Double Dog Dare (The Raine Stockton Dog Mystery Series) (15 page)

She nodded.

“And the front gate?”

“Locked.”

Which eliminated the possibility that Cisco had run into the street, or left the property at all of his own volition.

Miles said, “What about the security cameras?”

The policeman spoke up for the first time.  “I naturally checked the cameras, monsieur.  Unfortunately, they were malfunctioning.”

Miles demanded harshly, “What the hell do you mean, malfunctioning?”

“I mean that they do not appear to have recorded anything since
late this afternoon.  Beyond that, I cannot say.  I am not a technician.”

In a missing child case, the first twenty
-four hours are critical.  That’s why we have Amber Alerts.  I doubted there was an equivalent here on the island, but at least two hours had already passed. 

I turned to the officer.  “
Have you sent out her photograph to every officer on the force?” The beach house was filled with pictures of Melanie.  But none of them were with Cisco.  

“It is routine mademoiselle, however
—”

“You gave him a recent picture, right?” I asked Rita.  “And a description of what she was wearing?”

   At Rita’s affirmative I turned back to the officer.  “Make sure it goes out to neighboring islands too, and into every place of business on the island.  Meanwhile I need a sectional street map broken down into grids.  I need people going door to door, and people on the beach.  I need a helicopter with search lights to sweep the beach and the estates we can’t get into.” 
I need my dog.
“Have you even talked to the neighbors?  Do you know if there were any strange vehicles around ?  Did anyone hear anything?”

The officer was young and smoothed-cheeked, and the indulgent, faintly condescending smile he gave  made me want to slap him.  “Mademoiselle may have seen too much American television,” he said.  “Matters such as this, they tend to resolve themselves much more simply than one might imagine.”

Miles took an abrupt step toward him and I grabbed his arm, knowing exactly what he was about to do because I wanted to do the same thing. I spoke before Miles could.  “Do you know Inspector LeClerk?” I demanded.

He looked startled, and a little less smug than he had before.  “
Mais certainment
.  But—”

“Call him,” I said.

“I hardly think—”

Miles said, very lowly, “Do it.  Do everything
this young woman tells you to do and do it right now or I will have more than your job, are we very clear on that?”

I waited just long enough to see the young officer, with an angry flush creeping up his cheeks, snatch out his phone and stride toward the door to make the call, then I turned back to Rita.  “Where is Cisco’s leash?”

She looked at me through wet lashes as though wondering whether I was thinking clearly.  “I—I haven’t seen it.  I don’t know.”

I made a quick search of the deck and the pool area, the kitchen and both my room and Melanie’s.  I came back down, breathless, in time to hear the officer say in a stilted tone, “The inspector is on his way, monsieur.  However, he asked me to convey to you that we are a small police force with limited resources…”

I had heard those words once too often today, and I interrupted without hesitation.  “I think whatever happened occurred before Melanie had time to take Cisco’s leash off.  She came up the stairs, entered the security code…” I looked at Rita.  “The security lock was still working when you came up?”

She nodded and I went on, “She came into the house through the back doors from the deck with Cisco still on his leash, and went out the front door, closing it behind her.  Then she left by the front gate, closing it behind her.” 

The policeman said, with another smug twitch of his lips, “What you are saying, mademoiselle, is that the little girl took her puppy dog for a walk.”

Automatically I put my hand out to restrain Miles, but he fortunately did not see the smirk.  He had his phone in hand
and was dialing a number.

Miles said, “This is a monitored security system.  A record is
kept of every time the code is entered.”

I
spoke to the officer very calmly, and quietly enough so that I hoped Miles could not hear  from his position across the room, where he had walked to make his call.  “Maybe that is what I’m saying.  Maybe that’s all that happened.  But that little girl is ten years old and she’s in a foreign country where she doesn’t speak the language and it’s dark outside.”
And all she has to depend on is Cisco
, I added desperately myself, 
Cisco, who she thinks is a combination of Lassie and Rin Tin Tin and Super Man but who is in fact just a dog, depending on her to keep him safe…
A dog who would get into a car with anyone, anytime, who said “Do you want to go for a ride?”, a dog whose heart is so big he can’t even imagine that everyone he meets is not as good- intentioned as he is, a dog who only wants to make people happy…

I tightened every muscle in my body against the sobs that were building up inside me, and I finished in a low, fierce voice, “There is nothing, do you hear me,
nothing
more important than finding that little girl right now. Nothing.”

Miles returned to us.  The white lines around his mouth were very tight and his eyes were still, but behind those eyes was busyness, thinking, examining, analyzing, postulating, forming and rejecting theories.  He was a man who solved problems, who made things happen.  And now he was holding himself together by nothing but sheer will.

“The back gate was last opened at 7:43,” he said.  “The next time the security code was entered was for the front gate, at 9:20.”

It took me a moment to understand the implications, as it did Rita.  “But—that would be when I let you in.”  She
glanced at the officer, and then back to Miles.  “That’s not possible.  Melanie had been gone for over an hour by then.  I entered the code twice for the front gate, once to get out and once to get back in.   I looked everywhere.  She wasn’t on the property.  How can that be?”

