Naomi shifted uncomfortably in her seat as the man named Dave Campine began sketching on his pad. He asked dozens of questions about the man’s head shape, hair, jaw, eyes, nose, mouth, until she wanted to scream with frustration.
As much as she’d thought she’d gotten a good look at leering man, she was seriously doubting her ability to create a reasonable likeness. Her fault, not Dave’s. She was doing her best but feared that this endeavor was a waste of time.
“What about his eyebrows?” Dave eyed her curiously. “Bushy or thin and curved or not very?”
“Bushy and straight.” She honestly hadn’t paid much attention to leering man’s eyebrows. “But he didn’t have a unibrow either. There was a gap between his eyebrows.”
“Okay, that’s good.” Dave often gave her encouraging comments even though she suspected he was frustrated with her lack of detail as much as she was.
She wondered what Sawyer had found on the dirt road to nowhere. He’d promised to call if he found Kate, but of course, she hadn’t heard a word since she began working with Dave. Sawyer would have to call someone here in the precinct as he didn’t have a way to contact her directly.
Not having a cell phone made her feel vulnerable and alone. No way to stay in touch with anyone. Even to get help in replacing her stolen credit and debit cards along with getting access to cash.
Not that she planned on calling her ex, Tony Baldwin. Tony had been a jerk, and she’d made it clear she wanted nothing more to do with him. Although she wouldn’t have minded his expertise in fixing cars. Tony was good at all things mechanically related and really could be doing far better for himself than working at the carpet factory.
Not that his career choice or lack thereof was her problem.
“How does this look?”
Dave’s question brought her attention back to the issue at hand. When he turned the sketch to show her, she gasped in shock. “That’s him.”
“You did a great job feeding me details, Naomi.” Dave held her gaze. “Is there anything you think I should tweak?”
She stared at leering man’s likeness. “His nose was a little bigger and his lips thinner.”
“Okay.” Dave didn’t seem irritated with her changes but erased and redrew the man’s features. “Is this better?”
She slowly nodded. “I’m shocked at how much it looks like him.”
“Do you want to try doing a sketch of the driver?” Dave asked.
Initially she’d told Sawyer and Dave to focus on leering man as she hadn’t gotten a very good look at the driver. But now, she nodded. “It can’t hurt. I probably won’t have as many details, but we can give it a try.”
“Let’s do it.” Dave carefully pulled the sketch off the pad and set it aside. Naomi had to tear her gaze away from leering man to focus her brain on remembering as much as she could about the driver.
The work seemed tedious. Or maybe it was just that she was feeling impatient because she had no idea what Sawyer had discovered. Probably nothing, although if that was the case, where was he? Shouldn’t he have returned to the precinct by now?
“I’m sorry, I didn’t get a good look at his mouth,” she said when Dave moved on to sketching the driver’s face. “Can we start with his eyes? They were close together and narrow, compared to leering man.” She’d glimpsed the driver’s eyes several times in the rearview mirror.
“Okay,” Dave agreed. He sketched for a few minutes, then asked about the eyebrows.
“Not very bushy and more curved. Again, no unibrow.”
Naomi provided as much as she could remember about the driver’s nose and mouth, but she could only describe them as normal, nothing unusual about them. By the time Dave turned the sketch toward her, she knew without being told it was far too generic to be much help.
“I’m sorry.” She shrugged helplessly. “I was in the back seat and never got a good look at his face.”
“It’s okay, at least one of the sketches turned out really well,” Dave assured her.
Noise from outside the room drew Naomi’s attention. Seconds later, the door opened. She was relieved to see Sawyer standing there.
“No sign of the girls,” he said, answering the unspoken question in her eyes. “How did the sketches turn out?”
“This is leering man.” She pointed to the sketch full of detail. “Unfortunately, I didn’t get a good look at the driver.”
“This is great, Naomi.” Sawyer picked up leering man, nodding at Dave in approval. “Good work.”
