you, there’s something wrong here. Hayden always comes straight to my shop after her day at summer camp.”
The detective sighs and removes his glasses, rubbing his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “I’ll send word to all the units on patrol, okay? But I don’t want you to get your hopes up. Your daughter will likely show up before bedtime tonight.”
Panic claws its way up my throat. Hayden has been gone for nearly six hours now, and I’ve watched enough crime shows to know that the first twenty-four hours are the most critical if you want to find a kidnap victim. I’d come to the police when she didn’t show up at my tattoo shop after camp, and hadn’t arrived home by eight o’clock. Her friends didn’t know where she was, and the camp organizers reported she had been there all day.
Hayden is a reliable kid. She goes to a programming and technology camp for gifted kids she affectionately refers to as “Nerd Camp.” She follows the rules. She helps out around my shop. She’s my little adult in a child’s body, and my gut is telling me everything is far from okay right now.
“Do you have kids, Detective?”
His eyes harden. “No, ma’am, I do not.”
“Well, let me educate you on what it’s like to be a parent with a missing child you know is in danger, yet some know-it-all detective is telling you she doesn’t fit the criteria to take her case seriously.” He sits a little straighter as my voice grows colder, my anger rising to the surface.
“Your entire reason for getting up every day is gone. The one person you’d lay down your life for has disappeared, and you’re the only one who seems to give a shit. And while your world is spinning out of control, and your child is getting farther and farther out of your reach, you have a detective who thinks he knows her better than you do. He lumps her in with a group of kids who have nothing in common with your child other than their age.”
I sit back in my seat, fisting my hands. “My daughter is a computer prodigy. She’s been developing games and creating code since she was six years old. She has friends at school, but she spends most of her time doing what she loves—coding. Do you know many computer prodigies who like to party, Detective?”
Fischer sighs. “No, ma’am, I do not.”
I clench my teeth together. “Issue an Amber Alert. Track down her now.”
Fischer shakes his head slowly from side to side. “I’ll have the active units keep an eye out and send her information to other precincts in the area to do the same. But I will not issue an Amber Alert, not yet, as it’s only been a few hours. And besides, we aren’t sure yet that Hayden has even been kidnapped. We have no suspect, no proof. Is it possible the child is with her father?”
I gape at him, realizing for the first time since sitting down in his office that he’s not going to help me. He’s not being cruel, or dumb. He’s simply following a set of rules that don’t always work, and the result is more and more missing children falling through the cracks, into an abyss of mystery, rarely seen or heard from again.
“Hayden doesn’t know her father. He has no reason to contact her.”
“I’m going to need his name and contact information to determine that for myself.”
A pain unrelated to Hayden’s disappearance stabs my already aching heart. “That’s not necessary, Detective. He doesn’t even know Hayden exists. We haven’t spoken since the day I found out I was pregnant with her.”
“It’s still an avenue to look in—”
“No, it’s not,” I snap. “He’s not the person who took her. You’re looking in all the wrong fucking places!”
“Please, calm down, Miss Dawson.”
I can’t sit here another second; it’s not helping find Hayden. I stand, my head held high, and grab my purse. “I don’t care what you do or where you look. Issue an APB, something! I just want you to find my daughter.”
I stalk out of the police department, not feeling any more confident than I had when I first went in. The cops here in this little Podunk town don’t know what the hell they’re doing. Fischer will spin in circles, chasing his tail, looking into all the easy avenues before realizing he actually might have to do a little bit of police work to find my