Forbidden (Southern Comfort)

psychology, he pulled out the standard reverse.  “But if you don’t think you can handle it, I can give the job to someone else.”
Max straightened his shoulders.  “Nobody can take care of Mommy better than me.”
“I’m counting on it,” Clay said solemnly.  And then he gave Tate’s hand a final squeeze before heading off with the distraught mother.
CHAPTER EIGHT
TWENTY minutes later, Clay returned with a tearful Lola – that was the mother’s name – after they’d dropped Amber off with some friends.  Tate waited on the picnic table near the funnel cake trailer, Deputy Max asleep on her lap.
“No luck?” she asked as they approached.
Lola moved blindly toward the trailer, and Clay shook his head as he sat.  “No one that we talked to had seen her.  Normally, I wouldn’t be all that worried because teenagers pull this kind of thing all the time, but I get the impression that this Casey is a pretty responsible kid.  Responsible kids do stupid things, too, but factor in the vibes I got from that man earlier today and I don’t like how it adds up.  I convinced the mother to call in the local police, because I didn’t want to waste any more time canvassing the area when there’s a chance he took her out of here.”
Tate drew in a shaky breath.  “You think he abducted her.”
It was a statement, not a question. Clay glanced toward the trailer to make sure Lola couldn’t overhear.   She was walking a fine line between holding it together and losing it, and he didn’t want to push her over the edge.  “I don’t have enough information to make that call.” He started to leave it at that. No need to upset Tate any more than he had to, either. But recalling the story she’d told him that morning, he realized that platitudes weren’t enough. So he put aside professional circumspection, and said what he thought.  “It’s certainly plausible.  There was something entirely wrong with the guy’s behavior.  I noticed him when we were in the picnic area earlier.  I think he was selecting his quarry.”
Tate flinched at the harsh analogy.  But it was, he knew, how this type of perpetrator thought.  “What happens next?” she asked carefully.
“We wait for the cops. You’ll have to give them a statement.  Luckily, the mother and I both got a good look at him earlier, so they won’t have to rely totally on your description.  But just to warn you, if she doesn’t turn up in the next twenty-four hours, you may have to look through some mug-shots.”
“Do you think she’s going to turn up?”
Clay sighed and rubbed the tension from the back of his neck.  “Unless she’s simply off somewhere in a teenage pout, or went with that guy of her own free will, I’d say that possibility’s unlikely.  He allowed several people, including the girl, to get a good look at him. That means he’s not concerned about being caught.  If he’s not concerned about being caught, he either wasn’t contemplating committing any crime, or he feels sure he can’t be tied to one.”  He reflected on the man’s demeanor and suspected he’d been planning the abduction all day.  “If he took that girl, you can almost bet she’ll never be found.”
Tate looked at the trailer, where the girl’s mother was locking up, and clutched her own sleeping child.  “Isn’t there anything else that can be done?”
Clay felt the weight of that question settle like lead.  “If the police ask me, I can offer them a personality assessment of the suspected offender. Combine that with eyewitness descriptions, put out some flyers, do some canvassing, and there’s a chance someone will recognize him and turn him in.  I can also suggest several techniques for drawing him out.”  He blew out a breath full of frustration.  “But in cases like this, the first twenty-four hours are critical.  If she’s not located by then, there’s less than a fifty percent chance of recovering her alive.  The problem, of course, is that the local authorities are often reluctant to consider a person missing until twenty-four hours have passed.  Children are a different story, but the fact that Casey is a teen doesn’t weigh in her favor – they’re notorious for exercising their own will.”
“But you’re here,” Tate protested.  “Can’t you tell them that she didn’t just run off?”

“I don’t know that for sure,” he reminded her gently.  “I wasn’t able to observe the girl personally, so I’m not really at liberty to offer an opinion about what she might be likely to do.  I can only take her mother’s word for that, and a mother’s word isn’t always reliable.  However,” he reached out and stroked her arm when he recognized her frustration, “I can offer an educated opinion that the man you saw her speaking with was not… on the up and up.  Again, it’s just an opinion, as we have no solid evidence of wrongdoing.  Hopefully that opinion will hold enough water to prompt them into launching a full-fledged investigation.  But that’s their call to make, not mine.”
Tate sank back against the picnic table.  “It must be very difficult for you, doing what you do.”
Clay looked at the sleeping child in her arms and thought of another little boy, now dead.  “Sometimes more than others.”
Two sheriff’s deputies arrived, and Clay and Tate spent the next forty-five minutes giving statements and discussing what they’d seen.  Then if the night hadn’t already turned crappy, the arrival of a local news crew sent it right into the toilet. They’d been filming a human interest piece on the carnival and caught wind that something was going down.  Lola, who was growing desperate to find her daughter, let it slip that Clay worked for the FBI.  That particular piece of information had sent the ambitious reporter into a frenzy. But Clay calmly informed her that he was not at liberty to discuss anything because it wasn’t his case, and that the FBI had no official