Hidden  Memories

    The Shadowman Series  

BY:  B.P Stevens

   Mystery Thriller

Copyright © [2022] [B.P Stevens] – All rights Reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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Description

After the wake of a terrible crime in her childhood, Harper Storm is determined to put whoever did it behind bars. After becoming a police officer in her small island town, she’s never given up hope that her best friend would one day return home. Mysteriously, a case appears with the exact same pattern as the one Harper had been trying to solve her whole life; a young girl snatched by the Shadow Man.

Now, Harper isn’t a young girl anymore. She’s a great detective, and she’s ready to face the Shadow Man head-on. With a team of talented detectives and cops behind her, Harper is certain that she can take this monster down.

However, what she doesn’t know, is that the mystery is only beginning… and nothing is as it seems.

Tables of Content

Chapter One

The thunder over her head was louder than a banging drum.

Harper ran against the rain. It was clouding her vision, making the ground slippery and muddy. The rain was wearing her down, and worst of all, it was making it impossible to see the road.

“BETH!” She screamed against the howling wind. “BETH!”

Nothing.

The darkness of the woods surrounded her. The rain slammed against the leaves and the bark of the wood with brute force. The wind whistled over her shoulder, mocking her. She spun in a circle, sobbing as she looked for her friend. She didn't have a flashlight, a compass, or anything. She never needed to bring any of those things with her until tonight.

The Shadow Man changed everything.

Thirteen-year-old Harper and her best friend, Beth, spent nearly every day in the woods in her neighborhood. They knew nearly every path leading to the ocean water off the coast. They knew every tree, every plant, nearly anything that someone could point out to them. They knew how to climb the biggest trees with ease. They knew which rock housed the tiny family of pill bugs that they kept safe from a rainstorm months ago when they raced out in ponchos to still have fun while their parents were stuck inside being adults.

Now, she was running in the same woods that she had always loved and called home, covered in rain and mud and blood. She desperately wanted to go home. She wanted to go back to her mother and father and tell them what she saw. She wanted to take a hot bath and let them hold her, let them tell her everything was going to be okay.

However, Harper couldn’t leave these woods without Beth.

She promised she wouldn’t.

She kept looking around in circles for her best friend. She was screaming her name, but the rain was drowning it out. She looked behind each tree, each nook, each cranny, and each time still found nothing. She was about to give up when she saw a shadow in the distance. It was too small to be the Shadow Man, so she knew it had to be ‘Beth.

“BETH!” She screamed, taking off in a full sprint toward her best friend. “BETH!”

She ran as fast as her little legs could carry her. She pushed and pushed forward, trying desperately to run faster and faster to no avail. In fact, it seemed that she was going slower. The mud seemed to be holding her feet into the mud, dragging her down into the depths. She kept reaching for Beth, wailing, demanding her to run to Harper, but nothing happened.

She took a second to look down, wondering why she seemed unable to run faster. To her horror, she realized that she was knee-deep in mud. It was pulling her in like quicksand, and it was way too intense for her. She screamed for Beth one more time as the mud climbed up to her chest.

She reached her arm out for help, but the tiny shadow of Beth didn’t move. A larger shadow loomed behind her. It got closer as Harper sank deeper and deeper into the mud as it wrapped its long, shadowy hand on Beth’s shoulder. Harper screamed in rage as the Shadow Man looked down at her with a large, inhuman grin. He had glowing white eyes and a smile that resembled that of the Joker. His laugh was the last thing Harper heard as the mug slowly drug her down into the black abyss. His jaw, unhinged, let loose the sound of laughter. It was almost as if he was going to speak, but nothing was coming out but dark, dark laughter…

“Harper?”

Harper jumped awake.

She shook her head, trying to force herself awake. She had fallen asleep at her desk again.

Standing in front of her was the only other female at the precinct, Jill. She smiled and offered Harper a cup of black coffee that Harper could smell from miles away.

“Didn’t get much sleep again, huh?”

Harper shook her head. “No… I couldn’t sleep until I figured out that Graves’ case.”

Jill sighed. “Yeah, I know. At least his hearing starts today.”

Jill leaned back in her seat. Her curly brown hair laid on her shoulders neatly, complementing her grey eyes.

Harper nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. Still, he could easily make bail or something stupid like that. You know how it is these days, the victims never seem to get justice.”

"Hey," Jill smiled and placed her hand on Harper's shoulder. "We have good evidence and good lawyers. We have enough to put him away. Trust in that."

Harper exhaled. “You’re right, I know. I’m sorry.”

Jill shook her head. “Don’t be sorry, hon. This job gets to everyone. If it doesn’t, something is wrong with you.”

Harper smiled at Jill. They became friends shortly after Jill transferred to the precinct, seeing that they were the only females in this small-town police department. They were also the youngest, which was a hoot for all the rowdy young men in town. The number of times that Jill and Harper were catcalled on the job was astounding.

Luckily, there seemed to be no issues within the precinct. The other officers were kind and respectful towards Jill and Harper. They saw them as one of their own, who had to fight just as hard as they did to get their badges. They taught the women other little tricks they knew, defended them from misogynists on the streets, and never once made them feel uncomfortable. To Jill and Harper, the men of the force felt more like their dads than anything else.

They were all happily married, and often brought their kids to the precinct when they couldn’t find care. Jill and Harper loved playing with their coworkers' kids, especially some of their younger daughters. Harper and Jill enjoyed the idea of being role models for the girls. Truth be told, Harper loved her job here. She never wanted to leave, and that’s what she told anyone who asked her why she didn’t take the several offers she had to relocate.

However, that was a lie.

She couldn’t leave her town until they found Beth’s body.

Even Jill didn't know how far back this went for Harper. She had no idea how much this town held for Harper, the significance of the case that ruined her life, or why she decided to become a cop in the first place. Why every second she was away at the Police Academy, away from her hometown, killed her. Why she fought tooth and nail to get assigned here, why she never wanted to leave.

She held out hope that one day they would find Beth.

Beth's family moved away three years after their little girl went missing. They said some crap about needing to start a new life, but Harper never gave up. She went back to those woods every night, crying for her best friend to come back to her. She joined every search party that she could. She put up fliers, professional and even hand-drawn ones. She did everything she could as a thirteen-year-old girl, but now she was older. She was ready.

She was twenty and had been working for a year now. She got sixty college hours doing dual credit and as many hours as she could muster so that by the time she was nineteen, she had already graduated from the Police Academy. She got hired here since she graduated top of her class and got to choose where she wanted to go. Now, she had a few cases under her belt and got promoted to Detective.

She was just waiting for the case to come. The one that she needed.

As much as she wanted no other girl to go through what she went through, part of her spent nearly every night praying that the Shadow Man would attack again.

That way, she could hunt him down on her own.

She held out hope that Beth was still alive somewhere, but it had been seven years. She felt it was almost cruel to think of her being alive for seven years in some basement where someone probably did Lord knows what to her. For selfish reasons, Harper prayed that she was alive. In the back of her mind, though, she knew that her prayers could be evil if she didn't watch herself.

It didn’t stop her from hoping that she was at least safe.

“Bad dream?” Jill asked.

Harper laughed, lifting the black coffee to her lips. “What gave it away?”

Jill smirked. "You're getting that far-off look in your eyes again. You only look like that when something's going on that you dreamed about. What was it this time?"

Harper laughed again. “This time it was quicksand mud.”

Jill narrowed her eyes. “That seems contradictory.”

Harper snickered. “Tell that to my subconscious.”

“I thought you were taking sleeping pills or something to help with your insomnia,” Jill asked.

“They work sometimes, but obviously not all the time.” Harper shrugged.

Jill sighed. “Are the cases really getting to you, man? Maybe you should take some time off. This isn’t healthy.”

Harper raised her eyebrow at Jill as her friend sat at her desk, which coincidentally happened to be right across from Harper’s.

“I thought you just said that if the cases didn’t get to you that you were insane.”

Jill laughed. “I say a lot of things, bud. I think sleep is one of the important parts of life, you know? It would probably be better in the long run if you found a therapist to talk to about these cases so you can work through your insomnia.”

Harper knew Jill was right. The young girl often was. She smiled at her dear friend and sighed.

“You’re right. It’s just hard to fit it in with your schedules, you know?”

Jill laughed again. “I think you mean your schedule. With the number of hours you punch in, you'd think that you just don't want a social life."

“Hey, you take that back,” Harper snickered. “I went dancing with you the other day didn’t I?”

“Only cause she dragged you out of there,” Leroy, one of the oldest policemen in the unit, laughed from his desk.

Harper glared playfully at him. “It’s not nice to eavesdrop, Leroy.”

“What?” He looked up innocently. “I got a new hearing aid. You can’t judge me for using it.”

Harper rolled her eyes but smiled. From two desks over, Tyler joined the conversation.

