Sammy glanced over his shoulder. When he saw it was her, he finally stopped, breathing hard.
Crystal dumped her bike next to him and flopped onto a lawn, also panting.
“Why were you running so fast?”
“I don’t know. Exercise, I guess.”
“Why didn’t you stop when I yelled at you?”
“I didn’t hear you.” He tried to discreetly slip a pair of their mother’s scissors into his canvas bag, but Crystal saw them in his hand.
She narrowed her eyes at him, but he wouldn’t look at her. Instead, he kept glancing up and down the street.
“What’s with the scissors?” Crystal asked. “Why are you going home this way? Why are you so late this morning?”
“Just … I was … I don’t know. Stop asking me so many questions!” He fidgeted with his canvas bag, holding it awkwardly in front of him. “Why are you out here?”
Crystal stood and brushed off her backside. “Haven’t you heard? Cops are looking for a missing paperboy.”
Sammy stopped fidgeting and stared at her. “Who?”
“A kid named Christopher Stewart. He lives on Sheridan, I think.”
Sammy watched another car speed by. “Why is he missing?”
“Who knows. Maybe he was kidnapped. Like that Klein kid.”
Sammy’s eyes grew wide. “What Klein kid?” he whispered.
She swatted a biting fly off her leg. “That West Des Moines paperboy from two years ago.”
Sammy shifted his gaze away from her. “Oh, yeah,” he said slowly. “I remember now.”
“Did you notice anything this morning while you were on your route? There’s cops all over the place. Up on the corner of Tenth and Hillcrest.”
“Why are they up there?”
“That’s where he was kidnapped, dummy!”
“Oh.”
“So, did you see anything this morning? Your route goes right by his.”
Sammy stared down the street in the direction of Hillcrest. He didn’t respond for a long moment, his expression blank and glassy.
“Hello?” Crystal said, snapping her fingers in front of his unblinking eyes.
Sammy jerked his head back to her. “I didn’t see … I just … I saw a lot of cars and stuff. A few people yelling, but that’s it.” He averted his eyes once more and lifted his arm to scratch the top of his head. The sleeve of his shirt slid up to reveal a series of angry red circles on his upper arm.
“What happened?” Crystal started to touch the marks, but he slapped her hand away.
“Nothing,” he said. “I bumped into a door.”
“Why are you acting so weird?”
“I’m not,” he said, and ground his fists into his red, puffy eyes.
She took a step toward him, but he recoiled from her.
“If you saw something,” she said carefully, “don’t be scared to say so.”
“I didn’t see anything!” he yelled, and a nearby dog started barking from a backyard.
Sammy jostled the bag again, and Crystal caught a glimpse of a wet spot on the crotch of his shorts.
He was lying about something, she could tell.
“Let’s go,” he said, his gaze darting up and down the street once more. “I wanna get home.”
Before she could respond, he started jogging again.
Crystal stood her bike up and mounted the seat.
He was definitely lying.
Something had happened this morning that he didn’t want to tell her. Something that scared him.
Or someone.
As she started to pedal, she glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was following them.
CHAPTER 3
Two hours, ten minutes missing
Sergeant Dale Goodkind sat at his desk in the Crimes Against Persons Section on the second floor of the downtown Des Moines Police Department. He typed the last lines of the daily patrol assignments, hunting and pecking around the keys with his index fingers.
He glanced at the wall clock again. He should’ve been off twenty-six minutes ago, but as the weekend shift watch commander, he couldn’t leave until his senior police officer for the day shift arrived. SPO Bradley. Now twenty-seven minutes late.
He tucked a pair of I-Cubs baseball game tickets into the front pocket of his sports coat and counted out twelve quarters from the loose change in his desk drawer, gifts for his son Curtis’s golden birthday. Twelve on the twelfth. The party started at one, and Dale needed to squeeze in a nap.
He switched off the humming electric typewriter, yanked the patrol assignment schedule from the carriage with an angry zzzzp, and laid it in his Out basket. Finally, SPO Bradley hurried through the door, brushing past Dale’s desk without a single word, not even bothering to offer an apology or excuse for his tardiness. Dale dramatically held up his wrist and made a show of checking his watch, but Bradley ignored him. No love lost between them. Dale was new to the DMPD and new to the CAP Section. He’d transferred from the West Des Moines PD four months ago with a promotion to sergeant. A promotion that had gone to him, not Bradley.
Dale organized a small pile of office memos to deal with tomorrow—a special crack cocaine task force the chief was putting together, the annual “Law versus Fire” baseball tournament faithfully sponsored by Midwest Heating and Cooling, and a volunteer sign-up sheet Dale had created for the DMPD booth at the Iowa State Fair next week.
He paused at the fair sign-up. Only two names so far, and someone had scrawled Sergeant Goodgirl into a slot.
Even though Dale had spent the later part of his youth here and was, like most South Siders, a genetic mutt of Irish, Italian, and Russian, the guys in his precinct made fun of him behind his back with the nickname, coined because of his aversion to swearing and alcohol. And even though he’d worked hard for that promotion and earned it, their swipes at him still bruised his ego. So much for their famous South Side Pride.
With his paperwork finished, Dale opened the sketchbook he carried with him everywhere and flipped through pages of doodles—Spiderman shooting webs from his wrists, animals in funny hats, caricatures of friends and family members—until he found the composite sketch of a robbery suspect he’d created a few days ago, tucked in the back. Dale was a natural artist and had volunteered to do a new Smith & Wesson witness facial composite training last year, one of the reasons behind his promotion to sergeant. He removed the sketch from the binding and clipped it to a corresponding report. Finally, he was done for the day.
“Goodkind.” Lieutenant Duff loomed over Dale’s desk and thrust a form in his face. “Get out to Southwest Tenth and Hillcrest,” he said. “Missing kid.”
Dale took the paper from Duff’s hand. “I’m about to go off the clock,” he said.
“I don’t care,” Duff answered, already walking away. “This one’s right up your alley.”
“I’ll take it,” Bradley said, swiveling his chair around. “I’m on today.”
“It’s already assigned, Bradley.” Duff slammed the door behind him.
Bradley eyed Dale for a moment before returning to his desk.
Dale settled back into his chair and skimmed the limited information on the intake sheet.