Janet Evanovich - Full Scoop

Zack reached it first. "Dammit!" he shouted. "She's gone! She's run away from home!"

"What!" Maggie shrieked the word. She yanked the note from him and scanned it as Zack turned and raced down the hall. He flung open the back door and hurried out. Maggie's heart pounded as she ran behind him.

Outside, Maggie called her daughter's name as she and Zack searched the property. They found Mel's bicycle lying on the ground behind the shed, her school back pack nearby. Maggie simply stared in stunned silence as she tried to take it in. She caught Zack's gaze, followed it, and drew in a sharp breath when she spied a bracelet of beads that Mel often wore, the twine broken so that many of the beads had scattered across the grass. "Oh, my God!" she cried. "He has her!" She reached for the bracelet.

"Don't touch it," Zack said.

Maggie yanked her head up, and saw the expression in his eyes that told her they were thinking the same thing. Her world came crashing down around her.

Lamar Tevis and one of his deputies, disguised in full fishing regalia, including wading boots, stood near the bicycle as Bud from the crime lab, dressed in white, paint-splattered overalls and carrying his crime-scene gear in a large paint bucket, dusted for fingerprints. The two officers assisting him were similarly dressed so they looked like a painting crew. Lamar stared openly at the little goat busily chewing on a garden hose. Fleas was curled beside her.

"Whose goat is that?" Lamar asked.

Zack and Max looked up from the map they were studying.

"Somebody gave it to Maggie," Zack said.

"Oh, gur-reat," Lamar said. "Dr. Davenport knows she's not supposed to have a goat inside the city limits. How do you think I'm going to feel having to ticket her at a time like this?"

"Like a jerk?" Bud replied.

"Chief, do I really have to stand here holding this fishing pole?" the young officer beside him asked. He had recently joined the force, and Lamar had insisted on personally showing him how things were done. "Anybody who sees this fish dangling from my line is going to know it's a fake. This fish is posing. And my waders won't stay up." He'd barely gotten the words out of his mouth before the left one slid down and clumped at his ankle.

"They're props," Lamar said, "I told you I want everybody in disguise. Why do you think we're riding around in a rust bucket pickup truck, pulling a fishing boat that would sink in a bathtub? We don't know that our kidnapper isn't watching us right at this very moment." Lamar raised his binoculars to his eyes and scanned the property once more.

"Why would the kidnapper hang around if he's got the girl?" the rookie asked.

" 'Cause some criminals are sick in the head, and they get their kicks watching folks suffer." Lamar lowered his binoculars. "Hey, Zack, what's in that building at the back of the property?" he asked.

Zack and Max were combing a map of Beaumont, and Max was marking wooded and isolated areas. Zack looked up. "That's where Maggie keeps her chickens."

"Chickens!" Lamar slapped one hand against his forehead. "It's like a zoo back here."

"That looks like the same goat that interrupted the parade yesterday," the young cop said. "Same dog, too. He almost bit me."

"Oh, good grief," Lamar said. "I don't need this right now. I got enough stress, what with the girl missing and all. Now, I got farm animals inside the city limits, and I find out that goat and that dangerous dog obstructed our parade. That's at least four or five offenses."

"How can it be an offense to obstruct a parade when it wasn't even a real parade?" the other cop asked, reaching to pull up one of his waders again.

"Doesn't matter if it was a fake parade or not," Lamar said. "That dog is a menace."

Zack glanced up. "What do you mean by fake parade?"

Lamar threw up his hands. "Just one more piece of nonsense I've had to deal with since Stanton's escape," he said. "Some phony-baloney practical joker thought it would be real cute to pose as a famous Elvis impersonator just so the town would give him a parade. Said it was all part of the convention, only later we found out the guys running the convention didn't know a dang thing about it and said this so-called famous impersonator didn't exist. The whole thing was a big fat hoax."

Zack was clearly stunned. "So now we know how Carl Lee Stanton got through the road blocks. I'm surprised you didn't offer him a police escort."

Lamar started to say something; instead, he closed his mouth and looked at the ground, red-faced. Delores from dispatch spoke from the radio, and he answered. He pulled his small notebook from his pocket. "Can you give me an update on Operation Find Kidnapped Girl and Catch Dangerous Sicko Guy?" he asked, having named the case.

Standing a short distance away, Zack gave an impatient sigh and looked at Max.

"Lamar is retiring soon," Max said quietly. "I know it doesn't feel like it, but he's moving pretty quickly on this. It has only been an hour since Mel was discovered missing."

"It's not just Lamar," Zack said. "I didn't do my job. I got involved with Maggie and lost my damn head. Now her daughter has been abducted. There's no excuse for my actions."

Max put his hands on Zack's shoulder. "Hey, wait a minute. You've given Maggie and Mel around-the-clock protection. You put in a top-notch alarm system. It was installed to stop someone from getting in, not out."

Zack didn't respond. He joined Lamar and waited for him to get off his radio. "Where do we stand?"

Lamar glanced down at his notebook containing Zack's instructions as well as his own notes. "The posters will be ready to hit the street in an hour," he said. "The local media has alerted the public to the girl's kidnapping and asked for volunteers to join search parties. They've already started streaming into the armory building, and a number of my men are on hand to brief them. None of Dr. Davenport's neighbors noticed anything out of the ordinary."

"And the search warrants?" Zack asked.

"We're working on it. The judge is on standby."

"What about the search and rescue dogs?" He handed Lamar the map. "We need to get dogs to these areas as soon as we can."

"We're, um, working on that, too," Lamar said, "but we sorta ran into a little snag on account of most of the dogs are in Atlanta where they're holding some kind of appreciation ceremony for the hard work these dogs and their trainers have done."

Zack frowned. "Are you saying there are no dogs available to search for Dr. Davenport's daughter?"

"We have a couple, but one is ready to have puppies, and the other one is lame. I put in a few calls to Charleston, but they've got dogs searching for an elderly lady who wandered away from some old folks' home, and then a couple of teenagers were out hiking and obviously got lost 'cause they didn't return to camp."

"I don't need all the details," Zack said, obviously growing frustrated by the moment.

"I'm thinking maybe I could send some coon dogs out," Lamar said.

* * * * *

"Maggie, they are going to find Mel," Jamie said. "Practically the whole town is searching for her."

"Yes, but what condition will she be in?" Maggie said. "We already know what Carl Lee is capable of." She covered her face with both hands. "This is my fault. I ran her off. My own child," she added, "because I was unreasonable and demanding." Her voice broke, and tears filled her eyes once again. She dropped her hands to her lap. "And would you like to know what I was doing as my daughter slipped out?" She didn't wait for an answer. "I was upstairs, in bed with Zack!"

Maggie heard a sound, looked up, and found Everest standing in front of her holding a cup, his mouth slightly agape. She was too upset to blush.