"Did you ladies get any gentlemen's phone numbers?"

"Eww, no," Jill chuckled. "It was purely a girls' night. We had so much fun!"

“I bet,” Leroy smiled. “I remember being young and going out like that.”

“Back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth?” Tyler snickered.

"Oh, you're one to talk!" Leroy laughed from the other side.

Harper found herself relaxing. She loved the little precinct she was in for so many reasons, but this was definitely one of the main ones. She always felt so relaxed, so calm, and loved when she worked. Everyone had photos of their loved ones on their desks, they all laughed and joked with one another, and no one ever felt left out or left behind.

It truly felt like a work family, one of the ones that people only saw on TV and never had themselves.

Harper never wanted to do anything to jeopardize that, but she also knew that she had goals. She had to find her best friend, and the leads from the internet and other places were going cold and stagnant. She wasn’t sure what she should do. She was about to open her company laptop and look at the websites again, trying to ding more leads, when her chief of police walked in with Andrew.

Andrew was the latest member of the police force, and he was the most decorated. He tried in cases almost as much as Harper did, but he had a family to hold him back unlike Harper. Still, he walked into the room with his full uniform on and a worried expression plastered on his face. The chief of police walking in was already a bad sign for everyone, but Harper knew it wasn’t for anything disciplinary. Their precinct wasn’t involved in anything bad, she was certain of that.

Her bones chilled as she realized what this could be.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the chief began. "We have a new case on our hands. This is a serious case, so I need you to listen closely."

“So soon after the Graves case?” Jill shook her head. “Evil never sleeps.”

“ Crime  never sleeps,” Leroy corrected her. “Not everyone who commits a crime is evil.”

“Well, you may want to hold onto that thought.” The chief sighed. “We have another abduction.”

Chapter Two

Harper nearly fell out of her chair. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her heart was pounding in her ears, and she tried to calm herself down. Just because it was another abduction in this town didn’t mean it was the same situation that happened with Beth. Harper knew the statistics, she knew that children and teenagers were taken nearly every minute of every day.

Still, she couldn’t help but hope that the same man from seven years ago had struck again. After all, they haven’t seen an abduction in years.

"A young girl was taken from a trail in the woods," the chief explained. "Thirteen years old. The only things left behind were her clothes and jewelry, left in a neat pile in the leaves. No blood or DNA was found on them, so we don't know if she was assaulted or not."

Harper couldn’t breathe.

This was the exact same M.O as Beth’s disappearance, down to the clothes and the lack of DNA.

This had to be the same guy.

“Who reported her missing?” Jill asked.

“The mother,” the chief nodded. “She called it in a while back, told us that she went missing when she was playing with her little brother in the woods. They found the brother hiding behind a large rock, traumatized beyond belief and bleeding from his head, but he didn’t remember anything. He had fallen when he had run away, hitting his head on a rock. He wasn’t attacked, and he didn’t remember his sister being taken. He just remembered seeing some large man. It was dark, so they called him the ‘dark man’ or something.”

The Shadow Man.

Harper had to bite her cheek until it bled to calm down. She had to regain composure. If she started looking too eager to take this case, they would remove her for personal bias. Truthfully, if Harper was a good cop she would remove herself anyway because that’s what she was supposed to.

However, she was no idiot. The law on paper was one thing, but she knew what it was like to be a cop. When you were surrounded by a life like this, you had biases toward what you saw.

“How long has she been missing?” Tyler asked.

"Eighteen hours." The chief sighed. "We're running out of time for the twenty-four-hour window. That's why I've assigned this case to the best of our best."

Harper felt like floating.

Her hard work was about to pay off.

"Andrew and Harper will be the leads on this case since they have the most confirmed cases cracked," the chief explained. "The rest of you will be here, doing the groundwork. Phoning calls from the tip line, offering fliers, and more. We can't have another cold case here or the boys upstate will have my butt on a silver platter."

Harper could only nod. She wanted to jump for joy and excitement, but she had to remind herself to stay cool. Andrew didn’t look as pleased to have Harper on his team, however, and Harper frowned.

“I’ll be handing out briefing packets to everyone for the next few minutes that I need you all to comb over, then Andrew will assign your tasks, I trust that you’ll get this done? I need to go do press conferences and much more annoying political crap.”

He nodded and turned away, walking out the door. Andrew sighed and passed out the briefing packets that the chief forgot to hand out, which Harper simply found funny. She sighed and steadied herself, preparing to open the file.

The young girl was a Caucasian thirteen-year-old. Red hair and freckles, just like Beth. Seemed this sicko had a type.

“This reminds me of that cold case we had a few years back,” Jill nodded. “The one with the missing girl and the Shadow Man? Maybe that corresponds to the dark man that the brother saw.”

“Don’t make any jumps right now,” Andrew scolded. “This could be different.”

Harper couldn't stop herself from biting back. "Yeah right. These details are exactly the same as the cold case. It has to be the same guy or a copycat."

“How do you know the details are the same?” Andrew demanded.

“For one, I was in town when she was taken,” Harper snapped. “I followed the case closely. It’s what got me into law enforcement.”

Not a lie.

“For two, I read the case file when I got on the force. We don’t have many cold cases here, and I wanted to see if that lined up with any of the cases that we worked on previously. I know these cases are similar, and I also know that you’re acting very defensive, Andrew. Why are you being such a butthead?”

Andrew sighed. He looked down, defeated. He knew that Harper was right.

“I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “I just… my daughter was just on that trail. It could have been her.”

Harper instantly felt like an idiot. She should have known better than to think that Andrew was being mean for any reason other than something relating to his family. He loved them so much, and the thought of something happening to them was always one of his worst fears. Harper reached out and squeezed his shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Andrew. I didn’t know.”

“They’re home safe, Andrew,” Tyler promised. “The girl that we’re looking at here isn’t your girl.”

“But it could have been.”

Harper knew exactly how that felt. That was the exact thought process that went through her head whenever she went after Beth. That's exactly how she felt when she realized that the Shadow Man took Beth and not her. She felt guilty about being left behind. The only thought in her mind for weeks was 'why me?' Why did he take Beth and not Harper? Why didn't Harper fight back harder? Why couldn't Harper find this man?

“I understand,” Harper whispered. “It’s hard to separate yourself from what we see here in our job. It’s important to remember that we’re here to do a job, and to put ourselves away from the feelings attached to this case.”

She felt like such a hypocrite saying that, but it didn’t matter. She needed Andrew’s full focus, and they needed to put the cold case and this new incident side by side if they were going to get anything done. Somehow in the back of Harper’s brain, she knew that this case was going to get her what she needed. She could feel it in her bones every time that she looked at Andrew.

He was going to help her finally put the past behind her.

"Okay," Andrew nodded, wiping some tears from the corner of his eyes. "Let's put the cases side by side. We need to compare. We can't miss anything if it is the same guy."

“I’ll get the file,” Jill cried, rushing to the storage room.

“Tyler, start preparing missing person posters. We need to put those everywhere that we can find. Poster boards at coffee shops, trees in parks, the internet, you name it. We need to get her face everywhere so if someone spots her, they’ll know to call us,” Harper ordered.

Tyler nodded and jumped on his computer, setting up a word document with everything he needed. He began typing like a madman, and Jill rushed back in with the files. Andrew laid them out side by side, and the rest of the team crowded around him. Tyler even paused on making the posters for a minute to come to look.

“Do you see any specifics that match?” Andrew asked.

“I see several,” Harper nodded. “The same evidence was left behind, and the girls were taken from the same place.”

"Yes, but in the cold case the clothes were left in a rush, in this case, they were folded neatly," Jill pointed out.

“Well in the first case, the kidnapper had an active witness,” Harper whispered. “In our case, we’re looking at someone who had no one watching him. The brother hit his head on a rock before passing out. He had time to make sure his plan was carried out.”

“There was a witness to the first case?” Jill asked.

“Yes,” Leroy reminded her. “I remember that. It was an anonymous friend. Her name was never released to the public for her protection, but she was there that night too. She saw most of it, but her witness statement was thrown out.”

Harper tensed. “What? Why?!”

Leroy sighed. "They didn't think she was credible, taking all that stuff about some shadow man, but now we have reports matching the same M.O. I felt terrible when they threw her statement out. I begged them to reconsider, but they didn't listen to me. Now, I bet all those stupid cops that moved on to the bigger city don't even remember what happened and probably don't care."

That was the angriest that Harper had ever heard Leroy. She remembered seeing him as a younger girl behind the front desk when she was being interviewed. He didn't look at her, but she had noticed him. He had dark brown hair at the time, but now his head was all silver. His mustache stayed the same, however, and that also went from brown to silver with age. Harper had seriously never seen kind Leroy ever raise his voice at anyone, which was rare in this line of work.

Now, though, he seemed completely angered.

“What do you remember, Leroy?” Tyler asked.

