were dark. And she plucked them way too much. They were really skinny.”
“What about her mouth? Did she smile at all?”
“No. She acted annoyed with the guy. She kept calling him an idiot. ‘Stop being such an idiot. I don’t know why you have to be such an idiot. If you were any more of an idiot than you are right now, we would be sitting in jail.’”
“How did he react to that?” Adam asked.
“He said it takes one to know one.” The girl shrugged. “He didn’t sound mad, just like it rolled right off him. Oh, and she said that if he didn’t get some smarts, he would end up just like Dover or Fish.”
Sierra glanced at Adam. “So Dover Manning, who is in jail, is in cahoots with some guy who goes by the name of Fish. Maybe Fisher?”
“And they were looking for a dog. A big dog. Part German shepherd, the guy thought. They were supposed to kill it. I was so glad they couldn’t find the dog that was in the picture,” Melissa said.