Roderick Brandt, looking exhausted and on edge, enters the room with a female deputy named Haskins.
She is a tall, large woman with a blond ponytail and a pale, puffy face with roundish, red smudges like natural rouge on her cheeks.
Christopher stands and Keith moves back over to stand beside him, putting his arm around him as he does.
“Y’all look like you could use some food and something to drink,” Charis says to the two cops. “What can I get you?”
“Got any coffee?” Roderick asks.
“Just made a fresh pot,” she says, and crosses the room to get it. “Two coffees coming up.”
“You sure we can’t get you anything to eat?” Sarah Samuelson asks. “We have a lot of different things and a ton of it.”
Roderick glances at Haskins.
She nods and says, “I missed dinner.”
“Well, go help yourself,” he says. “Everybody, this is Deputy Haskins.” He looks over at Keith and Christopher. “If it’s okay with y’all I’d like her to stay here tonight.”
“Okay?” Keith says. “You kiddin’? We’d love to have her.”
“Welcome,” Christopher says to her.
Sarah takes Haskins into the dining room and begins to uncover the various dishes. “Have a seat and just tell me what you’d like. I’ll fix your plate.”
Rake Sabin comes down the stairs and into the parlor. “Everything’s quiet up there,” he says. “Just gonna grab a cup of coffee and head back up to keep watch.”
Roderick shoots me a quizzical look. “Hal Raphael showed up tonight. He’s in a room upstairs.”
“What?”
“Rake’s keeping an eye on his room,” I say.
Charis hands Haskins a cup of coffee and points to the cream and sugar on the table, then brings Brandt’s back into the parlor.
“Cream or sugar?” she asks.
“Just black, thanks.”
He takes the coffee and sips it.
Everyone in the room is looking at him expectantly.
“Come on, Rake,” Charis says, “let’s get you taken care of. Would you like some food?”
She leads him into the dining room.
Roderick looks at Keith and Christopher and says, “There somewhere we could talk?”
“Here is fine,” Christopher says. “We’d tell them what you said afterward anyway, so . . .”
Roderick nods and takes another sip of his coffee. “Mind if we sit down?”
“Of course not, sorry,” Christopher says. “Sit here.”
He indicates a chair next to the couch he and Keith had been on before and the three men take a seat.
“Obviously, there’s not much I can tell you at this point,” Roderick says, “but I wanted to come by and give you an update so you know what’s going on. We called in FDLE and their crime scene has processed the scene, but they’re coming back out in the morning to extend it outwards and start a more thorough search of the area. The pajamas have been taken to their lab for processing. In the morning a team will come by and process Magdalene’s room for DNA samples again to compare to the pajamas we found.”
“But they already did that,” Keith says. “Don’t you still have her DNA on file?”
Roderick nods. “We do. And we will compare it too, but we’re going to retest it as well.”
“Do you think they’re hers?” Christopher asks. “They have to be, right?”
“Honestly, we just don’t know,” he says. “They match the description of what she was wearing that night, but . . . they look relatively new. They certainly haven’t been out there in the elements since Magdalene was abducted, so . . .”
“That’s good, right?” Christopher says. “Means she’s alive.”
“The truth is we have no idea what it means. If they are hers, then it doesn’t make any sense at all. Like I said, it’s just too early to tell. The good news is FDLE has a great lab and they’ve agreed to rush everything for us. We could know something as soon as tomorrow afternoon. Then we can work on what it means. For now, try to get some rest. Sleep will help you more than anything to cope with whatever we face the next few days.”
They both nod, but Christopher says, “I’ll never be able to sleep tonight.”
“The other thing I wanted you to know is that our sheriff has okayed it with the Gulf County sheriff for John to work with me on this.”
They look over at me in surprise. I nod.
“That’s great,” Keith says.
“We’re gonna do everything we can do,” Roderick says. “And we’re going to do it as quickly as we can, but it’s not going to be fast. I know you’re frustrated and I’m afraid you’ve got a lot more of that coming, but just know that all of us—me, John, our department, FDLE—all of us will be giving it our all.”
“Why would they take her pajamas off?” Christopher says. “Why now? Why leave them out there like that? Has she been somewhere close by all this time?”
“Hopefully, we’ll be able to find answers to all those questions and much more,” Roderick says.
“Our poor little baby,” Christopher says. “Is she somewhere close by right now? What’s she wearing? Is she cold? Hungry? Hurt?”
Continuing to rub Christopher’s back, Keith looks at Roderick. “Shouldn’t we be out there looking for her right now? Why are they waiting until morning to—”
From up in our room Anna begins screaming frantically. Between shrieks she yells for Taylor and for me.
I turn and begin running toward the screams.
Dropping his coffee and following me, Roderick yells, “Everyone stay here. Haskins, keep them here!”