car, the front door of the house opened and a tall, well-dressed blond man stepped out.
Peyton ran toward him, and Tom would have expected Rick to open up his arms, to hug the woman who was the mother of his missing child. But she stopped just short of him and Rick shoved his hands in his expensive slacks pockets. “What exactly happened?” he asked.
Peyton began to cry as she explained to him what had occurred. When she was finished, Rick looked at Tom. “Sheriff, Rick Powell.” He held out his hand to Tom. “What’s being done to find my daughter?”
Tom gave his hand a perfunctory shake, then motioned toward the front door. “Why don’t we all go inside and talk.”
As he followed them inside he found himself wishing that Rick had hugged her. If anyone needed the security of strong arms around her, it was Peyton. The thought hit him from left field and he pushed it aside.
“We have an AMBER Alert in place, and several of my deputies are out knocking on doors and seeing if anyone knows this woman who called herself Kathy Simon,” Tom explained once they were all seated at the table. “It would be helpful if we could get a picture or a drawing of this woman to send out across the state.”
“Do you have a picture of her?” Rick asked Peyton.
“No, I never took her picture,” Peyton said miserably.
“My brother Benjamin is a pretty good artist. Why don’t I get him in here to work up a sketch, and Rick and I can go into the living room and talk,” Tom said.
Peyton nodded as he and Rick stood. Within minutes, Benjamin was seated with her at the table, and Rick and Tom went into the living room, where Rick sat on the sofa and looked at Tom expectantly.
“Peyton told me you’re an assistant D.A. in Wichita,” Tom said.
“That’s right.” He leaned forward and ran a hand through his short hair. “I can’t believe this has happened. Peyton’s a terrific mother. She would never intentionally put Lilly at risk.”
“You have no idea who this woman might be? You never met her? “
“No, but I have to confess that since Peyton moved here I’ve only been to visit a couple of times,” Rick replied. “With my work schedule it’s been difficult getting back and forth. In fact, I’m in the middle of a big trial now. I got the judge to call a continuance until day after tomorrow, but I’ve got to be back in Wichita first thing Thursday morning. Hopefully we’ll have Lilly back long before then.”
“Why did Peyton decide to move here?” Tom asked.
Rick leaned back in the chair and unfastened the buttons of his suit coat. “When our relationship fizzled out, she decided she wanted a new start someplace else. She started shooting out résumés, and when Black Rock Elementary School made an offer, she jumped at the opportunity.”
“Your breakup was amicable?”
Rick released a small sigh of impatience. “Look, Sheriff, I know how these things go. I understand that you have to look at all angles, but let me save you a little time. Peyton and I dated for six months. We had a good time together but eventually realized we wanted different things from life. The split was amicable. In fact, it was the night we decided to call it quits that Lilly was conceived. Even though we weren’t going to be together as a couple, we were both excited to be parents. We’ve had no problems, no issues since Lilly’s birth. Peyton is one of the greatest women I’ve ever known. She would never do anything to hurt Lilly, and neither would I.”
Tom fought back a sigh of frustration. He knew Rick was trying to be helpful, but there was nothing worse than investigating somebody who knew the system from the inside out. “You know I have to go through all this,” Tom said.
Rick nodded. “I was just trying to cut to the chase by letting you know that there’s nothing to investigate except the woman who stole my daughter. There’s no point in wasting time speculating about Peyton or myself.”
“I appreciate your help, but you know I’m going to do this investigation my way,” Tom said. He kept his voice friendly but firm.
“Understood,” Rick replied. “I just want my little girl back.” For the first time since he’d arrived, emotion cracked his voice.
“Is it possible this has something to do with a case you’re working on? An enemy you’ve made through your work?” Tom asked.
Rick frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t think so. Very few people knew about Peyton and the baby. I wanted it that way for their own protection.”
At that moment, Benjamin and Peyton came into the room. “We have a sketch,” Benjamin said. He handed the paper to Tom, who looked at it closely.
Benjamin was a talented sketch artist, a talent he’d kept hidden for many years. The sketch showed a woman with a slender face and long hair. Her eyes were slightly deep set and her chin square.
Tom looked up at Peyton. “This looks like Kathy Simon?”
“It could be a photograph of her.” For the first time her eyes shone with a hint of hope. Tom was struck again by her prettiness.
He handed the sketch to Rick. “Have you seen this woman?”
Rick studied the sketch with a frown, then shook his head. “No, I’ve never seen her before.”
Tom looked back at Peyton. “You have a recent picture of Lilly?”
“I do. I just had her pictures taken at that little studio on Main Street a couple of weeks ago.” She went to the desk in the corner of the room and opened a drawer. She withdrew a large envelope and from it pulled a 5×7 photograph.
She gazed at the picture for a long moment, her eyes filling with tears, then she handed it to Tom. Lilly was a doll, one of those exceptionally pretty babies with bright blue eyes and a tuft of curly blond hair.
Tom turned to his brother Caleb, who had returned to the house moments earlier after interviewing more of the people who lived in and around the apartment complex. “Take these to the office and get them over the wires,” he said as he handed the photo and sketch to him. “Make up flyers and get them distributed around town.”
When Caleb went out the front door, Tom turned back to Peyton. “Somebody will see them. Somebody will know where she is,” he said in encouragement.
“I hope so,” Peyton exclaimed.
The next couple of hours passed in agonizing slowness. Peyton sat on the sofa looking as if a loud noise might shatter her. Rick sat next to her, but at no time did the two touch in any way.
Tom found their relationship rather intriguing. Was their lack of physical touch an indication that their relationship hadn’t had the mutual easy ending that both of them had implied? And what, if anything, might that have to do with the case?
Throughout the evening, Tom coordinated efforts to find the baby, speaking to his deputies by cell phone to keep updated. As night fell, Tom didn’t expect anything to happen. People were in their homes, getting ready for bed, and wouldn’t see the flyers until morning.
Rick must have recognized the same thing.
