The Abducted: Odessa Read online

  The Abducted: Odessa

  DBS Publishing LLC

  Copyright 2016 by DBS Publishing LLC

  Smashwords Edition

  AMBER Alert

  Odessa, Texas

  Traffic was rough downtown, and Kim Forester was in a rush to get home. It had been a long day, and she was ready to relax for the remainder of the evening. She had just picked up her daughter, Natalie, from track practice and was a few blocks from their neighborhood when she suddenly remembered a phone call from earlier with her husband, Doug, reminding her to pick up some chicken for dinner.

  She slammed on the brakes, halting at a stop sign as Natalie lunged forward, her iPad hitting the dashboard. “Mom!”“I'm sorry, honey,” Kim said, clutching the wheel.Doug was working late, Kim was too tired to cook, and they barely had any food in the house to do so anyway. She had planned to just pick up some fried chicken at the supermarket instead, but, in a hurry to get home, she had passed the Food Mart miles back without even realizing it. She groaned and brushed back her light brown hair with an elongated sigh.“What's wrong?” Natalie asked, wearing a sleeveless top and jean shorts that she had changed out of after her track meet. Her hair was still damp from showering.“I forgot to stop at the grocery store,” Kim said.“For what?” Natalie asked, picking her iPad off the floor.“Dinner!” her mother snapped. She then took a deep breath and apologized as Natalie went silent. “I’m sorry. It's just been a crazy day.”

  She then made a U-turn and raced back in the opposite direction. She had just escaped the rush hour traffic, which, in the small town of Odessa, consisted of two lanes of stop-and-go traffic for about five miles.

  The Food Mart was only a few miles away, but it was still a frustrating delay. She was tired, and her feet hurt. Her job as a medical records administrator could be stressful at times, and today was no exception. She took a back road, ending up at the busy intersection of Anderson and Main, as a news update played through the speakers.“It's been a week, and police are still searching for local missing girl April Johnson, who disappeared last Monday after leaving a friend’s house in the late afternoon. Residents showed up at a candlelight vigil last Saturday evening to pray for Ms. Johnson's safe return. There have been few developments in the case, and the investigation is still underway. While friends and family eagerly await April's return, authorities urge anyone with information pertaining to April's disappearance to contact the crime line immediately.”“I know her,” Natalie said.“You do?” Kim said, surprised.“I mean, I don't know her, but she goes to my school. She's in seventh grade.”“Oh, okay,” Kim said. She turned to Natalie with a look of concern. “I'm sure she'll be okay. They'll find her soon.”“That's not what the other kids are saying.”“Natalie, stop it. That's not nice,” Kim said.

  The light at the intersection turned green, and Kim pressed on across the street and into the busy Food Mart parking lot.

  They passed a utility pole with “missing” flyers stapled all around it, displaying young April Johnson's smiling picture—her most recent school photo. After driving through three parking aisles, Kim was elated to find an open spot not too far away from the store. She immediately pulled in under the shade of an elm tree planted in the mulch of a parking divider. With the Cherokee idling, Kim turned to Natalie, noticing that her daughter’s full attention was on her tablet.“Are you waiting here?” “Yep,” Natalie said, swiping her screen.“Okay,” Kim said. “I'll just be a minute.”“Got it.”

  Kim unfastened her seat belt and opened the door, stepping onto the pavement in her worn loafers. She left the engine on and the air conditioner running. Her sleek black pants and teal top were like a kind of uniform, casual business clothes that didn’t vary much day to day, and she wanted nothing more than to get into an oversized T-shirt long enough to cover her underwear.

  She grabbed her purse, told Natalie to stay put, and then ventured toward the Food Mart entrance. The automatic doors opened as a gust of cool air enveloped her in a soothing embrace that put her at ease. Five of the eight registers were open, with long lines at each one. Kim wasn't surprised, but in any case, she would be back on the road soon enough. All she needed to do was to pick up one thing. In the deli section, she grabbed a ten-piece box resting under the heat lamps and made her way back to the checkout lines.