He rushed to a whiteboard by his desk and uncapped a marker. “If you can remember anything from her statement, we can compare what we have.”

Harper snapped her fingers. “Good idea!”

“Okay.” Leroy rubbed his mustache. “I remember that she mentioned a shadow man, like I said before. It was in the woods too, but it was nighttime. She remembered someone calling their name, so it led them off the path.”

Harper was beaming. Leroy remembered everything after so long!

Harper closed her eyes, remembering. There was someone in the woods calling their names. As young teenage girls, they truly thought that their parents were calling after them. Otherwise, they never would have left the trail, and they wouldn't have gotten lost. No one believed Harper when she swore that someone called after her.

Harper had to take some deep breaths as she realized that if someone had just believed her the first time she reported this and taken her seriously, there would have been a very good chance that she wouldn't have to deal with any of this. That the girl would be home safe in bed right now, and Beth would have walked the stage at high school with her. There was no telling what any of these things meant, and Harper tried not to focus on it.

After all, if she sat in it for a while, she would become way too enraged to work on this case. She had to maintain her calm if she wanted to give Beth any chance of being found.

“Do you remember anything else, Leroy?” Jill asked, holding the more modern case file in her hand.

"She said that she was left behind, and she didn't know why. I remember being puzzled by that as well since they were both girls. I figured that someone who was a predator would take both. However, if this is the same guy, him leaving the brother behind and just taking the sister would match his M.O. of only taking one child. Maybe that's all he wants."

“Maybe,” Harper offered up. “Anything on the case files?” She asked Jill.

"The witness statement from the brother also recalls a dark man, so that checks off with the shadow man. He said that they were called into the woods by someone who claimed to be friends with their parents and that the sister insisted they help, but the brother didn't want to go. He said that when he heard his sister scream a few feet ahead of him, he was about to turn to run and get help when he tripped and slammed his head against the rock."

Andrew looked up slowly. “Did he see the man’s face?”

“It doesn’t say that he did on the report,” Jill said, discouraged. “That would have been helpful for us to have a sketch to work off of.”

“No kidding,” Harper sighed. “It would be nice.”

Andrew didn't say anything. He looked back at the case files, and for a minute, Harper wondered if he was thinking of his daughters again. She let him think in peace.

“Well, I think we should get to work,” Harper nodded, taking charge.

"It's obvious that these cases have links, and we should match these links together. There is obviously some shadow or dark man that takes the kids. Maybe he wears a mask? Maybe he dresses in all black to hide in the shadows."

Jill scribbled these notes down on her pad as Tyler returned to the files. Jill looked from the notes on the board to her pad whenever she needed to.

"We need to interview the brother." Harper nodded. "We don't need to waste our time scanning any of the evidence he left behind for DNA, but we need to check the environment for his fingerprints. Maybe he touched a rock or a tree."

“Maybe he went back to the site?” Jill suddenly jerked up.

“What?”

Jill stood up. “Some serial killers or kidnappers return to the site of the killing. Weren’t their search parties for the first girl? Maybe the killer was in one of those search parties.”

Harper snapped her fingers at Jill. Personally, Harper couldn’t believe she didn’t come up with that herself, but it didn’t matter now.

“That’s absolutely brilliant. Leroy, can you pull up a copy of the search party roster?”

“On it.”

Harper already felt better. She was in charge now, making moves. She knew what to look for; she knew what was needed. She knew how to catch this son of a gun. She did, and she would. She just knew it. She had to. She owed it to Beth. She could feel the buzz of electricity among her colleagues, who also seemed to be just as pumped by this case as Harper was. However, she realized that she felt the gaze of someone on the back of her head. It was almost as if they were trying to set the back of her head on fire with their eyes.

When she turned, Andrew didn’t even try to hide it.

He was glaring at her.

Harper had no idea what his problem was with her. He seemed off the entire time they had been discussing the case, which Harper knew was weird already, but she'd never seen Andrew this way. She wanted to confront him, to demand to know what was wrong with him, but she also didn't want to seem like a rude coworker again. The last time she confronted him and he swore it was because of his girls, she felt like a butthead. She didn't want to feel that way again, but Beth and the little girl who was just taken didn't have time for this workplace drama. Harper owed it to them to be better, to be kinder.

“Andrew?” She asked.

He shook his head suddenly as if realizing he was zoning out. When he saw Harper looking at him with wide eyes, he laughed uneasily.

“Oh, Harper.” He smiled. “I’m sorry, my mind was elsewhere.”

For some reason, this made Harper mad. His mind shouldn’t be anywhere else but the victims of these crimes. She wanted to tear him a new one so he never felt the need to let his mind go elsewhere, but she didn’t. Instead, she swallowed her pride and forced a smile onto her face.

“Oh. Well, you were glaring at me with such a vengeance that I was afraid you were mad at me.”

"Oh, of course not!" Andrew smiled back. "Why would I ever be mad at you?"

Because I’m so much better than you, Harper thought to herself. She shrugged.

“I have no idea.”

“Okay, so let’s get a plan together,” Jill called over to the entire precinct. “Let’s get cracking on this case. We don’t have any time to waste.”

Harper suddenly found herself wishing that she and Jill were the ones working on this case.

“Okay,” Jill chimed in. “I think the first thing we should do is interview the brother.”

Andrew crossed his arms. “But he doesn’t remember anything. We don’t need to waste our time with him.”

“You never know.” Harper nodded at Jill. “We could end up jogging his memory. I think it’s a great idea to interview him.”

"Well, I hate to say it, ladies, but I don't think it is." Andrew shook his head.

“I agree with the girls,” Leroy nodded. “We have a witness. The last witness wasn’t taken seriously, and if she had been, there could definitely be a chance that this wouldn’t have happened. We should go over what he remembers at least.”

“Yeah,” Tyler smiled. “That’s a great idea. I’m going to call his parents to bring him down here for a statement.”

Andrew mumbled something under his breath and walked to the water cooler. Jill walked over to Harper, looking pale.

“What the heck is his problem?” Jill hissed.

“I know,” Harper responded. “I have no idea who crapped in his Cheerios, but I won’t let it affect the case.”

“It seems like every idea we come up with he hates,” Jill admitted. “Am I just that bad of a detective?”

“No,” Harper immediately bit back. “You’re great at what you do. Don’t let him get you down.”

Jill smiled, and Harper hadn't realized just how upset Andrew had made Jill. She was always wondering if she was good enough to get promoted even when she was brand new. But Harper thought that when Jill had helped with the Graves case that all of her self-doubt would go away. Obviously, that was not the case. She was still upset and certainly, a little hung up on what the senior officer thought of her.

“He’ll be coming down to the precinct in the next thirty minutes,” Tyler hung up the phone and nodded. “They would have been here sooner, but they have to get him to calm down.”

“See, you’re just traumatizing him even more,” Andrew argued. “He already gave his statement. He doesn’t need to come down. I’m the lead investigator, and I say this is a waste of time.”

“You’re not the sole investigator,” Harper barked, her voice rising. “I am also your co-leader, and I say it’s not. Not to mention, the rest of your men and women think the idea is worthwhile.”

"Well, Leroy was on the last case and it wasn't solved, so it's not like we're working with superstars here."

Leroy grimaced. His mustache nearly wilted in sadness, like a cartoon. Harper’s anger flared up inside her without remorse. She was about to tear Andrew a new butt, and he didn’t have an option. It was one thing to make Harper mad, but it was another to drag her people into this.

“Oh, would you shut up?!” She growled. She jammed her pointer finger in his chest.

“If I recall, you were also in that cold case, so you have no room to talk. I don’t know if you're thinking of your daughters right now, but that’s no excuse to treat the rest of us like this. You’re actively going out of your way to infringe on the investigation, and it’s a giant pain in my rear end. So either shut the heck up,” she demanded, “or leave.”

Andrew looked shocked. He looked down at Harper’s finger, which was resting on his chest, and shook his head.

“I… the chief put me in charge. You can’t tell me to leave.”

Harper smirked and tilted her head to the side. “I can if I tell him how worried you are about your girls’ safety. You’re letting your personal feelings cloud your judgment, and that seems to definitely be affecting your skills as a police officer. I could sell that case easier than a chocolate bar to a child, and I have the whole precinct backing me up.”

Andrew blubbered with his words. He was red in the face with a combination of what Harper was certain was both humiliation and anger. He looked from Harper to the rest of the people in the precinct before screaming,

“YOU DON’T KNOW A THING ABOUT WHAT I’M THINKING!”

His voice echoed off of the walls, and no one said a word. Harper didn’t flinch by his shouting since she was rather happy that she got under his skin. Jill seemed a little stunned by the rudeness of his screaming, and Leroy smirked.

It seemed Harper wasn’t the only one who wanted to get under his skin.

Tyler, however, was nowhere to be seen.

