Missing Read online

  missing

  By

  Nenny May

  A novel

  Madison Miller is thrown in the middle of a criminal investigation when her neighbor’s only son is kidnapped in a way much too similar to the way her son was kidnapped.

  Ten children, ten weeks, one killer.

  Abandoned bodies of ten-year-old boys have been turning up all over Charlotte, North Carolina and the inhabitants are petrified. Ten murders in ten weeks, all committed with a gunshot to the head, and still nobody has a clue who the deranged killer is.

  Laid-off news reporter and part-time babysitter Madison Miller, is tired of receiving nothing but rejection on her résumé, and so, she delves into babysitting as a fulltime career. Little does she know just how this will affect her.

  Being the only mildly trustworthy babysitter, she's entrusted with ten-year-old Ethan Daniels, only son of the now-barren couple, Lauren and Parker Daniels.

  The boy goes missing, throwing Madison Miller into a thrilling panic and into the centre of the investigation. Her only clue, a call begging for forgiveness.

  She enlists the help of courageous former detective Adam Walker, a long time neighbor.

  Can Walker pull himself out of his rut and help Madison find answers before the deranged killer and his deadly gun claim another victim?

  From the author of To New York’s Attorney, Wattpad author Nenny May brings forth yet another thrilling mystery.

  Books By Nenny

  To New York’s Attorney

  Copyright

  Copyright 2020 Nenny May Fiction. All rights reserved.

  This is a work of fiction, names, places, businesses and organizations are all product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book should be copied or redistributed without due permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  If this document is read, or found on sites other than Wattpad, it means it has been copied and should be reported; otherwise the reader is prone to virus attacks from mimicking sites.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  A lexander Hemmings needed to report the death of Oliver Weston, his tenth and final victim.

  The evening air had been crisp, in the distance, the sun had begun to set, dark clouds rolled across the skies, they were a swirl of golden yellows and fading pinks. The night reeked of fast food and cigarettes, the wind whistled, dull against the blare of car horns and the sharp curses of agitated drivers. Providence road was more awake than Alexander Hemming’s social life. He figured, he was never much of a social butterfly in the first place. It was a residential area, what were so many people doing roaming the streets? Was there always traffic in this part of town? And why was he so panicked? He just needed to make a call. He needed to breathe through the subtle ache in his head, to think. Alexander Hemmings much preferred the velvet wake of the night for a walk through the streets of Charlotte; he didn't have much of a choice in this situation. He worked with time and his colleague had thrown him enough curveballs.

  He released a breath pushing farther, in the distance; he recognized the supermarket he'd earlier driven passed. His tongue ran over his bottom lip, the cut on it tasted of metal. Great, not only had the little retard put up quite a fight, he’d left Alex with a busted lip. With the evening accompanied the glimmering glow of the convenience store sign, and it all had to be in Alex’s mind, but the florescent store lights seemed that much brighter. The closer he got the tighter the knots in his stomach seemed. He slowed his pace, his eyes probing the busy store. Through the doors and windows, he saw a line of customers waiting at the register. This had to be some sort of joke, was there an apocalypse he hadn’t heard about? Why were there so many damn people out grocery shopping in the middle of the goddamn week? Maybe he'd made a mistake coming all the way? No, his decisions were hardly ever wrong. Everything he'd done, every call, it was a weight off his shoulders. He stopped. He couldn't draw any attention to himself, and gasping for breath while looking homeless wasn't exactly going to keep people’s eyes off him.

  I need an ambulance, there's a boy... he's hurt. Alex thought again about what he would say, He hoped to whatever guardian angel that had gotten him this far that there wouldn't be too many curious ears and straying eyes. He'd always seemed to falter before an audience. He pushed the door open and slipped between the aisles. He would pick up some snacks; he would throw in a book as well. The knot tightened further, he would make the call, and then join the queue. His skin tingled; his nerves hadn't been this rattled the last time. There wasn't an audience the last time. The fierce glare of the convenience store lights didn't aid the cold sweat that ran down the side of his face. He knew this feeling; he dreaded it, not knowing what to do. No, he knew exactly what to do, he just couldn't do it with people watching, they would come after him if he didn't do it right. Okay, then he had to do it right, every line, every emotion; he would convey it like it was his first and last performance. He bit down on his tongue, heart hammering, he slid further down the aisles.

  He wanted to run, to turn on his heel and hightail out those translucent doors, anyone could find Oliver Weston, and someone else could call in to report his body. The thought of someone else taking credit itched, he couldn’t let that happen. He controlled this town, he’d single handedly driven fear through the streets and given it a home smack dab in the middle of Charlotte. No measly tom-dick-and-harry was going to come in and ride the wave he’d created. Wouldn't it work in his favor if the police couldn't trace a pattern? He didn’t know, neither did he want to. He had to do this, he'd trudged Oliver's body there, to Myers Park, he had to confess, to get it off his chest. He couldn’t get his tongue tied, he couldn’t implicate himself. He would mention the body, the bruises, if asked, he knew nothing about the pulse.