“Naomi is a wonderful witness.” Dave grinned. “And it’s not her fault if she didn’t get to see the driver’s face clearly enough.”
“Of course not,” Sawyer agreed. “I’ll get this sketch distributed to all patrol officers.”
Naomi was glad to be of some help, even though she felt certain leering man and the driver were far away from Chattanooga by now.
Unless they were still in the process of moving the girls from one place to the next.
Her stomach clenched as she imagined Kate being taken along with the others.
“Naomi, do you need to use the phone to contact your bank?” Sawyer asked.
“Yes.” She rose and followed him from the interview room. “I was able to put a hold on the credit card, but the bank wasn’t open.”
“Any unusual charges on your card?” Sawyer glanced at her.
“No.” At the time she’d been relieved, but now she understood that if leering man had used her card, they’d have more to go on to pinpoint their current location. “I’m hoping the same is true for my debit card.”
“If these guys are pros, they’re not going to be tripped up by using stolen cards.” Sawyer gestured for her to take the seat at his desk. “But there’s also the possibility someone else might have picked them up.”
She nodded and quickly called the bank. They went ahead and put a hold on her debit card, reassuring her that there had been no activity on the card in the past twenty-four hours. She hung up and turned to Sawyer.
“You didn’t find anything around the dirt road?” she asked.
Sawyer hesitated. “I didn’t say that; I said there was no sign of any girls. There was a small shanty set up about fifty yards from the dirt road. The place was empty and could have been a deer blind used by hunters. It could be that the shanty isn’t being used for anything remotely criminal.”
“But if that’s the case, how did leering man know the road was there?”
Sawyer nodded. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. We’ve sent a crime scene tech out to see what they can find, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up that this will lead to us finding your sister.”
She slumped back in the chair, feeling dejected. “So, basically we have nothing.”
“We have your sketch, Naomi. And we’ll keep working the case. Detective Turner will need to take your statement, but your sketch will help the most.”
She straightened and stared at him. “Is this your way of telling me to go home?”
He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. “There’s really nothing more you can do here. In fact, it’s probably better for you to be home in case Kate manages to get away from her kidnappers and finds her way back.”
There was no denying his idea had merit, but she couldn’t just go home and go back to work without doing anything more to find Kate. “I don’t think I can leave, Sawyer. Not when I’m the only one who can identify leering man.”
His dark eyes held hers for a long moment. “We have your sketch, Naomi. If we find him, we’d certainly let you know.”
She looked away, not happy with his response.
“Let’s pick up your car, then decide our next steps. I understand how difficult it is for you to leave, but I need you to trust me. I won’t stop looking for Kate and Louisa.”
She wanted to argue, especially since there was no way to know for sure the two young women were together. But getting her car would be helpful. Not that she had a current driver’s license at the moment. Or money.
Maybe Sawyer was right. A trip back to Dalton might help get her back on track. Yet she really didn’t want to leave. She’d felt close to Kate here in Chattanooga. As if some force was telling her Kate was nearby.
But for all she knew that sense of closeness was nothing but a figment of her imagination.
“Come on, let’s pick up your car.” Sawyer stood and held out his hand.
She accepted his hand, keenly aware of the warmth and strength of his fingers around hers.
He escorted her through the precinct. The place was much busier now than it had been earlier this morning. Several uniformed officers were standing around talking and drinking coffee.
A flare of annoyance hit hard. Shouldn’t they be out on the streets? Searching for criminals, especially a man with a likeness to her sketch?
“They’ll be out on the road shortly,” Sawyer said, apparently reading her mind.
She pressed her lips together and followed him out to the squad. Soon they were on the road.
When they passed a drug store, she gazed longingly at it, thinking about how nice it would be to have a hairbrush. Then again, Sawyer wanted her to head home rather than stick around Chattanooga.
Dalton was a little less than forty-five minutes from Chattanooga. If her car was okay, she could head back home long enough to pack an overnight bag. She could also stop at the bank to get cash.