  She headed to the express checkout line, tapping her foot nervously on the floor, waiting for the customers ahead. An elderly woman approached from behind, carrying a shopping basket with milk and eggs inside. “So crowded,” she said to Kim with an exhausted smile.“It sure is,” Kim said, smiling back.

  The elderly woman glanced at a local newspaper near the checkout lane with April's picture on the front page. “Just terrible,” she said with sadness.

  Kim turned and glanced at the paper, shaking her head. “I'm so worried for that poor girl and her family.”“It's scary that something like that can happen in our town,” the woman said.“I just hope they find her soon,” Kim said.

  She turned back around as the line moved up and placed her chicken on the conveyor belt. She was close. She couldn't wait to get out of the Food Mart and on the road again. In a few minutes, the fragrant box of chicken was rung up and paid for. She thanked the cashier and left the store in a hurry.

  She approached her Cherokee with a strange feeling in her gut, which became all the more troubling when she saw the passenger door open and Natalie nowhere in sight. Kim slowed her approach and looked around, believing that her daughter might have stepped out of the car to stretch her legs. Then panic took hold. Natalie’s iPad lay on the pavement, face down, next to one of her sandals.“Natalie?” Kim asked, confused. She leaned inside the car through the open passenger door, crawled onto the seat, and looked in the back as her knee dug into a small white envelope, pushing it down into the seat. She got out and paced around the car, looking at the vehicles parked nearby, then at those more distant, hand shielding her face from the sun.“Natalie!”

  Her heart raced as an undeniable anxiety grew within. She began to fear the worst. The faces before her, walking to and from their vehicles, were one giant blur. She dropped the box of chicken and increased her pace around the next parking lane over. All she could do was call out Natalie's name again and again and hope that she'd come running toward her.

  The Cherokee sat in the distance, still idling and ominous, as Kim made her way back to the Food Mart.

  Maybe Natalie had needed something and decided to come in and find her. That could have been it. Short of breath and filled with dread, Kim rushed back inside the store and scanned the front checkout lane. She ignored the curious glances of shoppers who noticed her wide-eyed, distraught expression the minute she burst back into the store.“Natalie!” she called, voice louder than ever. “Natalie, where are you?”

  She turned and rushed out of the store before the manager could make his way over to her. There was little doubt that she had made a scene. She ran back to the Cherokee, ignoring traffic along the way.

  It didn't make any sense. If Natalie was playing a trick on her, she'd never forgive her. There had to be an explanation. Then her knees started to buckle, and she felt lightheaded. She clutched the top of her vehicle to break her fall. She leaned against the window, disoriented, waiting for Natalie to return.“Ma'am, are you all right?” a young bagger asked her while pushing two carts toward the store.“It's my daughter,” Kim said, frantic. “She's not here. I was only in the store for a few moments.” She moved swiftly toward the boy. “Have you seen her? Her name's Natalie.” She clutched the boy's shoulders, a wild look in her eye. “Help me!”

  People passed by with their carts, turning to see what was going on. She backed away from the bagger and toward the open passenger door of her
Cherokee. “My daughter's gone! Has anyone seen her?”

  More people gathered around, concerned now and wanting to help.“I was only in there for a few minutes,” she repeated. “Natalie was inside with the air running and the doors locked…”

  Kim whipped her head around and continued her desperate search. To strangers, she knew how it sounded. They would think her neglectful and naïve to leave her young daughter unattended, even if they didn’t show it on their faces.

  A man offered her assistance, but she waved him off and walked away from her vehicle, quickening her pace. At the end of the parking aisle, near the front of the store, she saw a girl standing alone. In the blur that was Kim’s mind, the girl resembled Natalie in every way, from her long brown hair to her jean shorts and top.

  Kim shouted out to the girl, ecstatic, and charged across the lot, unaware of a driver heading directly into her path. The driver of the SUV slammed the brakes, tires screeching, as its front grille smacked Kim and sent her tumbling five feet to the side across the hot pavement. A woman rushed to console the girl resembling Natalie, and as Kim lay on the ground losing consciousness, she could see that the girl wasn't her daughter after all.

