Page 6 of Remember Her Name

The baby tugged at a lock of Josie’s hair, trying to put it into her mouth. Gently, Josie pulled it from her grip. She lifted the baby in the air, checking her over for any wounds. There was a reddish smudge marring the back of the baby’s onesie, a bloody Rorschach stretching across her little shoulder blades. Josie pulled at the collar and peered down the back. Relief pulsed through her when she saw the smooth, untouched skin beneath.

“Holy shit,” said Brennan. “Is she bleeding?”

Josie shook her head. “It’s not from her. We need more units. A team of officers to canvass. Talk to every person you can findinside the park. I want to know if anyone saw Cleo or anything suspicious. Pull her driver’s license photo and get it out to everyone so they can use it in interviews. Send it to me as well.”

“On it.” Dougherty stepped away and began speaking into his radio.

Brennan took out his phone. As his fingers flew across the screen, he asked, “You want the K-9 unit?”

A slobber-covered hand batted at Josie’s cheek. She pretended to try to catch it with her mouth, earning a high-pitched giggle from the baby. Looking into her angelic face and big brown eyes, emotions swarmed Josie. She imagined holding her own child like this one day. Then she was overcome with panic for Cleo Tate. Josie’s guess was that she’d been attacked and abducted. Or she’d gone with her attacker willingly in order to spare her child. Josie hated to think how long the baby would have been out here if Cleo hadn’t called 911. Chances were that someone would have walked by within an hour, but there was no guarantee.

Then again, they had no inkling of Cleo Tate’s personality, mental status or the state of her life. Was it possible she’d been in the midst of some kind of mental health crisis? Had she harmed herself? Had she meant to abandon her baby in public and the 911 call was to ensure that the child would be found quickly?

“Quinn?” Brennan said, shaking Josie from her thoughts. “K-9 unit, or no?”

The baby grabbed another fistful of Josie’s hair, pulling more forcefully this time. She tried to stuff it in her mouth, but Josie stopped her. “Let’s finish the search of the park. If we don’t find Cleo Tate, then I’ll call Luke and Blue.”

“You got it. How about the baby?”

Josie held her out to Brennan. “First, I want to see if she’s got a pacifier somewhere. Then we’ll see if we can get in touchwith someone in Cleo’s family—a spouse, maybe—and get them to meet us here.”

Brennan looked at the baby like Josie was trying to hand him a ticking bomb. Did none of these young patrol guys have kids? Or nieces or nephews?

“Just take her,” Josie said. “I only need a minute. All you have to do is not drop her.”

He hesitated.

“Brennan,” Josie said. “Take her.”

The moment the baby was in Brennan’s arms, she began to fuss. “She doesn’t like me,” he announced.

“I just need one minute,” Josie repeated as she squatted in front of the stroller. If the baby used a pacifier, she likely would have had it while her mother was pushing her around. She might have dropped it. Hopefully it was in the seat. Both Dougherty and Josie had already touched the stroller, unfortunately. Josie pushed the hood as far back as it would go and froze.

The baby whined. Brennan said, “Seriously. She doesn’t like me. I think you should take her back. I can find whatever it is you’re looking for in there. Quinn? Are you okay?”

A prickle of unease ran up the back of Josie’s neck. This case of a missing mother was no longer a garden variety abduction. A quick glance at the baby squirming against Brennan’s chest made the fine hairs along her nape stand to attention.

Josie backed away. “Don’t touch this again.”

The baby’s whines turned to full-blown cries. She beat a tiny fist against Brennan’s chest. He took a few steps closer, bouncing the screaming infant up and down the way that Josie had, without soothing her. Together, they peered at the seat where a picture rested, its edges stained with blood.

“It was under her back,” said Josie. She hadn’t seen it because she’d been too intent on comforting the child.

“You sure that’s a photo? It looks…weird.” He shifted the baby in his arms, bending at the knee to get a better look. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing wrong with it,” said Josie. “It’s a polaroid.”

THREE

Josie stood to the side of the trail, under the shade of a maple tree, and watched as Officer Hummel, the unofficial head of the Denton Police Department’s Evidence Response Team, took photos of the stroller. With each series, he moved in closer, until the camera was solely focused on the polaroid in the center of the car seat. Shifting the baby in her arms, Josie took out her cell phone, pulled up her photo gallery, and studied the shot of it that she’d snapped earlier. The quality was terrible, almost blurred. The picture itself was barely two inches by two inches. Any smaller and it would be the size of a postage stamp. Its white edges were smeared with a burnished red. A partial bloodied fingerprint was visible in one corner. The image itself appeared to be of mud and rocks—the riverbank, maybe? In one corner was a flash of bright blue but Josie couldn’t tell what it was from. An object? A trick of light? A reflection from something? It couldn’t be from somewhere inside the park. Although Denton’s city park seemed to have everything—even a carousel—it did not have a pond, stream or any other body of water.

At this point, it didn’t matter all that much. The 911 call, the abandoned infant, and the blood made it clear that Cleo Tate was in trouble. The most important thing was locating her. Hummelfound more drops of blood along the edge of the path—soaking into the dirt that edged the asphalt and forming beads on the leaves of the shrubbery. Assuming the blood belonged to Cleo Tate, the blood at the scene wasn’t enough to infer that she had been grievously wounded but it was a clear sign that she was in imminent danger.

Teams of officers had already been dispatched to search the park. The Denton PD was fully mobilized, and yet Josie felt the seconds slip by like water flooding from a faucet. The process was moving but it just didn’t feel fast enough.

It was never fast enough when a life was in jeopardy.

Frustrated, she used her thumb to swipe to the driver’s license photo of Cleo Tate that Brennan had texted her. Unlike most people, Cleo had smiled for her driver’s license photo, as if she was excited to have it taken. Her brown eyes sparkled. Along her left cheek was a constellation of moles. Shiny dark hair, parted in the middle, hung to her shoulders.

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