Little Girls Lost
The fourth in the bestselling series of psychological thrillers featuring Carson Ryder, the detective with a unique perspective on serial killers.Children are disappearing in Mobile, Alabama, the latest snatched from her own bedroom. There are no clues – and, as yet, no bodies.Homicide Detective Carson Ryder is called in to investigate the abduction of little LaShelle Shearing only to find the case getting tangled up in murky departmental and civic politics. And with his partner Harry Nautilus fighting for his life after being viciously attacked, Carson is feeling increasingly isolated.Public rage is now reaching dangerous levels, and Ryder’s bosses turn for help to ex-Detective Conner Sandhill whose uncanny ability to spot connections and details missed by others is legendary – but who left the department under a cloud.Ryder and Sandhill form an uneasy alliance in the hunt for the missing children, a hunt which becomes all the more urgent for tragic personal reasons. But at the root of these disappearances is something truly evil… and its source is closer to home than either could have imagined.
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Little Girls Lost
J.A. KERLEY
To my son, John, proof that evolution can make dazzling leaps
Contents
Dedication
âThe Gumbo King is stepping out, and all the pretty women gonna jump and shoutâ¦â
Her eight-year-old heart pounding, Jacy Charlane crouched behind a table of turnips and tomatoes in front of the small grocery and watched the Gumbo King approach. He was singing, his king-sized voice bouncing between storefronts and apartments on the four-lane avenue.
âThe Gumbo King, heâs so fine, kissing all the women and blowing their minds.â
The Gumbo King was a white man, big, but not fat. He was wearing a yellow felt crown and a purple vest. His tee shirt and jeans were black. Jacy found it strange that if the Gumbo King wasnât singing, you never heard him coming, like cotton balls were glued beneath his shoes.
Whenever the Gumbo King turned his brown eyes on Jacy Charlane, they stole her voice and turned her knees to pudding. The Gumbo King was scary, and in the past sheâd always run when she saw him coming.
But today was different: Someone in the city was stealing little girls. Gone, like theyâd been snatched by goblins. One disappeared last week. Another got took just last night. People were whispering about it on the street.
âThe Gumbo King is struttinâ down the streetâ¦
all them gumbo lovers know Gumbo Kingâs got the treatsâ¦â
Jacy thought a king might be able to help find the girls. Especially one who owned his own place to eat and a humungous window sign with THE GUMBO KING written in red light beside a flashing gold crown.
The Gumbo King walked closer. Jacy swallowed hard and stepped from behind the table, blocking the king on the sidewalk. He stopped singing. Jacy felt the Gumbo Kingâs shadow stop the sun.
âYouâre that Charlane girl, arenât you?â a voice boomed from up where birds flew. âJacy, is it?â
Excuse me, Mister King, but two little girls are disappeared and please sir you would Highness your helpâ¦
Jacy felt the rehearsed words crash together in her mouth. She closed her eyes to hide. The Gumbo King rapped the top of Jacyâs head with a knuckle.
âKnock, knock, girl. I know youâre in there. I command you to speak to the Gumbo King.â
Jacy pressed her palms against her eyes. She felt the sun return to her shoulders and when she opened her eyes the Gumbo King was walking away, singing again.
ââ¦So if youâre aching and empty and donât know what to do, call the Gumbo King and heâll see you through.â
Jacy felt like crying, ashamed she was too scared to talk to a king. She ran home and closed herself in her room, thinking to herselfâ¦
Who steals little girls? What do they do with them?
Detective Carson Ryder traced his latex-gloved finger slowly over the mattress, as if reading in Braille. His eyes were closed, his head canted in concentration, intensifying the impression of a blind man searching for messages. After a few moments he sighed and pushed black hair from his forehead, opening his eyes to survey the small, dank-smelling room.
Like most in the neighborhood, the cramped apartment was furnished on povertyâs budget: bare bulb in the ceiling, three-legged chair in a corner, torn paper curtains at the windows. The bed was a mattress on the floor, sheet pulled aside, amoebic shapes staining its surface.
A battered chest of drawers flanked the mattress, the red leg of a pair of tights drooping from a drawer like a wind sock on an airless day. Atop the chest sat a photograph in a listing frame, a black girl, eight or nine, whimsical twigs of hair poking from her head. She had laughing eyes and a smile one tooth shy of perfection.
âMy baby, youâve got to find my baby,â a woman wailed from outside the bedroom, her voice rising toward hysteria.
âWhere were you last night, Ms Shearing?â a policewoman questioned. âWhat time did you get in? When did you last see LaShelle?â
The woman replied with a sound like a keening gull. Ryder closed the door. Another minute and the woman would be screaming.
âIs it blood?â Ryder asked the bespectacled, rope-skinny black man crouched beside the mattress, his tie flung over his shoulder.
âOld blood,â deputy chief of Forensics Wayne Hembree said, lifting a mattress button and studying its underside with a penlight. âHell, Carson, this mattress has probably been around since the Battle of Mobile Bay. Nosebleeds. Menses. God knows what.â