  A group of concerned people circled her, staring down helplessly as calls rang out for a paramedic. Kim could only say her daughter's name, repeatedly, until everything went black.

  Crime Scene

  The police were quick to arrive on the scene, clearing most of the parking lot, taking names, and stretching police tape down the third parking lane. There were several cruisers on hand, lights rapidly flashing, as well as an ambulance and fire truck. Brian Hayes and James Shelton, two plain-clothed detectives, got the call and arrived on the scene as quickly as they could. A potential kidnapping case in the small town of Odessa had the Ector County Sheriff’s Office on high alert.

  The victim’s mother, Kim Forester, had been placed in the back of an ambulance parked close to her Cherokee, its engine recently shut off by one of the police officers. Natalie's iPad remained on the ground with her sandal—nothing touched just yet as police collected evidence. The situation didn't look good.

  The news was whispered among the bystanders: Natalie—an eleven-year-old honor roll student from Sunshine Middle School—was nowhere to be found. Her mother had returned after running in to buy some chicken only to find her daughter missing and her car’s passenger door hanging open. Whatever had happened to Natalie had happened fast, and with another missing girl reported only a week before, the circumstances were even more troubling.

  Natalie's father, Doug, had been contacted and had raced to the scene from work as soon as he had heard. The parking lot of Food Mart was close to being marked as a crime scene. Worse yet, there were no witness accounts of the girl, no suspects, and no information leading to her potential whereabouts. She had vanished.

  Senior Detective Hayes surveyed the scene as the police kept bystanders at a careful distance. A local news van was already on the scene but denied access. It was too early to release a statement. Authorities were quick to establish perimeters and cordon off the area accordingly. Hayes and his partner were there to find a girl who had vanished, and their every move since arriving on the scene was critical.

  The detectives walked over to the ambulance where Kim Forester rested on a wheeled gurney with the cord from an IV bag lodged in her wrist. A slight bruise showed on her forehead. The paramedics explained that she had likely suffered from a panic attack, and they strongly advised that she rest and hydrate herself. Kim, however, found it impossible to stay put with her daughter missing. The last thing she could do was to relax.

  Her husband, Doug, sat by Kim's side, clutching her hand as a mustached officer talked to them from outside the ambulance. “We have to consider all possibilities,” he said, pen and clipboard in hand. “She could have simply wandered off.”

  Kim shook her head, her face flushed and her damp hair clinging to the side. “That's not what happened.”

  Doug rubbed her arm to calm her. “It does sound unlikely, Officer. Something isn't right.”

  Kim cut in with a shaky voice full of anguish. “I was only in the store for a few minutes. The windows were rolled up, and the doors were locked. I don't know what could possibly have happened.”

  The officer scribbled onto his clipboard, eyes down. “We're looking into it, Mrs. Forester. Your daughter couldn’t have gotten too far. We just have to find her.”

  Doug released Kim's hand and stepped closer to the officer, crouching within the close confines of the ambulance. “Have you talked to any witnesses? Someone had to have seen something.”

  The officer nodded. “We’ve spoken with many people, yes. So far, no one has anything to provide us.”“That’s ridiculous!” Doug shouted.

  Officers outside the ambulance turned their heads. The situation was getting more intense by the moment. Doug and Kim were obviously upset and at the mercy of the police, who could only do so much at the moment to provide them immediate comfort.

  Senior Detective Hayes and Detective Shelton turned from the ambulance and approached their police captain, who had just arrived. Their ties blew in the winds as their pistols sifted from the holsters on their belts.

  Captain Elian Vasquez surveyed the scene with a handheld radio to his ear and then turned to his approaching detectives, eager for answers.“Tell me something good, gentlemen.”

  The captain’s dark-blue police uniform stretched slightly at his stomach. He had gained some weight over the past few months, which he had attributed to stress, but his clean-shaven face remained boyish. He’d been sporting a thin mustache lately, and no one could really understand why.Detective Hayes shook his head. “We’re taking it all in, sir. Looks like she may have pulled right from the vehicle.”

