My Soul to Keep Read Online Free Page A

in.
    “Is there any way you can contact Enrique Martinez?” I asked. “He’s a detective with the DPD.”
    “What division?”
    “Robbery.”
    “Kidnappings go to robbery. They’ll get the call anyway.”
    “Aren’t we in Highland Park?”
    “Something like this, it’ll go to DPD. You know him?”
    “He dates Maria.” I glanced over at her. “And he’s a DPD chaplain. I think it would be good to have him here.”
    He raised his eyebrows but didn’t comment. “I’ll try to raise him for you, if you want.”
    I nodded my thanks.
    Martinez came, along with a crowd of uniformed cops, detectives, and a van full of crime-scene investigators. I hugged him and led him over to Maria, who leaned into him and held on for a minute, then squared her shoulders and stepped away. Maria handled herself well, answering questions with astonishing poise under the circumstances, though the strain was obvious. Martinez, pacing around and asking questions, seemed more agitated than she did.
    Christine couldn’t stop crying. The bad man was real mean, she kept saying.
    “How did you know he was mean?” Liz asked.
    “He was all black, and I could just tell.”
    “You mean he was a black man? His skin was black?” I asked. She hadn’t mentioned this to the cop who questioned her.
    “Noooo,
he
was black,” Christine insisted. “Not his skin.”
    “Punkin, I’m not sure what you mean,” Liz was saying. “Were the man’s clothes black?”
    “Noooo,
he
was black,” she said again. “And really mean.” She stuck her thumb in her mouth. “Where’s Eeyore and Melissa?”
    We’d all forgotten about the bunnies. When we got back to our stuff, the petting-zoo guy had given them some water and rabbit pellets and put them in the pen with the other rabbits. We thanked him and loaded them up. We were all due at DPD headquarters to give statements. They wanted us to come in while our memories were still fresh. I needed to take the rabbits home first, so we agreed that I’d meet Liz and Christine at the station. Maria would ride with Martinez.
    An alert had been issued for a missing child, with Nicholas’s name and description and a description of the van. It flashed on a sign overthe highway as I drove downtown from my house. Flashing yellow, over and over again.
    Kidnapped child. Kidnapped child. Kidnapped child. Male. Five years old. Abducted
.

3

    I’ D BEEN DOWNTOWN TO DPD headquarters a few times last winter, but I got lost anyway. When I finally walked into the lobby, it was almost empty. A bright expanse of sparkling-clean, waxed floors reflected the sunlight streaming in through floor-to-ceiling windows. A few disheveled, distracted people stood near a row of benches that were scooted against the wall near the metal detectors. I gave my name to the officer at reception and waited at the desk, away from the benches.
    Martinez appeared in a few minutes. I could feel the stares of the small crowd as he hugged me, walked me around the metal detectors, and escorted me to the elevators. We were silent as the elevator took us up to the fifth floor. We stepped out past a sign that read Crimes Against Persons (CAPERS).
    I saw Maria sitting at a desk. “They can’t find the van,” she said. “They went to those people’s house. But no one was home.”
    “Was it that family’s van? What’s their name—Dixon?”
    “Dickerson,” Maria said. “They’re trying to find them. It’s a really good sign, don’t you think? That it was a family? Maybe it’s just a mistake. Maybe they just grabbed the wrong kid. Maybe they thought he was someone else. Someone who was supposed to ride with them or something.”
    I looked at Martinez. He met my eyes, and we silently agreed not to say anything. Let her think that if it would keep her calm.
    “It’s a good lead,” Martinez said. “You want something solid like this in the first forty-eight hours.”
    “I saw the alert,” I said. “On the highway signs.”
    “Did you