Free The Devil's Closet by Stacy Dittrich

say?”
    “I wanted to play wif Hanna, but he runned away.”
    With my attention still on Austin, I explained to the child that he should never go with someone he doesn’t know. In the middle of my little safety speech, my phone rang. Kincaid.
    “CeeCee! Get out of there and start toward Bellville. A seven-year-old was just taken walking home from school. Keep an ear to your radio, we’re getting a description now,” she yelled before hanging up.
    “This was a setup!” I announced to Michael and Coop (who had recently returned), rushing toward the door. “Another child was kidnapped. Melissa, do not take your eyes off Austin for a second, and lock all your doors and windows.”
    Speeding away from the Brewers’, I filled Coop and Michael in on Naomi’s call. Bellville was a small village about fifteen minutes south of the city. It was very obvious the suspect used Austin Brewer to distract us while he took another child. He was toying with us, luring us just close enough to think we got him and then disappearing yet again. This guy was brilliant. And fearless. Driving to the village, doing at least seventy-five mph, I radioed in the suspect description for the Austin Brewer case and told every listening officer to look for a white station wagon. As I was talking, I realized it wasn’t much to go on, but it was a start. This guy changed cars, and evidently, his hair color. Right now he could be driving a yellow school bus and wearing a dreadlock wig for all I knew.
    All we could gather on the radio was bits and pieces of what happened. Ashley Sanders had been walking home from school. A neighbor in the rear of her house heard the scream, went to her front window two minutes later or so, and noticed items from the child’s backpack spilled out on the sidewalk. Again, no one saw anything more specific. Several uniforms on the scene were giving out the child’s description, so I radioed for one of them to call my cell ASAP. We were almost at the scene when an officer called and told me what was found on the sidewalk. The child’s backpack was fully open with the contents all spilled out. Papers, lunchbox, pencils, and candy were strewn in a very small area, maybe two by three feet. When the officer answered my question if anything else was there, I hung up, slowed the car, and looked at Michael.
    “Shall I take a guess?” he asked.
    “Of course you know the answer. They found a My Size shoe sitting on top of the child’s backpack.”
    “Son of a bitch” were Michael’s only words as we turned onto the street where Ashley Sanders was last heard from.
    It was getting to be an all-too-familiar scene, and I hated to admit it, but the suspect had already started wearing us all down. No law-enforcement agency is ever prepared for multiple kidnappings no matter how well funded, trained, staffed, or anything else we are.
    The crime lab processed what was on the sidewalk, and an Amber Alert was issued. I spoke with the woman who called, another imbecile who waited until her soap opera went to a commercial break before checking on what she thought was a child screaming. A few seconds after that, Ashley’s mother had driven around the corner and seen the backpack and its contents on the sidewalk. She had finished her errands early and decided to pick Ashley up, knowing the route she took home. It was only when Ashley’s mother was screaming hysterically that the woman called the police. Without a doubt, I believe the woman would never have called the police had Ashley’s mother not shown up.
    Ashley Sanders was beautiful. He’d known that when he’d taken her just a short time ago. After all, he had been watching her. He’d known the route she walked on her way home from school, he knew where she lived, and even in the darkest, deepest parts of his mind, had known she wouldn’t fight much. He had been a little surprised when she’d screamed, but that only made it more interesting and exciting.
    He relishes the