  He had worked many cases in his five years with the Ector County Sheriff’s Office, but a girl disappearing from a parking lot was a first. Hayes was in his mid-thirties, with graying hair and light stubble on his cheeks.

  His partner, Detective Shelton, a former police officer, was relatively new in town. As a black man from Chicago, he couldn’t have been farther from home. How he had ended up with the Ector County PD, Hayes didn’t know for sure. He had considered his partner quiet, resourceful, and eager when the situation called for it. Having worked together for two years, he believed that they made a good team.

  Detective Hayes had a wife and two children. His partner, on the other hand, appeared to be a drifter of sorts, a quiet loner whose detective work was as impeccable as that of any seasoned veteran on the force. He remained somewhat of an enigma to Hayes.

  Shelton paced around Kim Forester’s Cherokee and then turned to address the police captain. “Either this girl ran off and left her sandal and iPad, which doesn’t seem likely, or we’re dealing with a second kidnapping in one week.”“Always assume the worst,” Captain Vasquez said, with his eyes piercing and serious. “We just issued an AMBER alert. Now I want an APB out on this girl. Find her.” He paused and pointed toward the end of the parking lot, where two news vans now sat. “Keep them at bay and provide no comment until we figure out what happened here.”“Yes, sir,” Hayes said. He then turned back to the ambulance where he heard Kim Forester sobbing. “How’s the mother?” Vasquez asked.“Distraught,” Hayes replied. “She ran inside for a bucket of chicken and came back to find her daughter missing.” He glanced at the Cherokee as Detective Shelton took a series of pictures with a digital camera. “Just tragic…”

  A police helicopter hovered overhead. There were at least a dozen police officers on the scene with their radios chattering as a wide search of the area was being conducted. Natalie’s age, height, and physical description were being passed through the channels.

  There had been no suspect description or vehicle reported—that was, until an older woman with a red perm and wearing a summer dress approached the detectives with two police officers at her side.

  Sergeant Kline, the tall officer to her left, began
by introducing her. “This is Evelyn McDougal. She says she might have some useful information.”“Of course,” Captain Vasquez said, his cheek bones rising in a smile. “What can you tell us, ma’am?”

  Detective Hayes pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket as the woman stepped forward. She adjusted her glasses and looked around nervously at all the sudden attention. Detective Shelton stopped taking pictures near the car and walked toward her, interested in what the woman had to say.“I didn’t see anything actually happen,” she said with her hands out. “I just want to make that clear.”“Understood,” Detective Hayes said. “Please. Just tell us whatever you can.”

  She nodded, with her arm linked to Sergeant Kline’s for balance. “It’s just… I guess you could call it a hunch. I was parked over there,” she said, pointing one parking lane over. “And I saw a man wearing sunglasses sitting in a blue van. At first, I didn’t find anything suspicious about him. He could have been waiting for someone for all I know, but he was still there when I finished my shopping. Not in the same parking spot, mind you. He had moved somewhere else, like he was scoping out the place, changed parking spots. Isn’t that weird?”Hayes and Shelton exchanged glances as they listened with heightened anticipation.“What did he look like?” Shelton asked. “Any distinctive features?”

  The woman thought to herself. “He had big sunglasses. Dark, slicked-back hair, I think. He looked young.”“Caucasian man?” Shelton asked as both detectives scribbled.“Yes, he was white,” she said.“Did you notice the make of the van? A license plate, perhaps?” Hayes asked.

  Mrs. McDougal shook her head. “I didn’t pay him any special attention. He just looked odd sitting there after a while.”“Yes, but think about the van,” Hayes continued. “Any detail at all.”“It was old, ten, fifteen years. Slightly rusted. Think it was a GMC. There was a NASA plate on the front. I think,” she said. The detectives nodded while jotting down their notes as she continued. “I’m sorry, that’s all I can really say. I heard that a girl was taken, and my gut told me that the man I saw might have had something to do with it.”“That’s fine, ma’am,” Hayes said. “What you’ve told us so far is of great assistance.”“Yes, thank you,” Captain Vasquez added.