“It can’t be,” Miles said
grimly.  “Sometime between the time Melanie entered the code on the back gate at seven thirty five and the time you entered it at seven forty three someone overrode the security code on the front gate and came onto my property.  That person took my daughter.”

~*~

It was, of course, what we all feared.  It was the place your mind goes when you say
Don’t go there
.  It was the truth none of us wanted to admit into the realm of possibility even though we all knew it was the only truth that made sense.

Inspector LeClerk arrived less than ten minutes later.  He seemed unsurprised to see me, and in fact went so far as to assure Miles he had done the right thing in calling.  His questions were to the point.

“Do you have any enemies, Mr. Young?”

“Have you traveled to the Middle East in the past twelve months?
Brazil?  Columbia?”

“How many people knew the security code?  Their names, please.”

“How much cash US can you raise in twenty four hours?”

That was when Miles, with eyes as hard as flint, said, “As much as it takes.”

Rita’s hand closed around mine, bone hard, painful. 

It was ten twenty-five.  D
id he have any idea how much time he had wasted already? Twenty four hours, that was all we had. Maybe less.  I didn’t know how things worked here.  It was an island, with multiple escape routes by water, by air, by land.  Hiding places I couldn’t begin to fathom.  Marine life that could strip a carcass bare in a matter of hours.     

More than anything in the world at that moment I wanted to be home.  I wanted to be home where I knew the rules, with Buck giving orders and Uncle Roe providing back-up and Aunt Mart praying quietly in the background and a dozen sheriff’s deputies with flashing blue lights combing the hillside, and the entire tracking club with dogs spread out on the search grid, and every neighbor and church member and friend and relative rallying to help.
This place was not where I belonged.  I was helpless here. I wanted my dog. 
I wanted my dog.  

I had been on a search once, for a woman and her dog who had gone missing on the Appa
lachian Trail.  We found the dog three days later, starving, dehydrated, still trailing his leash.  But the body of the missing woman wasn’t found for another two weeks.  In pieces.

Don’t go there, don’t go there
…

I tried to play out the scene in my mind.  Melanie had come into the house.  Cisco would have been trailing his leash.  If someone was already in the house, he would have known it immediately, he would have led her right to them….

The inspector said, “We are watching the ferry and the air strip.  I have called in the gendarmes to search the streets. We will find her, monsieur.”

Miles said, “There are over a hundred private boats in the harbor with registries from all over the world.  Are you going to search each of them too?”  His tone was even, almost reasonable.

I thought about white slavery, about drug trafficking, and about Susan, for some reason, asking Miles for half a million dollars. 
How much cash can you raise in twenty four hours?

“As you know, our resources are limited. I’m afraid that would be impractical.”

Cisco would have been trailing his leash.  If someone was hiding, that person might have grabbed Melanie before she could scream.  It would not have been easy, getting a resistant ten- year- old girl out of the house and into a waiting vehicle with a dog barking and bounding around. What would Cisco have done?

“Then get more resources.  Call Interpol.” 
Miles’s voice was calm, reasonable.  A ticking bomb, about to explode.  “Whatever the expense, I’ll cover it.”

“This is not a case for Interpol at this time. We are doing everything we can, monsieur.”

“That’s not enough!”  The eruption came; eyes flaming, muscles tensing, voice roaring.  He surged toward the inspector and when I reached for him he flung me off without even a glance.  “It’s not enough, you pompous little pissant!  This is my daughter, do you understand that?  She’s been kidnapped!  She’s been…”

He broke off, almost as though the echo of the words had caught up with him and he was hearing them for the first time, understanding them.  Kidnapped.  He stood there, nostrils flared, fists clenched, lips compressed, for another long moment.  Then he said, very distinctly, “My daughter is not going to be headline news tomorrow morning.  She is not going to be the target of an international search.  She is not going to be what people think about for the next ten years  when they hear the name of this island.  It’s not going to happen, do you understand me?”

The inspector held his ground, and he held his demeanor.  I had to admire him for that.  He said somberly, “You may be sure we are agreed on all those points, monsieur.  As I was about to say earlier, we are a small security force here on the island but we are very good at what we do.  Kindly allow us to do our jobs.  You can best assist by remaining calm and being prepared.  A call may come.”

Or maybe that was not what had happened at all.  Maybe they had surprised a burglar.  Maybe he had fled through the front door and Cisco had given chase, and Melanie had run after him.  Cisco had been trailing his leash.

I said abruptly, “Miles, I need a flashlight.  They wouldn’t have taken Cisco,  they would be trying to get away from him.   Cisco is out there somewhere, and with his leash on he couldn’t have gotten far.  He may be caught on something, but even if he’s not, he doesn’t know how to find his way back here.  He’s the only one who knows what really happened, and if someone took her, Cisco has the scent.  If I can find him I can find Melanie, or at least get closer than we are now.”

Rita got up and left the room.  The inspector  gave me a skeptical glance.  “Mademoiselle, I think it would be better if you did not interfere with the efforts of the gendarmes at this point.  We are doing—
”