Monday, Later that Evening
The footsteps stopped.Kate held her breath and waited because that last stair had a bit of a creak to it. It was almost as if he understood that somebody was down here. A man called out, “Hello, anybody here?”
She tilted her head, not sure who was there.
“I’m the neighbor. I saw the door open. Is everybody okay?”
She groaned silently and rolled her eyes. But she didn’t dare say anything. Because what if it was him, the Nico perv? And the neighbor bit was just a ruse? She waited and finally heard the footsteps turn back around and go upstairs. He called out several more times on the main floor; then she heard him go out the kitchen door and close it. She was grateful for that. She raced to the window to see if she saw where he went. And, indeed, he headed to the house on her side of the basement and went back inside.
She checked her phone. It hadn’t been twenty minutes since her original text about the little girl. The little thing was still curled up, her skin waxy cold. But she was alive, and that’s how Kate was trying to keep her—alive. This little girl had been through way too much already.
With great relief Kate heard sirens approaching. She didn’t want to leave the little girl even then, but her phone buzzed, and she saw it was Rodney. She gave him instructions about coming down to the basement. He arrived within minutes, paramedics at his side. Richmond RCMP officers following behind. As soon as she opened the door, he saw the little girl and, shaking his head, whispered, “Dear God in heaven.”
“I know,” Kate said, her tone low.
The paramedic went straight to the little girl’s side, checked her out, and frowned. “We need to get her to the hospital immediately,” he said. “Her vitals are really low. I suspect she’s been drugged.”
“It’s probably to keep her calm and quiet, while she’s alone,” Rodney said.
“Yeah, I agree,” Kate said. She watched, that same burning fury building inside her as the little girl was quickly bundled up, loaded onto a gurney, and, sirens blazing, taken away. Kate stood here for a long moment and said, “Forensics needs to go over this room with a fine-tooth comb.”
“Richmond RCMP will handle it,” Rodney said quietly. “What are you expecting them to find?”
“You mean, outside of evidence of the pedophile?” She saw him acknowledge her words with a nod and looked at him directly, angst in her eyes. “DNA from other children.” With that, she turned abruptly and headed upstairs. Outside, on the back porch, off the kitchen, she took several deep, calming breaths. Forensics would be here soon, but it would take them a little bit.
Rodney joined her. “Do we need to check the rest of the house?”
“Yeah, we do,” she said, “plus that neighbor.” She pointed to the right. “He came over and was all over up here and even came downstairs, calling out to see if anybody was there because the door had been left open. We also need to track down the driver of that truck who got away.”
“Sounds like the neighbor is somebody we can talk to then,” he said. “Did you let him know you were here?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t take the chance, in case it was actually this Nico guy who lives here.”
“Good point,” he said. “I guess other children could be here somewhere?”
Her shoulders hunched in. “Oh, God, I haven’t looked,” she said, turning to stare at him in horror. “I didn’t want to leave the little girl alone.”
“The police are searching right now, but we can join in. Let’s go together,” he said. “We’ll search the downstairs and tear it apart, make sure nobody else is here.”
“We must search every corner,” she said. “He had one child hidden and God only knows for how long.”
“That girl was the one for sale in the chat room, wasn’t it?”
She nodded slowly. “And what I’m wondering is,” she said, “if that rat’s ass I’d missed escaping the kitchen was trying to steal her out from under the other one, instead of buying her.”
“Well, we have an address for him too,” he said. “Let’s finish this job, hand the scene off to Forensics, and then we can go find him.”
“I already sent out a request to have him picked up,” she said. “And I want to talk to him no matter what.”
“Did you get a good look at him?”
She shook her head. “No, not the facial details. Just the general frame. Sure glad I took that photo of the license plate when I got here.”
“Have you heard if they’ve got him yet?”
“Nope,” she said, “but, as long as they are doing that, we can do this.” And, with that, they headed back downstairs to the basement, systematically measuring off the space, and checked that no other hiding spots were in that basement. Then they moved upstairs and searched the main floor. By the time they had done that, a Forensics Division team was on the scene, and Kate and Rodney turned over the basement to them. Then she and Rodney headed back up to search the rest of the house. In the master bedroom, now that they were fully allowed to do a thorough search, she said, “I think we should also look for a safe.”
“Good point,” he said. “A house like this would have one.”