think she is, and that’s enough for me.”
Noah closed his eyes and smiled. “Good. I want to show you something.”
CHAPTER 4
Flattened on the table in front of me was a piece of paper. A princess resembling Sleeping Beauty frolicked in the middle of a field of flowers, all of them pink. In fact, the entire page was pink. I lifted the piece of paper up and examined it. There was no writing of any kind, just outside-of-the-line scribbling done with a waxy Crayola.
“What is this?” I said. “I mean, I can see it’s a torn page from a child’s coloring book, but where’d you get it?”
“In the mail.”
His tone of voice had changed so much one would have thought I was holding a newly discovered artifact.
“When?” I said.
“Three days ago.”
“If you’re showing this to me, obviously it means something to you,” I said.
“I believe it was colored by my daughter.”
I stared at the picture, not knowing what to think. Could it be possible?
He grabbed the paper, waving it back and forth in front of me. “Don’t you see what this means? She’s alive!”
Or someone had a twisted way of turning a wayward parent into a believer.
“Why haven’t you shown this to the police?”
He leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms. He had a smug grin on his face like my astute observation had impressed him.
“What makes you think I haven’t?”
“It’s still in your possession,” I said. “If you would have handed it over to Detective McCoy, it wouldn’t be.”
“You’re right. He would have taken it from me and said something about how it needed to be ‘entered into evidence.’ I’d never get it back. You have no idea what this means to me—to my wife. It’s—helping her cope.”
I understood the attachment he’d formed and why, but he wasn’t doing himself any favors by hanging onto it.
“You don’t know what they’ll do until you show it to them,” I said.
“Olivia Hathaway’s parents got one too. They handed it over, and once the investigators all looked at it, her mother asked if she could have it back. What do you think they said?”
Now I understood why he’d taken the time to mention the other kidnapping: if both parents received the same type of correspondence, the kidnappings could be connected.
“When did Olivia’s parents receive their coloring page?”
He leaned in. “Last week. And do you want to know what the cops did with it? They published it in the local paper. Why the hell would they do that?”
“It’s a new lead. Olivia has been missing for two years. Maybe they’re trying to generate some interest.”
“I always thought the kidnappings were connected,” he said. “McCoy looked into it, but he never found any evidence to support my theory, other than the fact both girls were taken from the same part of Wyoming. When I received the coloring page in the mail, I found out where Olivia’s parents lived and paid them a visit. Imagine how good it felt to know they’d received one too. I’ve been right all along.”
“I don’t mean to sound callous Mr. Tate, but how do you know this isn’t someone’s idea of a sick joke?”
“Mrs. Hathaway said Olivia’s favorite color was green. The page they received was full of stars, all of them colored green.”
“What’s the significance of the star?”
“Apparently Olivia had some kind of glow-in-the-dark solar system on the ceiling of her bedroom, and green was her favorite color.”
“And I’m guessing Savannah’s room is pink and princess-themed?”
He nodded.
“It must have been checked for fingerprints,” I said.
“Olivia’s parents said when the prints were processed the only ones they found besides theirs were Olivia’s. They checked the envelope it was sent in too. There were no prints that couldn’t be accounted for.”
I held the page in front of me. “Mr. Tate, you have to turn this over to the investigators working on your case. You can’t keep it.”
He slapped his hand against the side of the table. “I will not!”
“This coloring page is the one thing connecting both abductions to each other. Can’t you understand why the police need to be informed? It will give them the first solid lead they’ve had in months.”
He shook his head. “You don’t get it. I don’t care about Olivia’s case. I mean, of course I feel sorry for what her parents are going through, but my only concern right now is finding my daughter.”
I pressed my pointer fingernail into the pink wax on the page. “I’m sure you can’t see it right now,