Harper looked out of the corner of her eye. Tyler was standing in the doorway, holding the hand of a young boy. He had a Batman Band-Aid on his forehead, and he was clutching a stuffed bunny like it had the secret to life stuffed inside it. He seemed fine, but the second that he heard Andrew’s voice, he paled. His parents, who were standing back by the door, looked enraged that Andrew was screaming inside of the building and in front of their son, despite no one knowing that he was even in the building.

Harper moved down to fix her uniform and accepted the little boy with open arms when he suddenly pointed at Andrew, screamed, and turned into Tyler.

Harper and Jill narrowed their eyes in shock. Tyler held the little boy tightly as he looked at the parents in confusion. Leroy stood up from his desk and moved forward.

"I'm sorry, honey," he said in his best grandpa voice. "We didn't mean to scare you. It's okay, I promise."

Still, the boy wouldn't pull himself out of Tyler's arms. When Tyler tried to gently guide him out into the precinct, he wouldn't budge. He was gripping Tyler's uniform so tightly that if Harper were to try to pry him away, she would fear for the integrity of Tyler's uniform. She looked at the parents and slowly walked over to them.

“I am deeply sorry to do this to you,” she apologized.

The boy's mother was in a cardigan, wrapped tightly around herself. She was in sweats, and her husband was also dressed in comfortable clothes. They both had red eyes and tear-stained faces, looking like they had aged twenty years overnight. Harper gently reached out and put her hand on the mother's shoulder.

“I hate to bring you into this precinct again, and I promise we are doing everything that we can to find your daughter. Now, if you could tell us why your son is panicking and maybe get him to talk to us, that would be great.”

“I don’t know why he’s acting like this,” the mother offered in an exhausted tone. “He’s never like this.”

Harper smiled sympathetically. “No worries, mam. Really. He went through something traumatic, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was acting differently.”

The mother nodded. “I guess so.”

“Is there anything that you guys tell him to help him calm down? A lullaby of any kind, a song?”

The father snapped his fingers. “He has a bear in the car, I told him to leave it in there because I thought it would distract him.”

“I would go get it if I were you,” Harper spoke gently, trying to encourage the father without being too pushy. “Anything we can do to make sure that your son is comfortable is important to us.”

The father nodded and darted to the car. Harper and the mother of the child slowly walked forward. She knelt beside Tyler and the boy, whispering.

“Kaison, baby,” the mother asked. “Could you please listen to the cop lady for a second?”

The boy, or Kaison, began to cry. However, for the first time, he started screaming a phrase.

“The dark man!” He screamed. He pointed one of his chubby little fingers out.

“The dark man is here!”

Harper followed the boy's finger. The seven-year-old’s chubby hands were shaking as he pointed forward.

It was pointing toward Andrew.

Chapter Three

The precinct went quiet. Harper stood slowly, putting herself between Kaison and Andrew. Jill was standing perfectly still behind Andrew, the case files in her hand. The mother glared at Andrew, and Leroy nearly dropped the Expo marker in his hand. When the father dashed in to see the precinct nearly frozen in place, he glared at his wife.

“What did I miss?”

“Kaison,” Harper asked quietly. “What did you say?”

“Dark man,” he was screaming so bad that his throat sounded scratchy. “Dark man, dark man.”

Andrew was pale. His hands were up, palm facing out in a surrender mechanic. Harper could tell that the father was going to lunge forward, so she turned and held her arm out in front of the father.

"Sir," she barked. "Stay still. I am begging you, for the sake of your son and daughter, let us handle this."

The father was having trouble breathing. His face was red with rage as he glared at Andrew.

“Why does my son think he is the ‘dark man,’ mam?” He growled.

“I don’t know,” Harper offered. “But we will figure it out.”

She jumped into action. She couldn’t continue to let this boy be scared, but she needed to know what was going on here. She looked at Tyler, who still had a death grip on the child.

“Take him with his family to a questioning room. I’ll be there in a second.”

Tyler nodded. He went back into a questioning room, followed by the mother. The father still stood there, glaring at Andrew. He took a few more breaths before following his family back into the room for questioning.

Now it was just Jill, Andrew, Leroy, and Harper in the room.

“Jill, bring the family some food,” Harper ordered.

Jill didn’t waste any time. She listened, rushing toward the snack room with everything she needed in her hands. Leroy didn’t look like he was going to budge, so Harper didn’t order him away. Frankly, she didn’t want to send him away, so it ended up working out just fine.

“Andrew,” Harper whispered, “Why did that boy think you were the dark man?”

“How the heck would I know?!” He cried. He was still pale, a sad expression dragging his cheeks down. “I’ve never seen that boy in my life.”

“Clearly, he has seen you,” Leroy offered.

Andrew shook his head. “He must be getting me confused with someone else. I have no idea what this kid is talking about. None.”

Harper and Leroy exchanged glances. Harper didn’t like the places that her brain was jumping the more she thought about the situation. Andrew had actively been trying to slow down the investigation, or it at least had seemed that way. He was being snippy with everyone, and he was judging everyone’s ideas and theories. Now, the only witness to the crime came in and recognized Andrew by his face or voice. Whatever it was, it was bad enough to leave the poor boy screaming into Tyler’s shirt.

"Come on, guys," Andrew begged. "You know me. Why are you even considering trusting the child over me?"

Harper narrowed her eyes. She didn't like the way he phrased the question. She knew he was under a lot of pressure at the moment, but that wasn't an excuse for him to say weird stuff like that. Of course, Harper would listen to the victim first, even if the child had blamed her. After all, she had nothing to hide. If the child thought she was the dark man, it could lead to them either figuring out a good clue that could help them narrow their options, or it could eliminate an unreliable witness from their books. Either way, it was a messy situation that Harper would have handled a lot better than Andrew was currently.

She chewed on her bottom lip.

“Harper, come on,” Andrew begged.

She found it funny that he was begging her to listen to him now, though just moments ago he was shouting at her and being rude. She crossed her arms, trying to figure out where to go with this. Andrew kept looking between Leroy and Harper, trying to find whoever person would take him the most seriously. Harper waited for a second before she realized exactly what she had to do.

“Andrew,” she asked kindly, “Where were you three nights ago?”

Andrew looked stunned. “At home with my family, why?”

Harper glared at him. “You know why.”

Andrew looked completely insulted. “Oh, really? Are you accusing me of taking that girl?!”

“We’re just following protocol here,” Leroy reminded Andrew. “You would be doing the same thing to us if the roles were reversed.”

"No, I wouldn't!" Andrew threw his hands in the air. "I would listen to my partners over a kid any day!"

“Then you’re not a good cop,” Harper bit back.

Andrew winced. He looked down at the ground. Harper knew she was right, but the more she thought about it, the more it seemed it was entirely possible that she may have crossed a line with Andrew. Suggesting he was a bad cop just because he was panicking, and reasonably so, wasn’t something that she should be doing. She inhaled and exhaled, steadying herself.

“I’m sorry,” she offered. “I shouldn’t have said that. I can’t imagine what it’s like being you right now.”

Andrew could only nod.

“Leroy, will you help him get his alibi and statement ready just in case?” Harper asked. “I’m going to go interview the boy. I’ll send Jill out here in a second to help, okay?”

Leroy nodded, gesturing for Andrew to sit in the front of Leroy's desk. Andrew took a moment, but he still sat down nonetheless. It must have been weird for him to sit down on the opposite side of the desk when the rest of the precinct was entirely used to sitting behind the desk with the computers and paperwork. The front of the desk was for victims and convicts, not friends in blue.

Harper didn’t stick around to watch.

She turned on her heel and walked toward the back room where Tyler had taken the boy and the family. She prepared the questions in her head before she slowly opened the door with the most welcoming smile she could muster on her face.

"Hi, honey," she cooed to the boy. "My name is Miss Harper. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?"

The boy was draped in a blanket and clutching his bear as tight as he could. He wasn’t letting Tyler out of his sight, obviously, seeing that Tyler had pulled a chair around to sit with Kaison. His parents were also sitting beside him, eyes watered and scared. The father immediately jumped up and pointed an accusing finger at Harper.

“Are you arresting that man?” He demanded.

“Sir,” Harper warned, “Sit down. Now.”

The father sat down in a huff, obviously upset. Harper understood his anger - she was once exactly where he was. However, she of all people knew that he needed to be strong for the other people in his life. She shot him a look for a moment, trying to convey that he needed to calm down before she sat down on the other side of the desk. Kaison was looking at the floor, holding the bear and blanket as tight as he could. He was shivering, but Harper had a feeling that wasn't because he was cold. Regardless, she leaned a little over the table.

“It’s cold in here,” she whispered. “Do you want me to let the heat come in?”

Kaison shook his head. “No, I’m warm.”

"Then why are you shivering?!" The father demanded.

Harper glared at him.