Sawyer couldn’t stop her from staying in Chattanooga for the next few days. After all, she planned to take a leave of absence from work, so they wouldn’t expect her to return until late next week.
It would be an unpaid leave, but she didn’t care. Nothing was as important as finding Kate.
Sawyer had a feeling Naomi wasn’t leaving town anytime soon. And while he understood her fear and concern for her sister, there really wasn’t anything else she could do to find Kate. And anything she tried would likely interfere in the police investigation.
Naomi’s near assault and lucky escape should have scared her enough to run screaming back to Dalton. She might believe God was watching over her, but he wasn’t convinced.
Living with the Preacher for five years had made him shy away from anything remotely religious. He’d rather depend on himself, and those working around him, than something he couldn’t touch or see.
He didn’t begrudge Naomi her faith. Yet he certainly didn’t understand it.
The tow truck company was just ahead. He glanced at Naomi, who was staring straight ahead, her mind obviously miles away.
“Naomi?” He pulled into the parking lot of the towing company. “You okay?”
“Fine.” She pushed open the passenger-side door and got out of the car. The summer air was warm, the sun burning away the mist.
The towing company wanted a hundred and fifty bucks to release the car, and another fifty for the bent frame and tire repair. Sawyer gladly paid, although Naomi grimaced at the amount.
“I’ll pay you back,” she repeated.
“I told you not to worry about it.” He didn’t mind helping her out. Joe had done so much more for him, he liked the idea of paying it forward.
The car’s rear end was definitely crumpled, the trunk stuck shut. “Do the taillights work?” Sawyer glanced at the owner. “If they don’t, we’ll need those repaired too.” Naomi wouldn’t make it all the way to Dalton with nonworking taillights.
“They work, and I used clear tape to repair the glass, see?” The tow truck owner showed off his handiwork.
“Good, thanks.” Sawyer handed the keys to Naomi. “Check to see how much gas you have. We can always top off your tank if needed.”
Without saying a word, she took the keys and slid behind the wheel. Then, without warning, she backed up the car and drove off.
Sawyer sighed, deciding not to mention the fact that she didn’t have a driver’s license, and glanced at the towing company owner. “Thanks for your help.”
The guy shrugged. “That’s what I’m here for.”
Sawyer returned to his squad and drove back to the precinct. He was oddly upset that Naomi had left without saying goodbye, yet what had he expected? She had thanked him several times for what he’d done. And he knew his telling her to go home hadn’t been welcome advice.
He shook off the despondency and focused on the next steps. He was irritated with Turner, although that was nothing new. The detective seemed a decent enough guy, but he certainly wasn’t as assertive as Sawyer would have liked. The trail was already cold, and if they didn’t find something soon, he feared they never would. Not that he was supposed to be working the case anyway. He wasn’t a detective, at least not yet. But he couldn’t do nothing either.
Returning to the dirt road to nowhere and the hunting shanty, he nodded to the crime scene techs working around the shanty. “I’m just going to look around,” he called out.
“Let us know if you find anything,” one of them answered.
He nodded and walked the area again, painstakingly trying to find any hint of evidence that may have been missed.
The relentless summer sun was only partially obscured by the leafy trees. Sweat trickled down his back, but he ignored it. This road and the shanty were the only clues he had, other than Naomi’s sketch.
If this place didn’t offer anything to go on, then he wasn’t sure what else he could do. The idea of failing to find Louisa and Kate was troubling.
These were only two girls he knew, but what about the others? How many others had been taken away from their homes, their families?
And why would God allow such a thing if He was truly watching over them?
At that moment, a hint of something pink caught his eye. He blinked and dropped to his haunches. Gently pushing the foliage out of the way, he saw the small round pink elastic hair band.
A thread of excitement ran through him. Logically, he knew the hair band could have been left by anyone, not necessarily from a girl who’d been targeted by sex traffickers. But its location here, within a stone’s throw of the shanty and the dirt road to nowhere seemed too much of a coincidence.
