“Officer, please, my daughter was just taken! A man just shot my niece inside and took my daughter in a black tow truck. Please help me!”
“Sir, drop to your knees right now, and keep your hands up!”
Jake did what he was told. “Officer, please, the man is getting away! You have to do something right now! Please, God. Help me! Do something!”
The officer hesitantly approached. “Do you have ID on you, sir?”
Jake nodded. “Yes, in my front pocket. My name is Jake Slater. My daughter is Piper. She’s only thirteen.”
“Slowly pull out your ID for me.”
Jake carefully reached into his jean pocket. “Officer, are you even listening to me? You’re wasting time! Please help me!”
“I will!” the officer sternly yelled back. “Just stay put, and give me a second.”
Jake handed over his wallet. The officer opened it, began examining Jake’s driver’s license. Another police car arrived, siren blazing, lights flashing. Two more officers ran up the sidewalk with guns drawn. The young officer who held his wallet quickly updated them. 911 call. Gunshot heard. Man spotted running from house. Woman down inside the kitchen. Then the officer nodded at Jake.
“He says his daughter was taken.”
“She was!” Jake yelled. “And they’re going to get away unless one of you does something right now!”
“What’s with all the blood?” asked one of the officers.
Jake’s chest was pounding so hard, he could barely breathe. “I got here a few minutes ago to pick up my daughter. She was with my niece. That’s the girl inside the house. Caitlin Kingston. I heard a gunshot and broke in through the front window. I found my niece on the kitchen floor. I tried to stop her bleeding.” Jake was gasping for breath. “Then I heard my daughter scream from outside the house. I took off running after them. I saw a man push her into a black tow truck and speed away.”
“Did you recognize this man?” asked the same officer who mentioned the blood.
“No, I didn’t get a good look at him. I just . . .”
Jake felt a sudden surge of emotion exploding from the depth of his bowels and vomited on the sidewalk in front of him. He could feel his whole world collapsing. Piper was all he had left. He heard one of the officers on his radio saying something about a potential child kidnapping and a black tow truck. At least they were finally responding to his desperate pleas. Then an officer who had been inside the house stepped onto the front porch. Jake looked up and noticed the grim expression on his face and felt another knot twist up in his stomach.
“Gunshot wound to the stomach,” the officer explained to the others. “She’s already dead.”
Jake pressed his bloodied hands to his face. “No!”
FIVE
Jake sat on a curb next to a police car, where he was being steadily monitored by the same young officer who had drawn his gun on him earlier. He was trying to somehow hold it together but was having difficulty processing all this and felt his panic growing. There had been no further updates from anyone about the pursuit of a black tow truck and Piper’s potential whereabouts. Because Jake had just given Piper her new phone with a new account this morning, he hadn’t taken any time to set up the phone’s monitoring systems yet. He had no way of tracking her location through her phone’s GPS. Each passing minute without her recovery felt like a weighted blanket being pressed down more heavily on him.
An ambulance had arrived on the scene along with several other emergency vehicles. It was like a scene from a movie, but this was crazy real. For the first time, Jake tried to process what Caitlin had said to him while he was inside the house. What happened wasn’t an accident. Piper knows the truth. What did she mean? What truth? Could Piper have known the man who did this? Jake had explained all this to a detective, who took down his entire story in detail just a few minutes ago. But the conversation made him feel uneasy. Jake felt suspiciously eyeballed by the man the entire time. Was it possible the detective didn’t believe him?
Within fifteen minutes, Jake’s shocked in-laws began arriving at the chaotic scene. Jake watched at a distance as Caitlin’s parents, Carl and Lisa, received the devastating news about their daughter. Jake thought Lisa might pass out. Carl just stood there with a stoic look on his face. More of Sarah’s family showed up. Jake’s brother-in-law Nicholas and his wife, Wendy, followed quickly by Jake’s other brother-in-law, Steve. All of them lived in luxury homes close by. The family huddled together in the driveway with looks of absolute horror all over their faces. Finally, Lars and Janice arrived. Jake stood, wanting to speak to Lars, hoping his father-in-law could get the police to respond more aggressively to Piper’s situation. For once, Jake wanted to be able to use the man’s power and influence in his favor. They had to do something to find Piper.