“Do you need to step outside?” She asked him kindly.

The father glared at her, but Harper didn’t even waver. She just stared at him for a long time before he sighed.

“No. I need to be here for my son.”

“Good,” Harper nodded. “Please remember that next time you think about obstructing our investigation.”

Harper didn’t look at him when she said it, hoping that he would understand that she wasn’t saying a threat and was instead explaining that she had to obey the due process of law. If he continued to try to make things worse by yelling at Harper and trying to tell her how to do her job, she would have to arrest him.

The father, however, seemed to understand.

He leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Okay, cool. Got it.”

Harper nodded and then again proceeded to let her face reflect nothing but kindness for the boy. She smiled and began to talk.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

“It’s Kaison,” he offered.

“That’s a super cool name,” Harper smiled. “It sounds like a superhero name.”

Slowly but surely, Kaison was lowering the blanket and revealing more of his face. “You really think so? Some kids at school make fun of me for it.”

"That's just because they don't understand superheroes," Harper shrugged. "I mean, come on. When was the last time you met a superhero named Bob? Or Joe?"

Kaison smiled, but only a little bit. “I’ve never met a superhero named Bob or Joe.”

Harper winked. “Exactly. Now Kaison, speaking of superheroes, I heard that you were a hero the other night.”

The young boy shook his head. Tears welled in his eyes. "No, I wasn't. I let the dark man take my sister."

Harper chewed on her cheek before trying a different approach.

“Baby, you survived. You hid so well that the dark man couldn’t find you. Now you’re here, and you’re helping us! You’re being a hero right now as we speak.”

“But I couldn’t stop him from taking my sister,” Kaison whispered again. “I’m not a hero.”

Harper noticed the Batman Band-Aid and smirked.

“Did Bruce Wayne stop the man from hurting his parents that night?”

Kaison shook his head. “N-No.”

“What did he do?”

“He watched them die and didn’t do anything.”

Harper held up her hand. “Ah, not true. In that moment, son, he became something bigger. He became Batman. To others, it may have looked like he didn't do anything, but that's because he was young. He grew up to be so much stronger and save so many more people, just like you will. Just because you were too young to save your sister doesn't mean you can't help the grown-ups save her now."

Kaison looked up with a smile on his face.

“So… if I help you now, I can be like Batman?”

“Oh,” Harper laughed.

“You could be even better than Batman.”

Chapter Four

Kaison looked down at his hands. It looked to Harper like the boy was truly trying to remember anything he could. He was fiddling with his thumbs and the hem of his shirt, and his eyes were squinted shut. His parents watched him in shock as Harper pressed her lips together. Harper prayed hard that he would remember something, anything, that could help her. Sadly, he yanked his head up quickly and nearly began to wail.

"I'm sorry!" He cried. "I don't know! I don't remember anything. I'm so sorry!"

Harper closed her eyes and inhaled. She had to stop herself from screaming. She knew that if she did anything to upset the little boy, it would just be that much harder to get him to focus and do what he needed to do. She balled her hands into fists, pressing each of her nails into her palms one at a time. She felt her nail leave indents in the skin of her pal, pressing so tightly against the layer of skin that she was certain she drew blood. Then she slowly removed each finger, one at a time, until her hands were flat on the table.

The cold steel of the table chilled the crescent moon cuts on her palms as she smiled at Kaison. She was trying her best to remain calm. If Kaison didn't give her anything at all, she would not only look like a fool for wanting to interview him, but Andrew would drag her through the mud for that comment she made about him not being a real cop. She had to do this now, and she had to get what she wanted from the kid, whether he wanted to remember it or not. She rolled her neck and tried again.

“Kaison, honey, “she offered, “It’s okay. Why don’t you just tell me what you did that day? From the moment you woke up?”

Kaison rubbed the tears from his face with his cute little hand. He sniffled and nodded, earning him an encouraging pat on the back from Tyler.

“I got up because Mommy told me that I shouldn’t sleep the day away,” Tyler nodded. “So I cleaned up my toys from the night before and made my bed. I was supposed to clean up the toys the night before, but I didn’t. Mommy told me I could do it today and I wouldn’t get in trouble, so I did. Then I came downstairs and had pancakes for breakfast with strawberries and blueberries. Gina had some too.”

“Is Gina your sister?’” Harper asked.

She already knew the answer. She had read the case file. She knew the girl they were going after was Gina Harris, but she wanted to hear it from Kaison himself.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

Harper nodded. “Okay, keep going.”

“After breakfast, Gina and I colored on our table because it was too hot to play outside.”

Harper nodded, making note of that. It was true that the high that day was in the nineties, which was something that Harper despised. She hated the heat, but it was summer on the little island they all called home. The nineties were luckily the highest that the temperatures usually reached here, but still. Harper nodded in approval at the mother for not letting her kids play out in the horrible heat, unlike her own parents, who used to kick Harper outside at all hours of the day and demand she get some sunshine even if it was hot outside.

“I colored a red bird, and Gina colored a shark,” Kaison remembered. “Then, she asked me if I’d ever heard of the Shadow Man.”

Harper froze. She looked at the parents, but they also seemed just as stunned as Harper was. Evidently, this was the first time they were hearing any mention of the Shadow Man as well.

Harper wrote that down on her pad and continued to act as normal as she could at that second.

“Okay,” Harper smiled. “Tell me more.”

“Well, she said that every night she would look out to the woods, she saw someone standing by her window,” Kaison explained. “She said he was her friend, the Shadow Man.”

Harper felt all the blood drain from her face. While, in a way, she was extremely excited to have this new information, she didn't like what it implied. That implied that Gina was watched before she was taken.

It was premeditated, and in her innocence, Gina didn't know.

Was Beth watched? Was Harper watched?

Was it always about Beth and Harper was simply a problem that he dealt with? Is that why she was left?

Harper felt sick.

If someone was watching Gina before she was taken, it could mean so many different things. It could mean that it was premeditated, and in fact, it was almost a certainty now. This put the kidnapper in an entirely different light. If he watched the girls before he took them, then he took the time to plan it. He took the time to create a trap. He took his time; he thought about it. He dreamed about it.

He.

Planned.

It.

Harper forced herself to breathe. She could feel that she wasn’t breathing. She was so focused on her anger, on what happened with both Beth and now Gina, that she was probably scaring the daylights out of Kaison. She inhaled, then exhaled. Inhaled, exhaled. Then, she blinked a few times. She tried to force a smile on her face, but it just wasn’t coming on to her face. She shook her head and pretended to be swarmed with a headache to cover her bases.

“Are you okay?” Kaison asked.

Harper nodded, lying. “I just had a headache for a moment, honey,” She promised. “Keep going.”

Tyler was already shooting off a text message on his phone, surely to Jill or any other members of the force to tell them what they found out. Now, they were going to have to keep moving on to the next parts of the interview, which Harper had to admit she wasn't looking forward to. At this point, the situation was definitely turning for the worse. She was looking at a child who was giving her so much more than she expected, and yet he hadn't even made a point to tell her what pushed him over the edge. What pushed him to scream out in utter terror at Andrew and point to him as the 'dark man,' or as the sister coined, the Shadow Man himself.

Harper found it strange that he was also called the Shadow Man by Gina. Harper gave the Shadow Man his name purely because that was who he was; a man made of shadow. There was nothing more to it other than the simplicity of who he was. Now though, Harper had a hunch that she was going to work with.

“Kaison, I have a quick question,” Harper raised her hand as if she was a child in class. “Did your sister tell you why she came up with that name?”

“What do you mean?”

“Did the Shadow Man tell her to call him that?” She asked with a smile, “Or did she just do that?”

Kaison shrugged, and Harper felt the urge to slam her fist down on the table. She knew that she shouldn't. It would not only scare the daylights out of Kaison but also the parents. Instead, she forced yet another smile onto her face and nodded.

"Thank you, sweetie. Continue with your day."

Kaison nodded and furrowed his brow again, dragging the new memories into the light. He was thinking hard about it, there was no doubt about that. He sat for a second, saying nothing, before nodding.

“So then, she showed me her drawing of the Shadow Man.” He frowned. “He was tall and covered with shadows. He was, like, at least eight feet tall!”

Harper chewed on her bottom lip. She knew that kids were ones to make things seem like so much more than what they were, so eight feet probably meant six feet.

She couldn’t shake the alarm bell in her head reminding her that Andrew was six foot two.

“Did she ever remember him wearing something specific?” Harper asked. “Like any jewelry, any lights?”

Kaison shook his head. "Nope! He was just all shadow. Nothing but spooky scary!" He giggled as if this wasn't the man who had taken his sister.

That's when Harper realized that he probably didn't see the Shadow Man as the man who took his sister. The man who took his sister was the 'dark man.' The Shadow Man was simply a man who played with his sister at night or stood watch over her bed. At least, that's how it was painted in Kaison's innocent child mind.