He pulled an evidence bag from his pocket and carefully picked up the hair band. He didn’t see any hair strands caught in the elastic, but there was always the possibility that the crime scene techs could find something using a microscope. Getting DNA from this could blow the case wide open.
If they could get it turned around in a reasonable time. Which wasn’t likely, given that he had no proof that it belonged to one of the missing girls.
For a second, he wondered how on earth he’d even found the elastic band. He’d been thinking about God when he’d noticed it.
Another coincidence? He gave himself a mental shake. Whatever. It didn’t matter how he’d found it. Far more important to get clues from it, if possible.
Buoyed by his find, he continued searching. But after another hour passed, he gave up.
Better to get the pink elastic hair band to the lab than to keep searching the woods. Yet, he headed up to the shanty to see what, if anything, had been found.
The crime scene techs were packing up. “Find anything useful?”
“A partial print off the door handle,” the tech answered. “But interestingly enough, no other prints. Almost as if the place had been wiped clean.”
“That is strange.” Sawyer looked around the shanty curiously. “No reason for a hunter to do that.”
“Unless they wear gloves or are poaching,” the tech pointed out.
“This close to the road?” Possible, but Sawyer didn’t think so. He pulled out the evidence bag and handed it over. “I found this about twenty yards from here. May be nothing, but I’d appreciate you checking for hair follicles that might provide DNA.”
“I can do that.” The tech put the bag in his pocket. “I’ll call you when we get the fingerprint sent through the system too.”
“Thanks.” Encouraged by the two clues, Sawyer headed back down to the dirt road where he’d left his squad. He found himself wishing he had a way to contact Naomi so he could fill her in on what they’d found and ask if Kate may have been wearing a pink elastic hair band.
He already knew Louisa hadn’t been wearing one, at least according to her mother. In the photo he’d been given, Louisa had long dark curly hair that she wore down around her shoulders.
What he needed was a photograph of Kate. He should have asked Naomi to get one from their home in Dalton. He never should have let her drive off without giving her his business card.
Lack of sleep wasn’t a good excuse for his mental lapse. He’d gone without sleep plenty of times.
Especially those terrifying days of surviving in the woods after escaping the fire.
Sawyer pushed away the memories of his past. There was nothing he could do to change what he’d done. His role in the Preacher’s death was irrefutable. And he wasn’t sure why it was bothering him so much these past few weeks.
Well, partially because he’d heard from Hailey Donovan, one of his foster sisters and the one he’d always been closest to. Hailey was currently living in Gatlinburg but was planning to come and see him next week, if they could coordinate their schedules.
He was truly looking forward to connecting with Hailey and shared her desire to find the rest of their foster siblings. But he could do without reliving the horrible memories, thank you very much.
His stomach rumbled with hunger. It was past noon, and he’d eaten breakfast at four thirty in the morning. Sawyer decided to swing by a local family restaurant to eat and radioed the dispatch center so they’d know he was on a meal break.
“Ten-four,” the dispatcher replied. “By the way, that woman you had in here earlier, Naomi Palmer? She called looking for you.”
“She did?” His heart should not have kicked into triple digits at the news. He pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and shut down the squad. He cleared his throat. “Do you have a number I can use to call her back?”
“Yeah, let me know when you’re ready.”
He pulled out his cell phone. “Go.”
As the dispatcher read off the numbers, he punched them into his phone. The area code wasn’t local, and he wondered if she’d gotten a replacement cell phone for the one she’d lost or if this was a disposable phone.
“Thanks.” Sawyer disconnected from the radio and immediately called Naomi. His spirits plummeted when she didn’t answer, and there was no voicemail set up for him to leave a message.
The tiny hairs on the back of his neck rose in alarm. What if something bad happened to Naomi?
What if he’d made the wrong decision in sending her home?