Return to Red Creek Nathan Hystad (e books free to read .txt) 📖

do,” Tom said. Her words rang through his mind. Comes and goes at all hours of the night. That could be their guy.

Sheriff Tyler exited a suite across the hall and shook his head. “It’s clear, Bartlett. There better be something here, or you’ve wasted a lot of officers’ time and given both our departments a black eye. Do you know how hard it is to get one of those things on a Saturday, let alone one that gives you carte blanche on the building?”

Tom shrugged, waving the warrant in the air. “We got it. That’s all that matters.”

The sheriff stood tall, hands on hips, taking up the whole hallway. Tom walked past him, brushing against his shoulder as he made for the stairs. He motioned to Juan from the Gilden PD. “Keep sweeping. Sheriff, if you wouldn’t mind coming with me.”

“Where?” Tyler asked.

“Upstairs. I have a gut feeling.” Tom held the door open for the big sheriff, who surprisingly listened.

“You know what I do when I get one of those?” Sheriff Tyler asked.

“What?”

“I eat something.” The sheriff grunted and started up the stairs.

A minute later, they were in front of the unit directly above Emma Jeanne’s, and Tom grabbed for his gun again. “This could be nothing, or it could be everything.” He knocked. No answer. He knocked again, harder this time. Bang bang bang.

He heard a lock slide on the door, and it opened a crack. “Whattaya want?”

“Gilden PD. We have a warrant to search the premises.” Tom felt a rush of adrenaline, like the guy was going to do something stupid. He was gripping his gun tight, out of view of the resident. The guy’s name was Carl something… he couldn’t remember at that moment.

The door opened slowly. The man looked like crap. His hair was wet, like he was sweating, and Tom noticed he had sleep lines on his face. “Having a good day?” Tom asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Work night shift security in Gilden. What the hell’s going on here?” he asked, glancing at the sheriff.

“Carl,” Tyler said, nodding his head to the man. “We have reason to believe someone has abducted two children in the area, and we think the perpetrators might be in this building.”

Carl raised his hands in the air, pumping them forward. “Whoa. I ain’t done anything of the sort. I worked last night, and I’ve been sleeping ever since.”

“Then you have nothing to hide. Step aside, please,” Tom said, entering the unit. It smelled like stale bread and cigarettes inside. Tyler kept an eye on Carl while Tom set forth, moving through each room. He knew this place had something to do with the missing kids. If it didn’t, he’d wasted a lot of time. Time they didn’t have.

The bedroom was messy, the blinds closed tight. Clothes were spread out on the floor beside an overflowing laundry hamper. He opened the window coverings, and mid-afternoon light poured into the room. He had the urge to open the window too, to get the musty smell of the sleeping man out of his nostrils. He’d seen no sign of the children at all, but something on the nightstand caught Tom’s eye.

It was pink, balled up, and sitting in the center of the cheap wooden table, right in front of a lamp.

He pulled a pen from his pocket and opened an evidence bag after stretching thin gloves over his hands. His heart beat fast as he lifted the scrunchie up and let it fall into the bag, sealing it tight.

This was it. He’d found the son of a bitch. He took a deep breath and pulled his gun from the holster, removing the safety.

“Carl Peters, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in the court of law. You have the right to an attorney,” Tom was already saying as he approached the man outside the bedroom.

“What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t do anything!” Carl was backing away, but Sheriff Tyler was blocking the exit.

“What’s that?” the big man asked calmly, but Tom saw the desperation in his eyes. He wanted this to be the perp as badly as Tom did, that much was clear.

“Scrunchie. Same color and design as the one missing from the girl.” Tom’s parents had told them about the hair elastic, the one she didn’t go anywhere without, but when they’d searched the trash can where they’d found Brittany’s pants and socks and the solitary shoe, the scrunchie wasn’t there. It wasn’t in the laundry room at the Tremblays’, nor was it in her bedroom. She had to have been wearing it when she’d been abducted.

“That? I found it in the forest on the other side of the creek. I go walking out there sometimes. It’s spring, and I’ve been cooped up indoors for too long. Come on, you have to be kidding me,” Carl said, and Tom just shook his head slowly. This was the guy. He knew it.

Tom wanted to throttle him, punch his button nose through his skull for what he’d done to the kids. He wanted to shout and ask where the children were now, but they’d search the property, and if they found any signs, he was going to rot away for a long time.

Tyler was behind the man, cuffing him. Tom’s gun was raised, aiming at the perp. Innocent until proven guilty. In Tom’s eyes, the scrunchie was all the evidence he needed to know this man had taken that little girl. Probably her life and the boy’s. Fredrik.

He marched up to Carl, his face inches away from the man’s. His breath came hot and quick, sour like old milk. Tom didn’t turn away. “Where are they?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Who? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I found that thing in the forest.”

“Why would you take a girl’s hair elastic? Why keep it by your bed?” Tom asked, but Carl didn’t have an answer for them.

Tom searched around,