Chapter 3 - The Search in the Snow
The winter storm had intensified while we were at the hospital, turning the quiet suburban neighborhood into a blinding labyrinth of white. Snowflakes whipped across the lawn in fierce gusts, erasing footprints almost as fast as they were pressed into the drifts. Outside, the flashing red and blue lights of a newly arrived backup cruiser painted the falling snow in alternating shades of crimson and azure.
Officer Miller radioed for K-9 unit assistance, but dispatch reported that the county tracking dog was currently stranded twenty miles away behind a multi-car pileup on the highway. We were on our own.
"We need to check the perimeter buildings," Officer Miller instructed Vance, pulling his collar up against the biting wind. "Sheds, detached garages, the old pump house down by the creek. If he's on foot, he couldn't have made it far in this weather without shelter."
Daniel zipped his heavy winter coat up to his chin. "I'm coming with you."
"No, Mr. Pierce, you need to stay inside with your wife," Miller said firmly.
"That's my father out there," Daniel retorted, his voice rising above the howling wind. "And that's my daughter sitting in a hospital bed because of him. I'm not sitting by the fireplace while you search my property."
I didn't try to stop him. Part of me wanted Richard found immediately, wanted to look him in the eye and demand to know what kind of monster could smile over a coffee mug while a nine-year-old child screamed in agony.
I stood by the kitchen window, watching the beam of the officers' flashlights cut through the swirling snow as they moved toward the backyard. The dark green Ford F-150 sat motionless in the driveway, its windshield covered in a thick sheet of ice. If Richard hadn't taken his truck, and if the snow was too deep for a long trek on foot, where could an elderly man hide in a residential neighborhood during a blizzard?
My eyes drifted toward the old carriage house at the edge of our property line. It was a weatherbeaten wooden structure that had come with the house when we bought it five years ago. We used it mostly for storing old lawn furniture, bags of fertilizer, and my gardening tools. Richard had occasionally stored some of his old woodworking equipment in there before we asked him to clear his things out last summer—a request that had sparked one of his coldest, angriest silent treatments.
Without putting on my coat, I grabbed a heavy flashlight from the kitchen counter and pushed open the back door. The cold air hit me like a wall of ice, stealing the breath from my lungs, but I forced my feet forward, stepping into the deep drifts left by the wind.
The snow reached past my ankles, soaking through the hem of my jeans instantly, but I kept my eyes fixed on the dark silhouette of the carriage house. The heavy wooden double doors were closed, but a faint sliver of yellow light cut across the snow from the base of the frame.
Light. Someone was inside.
My heart pounded in my ears, drowning out the roar of the wind. I slowed my pace, stepping as quietly as the crusted snow would allow. Every instinct screamed at me to turn back, to wait for the police officers currently searching the far side of the property. But the thought of Richard slipping away, or destroying more evidence, drove me forward.
I reached the side of the carriage house and pressed my back against the weathered cedar siding. The wood was freezing cold against my spine. I crept toward the side window, which was caked in grime and frost. Using the sleeve of my sweater, I wiped away a circular patch of ice and peered inside.
The interior was illuminated by a single overhead bulb hanging from a frayed cord. Standing near the workbench was Richard.
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He wasn't shivering. He wasn't looking for a place to hide from the storm. He was calmly burning something over an old metal trash can.
Flames licked at the edges of several small glass vials and a crumpled sheet of paper that looked suspiciously like a receipt or a shipping manifest. In his hand, he held another plastic bottle identical to the one left on our living room side table.