“Did the Shadow Man ever talk to your sister?” Harper asked.

Kaison nodded. “He talked to her before she would fall asleep,” he began. “She told me that he would sing her songs and tell her stories. He always made sure she slept well and never let any of the monsters get her!”

Tyler glared at the parents, whether he meant to or not. “Did you know about this?” He demanded.

The mother nodded, distraught. “God, I just thought it was an imaginary friend she made up… how was I supposed to know that they were…”

Harper held up a hand. It was a signal to Tyler to shut down whatever was going on there. She didn't want Kaison to think that they were actually talking about the man that took their child. She would have to talk to the parents one on one in the future, of course, but not now. No, right now they needed to focus on getting Kaison to tell them what he knew. He knew more than he was willing to let on, that much was obvious. He just didn't know that he knew such vital information, such is the way of being young.

Harper smiled gently at Kaison to get his attention as Tyler signaled to the parents to cut it out. They were getting somewhere with the kid, and the parents didn’t need to mess it up by talking. Harper felt bad for considering that the parents were messing something up when their daughter’s life was at stake, but Harper knew better. They were all on the same team here.

“Tell me about the monsters in your sister's room,” Harper tried. “What did the Shadow Man protect her from?”

"Well, of course, the closet monster and the monster under her bed," Kaison nodded as if this was common knowledge.

Harper supposed for a child that this was common knowledge.

“Also, he helped calm her down when mommy and daddy were fighting.”

Kaison's parents stiffened. Harper shot them a sideways glance, and Tyler raised his eyebrow. Harper wrote that down, just as another memory of Beth climbed into her head. Beth's parents had always struggled with their marriage. The amount of domestic disturbance calls to that house probably funded the police precinct back then. The whole family was on a first-name basis with the officers.

Was the Shadow Man targeting broken families? It would certainly be easier to lure a child away from a broken home than one that was full of love and light. Harper was gripping her pencil so tight that her fingers ached, but she forced herself to calm down. She made a note to the side to look at the old case, that way she didn’t forget her idea. Then, she continued listening.

“Well, that’s awfully nice of the Shadow Man,” Harper smiled.

“Yeah,” Kaison clapped his little hands together. “I wish I had a Shadow Man. When she showed me the pictures, I told her how lucky she was. All I have is Tony the Tiger, my stuffie. He’s my best friend.”

Kaison held up the bear that his father brought in, which caused a look of confusion to wash over Harper’s face. When she looked at the parents, they smiled.

“He named him when he was four,” the mother whispered. “Everything was a tiger back then.”

Harper chuckled. “Of course.”

Then, Harper leaned over the table again. She smiled sweetly at Kaison, trying to get him closer and closer to the night when Gina was taken.

“So, tell me what happened after she showed you the Shadow Man picture,” she demanded.

“I told her that I wanted a Shadow Man too!” Kaison cried out, as if Harper should know that. “She told me that I could have one if I followed her into the woods that night, but I told her she was just trying to scare me. We usually go outside at night to play Devil in the Dark, a game where we play hide and seek with flashlights. It’s super fun!”

Harper nodded. “It sounds fun.”

"Well, she pinky promised me that she wasn't going to scare me and that I shouldn't be a chicken. She asked me to go outside with her, and I said I would. I left Tony the Tiger in my room to guard it against the monsters while I was gone. We left out the back door really quietly, so we didn't wake daddy, who was sleeping on the couch."

The father shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

Harper tried her best not to judge the parents. Every marriage has its problems, that much was obvious. She just had a special hatred deep-seated in her heart for couples that fought in front of their children, or so loudly that the children would hear. She had no idea what was so important that couples needed to wail about it in front of innocent children, and it never sat right with her. If they needed to shout, they needed to take it somewhere else. She didn't make eye contact with the parents as their son kept talking, that way she knew for certain that she was keeping her facial expressions in check.

"So we went out into the woods," Kaison kept explaining. "We were skipping, holding hands when we heard a deep voice call out to Gina."

Harper sat up straight as a pole. Her hand froze over her pad, and for a second, she didn’t feel right. The deep voice that called for Gina knew she was going outside that night? How? Unless he was stalking her house every night, they had planned this. Did Kaison know that? Was he going to say something about the Shadow Man or the ‘dark man?’ The lines were blurring together, and it was making Harper confused. Her brain was desperately trying to piece everything together.

"I asked her who that was, and she said it was the Shadow Man. She said that she was taking me to meet him because she wanted him to read us a story. He told her the night before to meet him outside, and we did. She told me to follow her, but I got scared. I didn't like his voice. It sounded scary. I started to walk away, but the voice got closer. Then I saw the outline of the dark man."

Harper narrowed her eyes. “The dark man? Are you sure it wasn’t the Shadow Man?”

Kaison nodded, entirely confident in his answers. "I'm certain. The Shadow Man is kind. The dark man… told Gina to come to him. She got scared and screamed, and I took off running. That's when he started chasing after us. He had heavy footsteps, and he jingled when he ran."

Harper scribbled all of this down.

"That's when I slipped. I don't remember much after that. When I woke up, Gina was gone. I knew the dark man had taken her. I tried to ask where the Shadow Man was because I thought he could help. But then we came in here, and I heard the dark man's voice again. That's why I started crying."

Harper’s hand was aching from all the writing she had been doing. She was happy that it was being recorded just in case she missed anything important. She looked at Tyler from the corner of her eye. This kid was basically admitting that Andrew sounded like the dark man. Whether or not Andrew was actually the dark man wasn’t relevant - he sounded enough like that monster to make Kaison break down in the middle of the precinct in front of the police. Something wasn’t adding up here.

“So, Kaison,” Harper smiled. “Are you absolutely certain that was the voice you heard in the woods?”

He nodded, wasting no time. “I promise. That was his voice.”

Harper sighed. She didn’t want what was coming, but she knew that she owed it to this sweet, scared little boy to find the answers. She smiled at him and stood up slowly, rolling her neck and cracking her knuckles before whispering in Tyler’s ear.

"I need to talk to the parents. Occupy Kaison for a while. Instruct Jill to keep Andrew off to the side and tell her to monitor them. Make sure that she tells me if he calls anyone or messages anyone. I need to know how he reacts to this, understand?"

Tyler nodded. Then, he turned back to Kaison with the biggest smile on his face. Harper heard him mention something about police cars, followed by intense clapping from Kaison himself. He was laughing now, which made Harper smile. He was happy, and truthfully that was all that mattered.

“Can we take our son home now?” The mother asked, wringing her hands. “Please?”

Harper tilted her head to the side and side. She rubbed the back of her neck. She always hated this part, but she needed all the information. The psychology of children often held the truths inside, masked by innocence. If the parents thought she was going to overlook the Shadow Man thing, they were wrong.

“Not yet. I need to talk to you two now.”

“Why?” The father asked. “We don’t know anything.”

Harper held her hands up. “Sir, you’re not in trouble. I just need all the information that I can have if we want to ensure your daughter’s survival, okay?”

The father chewed on this. He was obviously hurt that Harper was implying that he was at fault for what happened to his daughter. This is what people often thought of whenever they were asked to be interviewed, and that always bothered Harper. Sometimes she did have to interview someone because they were a person of interest, but that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes, she had to do it because she needed to gather every bit of information that she could.

“So, Kaison told me that you were having marital problems?” Harper started the conversation.

She knew that if she opened the story, they could take off with it and give her the rest of the information she needed. Sure enough, the mother rolled her eyes, and the father crossed his arms.

“Yeah? What’s it to you?”

“It means everything to me right now,” Harper snapped. “If your daughter was so upset by your fighting that she sought comfort in the appearance of the Shadow Man, who took her, then I need to know what was happening.”

“The Shadow Man didn’t take her,” the mother said. “The dark man did. That’s what Kaison said.”

Harper stared at this woman in disbelief.

"It's the same person," Harper leveled her tone. "Your son just doesn't know the difference in his innocence. A man was standing outside your daughter's window each night grooming her until he was ready to take her. That's why she went out to meet him with your son. The only reason your son didn't call the dark man the Shadow Man is because he associates the Shadow Man with good and not the evil that he is."

The mother fell ashen. She looked paler than a sheet as she realized, truthfully, just how stupid she sounded.

“Now, please, tell me about your home life.”

Harper had to watch her words carefully. If she blamed the parents' failing love life for Gina’s being taken, then it wouldn’t only be entirely unfair, it would make them defensive. She needed to make it seem like she was on the same side.

“My wife and I have been having some issues,” the father sighed. “We fight over money, really.”

“And your drinking.”

The father inhaled sharply. It sounded like a whistle.

“You’re bringing this up here?”

