Maggie slammed the door to the back of the ambulance, getting a last glimpse of the girl in the small window. Most of her small pale face was covered with a clear oxygen mask. Tubes and cables protruded from the mask and her arms leading to an IV bag. Above the mask, her long dark eyelashes remained still on her cheeks.
When Maggie had arrived at the scene, the girl had already been loaded into the ambulance. Maggie had peeked in and saw the girl flutter her eyelids once, but didn’t move them again. She was in shock from trauma and loss of blood, an EMT said.
Maggie didn’t know much about these sorts of things but it didn’t look good.
When she’d looked at the girl, a mix of conflicting emotions made her realize that like it or not, she was a real cop now.
As a mother, fear shot through her seeing a child Melody’s age a victim of such horrific violence. But as a cop, she worried that the girl would never wake again and tell them who did this to her.
Because Maggie was filled with an intense desire to hunt down whoever had hurt that child and make sure they paid. Lawfully, of course. But pay for what they had done to someone’s daughter.
Her teeth gritted in determination as she turned her attention from the taillights of the ambulance to the man sitting on the back of his tailgate on the side of the road. He kept running his hands through his hair and looked like he was talking to himself.
It was only when Maggie got closer that she saw his face was streaked with tears.
“Oh Jesus, you think she’s gonna make it?” He looked at Maggie with blue eyes shot red from crying.
Maggie pulled her chest back and leveled her voice as steady as she could. “I sure hope so.”
Pulling herself up onto the tailgate, Maggie took out a notepad and questioned Timothy McDonald.
“Did you see anything else on your way here that seemed odd?”
McDonald scrunched his face, thinking.
“I know it was early but did you see any other cars or people?” Maggie prodded.
He scratched his beard a bit. “Yeah. Yeah. I did. I saw a clamper dude down some ways on Courtemanche. He had a big carved walking stick and a knapsack. He looked like he’d been down in the canyon for months.”
Maggie kept her voice even. “Do you think he could’ve come from this direction?”
“Yeah. For sure. He was coming off that trail that runs along the road over there.”
Lt. Kramer showed up on Old Courtemanche Road with wet hair, pulling his dusty Dodge Charger behind Maggie’s car.
“Listen, Bychowski, you’re lead on this,” he said, after she filled him in.
“What?”
“You heard me.”
She widened her eyes until he relented.
He sighed heavily. “As you know, we’re a small department. I got two detectives out. One on vacation in Hawaii. One jacked up his knee Thursday. I need your eyes on this. You’ve earned it after what you dug up on the Sanchez case. Even if …” he trailed off without finishing his sentence.
Even if it doesn’t mean shit.
Maggie barely heard the rest of what he was saying.
“I’ll help as much as I can,” Kramer said. “We’ve requested mutual aid from the county and they are sending some deputies up here as we speak. Meanwhile, figure out how you’re going to work this case. You can handpick the officers you want working this case with you, but right now it’s all hands-on deck and you might face some backlash. Come to me if you do. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” Maggie said, vigorously nodding. “Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you, detective.”
Maggie felt one hundred pounds lighter as she walked over to Hendricks. He was the first person she needed on her team.
She couldn’t hide the smile on her face.
Detective Bychowski had a nice ring to it.
The sheriff’s office had immediately agreed to a joint investigation with the Sanctuary Police Department and within a half hour, a handful of deputies, including Lucy, had arrived. Once everyone had assembled, Maggie checked in with the Sanctuary Pines Hospital, holding her breath until the nursing supervisor reported the girl was still alive.
The emergency room doctors were operating on the girl, but had told investigators stationed at the hospital that it wasn’t an animal attack. She’d been stabbed.
Seventeen times. Up and down her torso. Once in her upper thigh.
One stab wound narrowly missed her heart. She was lucky to be alive.
The next few hours would determine whether she would survive.
It would be tricky.
As soon as cops on Old Courtemanche Road heard it confirmed that it was a stabbing and there was a suspect out there—a sick fuck that stabbed a child—they got a burst of energy.
Hendricks took off for the hospital and Maggie split the cops into search groups. She and Lucy led the team heading down the trailhead where the girl was found. The terrain was steep. They walked to the side of the trail in the leaves to avoid stepping on the path that was dotted and streaked with blood in some places.
After seeing the girl’s ravaged body, Maggie had no idea how she had managed to get up the steep winding hill. The sun had risen to the west now, casting a golden pinkish light on their faces as they concentrated on finding any clues. County crime scene workers trailed behind the three investigators, bagging evidence that Maggie pointed out.
Finally, the group came to a small clearing about halfway down the hillside where the attack had clearly taken place.
Blood covered the leaves and dirt and there were clear signs of a scuffle. Small branches were snapped on the surrounding trees and a scrap of fabric was found on the end of a pointy branch.
“Hey, I got something down here.” Maggie hollered up the trail.
Within a few minutes, two crime scene techs had bagged the tiny piece of plaid, picking it off the branch with tweezers and sticking it in a labeled plastic bag.
If she were lucky, the material was from the attacker and not the girl’s shirt.
They were still waiting for the K9 officer to arrive. He’d been down in Roseville for some training and his ETA wasn’t for another thirty minutes. That was too long to wait.
Maggie stood biting her lip, staring at the clearing. There were four dirt trails, not much bigger than deer paths through the brush, leading away from it. Two led down deeper into the canyon, one markedly steeper than the other. A third led upward to the right and the fourth was the one they had taken down along the slope of the canyon’s side.
If that McDonald guy was right, there was a chance the Clamper he saw had come up from this trail. Patting her gun subconsciously, Maggie gestured toward the steepest trail. Lucy nodded.
The sun still hadn’t made its way through the dense forest by the time Maggie and Lucy reached the Feather River. They were still about twenty feet above the ice blue river that wound its way through the bottom of the canyon. They stood on the rocky ledge above Whiskey Flats, a wide swimming hole just below. A tattered rope swing hung from a soaring pine above them. Shielding her eyes, Maggie looked up to where the rope was bound some ten feet above. There weren’t any low branches so she wasn’t sure how someone scaled the Pine tree to tie the rope. There’s no way she would trust the rope with her weight.
“There,” Lucy pointed. A small wisp of smoke rose from around the bend.
As they rounded the corner slowly with guns drawn, Maggie swore.
Steam rose from the fire pit that had just been quenched. She spotted a flash of red on the hillside above them.
“Stop! Police! Freeze or I’ll shoot.” She extended her arms. He scrambled up the hillside. She could probably hit him. But why would she shoot him? For running?
Damn. She began to run.