“I don’t have a dog,” Sierra said. “Those are old pictures of dogs we owned a long time ago.”
“Oh, they were sure that was the one that had threatened him.”
“Did the woman have a long chin like me? Shorter chin?” Sierra asked, getting back to sketching the female kidnapper’s features.
“Shorter.”
“Wide cheek bones? Oval face? Round?”
“Heart-shaped.” The girl smiled when Sierra looked surprised that she would know the different shapes of faces.
“I studied art. I study people’s faces. The policewoman has an oval face like you. The policeman has a diamond face shape. Did you know that shape for a man is supposed to be hot?”
Sierra’s brows shot up. Tori laughed. Adam smiled. He liked the kid.
“The guy had a widow’s peak. His hair was light brown and it was cut short. He had a tattoo of a heart on his”—she looked down at her hands—“left hand. He was as tall as the policeman, but his shoulders weren’t as broad. He wore jeans and a gray T-shirt with a crow on it. He had on heavy boots with steel toes.”
“You’re doing great with the descriptions,” Sierra said.
“I kept telling myself if I lived, I had to be able to describe them in detail. Every time I saw them, I would try to memorize another detail. Oh, the woman was wearing a sparkly gold and diamond bracelet and big gold hoop earrings, a gold ankle bracelet and a gold ring, like she was dressed up for something. Um, her shirt had a rounded neck and she was”—she glanced at Adam and her face turned a little red—“like guys like.”
“Big-busted?” Sierra offered and smiled at Adam.
He held up his hands in defense. “Not all guys see a woman in that way.”
The girl scoffed and tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulders. “Sure, you don’t.”
She was certainly precocious. And he hoped neither Sierra nor Tori would rib him about it later.
“Was she narrow shouldered like me? Or have broader shoulders?” Sierra asked.
The girl frowned, studying Sierra’s shoulders, and said, “About the same as yours. But she was taller. And skinnier. She was wearing pink jeans with a pink short-sleeved top, and she was about your age, I guess.”
“Thirty?”
The girl shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.” Melissa looked down at the drawing. “Her mouth was thinner. Meaner looking. And she has long, dark hair. When she tied me up, I saw a couple of dark brown hairs clinging to her shirt and they were long. Down to her…chest. They looked like the same color as her skinny eyebrows.”
“Okay, good.” Sierra sketched some more.
“They didn’t have any reason to grab you personally, right?” Adam asked.
“Nope. I was alone, they saw me and grabbed me.” Melissa looked at the sketch of the woman again. “That looks just like her. I can draw, but not half as good as you do.”
“Here, you sketch whatever your favorite thing is to draw.” Sierra handed the sketch pad to her after removing the two pages she had done of the kidnappers.
Adam was impressed that Sierra would give Melissa her sketch pad to draw on, which helped to take the girl’s mind off her ordeal.
Sierra said to Adam, “I’ll get you the serial number on the gun.” Then she headed back to the bedroom.
“Were the man and woman wearing gloves?” Adam figured they would have been, but he had to ask.
“No.”
That was good news, if they could locate the car and the kidnappers hadn’t wiped it down. “When they grabbed you, did they leave the car running?” Adam asked.
“Yeah. I guess so they could get away fast.”
And because they didn’t have the keys to the car.
Sierra headed into the kitchen, not touching anything but looking to see if anything appeared to be missing. “I can’t tell if they took anything else. Just the gun.” She returned to the living room, handed Adam a slip of paper with a serial number on it, and smiled at the picture Melissa had drawn of a horse running. “Now that is truly beautiful. I could never draw a horse like that.”
“People are your thing then?”
“I can draw landscapes and other things”—wolves and lots of them—“but horses, not so much.”
“I bet you could if you practiced.”
“You are so right. I’m so sorry for what they put you through.”
“Thanks. You too.” Melissa glanced at Sierra’s torn-up drawings on the dining room table and scattered on the floor.
“It’s nothing that I can’t do again. All that’s important is that you’re safe,” Sierra said.
After they finished talking with Melissa, a policewoman took her to join her parents. Melissa had a couple of bruises on her arms where the woman and man had grabbed her, and the police had photographed them, but otherwise, she was fine. She just had to deal with the psychological issue of being threatened and taken hostage. Which was bad enough.
Then Adam got another call.
“They’ve found Sierra Redding’s car ditched about fifteen miles south of Portland, hidden in brush. No sign of anyone in the vicinity,” Jefferson, one of the officers working in the office, said.
“Was it in good condition?” Adam asked.
“Yes, sir. It looks like they just ditched it and tried to hide it.”
“Okay, great. Impound it and dust for prints,” Adam said.
“Will do, Detective.”
“Were there any tire tracks anywhere?” Adam asked.
“We’ve taken casts of the ones we found.”
“Okay, good.” Then Adam and the officer ended the call. “Your car has been found. And it’s in good shape.”
“Oh great,” Sierra said. “But it’s impounded now?”
“Only as long as it takes to get prints off the car and take hair samples. Then it will be returned to you. I can get you back and forth to work until that happens,” Adam told Sierra.
“Thanks. What about my house?”
Adam frowned. “You can stay with me for the night. They’ll be finished going over the crime scene in a few hours.”
“I would take you in, but nothing’s unpacked except my clothes and dishes,” Tori said.
Sierra smiled at her. “We’ll help you get it straightened out. I felt the same way when I arrived, but at least I had a lot of wolf pack help.” To Adam, she said, “I just need to get a bag and throw in some clothes and toiletries to stay the night.”