Jackson must have provided that information, and Boone wasn’t going to argue with it. He knew his friend well enough to know that he’d have to have been 100 percent sure before offering information. “That’s right. It was pulling away as my friend and I arrived.”
“I don’t suppose you want to explain what you and your friend were doing on this road?” Officer Lamar looked up from a notepad he was scribbling in. The guy looked to be a few years older than Boone. Maybe closing in on forty. Haggard face. Dark eyes. Obviously suspicious.
“I followed the woman from Walmart. She looked like she might be in trouble.”
“So, you just stepped in and ran to the rescue? Didn’t think about calling the police?”
“I didn’t want to call in the police over an assumption.”
“Assumptions are just as often on target as they are off it. Next time,” he said calmly, “call.”
Boone didn’t bother responding, just waited while Officer Lamar jotted a few notes, his gaze settling on the purse Boone still held.
“That belong to the victim?”
“Yes.” Boone handed it over, shifting impatiently. “They could be across state lines by now.”
“Not likely. We’re about a hundred miles from the Penn state border. I’m going to take a look around. How about you wait in the cruiser?”
It wasn’t a suggestion, but Boone didn’t take orders from anyone but his boss or the team leader. He followed Lamar to the still-smoking station wagon, paced around the vehicle while Lamar looked in the front seat, turned on a flashlight and searched the ground near the car.
He didn’t speak, but Boone could clearly see footprints in the moist earth near the car. Two sets. A woman’s sneaker and a man’s boot. “Looks like she survived the initial impact,” Lamar murmured. He called something in on his radio, but Boone was focused on the prints—the deep imprint of the man’s feet. The more shallow print of the woman’s. There had to be more, and he was anxious to find them. For evidence, and for certainty that Scout and her child really were in the car that had driven away.
If not, they were somewhere else.
Somewhere closer.
He scanned the edge of the copse of trees that butted against the road. If he’d been scared for his life, he’d have run there, looked for a place to hide.
Protocol dictated that Boone back off, let the local P.D. do their job. It was what Chance would want him to do. It was what Boone probably would have done if he’d witnessed only the accident or even the kidnapping.
But Boone had spoken to Scout Cramer. He’d seen the fear in her eyes. He’d looked into her daughter’s face and been reminded of what he’d lost. What he could only pray that he would one day get back.
He couldn’t back off. Not yet.
A sound drifted through the quiet night. Soft. Like the mew of a kitten. Boone cocked his head to the side.
“Did you hear that?” he asked Lamar.
He knew the officer had. He’d stopped talking and was staring into the woods. “Could have been an animal,” he said, but Boone doubted he believed it.
“Or a baby,” Boone replied, heading for the trees.
“You think it’s the missing child? How old did you say she was?”
“Two? Maybe three.” Cute as a button. That was what his mother would have said. Probably what his dad would have said. They loved kids. Would have loved to know their first granddaughter.
Boone would have loved to know his only child.
In God’s time...
He’d heard the words so many times, from so many well-meaning people, that he almost never talked about his marriage, about his daughter, about anything that had to do with his life before HEART.
“It’s possible she was thrown from the car. I didn’t see a car seat.”
“She was in one.”
Lamar raised a dark brow and scowled. “I’m not going to ask why you know so much about this lady and her child. You’re sure the kid was in the car seat?”
“Positive.”
“If the car seat was installed wrong, it still could have been thrown from the car. Wouldn’t have gone far, but a child that age could undo the harness and get out. She’s young to be out on a night like tonight, but I’d rather her be out in the woods than in a car with a monster.” Lamar sighed. “Wait here. I’ll go take a look around.”
Wasn’t going to happen.
Boone followed him into the thick copse of trees, his gaze on the beam of light that illuminated the leaf-strewn ground.
“Anyone out here?” Officer Lamar called.
No response. Just the quiet rustle of leaves and the muted sound of distant sirens.
“We should split up,” Boone suggested. “The more area we cover, the better.”
“I’ll call in our K-9 team. That will help. In the meantime, you need to go back to the car. There’s a ravine a couple of hundred feet from here. You fall into that and—”
“I’m a former army ranger, Officer Lamar. I think I can handle dark woods and a deep ravine.” He said it casually and walked away. They were wasting time arguing. Time he’d rather spend searching.
If the little girl had been thrown from the car on impact, the sooner they got her to the hospital, the better. But he didn’t think she’d been thrown. He’d seen Scout buckle her in. She’d been secure. Someone had taken her from the station wagon. That same person could have tossed her into the trees, thrown her down the embankment, disposed of her like so much trash.
He’d seen it before, in places where no child should ever be. He’d carried nearly dead little girls from hovels that had become their prisons.
Rage filled him, clawing at his gut and threatening to steal every bit of reason he had. He didn’t give in to it. He’d learned a lot from his father. Watching him deal with the foster kids his parents had taken in had taught Boone everything he needed to know about keeping cool, working with clear vision, not allowing his emotions to rule.
“Baby?!” he called, because he didn’t know the child’s name, and because a scared little girl might respond to a stranger’s voice.
Then again, she might not.
She might stay silent, waiting and hoping for her mother’s return.
Was that how it had been for Kendal? Had she been dropped off and left somewhere with strangers? Had she cried for her mother?
He shuddered.
That was another place he wouldn’t allow his mind to go. Ever.
“Hello?” he tried again, and this time he heard a faint response. Not a child’s cry. More like an adult’s groan.
He headed toward the sound, picking his way through narrow saplings and thick pine trees, the shadowy world swaying with the soft November wind.
He heard another groan. This one so close, he knew he could reach out and touch the injured person. He scanned the ground, saw what looked like a pile of cloth and leaves under a heavy-limbed oak and sprinted to it.
Scout lay on her stomach, pale braid dark with blood, her face pressed into leaves and dirt. For a moment, he thought she was dead, and his heart jerked with the thought and with the feeling that he was too late to make a difference. Again.
Then his training kicked in, and he knelt, brushing back the braid, feeling for a pulse. She shifted, moaning softly, jerking up as if she thought