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“My name is Kristen Tandy. I’m a police officer. I came here to help your cousin Cissy.”
A faint hiccough sent a ripple of triumph racing through Kristen’s gut, followed quickly by a rush of sheer dread. Taking a bracing breath, she pushed aside a box to get to the closet and pulled open the door.
Four-year-old Maddy Cooper gazed up at Kristen with tearstained green eyes, her face damp and flushed. “I want my Daddy,” she whimpered.
Kristen crouched in front of Maddy, helping her to her feet. The little girl’s hands were soft and tiny, and up close, she smelled sweet. Kristen felt her knees wobble and she put one hand on the door frame to steady herself.
Do your job, Tandy.
She looked Maddy over quickly. No obvious signs of injury, she noted with almost crushing relief. “Are you okay, Maddy? Do you hurt anywhere?”
“Kristen?” Foley called from somewhere behind them.
Maddy Cooper flung herself at Kristen, her arms tightening around her. The little girl buried her tear-damp face in Kristen’s neck, shaking with fear.
“It’s okay,” she soothed, fighting the primal urge to push the little girl away and run as fast and as far as she could—the way she felt every time she was this close to a child. Instead, she picked Maddy up and turned to face her partner. The scent of baby shampoo filled her lungs, making her feel weak, but she clung to her equilibrium.
Sam Cooper stood by Foley, staring at her with eyes full of shock and fragile hope. “Maddy?”
At the sound of her father’s voice, Maddy wriggled to get away. Kristen put her down, and the child weaved through the stacks of boxes to reach her father.
He scooped her into his arms and smothered her face with kisses. “Oh, baby, are you okay?” Sam held his daughter away to get a good look.
Kristen looked away, a powerful ache spreading like poison in her chest.
“The bad man hurt Cissy!” Maddy wailed.
“I know, baby, but the bad man is gone now. And Cissy’s getting help. It’ll be all right now, okay?” Out of the corner of her eye, Kristen saw Sam Cooper thumb away the tears spilling from his daughter’s eyes.
“Mr. Cooper, we need to ask Maddy—” Foley began.
“Enough, Foley,” Kristen said flatly, joining them in the doorway. “You might want to take her to the hospital, too, let a doctor check her over,” she said to Sam. “We’ll talk to you soon.” She grabbed her partner’s arm, tugging him with her as she headed out of the room. She couldn’t stay there one minute longer, she knew.
Foley stopped in the middle of the hallway. “How the hell did you know—?”
“Kids like to play hide-and-seek,” she said, moving ahead of him down the hallway.
She knew from experience.
HOSPITALS HAD A SMELL TO THEM, a strange mix of antiseptic and disease that made Kristen’s skin crawl. A doctor had once told her that knowing the reason behind an irrational aversion was the key to overcoming it. But knowing why she hated hospitals hadn’t done much to cure Kristen of her phobia.
The doctors were still examining the two Cooper girls. Across from where she and Jason Foley stood, the girls’ grandparents sat in aluminum-and-vinyl chairs backed up against the hallway outside the emergency treatment bays. The elder Coopers flanked a scared-looking boy of eleven or so—Cissy’s brother, Michael.
“Why are we here?” Kristen asked Foley softly. “We should be back at the crime scene.”
Foley slanted a gaze toward the grandparents before speaking in a whisper. “The girls saw their attacker.”
“One of them has a cracked skull and the other is practically a baby,” Kristen shot back, apparently louder than she realized, for Mrs. Cooper sent a pained look her way. Kristen took a few steps away from the family, waiting for Foley to catch up with her before she added, “We should be supervising the evidence retrieval.”
“Goddard’s perfectly capable of that,” Foley said. “The answers are here with the girls.”
Kristen stopped arguing, mostly because she knew her desire to leave had less to do with good police work and more to do with her need to get the hell out of this hospital.
The doors to the Emergency wing opened, ushering in a cool night breeze and two men dressed in jeans and T-shirts. They were tall and dark-haired, clearly related to Sam Cooper and his brother J.D. The two men looked so alike, Kristen wondered if they were twins.
