Her Detective's Secret Intent

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sp; The car Ethan had pointed out didn’t belong to Marie. He and Miranda didn’t find her car. The police did. Abandoned on the side of the coastal road leading out of town. There’d been signs of a struggle. Of another car coming off the road right behind her, possibly back-ending her to get her to stop.

An all-points bulletin was put out for Devon’s truck, and a text went out to let volunteers know they were no longer needed. Finding Devon was up to the police now.

“Why are we stopping, Mom? Did they find the car?” Ethan asked as she pulled into the drive-through lane of his favorite fast-food place.

“Yes, they did,” she told him, trying her best to sound upbeat about that. “Isn’t that lucky?”

“I guess.” He didn’t sound all that glad. “I was hoping it would be me who’d see it first and then I could tell Tad.”

She hadn’t told Ethan that Tad was involved in the search, but he might have assumed it.

“Can we go in? Please?” Even though he was too big, Ethan still liked to play in the jungle gym set up for kids inside the restaurant.

She wasn’t getting out of her car until it was safely parked in her garage. “Nope. We’ve got cleaning to finish,” she told him, which, of course, brought another groan.

She bought him a chocolate shake to go with his lunch to compensate for being a mom.

* * *

Tad wasn’t on the scene when they found the Williams family. Chantel was, though, and called him personally to ask him to join them.

Devon was holding Marie hostage inside an abandoned shack. Whether it was one he’d known was there or one he’d just seen driving by was yet to be determined. He’d sent Danny out, unharmed, when the police arrived and now Danny was asking for Tad.

He made it to the scene, fifteen minutes outside town, in ten. It had taken another hour for negotiators to get Devon to let his wife go. But he didn’t do it without first punishing Marie for making him miss his son’s first T-ball practice. He’d roughed her up so badly her face was barely recognizable. And from the way she was holding her arm, Tad figured it was broken.

Tad wished he could wipe the vision from his mind. He was glad Marie was safe. Thankful that her husband was in custody. But all he kept seeing was Miranda in a similar state. Imagining her face behind Marie’s bloody swollen bruises.

He called her as soon as he left the scene. Needing to say so much, to promise her she’d never suffer like that again, but unable to let any of it out.

“You’re sure she’s okay?” Miranda asked softly. “You saw her for yourself?”

“She was talking when they put her in the ambulance,” he said. “Asking about Danny.”

He’d let her know from the outset that the boy wasn’t hurt. Physically. That he was with his aunt and uncle.

“Danny told me he was the one who called his father about the practice,” Tad said. “He was afraid if he told the police he’d done that, they’d take him to jail, too.”

“You assured him he’s not in trouble, right?”

“Of course. He said he was scared to play without telling his dad because when he found out later he’d be in trouble. So he got hold of Marie’s cell phone and called him. Somehow he messed up the time, or Devon would’ve been there this morning, I’d have seen him, and all of this could have been avoided.”

“Poor little guy. No way he should be going through this.”

She sounded angry.

And kind of frightened, too. He figured she was probably experiencing some of Marie’s pain, her fear, vicariously. How could she not be? He remembered how frightened she’d been the last time Marie had gone missing.

She’d never ask for help, but...

“You mind if I stop by? A little Zoo Attack with Ethan sounds pretty good right now.”

“Of course,” she told him. “I’ll thaw some hamburgers and we can have sloppy joes for dinner.”

A community had come together and saved a life that day. And, for the moment, he had a place in Miranda’s and Ethan’s lives.

He started to feel a bit better.