  "Excuse me," A man coughed, he wasn’t that much older than Hemmings, in the middle of his twenties with tattered grey-blonde hair and tired, familiar eyes that had Alexander Hemmings skin crawling. He stepped to the side, deciding rather head straight for the phones at the back of the store. He didn't care for the foreplay, he didn't need the chips anyway and the book? Who was he kidding a drop-out like him wouldn't be caught dead near a book. There's a body at Myers Park, it's Oliver Weston's. He couldn't say that he needed to sound innocent, believable. He'd stumbled upon the body underneath a shrub by the dumpsters. What had he been doing there? It didn’t matter, it was a 9-1-1 call and not a statement, he didn’t need much of an alibi, just the facts.

  The phones had clearly not been used in quite a while if the thick trails of cobwebs and the double coat of dust gave off any meaning. He reached for the closest one to him; he blew on the timeworn phone. He sneezed, Shit! There goes not drawing any attention to himself. He sneezed again. His eyes darted left and right, there was a kid not too far to his left, behind her father who couldn’t seem to care any less, and she’d held him, Alex, in a dead stare. He turned away. He couldn’t get distracted. He dialed 9-1-1. He listened.

  "9-1-1 what's your emergency?"

  A tear ran down his cheek, he coughed. "There's a boy, he's lying helpless in Myers Park, he's been shot." Did he regret everything he'd put Oliver through? A par
t of him did, but it had to happen, he was the last of them, the tenth victim.

  Why did that leave Alex feeling worse than when he’d started his killing spree?

  Chapter One

  I t was certain, Madison Miller was in a slump. She'd gone through yet another rejection E-mail. This time, it was her application for the position of an assistant reporter. She was practically an understudy, and they'd hauled her application over their shoulders, their only reply, Madison Miller could bet top dollar was an overused automated response apologizing that her résumé didn't meet company criteria. Well to that, their company criteria could kiss her buns for all she cared, if anything, she was a pinch hitter and it was their loss, even if they were the last well acknowledged news station within the city of Charlotte.

  They were a three star station, what was she supposed to do? Stoop to applying to stations that could barely broadcast to a quarter of the city? Stations that received more hate mail than praise?

  Forget heartbreak, rejection was worse! What was she going to tell her mother? Julia Miller in all her five-foot-eight glory packed a mouth on her. Madison's chest clouded, she would get an earful, she was sure of that, just as sure as she was that she'd heard that particular speech before. When are you going to settle down with a good job? When are you going to saddle up a man and an income that didn't leave you wanting? Julia would poke at these. Correction, Julia would shove it down Madison's throat. Her day hadn't even begun. She at least deserved her morning coffee, a dark swirl of ground beans, heavy cream and whatever else she could reach at the back of her barely stocked fridge.

  She'd noticed it, her days had blurred together, like old melted ice cream she'd long overlooked. Her days were like vanilla churned in with cherry bubblegum and dark chocolate, except her days weren't exactly as sweet. She looked away from her laptop screen noting that she still had at least a few hours before Julia's daily phone call, a habit the single mother had imbibed since the passing of her second husband.

  Madison rose from her desk chair with a squeak, her limbs thrown over her head and lips parted as a yawn slipped. Her hands dropped to her sides. She needed an income and watching neighborhood kids for petty cash wasn't going to cut it, at least not anymore. She was almost thirty, she still had a few years till then, but she'd passed the twenty-five mark! She wasn't getting any younger. And besides, unemployment didn't suit her, and even still, Madison Miller wore it like an overcoat, heavy and warm. But how much longer till that look went out of style? How much longer till she could no longer reach for mere ground coffee at the back of her fridge? She needed a job, and receiving rejection letter after rejection letter from well known as well as lesser known news-stations wasn't all that motivating. No, it hurt; it burned slowly as her disappointment seeped through her pores. What were they looking for that she didn't have? Was it a degree? She'd graduated from a community college! Was it talent? She was sure she could broadcast with enough emotion and je ne sais quoi to send any news stations ratings through the roof. So why couldn't she qualify as one of the heavy hitters?

  She'd easily become a puddle of self doubt, her own confusion and concern threatening to send her over the rails. Her rent would run out in less than a month, twenty-five days, and if she didn't find a stable source of income before that, she would be homeless. The thought alone, of having to crash on a neighbor's couch, of becoming a liability, sent a chill through her. She shook her head, blinking. It was too early for this, much too early. She'd been homeless once before. She wasn't going back to that.

  She decided rather to thrust the thought to the dark cobwebbed recesses of her mind and instead let her eyes travel about her living room, the morning was young, boring vigorously through her opened blinds, bathing her living room in a hue of gold and mellow blues. She turned her eyes to the television, she let it linger there. Breaking News, the banner beneath the news reporter blared in red. She'd seen it before. This wasn't the first station to carry the story. She hadn't heard the solemn words of the man with the microphone, she'd turned the volume to its lowest, but she could tell by the remorse in his eyes, the depth in his frown lines, that he was covering a rather well known case. It was the tale of yet another murder that left the city of Charlotte in a tremor. There was yet another murder that ached her bones. Ten year old boys were being targeted, kidnapped and killed. The aspiring journalist, Madison Miller was curious. Why would young ten year old boys be the target? Were they just easy prey? Were they being molested then killed? Was there more depth to the deaths? There had to be more that the media wasn't willing to divulge, and it was itching her to know. But it wasn’t just her, as the television image panned out at a body of active protesters beckoning justice is sought for the lives of the ten kidnapped and killed boys of Charlotte, North Carolina.

