by now.”
Chitwood turned to Noah. “Fraley, how long did it take the CARD team to find that boy in North Carolina?”
Sheepishly, Noah said, “Four days.”
Josie suppressed her eye-roll. “That was an extremely rural area. In any direction you go through this park, you come out in a residential area. The college campus is at the north end. Someone in this city would have seen her by now. There is not enough ‘wilderness’ for her to get lost in.”
Chitwood stepped toward her, his arms crossed over his thin chest. Even in the dull yellow light, Josie could see wisps of his thinning white hair floating over the top of his balding head. “We’re going to find this kid, Quinn. We don’t need the damn FBI.”
“Sir, with all due respect—”
“Quinn,” he cut her off. “When you start a sentence like that, I know you’re going to say something to piss me off. Why not save us both the trouble of me threatening to remove you from your job?”
Josie felt heat sting her face, but she couldn’t stop herself. “If you’re refusing to call the FBI because you don’t want it to look like you can’t handle your own city, I urge you to consider that the life of a seven-year-old girl is more important than your pride.”
In the low light of the park’s overhead lamps, she could see his acne-scarred cheeks flush beneath his stubble. Again, she waited for his loud, angry tirade, but it didn’t come. Instead, he swallowed several times, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Then in a tight voice, he said, “Quinn, this has nothing to do with my pride. I’ve been at this a long time. Since you were in diapers. We have the manpower and the resources to handle this. You don’t need to take every situation to a ten, Quinn. We can handle this. We don’t need the FBI.”
Gretchen stepped forward. “Then we need the press.”
Josie felt a wave of relief. Surely, Chitwood could not refuse them press coverage to help search for Lucy. She also knew—as did Gretchen—that the FBI’s CARD team didn’t need to wait for the local police department’s invitation if they were made aware of the disappearance of a child under twelve. There was a good chance that if they somehow saw the news coverage, they would descend on Denton whether Chitwood liked it or not.
Chitwood said, “Call WYEP, get them to send a crew out here. Set up a mobile station in this area. We’ll search through the night and take volunteers in the morning if she isn’t found tonight.”
Six
Within an hour, a large tent had been erected at the entrance to the playground with folding tables and chairs inside to be used by Denton PD as a mobile command post. Someone had brought coffee and pastries, although no one touched them. Noah sat at one of the tables with a department-issue laptop, uploading the footage and photos that the officers had taken from the other parents at the playground that day. Gretchen and Chitwood sat facing Lucy’s parents. Josie peeked outside to where a news crew waited to interview someone from Denton PD. Members of the sheriff’s office and state police troopers milled around, ready to embark on more searches. Josie knew they would work through the night, in teams, until Lucy was found. She heard Colin’s voice in her head once more: what if she’s not found?
Shaking it off, she turned back to her team. “WYEP is here. Gretchen, you want to give them a statement?”
Gretchen stood but Chitwood placed a hand on her forearm. “I want Quinn to do it,” he said.
Josie said, “I’m not the lead on this one, Chief. I just happened to be here on my day off when Lucy disappeared.”
Chitwood raised a brow. “I know that, Quinn. I want you out there as the face of the department.”
“Sir,” Gretchen protested.
“Listen, Palmer,” he replied. “You don’t have the—” he broke off when he noticed the Ross parents were staring at him. Clearing his throat, he went on. “Quinn is a local celebrity, and she’s great on camera. That’s all. I think if we put her in the press and keep you here working the case, we’ll get better results.”
Josie knew the real reason he didn’t want Gretchen in front of cameras on a high-profile case was because seven months earlier, Gretchen had been embroiled in a scandal that had nearly cost her her career. She’d only been let back on the force because of Josie’s machinations