“The dogs will inevitably alert on animal remains, even though they try to distinguish the difference. There are going to be numerous false positives that will have to be dug up and checked. Someone else will be working behind me with a shovel. It’s going to be long, hard days pushing through underbrush and crossing rough terrain, looking for something I really doubt we’ll find after this much time.”
“Josh,” she said, her voice low, “I’ve lived with this for twenty-five years, wondering where my parents are. The rawness of this reality… a search to find them? At least I’m looking. I want to be-need to be-out there. I’ll handle it.”
He slid off the table. “Then we’ll give it our best effort, Grace. If the ground reaches the freeze point or we get the first snow, this all will have to wait until spring.”
She nodded, stood, and pushed her hands back into her pockets. “I’m sorry, I should have told you already, but I’m not expecting this to be free. I’ll pay for your time and your dogs’ effort. You’ve got a business and a life, and it’s a big request.”
“If we find something, you can make a donation to the K-9 fund. My time’s my own to give, Grace. Don’t worry about it.”
She studied him, then nodded. “You can tell your brothers and your parents about this, if necessary. Please limit it to that. I’m not ready to deal with a reporter or curious neighbors.”
“Understood. Get yourself settled in at the campground. Once the bait shop is open, I’ll drive down and join you. We’ll go over to the property and take a look, make a plan. We’ve got good weather today, and we’ll take advantage of it.”
“I appreciate it, Josh.”
“I’m glad you came back. No matter how this unfolds, it’s nice to see you again.”
Grace nodded her thanks, and Josh watched her walk to her car.
She wants to find her parents. Her murdered parents… What had Ann let him walk into? He knew Ann was flying in today and so he sent her a text: Grace asked her favor. Call me when you have privacy to talk.
Evie Blackwell
“Ann, you wanted to talk about the Dayton case this morning?” Evie asked, finishing a donut and reaching for her coffee. They were getting an early start at the post office and that suited her, as Day Four of her vacation needed to cover a lot of ground.
“Yes.”
“Where do you want to begin?”
Gabriel, who had brought the glazed donuts and coffee with him, took another and slid the box down to his father. Caleb pulled out a chocolate long john for himself. Evie shook her head when Caleb silently asked if she wanted the box back. She was getting spoiled with how the Thane men fed her. She liked Gabriel’s dad. He was a salt-of-the-earth type guy who said a lot with few words.
“Summary first.” Ann took a last bite, stretched her legs out, looking relaxed. She already told Evie that she had flown out of Chicago before dawn, had been thinking about this case all the way to Carin. She now spoke from memory. “The Daytons are an upper-middle-class family. An executive father, stay-at-home mom, one child, trying to have a second child-a good marriage by all accounts. They transferred to Florida with his job, but still have family in Chicago.
“Thirteen years ago they were traveling by car from Florida to Chicago on vacation, stopping at small antique stores, showing their daughter the mountains in Tennessee, horses in Kentucky, farms and cows in Ohio, generally aiming toward Chicago but not on any particular schedule. On the night of Friday, July 24, they stopped at the All Suites Hotel here in Carin County, just off I-42. Six-year-old Ashley Dayton was abducted from the hotel just after nine p.m.
“Her father, Elliot Dayton, was bringing luggage from the car to their third-floor room via the elevator. Her mother, Arlene Dayton, was getting sodas and snacks from the vending machines on their floor, and their daughter, eager to help, took the ice bucket to the ice machine farther down the hall. The mom got back to the room, the father did, the girl did not. The father found the ice bucket on the floor by the ice machine-their room number was on it-but no sign of Ashley. She hadn’t cried out, and neither parent had seen another person on their floor. Elliot rushed down the stairwell to the parking lot while his wife called 911.
“Cops had an AMBER Alert active on the highways and area roads within twenty minutes. Both Carin and State Police swept the hotel, checking rooms and interviewing guests. No one reported seeing the child in the parking lot with anyone other than her parents. No one heard or saw a child struggling. Ashley Dayton, a blue-eyed, blond six-year-old with a pretty smile and outgoing personality, would smile and say hi to a stranger, but had a good security sense about her, knew to stay in sight of her mom and dad. She was grabbed that night, hustled down the stairs, probably out to the back parking lot, and driven away before anyone saw the abduction.” Ann looked over to Gabriel’s father, sheriff at the time of the abduction. “A decent summary?”
Caleb nodded. “They had filled up the car with gas before checking into the hotel, but otherwise hadn’t stopped in Illinois before they arrived here. It’s unlikely they were targeted by someone who knew the family. This was a crime of opportunity by someone at the hotel or someone who saw them at the gas station, which is located across the street from the hotel. Checks of vehicles at the hotel, those who filled up a vehicle at the station during the hour in question, didn’t generate a name we could fit to this. A couple of locals remembered seeing the family at the station, one remembered saying hi to the girl, yet no one observed anyone take an unusual interest in the family.”
Evie made notes as Ann and Caleb talked. She could visualize the scene. By nine that summer night, it would be dark but still warm, people inside in air-conditioned rooms, or outside, heading with purpose to where they needed to go without rushing about it in the heat. Travelers, mostly friendly with each other, sharing a glance at other cars packed like theirs with luggage and kids going somewhere. The hotel would be the same-tourists staying overnight, leaving for another destination at first light. Families rather than business people, Evie thought, as the single business traveler would try to make it home before the weekend.
Truckers, taking advantage of the cooler night hours and the slack in traffic, would be moving their cargo at a good pace, keeping their fill-up times short. Overnight-delivery folks would be starting to refill vending machines and counter snack displays. People would have been out for a meal. At nine o’clock, it would not have been a deserted area. Had the girl been able to break away from her abductor inside the hotel, or at least outside the hotel, someone would have likely heard her crying or seen her running.
A trucker is interesting, Evie thought, someone who saw the girl, had one of those big extended-cab sleeper berths inside the truck, a place to put a child, bound, mouth taped, while he cruised down the highway passing cops. He’d still be on schedule for his deliveries, since the snatch was probably at most thirty minutes from the sighting of the girl at the gas station to her disappearance from the third floor of the hotel. The father would have moved the car to the closest entrance door before hauling in the luggage. Finding the right floor, their assigned room, would have taken only minutes.
Evie felt her heart squeeze with emotion as she could see the sequence play out. Pull around back of the hotel. Use the stairs or the service elevator, glance down hallways, spot the family coming and going. And there she is, coming right to you without her parents, compliments of the ice machine. Scoop her up and you’re gone. Maybe in a delivery uniform, maybe even having stayed at the hotel before or parked behind it to grab a few hours of shut-eye. Hand across her mouth, out the back door, into the cab of the truck, close the door and you’ve got your prize. Pull out, watch the speed, you’re gone before the parents’ cry of alarm alerts people to look around.