“The detective told us to tell the truth,” The mother wailed. “Our daughter is missing because of us, Jared! Because of our screaming! She sought solace in the arms of a complete stranger standing out of her freaking window because she didn’t think she could ask us to read her a bedtime story!” The wife was screaming now, throwing her arms around and sobbing. “We failed her. We failed her!”

The wife was sobbing now, slamming her tiny fists into her husband's chest. Harper stepped to intervene, but the husband just caught her hands. He sighed, pulling her closer to him. Harper pressed her lips together as she realized this was not the first time they had this fight.

"Honey," he whispered, petting her hair as she cried into his chest. "It's okay. We're going to find her. I'm…" He paused. "I'm sorry."

Then, he turned to Harper. He looked dead inside, and Harper didn’t blame him.

"We argue over money because… I spend all of it on booze. I gamble when I'm drunk, and I'm always determined to win everything back that I lose. I put our family in debt, and she's just trying to keep me on track, but I don't want to listen. I've been to two AA meetings back to back, but it's… it's hard."

Harper nodded. “I understand. It can be difficult.”

Harper smiled at them. "I know this is a dark time. Being there for one another is going to become essential. You need to have a united front. That way Kaison knows he can come to you from here on. That can help prevent anything happening in the future."

The parents nodded, saying nothing.

"I promise you, Kaison gave us some brilliant insight. That is going to help us catch the guy, I'm positive."

She couldn’t tell the family why she was positive, why she knew that this time things would be different. She couldn’t explain that now with the old case and the new things staring back at her, she could piece together the puzzle that’s been eating at her from the moment her best friend was taken from her life. Instead, she could only offer her services as a detective, and keep the parents' chin up. She couldn’t imagine what was happening in their minds.

The best thing she could do was calm them down to the best of her current abilities.

“You can take Kaison home. Here’s my card.” She handed the father her card. “Call me if he remembers anything else, anything at all.”

The father, or Jared, nodded, swallowing. After a moment, he glared at Harper.

“What are you going to do about that man out there?”

Harper felt her stomach twist. She put it off long enough. Now, the time to confront him was here. She had to handle it, whether she wanted to or not.

She dipped her head to the father as if she was a cowboy from the old west, offering them a reassuring smile.

“I’ll handle it. I promise.”

Chapter Five

Harper entered the main room rather slowly. Jill looked relieved to see her, and Harper would be lying if she said she wasn't excited to see her friend too. She watched Tyler hand over Kaison to his parents and give the little boy his card. Harper chuckled to herself, knowing that Tyler would, in some ways, regret that. Still, it gave Kaison peace of mind, and that was invaluable right now.

Leroy was sitting behind his desk, still staring at the old case. His brow was furrowed, so deep in thought that he almost didn’t hear Harper walking up toward him.

“I have notes on the new case that can compare to the old one,” she promised. She handed him her notebook and smiled.

“Take a look if you want.”

Leroy took it and scanned over it with wide eyes.

“You think it was premeditated?”

Jill nearly fell onto the ground from shock. She stared at Harper and Leroy, then back to Tyler.

“Wait, what?! Catch me up!”

“Kaison swore that the Shadow Man stood outside the window of his sister's room and helped her fall asleep when her parents were fighting. I remember from the old case that the victims' parents were fighting as well.”

“Yes,” Leroy nodded. “The mother even accused the father of taking the little girl off to hurt the mother.”

Harper remembered that mess. She wondered if that couple was even still married at this point.

“So, you’re thinking that the Shadow Man stalks homes with marital problems that have daughters?” Jill asked.

"Yes," Harper nodded. "That's my current working theory. I think he monitors a home and waits, builds a rapport of trust with the children, and convinces them to come outside. I think that from there, he takes them."

“That’s a very specific set of criteria to take a child,” Leroy nodded.

“A girl,” Harper corrected him. “He took the girl both times. If he didn’t have a preference, he would have talked to both Kaison and Gina. Kaison swore in his interview that he never met the Shadow Man. In fact, the only reason he came with Gina that night was to meet this Shadow Man.”

“Then why did he say it was the 'dark' man?" Jill asked.

“He separated ‘the good’ of Shadow Man, the kind friend who helps his sister go to sleep, from the man that took her,” Harper explained. “It’s probably a response associated with childhood trauma.”

Jill nodded. Then, she rubbed the back of her neck.

“What did he say about Andrew?”

Harper sighed. “He swore up and down that he recognized the voice. He said he knew it from the attack, that he sounded like the dark man. He didn’t backpedal once, even when I asked if he was sure.”

“But Andrew has an alibi,” Jill shook her head. “He was with his wife all night.”

Harper frowned. His wife could have been lying to protect him, as spouses often did. Kaison swore up and down that he heard that voice. Harper also remembered the boy saying that he jingled when he ran, like keys or something else. Andrew was a cop; he very well could have had keychains and so much more on his belt. Harper wasn't sure why he could keep it on, but she wasn't going to question Kaison's recount.

“That’s not exactly the strongest alibi,” Harper whispered.

Jill inhaled sharply. Harper knew that Jill agreed with her, but she also knew that Jill was much too scared to say anything. Jill wasn’t as sure of her standing in the precinct as Harper was. If Jill made a show of supporting Harper’s distaste for Andrew at the moment, and it turned out that anyone within the precinct turned traitor and told Andrew, Jill was always certain that her job was on the line. So, Harper just smiled and refused to push. She didn’t want to put Jill under fire.

Harper pressed her hand to her lips and tried to think. If she accused Andrew and he was innocent, it could look like a political move made by herself to try to take Andrew's position away from him. She didn't have enough to try him right now. She hated that, but she knew the way the world worked. At the moment, she only had the word of a small child. While most of what he said was invaluable information and gave great insight into the case, she was terrified that if she confronted Andrew about it that the little boy's statement could be thrown out. Andrew had been in the game longer than Harper.

Harper was better, of course, but that didn't mean anything when it came to connections. Andrew was friends with lawyers, judges, paralegals even. In this small town, it was about who knew who in some of these moments instead of who had the evidence.

Harper knew she had to keep her cards close to her chest.

“I know that face,” Jill smiled. “That’s your thinking face. What are you planning?”

Harper smiled back. “I’m just trying to come up with one of the better ways of doing this. Like you said, Andrew had an alibi. The child was traumatized, so I’m not going to have an actual accusation leveled against him on the word of a child.”

“A witness,” Leroy argued.

Harper turned slowly and winked at him.

Leroy grinned and went back to his work.

“Okay,” Jill said, seemingly catching on to the vibe in the precinct. She placed her hand on her hip. “So, what are we going to do?”

“I’m going to talk to Andrew,” Harper nodded, “And then we’re going to have a meeting. We need to talk about what we learned.”

And catch Andrew in a lie.

Chapter Six

When Harper walked into the second interrogation room, Andrew flung the chair back in a rage. His eyes were rabid, and his eyes were wide. It was almost as if he was trying to set Harper on fire with his gaze.

“You better have good news for me,” he growled.

Harper raised her hands in defense and shot him a warning gaze. “Calm down. Watch your words here, Andrew. You’re not in trouble, I just don’t like being threatened.”

“That wasn’t a freaking threat,” Andrew groaned.

“Oh yeah?” Harper scoffed. “And what exactly would you have done if I hadn’t brought you good news?”

Andrew pressed his lips together. He was thinking for a second before sighing and leaning back against the wall.

"Come on Harper, cut me some slack. I've been pinned in this room for so long, unable to help the little girl because of a stupid misunderstanding. I need to be out there. I need to be in here with you guys!"

Harper nodded. “I know you’re antsy, but we got good info from the child.”

Andrew narrowed his eyes. “Did he explain the meltdown?”

Harper chewed on her answer. She didn’t want to put the boy in danger by telling Andrew the truth, but she didn’t want to give him false information. She thought it over for a minute before nodding.

“He was traumatized.” Harper smiled, which wasn’t a lie. “And you have an alibi. There’s nothing to worry about here.”

Andrew exhaled. His body looked like he had released a serious weight that he was holding on his chest. He smiled so widely at Harper, a complete change in the way he was acting before, that Harper blinked a few times from shock. She smiled back before opening the door and letting him make his way through it.

When Andrew walked into the precinct, the air smelled different. Leroy wouldn’t meet his gaze, and Jill was transfixed on a case file. Tyler was too busy typing to care about Andrew’s return. In any other workplace, this would have certainly been normal behavior, but not here. Here, Andrew immediately knew something was up.

“Guys?” He asked, raising his eyebrows. “Guys, come on. You can’t think that I’m actually responsible for any of this. Harper told me that I had an alibi, so I know that you guys had to have known this!” Andrew stuffed his hands deep into his pockets. “Come on, guys. You’ve worked with me for years. I can’t go into this thinking that you all don’t trust me. Can I trust you guys?”

“Why did that boy identify your voice?” Jill suddenly demanded.

