Free Silent Scream by Maria Rachel Hooley, Stephen Moeller

the same thing with Jessie, as if he had  been responsible for knowing—as  if that would somehow lessen his guilt. 
    Donner yapped at him, ducking his head and heading toward the fence, near the place they’d found Maddie.  Gritting his teeth, Gabriel immediately remembered the hellish scene and the surreal glow of the police lights bathing the world in blue and red.  Maddie’s broken body convulsing in the cold night air.
    It had been two weeks, and he still dreamed about her.  Except sometimes she was dead.  Sometimes nobody came when he called for help.  Sometimes the dream played on just as the real events had done.  Sometimes he found himself holding his sister, not Maddie.  Those were the nights he made himself stay awake afterwards.  Clenching his teeth, he shook his head.  There were some things a person wasn’t meant to forget.  Ever.
    A harsh wind whipped the bare branches back and forth.  Gabriel drew the collar of his coat higher round his neck, and he began prancing in place, trying to keep warm.  Still, a pit of cold lodged in his stomach as he stared at the ground in front of him.
    Despite Gabriel’s reluctance to walk around that spot, Donner jerked insistently at the leash.  Donner moved toward the bushes and nuzzled the grass.  Something gold flashed there.  “What in the world?”  Gabriel knelt and grabbed a stick that he used to pick up a ring with a crest on the front.  Frowning, he realized the large, thick band must have belonged to a male.  He set it in his palm and wondered if it could have belonged to the rapist.  Considering the location, he knew it was possible.  But how had the cops missed it?
    Giving Donner a long last look, he lightly jerked the leash, leading the dog back toward the truck.  “Let’s go, boy.”  Gabriel opened the driver’s side so Donner could get in then closed it back again.
     
    Gabriel pulled out his cell and punched the number for the police department. When someone greeted him, and he asked to speak to David Ferguson.   Another pause, and David’s voice filled the line.  “This is Officer Ferguson.”
    “Gabriel Martin here.  I found something that may be linked to Maddie Gilcrest’s case.”  He scrutinzed the crest engraved in the gold.  “I need to give it to you.  You want me drive it in, or you want to meet me at the site?”
    “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
    Gabriel snapped his cell shut.  Frowning, he knew this had probably been left behind by the perp.  It was an important link.  It had to be.  Without understanding the impulse, Gabriel walked back to his truck and pulled his camera from the glove box.  He set the ring on the hood of his truck and snapped a couple of shots–one from a distance and one close up before sliding into the car and putting the camera away.  Then he reached to the floor of his truck and grabbed his extra pair of work gloves before opening his tackle box and grabbing one of the extra ziplock bags that he slid the ring into.
    Grabbing the newspaper from the dash, he turned to the entertainment section and found the crossword puzzle.  Although most of the guys read the paper, none of them liked to work the puzzle, just him, and so he relished a few minutes spent figuring it out.
    He was in the middle of trying to guess a six-letter word for agree that started with the letter ‘c’ when he saw the dark flash of David’s police shirt pass in front of his window.  Gabriel rolled it down.
    “You said you had something.”
    “Yeah.”  Gabriel nodded,  set the paper back on his dash, and dropped his pen next to it.  He opened the door and held out the ring.  “What do you make of this?”
    “Where did you find it?”
    “Next to where I found Maddie.  That’s why I think it might have something to do with her case.”
     “How the hell did we ever miss that?”  David leaned close and peered at it, frowning as he shook his head.  He grabbed the bag.
    “I don’t