The one in the dark blue T-shirt caught sight of the elder Coopers. “Mom!” He hurried to her side and crouched by the chair. “I got your voice mail. Any word?”
Mrs. Cooper shook her head. “We’re still waiting to hear. Sam and J.D. went back there with the kids. Cissy was still unconscious when she came in.”
“What about Maddy?”
“She seems okay, but Sam wanted her looked over anyway.”
The other man ruffled the dark hair of the young boy sandwiched between the grandparents, hunkering down until he was eye level with the child. “How you holdin’ up, sport?”
Michael managed a faint smile. “I’m okay, Uncle Gabe.”
The man in the blue T-shirt caught Kristen watching. His gaze settled on the back of Kristen’s right hand for a second. She saw recognition as he raised his blue eyes to meet hers.
Kristen ignored the look, but Foley flashed his badge at the newcomers, so she had no choice but to follow.
Foley introduced himself. “You’re the girls’ uncles?”
The man in the blue T-shirt shook the hand Foley offered. “Jake Cooper. Sam and J.D. are my brothers. This is my brother Gabe.” He nodded toward the man who had to be his twin.
Foley introduced her. “This is Detective Kristen Tandy.”
Jake’s gaze slanted toward the scar on her hand. “I know.”
She squelched the urge to stick her hand in her pocket. “Detective Foley and I are investigating the case.”
“So I gathered.” He looked from Kristen to Foley and back. “What the hell happened at Sam’s house?”
“That’s what we’d like to ask your nieces.”
“Mom says Cissy’s still unconscious and Maddy’s gotta be traumatized. Can’t it wait till morning?”
“The sooner we know what happened, the sooner we find who did it and stop it from happening again,” Foley said soothingly.
“Sam!” Mrs. Cooper’s voice drew their attention. Kristen saw Sam Cooper coming down the hallway, his daughter perched on his hip. Maddy had red-rimmed eyes and a slightly snotty nose, but apparently she’d received a clean bill of health.
Sam locked gazes with Kristen. One dark brow ticked upward before he looked back at his mother.
As Mrs. Cooper reached for the little girl, Maddy clung to her father, tightening her grip around his neck. Sam gave his mother an apologetic look and kissed her forehead, then crossed to Kristen and Foley. “I thought you’d still be at the house.”
“We were hoping to talk to the girls,” Foley said.
“Cissy’s still unconscious. They’ve called in a helicopter to take her to Birmingham.” Sam’s eyes darkened with anger. “If I ever get my hands on the son of a bitch who did this—”
“What about your daughter?” Foley pressed.
Sam looked at Kristen rather than Foley. “Can’t it wait?”
She wanted to say yes. The last thing she wanted to do was spend any more time with Sam Cooper’s little girl. But questions had to be asked, and for better or worse, she and Foley were the ones who’d been assigned to ask them. “I think the sooner we can talk to her, the more we’ll get from her, while it’s fresh in her mind.”
He looked at her for a long moment, his expression hard to read. It softened a bit, finally, and he gave a short nod.
Foley glanced at Kristen, a question in his eyes.
“I’ll talk to the family,” she said. “You handle the kid.”
Sam Cooper looked at Kristen through narrowed eyes, his irritation evident. “Don’t like children?”
“They don’t like me,” Kristen answered shortly, wondering why his clear disapproval bothered her so much. “Foley has kids. He knows how to handle them.”
Sam’s expression darkened further, but his next words were directed at his daughter. “Maddy, this is Detective Foley. He wants to ask you some questions.”
Maddy buried her face in her father’s neck and shook her head. “No, Daddy!”
“Look, why don’t we wait until tomorrow—” Sam began.
“The sooner we do this, the more she’ll remember,” Foley said. He took a step toward Maddy, softening his voice. “Maddy, sweetheart? I have a little girl just your age. Do you want to see a picture of her?”
“No!” Maddy’s voice was muffled by her father’s collar.