Harper looked up in shock and surprise. She wasn’t surprised that Jill asked that question of all the questions, of course, but she was surprised that Jill spoke up at all. When Harper turned to face her friend, blown away by the fact that she was standing up for herself, she noticed that Jill was pale and shaking. Harper frowned.

Why was Jill so scared of Andrew? Unless she wasn't scared of just Andrew, and perhaps this was something to do with just standing up for herself in general. Maybe it was both since in Jill's mind she very well could have been standing up for herself in front of someone who kidnapped and did God knows what to little girls.

Harper walked beside Jill and stood beside her. She said nothing, almost demanding that Andrew answer the question. The precinct deserved answers.

“Harper said the boy was traumatized,” Andrew reminded them. “Have you guys considered the possibility that maybe he was just scared and freaking out? Maybe he didn’t know what he heard? I mean, the poor boy probably blames himself for the loss of his sister. He probably thinks that he was the reason she was taken. Survivors' guilt is a very real thing, and he could very well have it. Maybe he heard a deep voice that was so similar to the one that he heard on that terrible night that he just jumped to conclusions.”

Tyler leaned back in his swivel seat. He licked his lips, thinking. He looked to Leroy, who was holding the old case file close to his chest like a Bible. Jill still said nothing.

“You were still being very closed about the case,” Leroy snapped. “You were rude and indecent to me and everyone else when we offered ideas. Why?”

Andrew sighed and rubbed his forehead. He took a second to breathe, which had Harper worried again. Why did Andrew need a second to breathe? Was he thinking of what to say? Was he thinking of how to formulate a response that would get him the best response and also hide what he was truly up to? Harper's mind was swimming with possibilities, and none of them were good.

Then, suddenly, Andrew threw a pill bottle on the table in front of him.

It bounced once, twice, and then rolled almost to the floor. Harper was closest to the desk, so she walked around to catch the rolling bottle. She stuck her hand out to catch it, which she did with surprising ease. Her hand-to-eye coordination was never the best, but this bottle here rolling off the edge of the desk just seemed to be guided to her open palm. Harper still maintained eye contact with Andrew while she lifted the bottle.

She never worked in narcotics, but every police officer in training had to know about different types of drugs and substances so they could look into substance abuse when it came to handling their cases. Harper almost didn't want to look at the bottle for fear that it would be something that she would have to report to her higher-ups. It would explain the mood swings and so much more that Andrew may not have wanted to talk about, making throwing the bottle down simply easier.

When she did lift it and read the label, however, she frowned.

“What is this?”

She was relieved that it wasn’t a narcotic, that was for sure. She didn’t recognize the label as anything too bad, which again was something that she was really excited about, but it was quickly quelled by Andrew’s embarrassed face. From the way he was looking at Harper, she thought he was going to tell her with a straight face that it was a substitution for Viagra or something.

“It’s my new depression medicine.” He sighed. “I should have taken time off to adjust for it, I know, but I heard about the case from the chief and I just had to be on it. I couldn’t stay home and do nothing. You guys know that isn’t me.”

Harper felt a wave of relief crash over her. She didn’t like questioning one of her own under any circumstances, especially Andrew. He was so important to the precinct, to the way that the town functioned, that if he was somehow involved in this crime… Well, Harper wasn’t really sure what she would do or say.

Now she was just glad that he had a serious excuse.

She handed the jar to Jill still, to have her look it over. Jill turned the bottle in her hands and read the label, nodding. Then, she handed it back to Andrew.

“Why didn’t you just tell us what was going on?” She asked. “We of all people would understand. You know that.”

Andrew sighed and nodded. “I know, it’s just… it’s hard admitting when you need that extra help.”

Harper nodded. "Trust me. I get that."

Jill shot her a sideways look of suspicion but didn’t say anything, thank goodness. Harper put her hand on her hip as Tyler and Leroy thought of what they wanted to say. It was obviously taking them a little bit, but that was okay.

"I'm sorry, man," Tyler offered. "If you ever need anyone to talk to, I'm here."

Andrew smiled in response. “Thank you.” Then, he turned to Leroy.

"Leroy, I'm sorry I brought up the old case. I knew how much that mattered to you, and I shouldn't have said those things. I don't think there's anything any of us could have done. I was stressed, and my meds weren’t working, but there is really no excuse. I’m sorry.”

Leroy’s frown slowly turned into a smile. He offered his meaty hand for Andrew to shake, and the men laughed off the conflict. Harper always envied men for that. They could hate each other their whole lives and then suddenly become the closest friends over a simple handshake and a promise to do better. Women weren’t that easy.

“Okay!” Tyler clapped his hands. “So, what’s the plan now? We all held hands and hugged it out. Now that we have the testimony from the kid, what’s the plan?”

Harper checked her watch. Her eyes nearly bulged from her head as she realized it was almost three in the morning. She looked at Tyler, who didn’t seem the least bit fazed.

“What?” He asked.

“What do you mean what?!” She cried, throwing her hands up and laughing. “It's so late! We called them in to interview this late?”

Tyler nodded. “They came in at twelve. Normally I wouldn’t have done that, but with the sensitive nature of this case I figured we didn’t have a second to spare.”

Harper nodded. “You would be correct. Okay, so since it’s this late, it does limit our options severely. I don’t know if anything will be open for question asking or anything else.”

“We could go home and sleep, come back in the morning?” Tyler asked.

“I can’t sleep with this case,” Harper said almost immediately. The others offered her glances of sympathy, but Harper paid them no heed.

“I’m sorry, it’s just too close to the old case. I need to see this guy behind bars before I can rest happy.”

They had no idea how much this actually meant to Harper, that much she knew. Still, no one questioned her need to be out there on the case. In fact, no one said that they were even planning to head home. Instead, they smiled and nodded.

"Sounds good!" Jill smiled. "I can go brew a pot of coffee, and we can go from there?"

Harper nodded, and Jill practically skipped away. Andrew seemed to think for a moment before snapping his fingers.

“Let’s go back to the site of her being taken. Once we get some caffeine in our system, we can scope the area out better and triple check to see if there was anything left behind.”

Harper didn’t hear anyone else coming up with ideas, so she nodded. As Jill presented the rest of the precinct with cups, she also realized the distinct possibility that the Shadow Man could have come back to his place of abduction this late. Maybe he wanted to see what people were doing.

He could be right under her nose.

Chapter Seven

The drive to the site was uneventful. The stars decorated the sky, requiring everyone to carry flashlights. No one spoke. They just chugged the coffee they had all poured graciously from Jill's fresh mug. It burned Harper's lips as she sipped on it, searching the tree line. They parked their cop cars and put on evidence gloves, searching the trails and trees. No one found anything else, which was discouraging, but Harper felt almost creeped out being on the same trail that the kidnapper had been on.

She tried to focus on evidence and nothing else. She strayed a little from the path, inspecting the rock that Kaison hit his head on. There was blood on the rock from where he struck himself, and Harper took a swab. She was about to walk back to the car when she heard a twig snap.

She stopped moving.

The area she heard the twig snap in wasn't in the direction that her friends were searching. It was deep in the woods, where someone shouldn't be unless they were watching from afar.

Harper pointed her flashlight in that direction, but rather mildly. She didn’t want to scare him if he was actually there.

She almost couldn’t believe it.

There he was, standing still.

“Harper?” Andrew called. “You coming?”

Harper couldn’t breathe.

In the woods, standing behind a tree, was the tall Shadow Man. Tall, thin, lanky. The figure was hovering, watching with his soulless eyes. His large coat hung to his ankles like a sinister cape. If Harper listened hard enough, she could swear that she heard him breathing.

It had to be him, coming back to see what he had done. Coming to revel in his kill.

Harper’s feet moved before she could stop herself.

“Harper!”

She ran after the Shadow Man as fast as her legs would take her.

After all, she wasn’t thirteen anymore.

He wasn’t getting away this time.

THE END

Next Book in Series:   Click this link to read Chasing Memories NOW.

Will Harper be successful in catching and arresting the Shadow Man?

Follow Harper Storm as she chases down the Shadow man and discovers what exactly he was up to in the woods.  Click HERE to start reading the next book.

“Harper didn't hear anything around her. She couldn't see anything before her except for the Shadow man running away. She memorized everything about him – his lanky, skinny build, the way that he loped like an injured deer when he ran, and the sound of his feet slamming against the leaves and soil. She didn't hear Jill calling for backup, telling Harper to wait. She didn't hear the sounds of screaming from the cops, from the people nearby. She heard nothing but her pounding heartbeat, her footsteps.

His footsteps.”

(Click this link to continue reading)

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B.P Stevens lives in Ontario Canada and enjoys writing mystery thriller books. He has always enjoyed reading books. Whether it be as a teenager reading for hours on end or now as a father reading to his children. From his home in Ontario, he just can't seem to stop writing books and that's okay with us!

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