  Definitely standing around, glaring at a mute television screen wasn't going to give her the answers she wanted. No, she needed to go out and follow the story; but first, coffee. And with that thought in mind, she padded to her cabinets, pulling out a mug. From the drawers, she retrieved a spoon, and from the fridge, her last bag of ground coffee and heavy cream. How had she fallen so low? She could remember a time, ripe from college, she'd been taken in as a paid intern for the WCCB, a station she was sure was going to haul her to the peak of her career. By twenty-five she was supposed to be a nationally recognized reporter, she had goals, she had a plan, and then she'd met Clive. Head reporter, he was loved like Lexington style barbeque. He'd noticed her, the new intern, and he'd pulled her with him up the career ladder, if only she'd known at the time that when he slumped, she would too, harder if she thought back to the sudden crash her career had endured.

  With eyes that still longed for sleep, Madison stared dazed through her kitchen widow at everything and at nothing, she saw early birds jogging by her building, teenagers running to catch the bus, she saw ignorance to the media's warnings, she saw life pushing ahead despite the threat that lurked in wait for another victim. There was a pattern, she'd noticed, the children were students of Cotswold Elementary, they were ten year old boys who were more outspoken if that article on Wikipedia had any truth behind it, they were boys too much like her little Tucker.

  At the ping of her coffee machine, Madison filled her mug with hot brewed coffee, stirred in heavy cream to her heart’s content and brought the steaming liquid to her lips. With her free hand, she reached for her phone. No one had replied to her babysitting Ad. Not only was she unemployed but it seemed her regular clients, mothers within her vicinity had begun to notice her dependence on her part time job. She refreshed her browser; she couldn't go through another day without money. She would result to borrowing, begging, to ringing Clive for anything he could offer. He'd already paid off three months of her rent since their divorce; she wasn't going to depend on him. This was going to be her month.

  Her phone blared in her hand, her thoughts travelled to Clive, why would he be calling? It had been over two years since their divorce, but it felt like yesterday. Her eyes squeezed shut, she tucked up thoughts of him. They could burden her in the dead of the night, but not during the day. Her eyes fluttered open. The ringing continued. She knew the number, and yet, she hadn't saved it. But she was sure, it wasn't Clive.

  Picking the call, she made a mental note to do just that, to save it. Placing her mug down on the counter, she let her free hand hang akimbo on her waist. The voice on the other end was rushed, but in control, Madison couldn't quite decipher what the woman on the other end had been up to. "Maddy, Honey, it's Lauren, from down the street," Rushed her neighbor. She already knew that. Madison had known Lauren for quite a few weeks, not up to a month. The young mother had recently moved into the bungalow three blocks down from Madison's. "Our babysitter just cancelled on us, and we need someone to watch Ethan, I promise he's a good kid and he's not that hard to keep an eye on." Lauren rambled on. Madison pursed her lips, letting recollections of the bubbly ten year old Ethan Daniels float to the surface. He didn't seem like a handfu
l, but he sure had the energy of a ballpark. "And besides, he kinda likes it when you come over," Lauren continued, chuckled. "I was asking him today who he would rather have watch him and he was like; Maddy, our neighbor with all the cool video games." Ahh yes, the video games Madison had inherited from the divorce. Clive had gotten more of the alimony, but she'd gotten the Ps4. "And I saw your Ad online today, it seems perfect don't you think?"

  If she'd been asked five years ago where she saw her career heading, babysitting wouldn't have once crossed her mind. It wasn't an ideal career that brought the dough, but it was something, it just wasn't nearly enough. "I'll watch Ethan for you, you don't have to worry." Madison assured. "I just can't believe he remembered me after he schooled my ass in NFL the other day?" She plastered a smile on her face, if Lauren were here, in her kitchen, she would know without a doubt it was forced. Offering one last fleeting glimpse at the television, Madison knew, she had a bad feeling about this. Then she thought, what were the odds the boys were taken from the comfort of their own home?

  There was warmth in Lauren's tone as she laughed. "He's been bragging about that since you left," There was a pause, enough for seriousness to pour into the young mother's voice. "You're a lifesaver Maddie, does six-thirty work?" Madison thought for a moment, she didn't necessarily have anywhere to be through the day.

  "Perfect." Madison confirmed, reminding herself just how much she needed the money. It wasn't the best source of income but it was something. She needed something so she wouldn't end up popping from couch to couch listening to her friends lament over just how long it had taken her to get back on her feet. She'd been in shambles then, she'd picked herself up. She wasn't going to let it happen again. The line went dead and Madison was once more left to her rambling thoughts.