The Rescue Read Online Free PDF Page B

clear.
    "We'll find him-I promise."
    Huddle glanced uncertainly at Taylor, before finally nodding as well. He shifted onto one knee, obviously uncomfortable.
    Exhaling sharply, Denise sat up a little, trying her best to stay composed. Her face, wiped clean by the attendant in the ambulance, was the color of table linen. The bandage wrapped around her head had a large red spot just over her right eye. Her cheek was swollen and bruised.
    When she was ready, they went over the basics for the report: names, address, phone number, and employment, her previous residence, when she'd moved to Edenton, the reason she was driving, how she stopped for gas but stayed ahead of the storm, the deer in the road, how she lost control of the car, the accident itself. Sergeant Huddle noted it all on a flip pad. When it was all on paper, he looked up at her almost expectantly.
    "Are you kin to J. B. Anderson?"
    John Brian Anderson had been her maternal grandfather, and she nodded.
    Sergeant Huddle cleared his throat-like everyone in Edenton, he'd known the Andersons. He glanced at the flip pad again.
    "Taylor said that Kyle is four years old?"
    Denise nodded. "He'll be five in October."
    "Could you give me a general description-something I could put out on the radio?"
    "The radio?"
    Sergeant Huddle answered patiently. "Yeah, we'll put it on the police emergency network so that other departments can have the information. In case someone finds him, picks him up, and calls the police. Or if, by some chance, he wanders up to someone's house and they call the police. Things like that."
    He didn't tell her that area hospitals were also routinely informed-there was no need for that just yet.
    Denise turned away, trying to order her thoughts.
    "Um . . ." It took a few seconds for her to speak. Who can describe their kids exactly, in terms of numbers and figures? "I don't know . . . three and a half feet tall, forty pounds or so. Brown hair, green eyes . . . just a normal little boy of his age. Not too big or too small."
    "Any distinguishing features? A birthmark, things like that?"
    She repeated his question to herself, but everything seemed so disjointed, so unreal, so completely unfathomable. Why did they need this? A little boy lost in the swamp . . . how many could there be on a night like this?
    They should be searching now, instead of talking to me.
    The question . . . what was it? Oh, yes, distinguishing features. . . . She focused as best she could, hoping to get this over with as quickly as possible.
    "He's got two moles on his left cheek, one larger than the other," she finally offered. "No other birthmarks."
    Sergeant Huddle noted this information without looking up from his pad. "And he could get out of his car seat and open the door?"
    "Yes. He's been doing that for a few months now."
    The state trooper nodded. His five-year-old daughter, Campbell, could do the same thing.
    "Do you remember what he was wearing?"
    She closed her eyes, thinking.
    "A red shirt with a big Mickey Mouse on the front. Mickey's winking and one hand has a thumbs-up sign. And jeans-stretch waist, no belt."
    The two men exchanged glances. Dark colors.
    "Long sleeves?"
    "No."
    "Shoes?"
    "I think so. I didn't take them off, so I assume they're still on. White shoes, I don't know the brand. Something from Wal-Mart."
    "How about a jacket?"
    "No. I didn't bring one. It was warm today, at least when we started to drive."
    As the questioning went on, lightning, three flashes close together, exploded in the night sky. The rain, if possible, seemed to fall even harder.
    Sergeant Huddle raised his voice over the sound of the pounding rain.
    "Do you still have family in the area? Parents? Siblings?"
    "No. No siblings. My parents are deceased."
    "How about your husband?"
    Denise shook her head. "I've never been married."
    "Has Kyle ever wandered off before?"
    Denise rubbed her temple, trying to keep the dizziness at bay.
    "A couple of times. At the mall once and near my house