Foley looked at Kristen, his expression helpless. “You give it a try.”
“No,” Kristen said in unison with Sam.
Foley arched one eyebrow.
“She doesn’t like kids.” Sam’s voice tightened.
“They don’t like me,” Kristen repeated, annoyed.
“Maddy, will you talk to Detective Tandy?” Foley asked, ignoring them both.
Maddy turned her head slightly, peeking out from under her father’s chin at Kristen. “Her?”
Foley nodded.
Maddy pressed her face against her father’s throat again, to Kristen’s relief. But a moment later, the little girl nodded, and Kristen’s heart sank. No way to avoid it now.
With resignation, she gestured toward the emergency room waiting area. “Let’s find a quiet corner.”
Sam Cooper gave her a warning look, as if he suspected the sole purpose of the requested interview was to further traumatize his daughter. She ignored his clear discomfort and led the way to the chairs tucked into the corner of the waiting room. Sam settled into one of the chairs, Maddy curled on his lap. Kristen pulled her chair around to face them. Maddy gazed back at her with solemn green eyes, her face still pink from crying. Teardrops glittered on her long lashes like diamonds.
“You saw the bad man who hurt Cissy, didn’t you, Maddy?”
She heard Sam’s soft inhalation but ignored it, keeping her eyes on the little girl. Slowly, Maddy nodded.
“Was he tall like your daddy?”
Maddy shook her head. She lifted one thumb to her mouth and laid it on her lower lip but didn’t start sucking it. She craned her head to look up at her father.
The look of heartbroken love Sam Cooper gave his daughter made Kristen’s breath catch. She looked away, a phantom pain jabbing her under her rib cage like a knife. Licking her lips, she pressed on. “So he wasn’t tall. Was he short like me?” She stood up so Maddy could see her height.
The little girl considered the question for a moment, then shook her head again. “Bigger.”
“Was he skinny like Uncle J.D.?” Sam asked.
“No, Daddy. Like Uncle Aaron.”
Sam met Kristen’s eyes over the top of his daughter’s head. “My brother Aaron. You may know him—he’s a Chickasaw County Sheriff’s Deputy. A little taller than me, built like a bulldog. Played football at ’Bama till he blew out his knee.”
“Yeah, I’ve met him before,” Kristen said. She turned her attention back to Maddy. “So he’s shorter than your daddy and about your Uncle Aaron’s size. Did you see his hair color?”
She shook her head. “Had a daddy hat.”
Kristen looked to Sam for translation.
He gave a helpless shrug. “I guess she means a baseball cap. That’s the only kind of hat I ever wear.”
Maddy looked up at her father again, her eyes welling up with new tears. “He made Cissy cry, Daddy.”
Sam’s eyes glittered as he stroked his daughter’s dark curls. “I know, baby. That’s why we need to find out who he is and make sure he doesn’t ever do that again.” He looked at Kristen. “I don’t think she remembers much about it.”
“Did you notice anything special about him? Did he have freckles or moles or scars—?” With a bracing breath, Kristen held out her right hand and showed it to Maddy. “This is a scar, Maddy. See that?”
Maddy looked solemnly at the burned skin on the back of Kristen’s hand, then up at Kristen. “Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore.” She avoided Sam’s gaze. “Did the man have anything like this?”
Maddy shook her head.
“What happened?” Sam’s gaze lingered on the scar burned into her hand.
She looked up, surprised. He didn’t know? She forced her gaze back to Maddy, ignoring Sam’s question. “How did you get into the closet, Maddy?”
“Cissy told me to run so I runned.” Her little brow furrowed. “I couldn’t get the back door to open.”
“Locked,” Sam said. “She doesn’t know how to unlock it.”
“So I runned up to the secret place.”
A chill darted up Kristen’s spine, scattering goose bumps along her back and arms. Her stomach twisted, a sinking sensation filling her insides, but she pressed on. “The closet was the secret place?”
Maddy nodded. “Nobody ever finded me there.”
