Two days and still nothing. There'd been no activity on the bank account that she and Rob shared, and nothing to indicate she'd run away. Not that Lilly or I thought Melanie would do that—we both believed she and Rob were too much in love for that to happen, no matter how many times we overheard people muttering that, behind closed doors, nobody really knows what goes on between a husband and wife.
Sleep came slowly, if at all. I lay there, my arms around Lilly, straining to hear anything out of the ordinary coming from Les's room. Most of the time, Lilly was awake too, but we didn't talk. There wasn't anything to say. We were both feeling the shadow of something dark, and talking about it didn't do anything but make it more real.
The atmosphere around Osborne was one of concern, but not panic, which meant the information about the Bible and note hadn't been leaked. The sheriff had kept his people from talking, and Rob obviously hadn't breathed a word about it. In fact, he hadn't been saying much at all. As I dressed for work, I realized that I never heard from him at all the previous day. The first day after it happened, Lilly and I both called him every couple of hours until he'd finally asked us to stop. We'd given him the space he needed, but I would have expected at least one call, if only for an update. But there'd been nothing.
I pulled on my boots, leaned over, and gently kissed Lilly's forehead without waking her, before I headed for my car. As I backed out of the driveway, I made the decision to call Rob at lunchtime. I realized that he was trying to deal with it on his own, but after forty-eight hours without any leads, I knew he had to be going into panic mode, not that I could blame him. I was no cop, but I knew that after the first few days the chances of finding someone alive began to drop dramatically.
When I got to work, I couldn't concentrate. Luckily, my job was pretty mindless. I did have to be aware of my surroundings if I went down into the mine, but it was basically repetitive. To be honest, I spent a lot of my time working on music in my head. Zombie Rock mostly did covers, but every so often, I'd come up with something new. At the moment, however, there was no music in my head. I was too busy trying to figure out what could have happened to Melanie.
An idea hit me partway through the morning, something I hadn't thought about, and I picked up the phone. The sheriff answered on the first ring.
"I had a thought about the case," I blurted out.
"Go ahead."
I couldn't tell if he was annoyed or not, and I was half expecting him to make some horse-shit comment like let us handle it, Jack, or just leave the investigation to the professionals. But he didn't, so I went ahead and shared my theory. "I think Melanie went for a walk, just a short stroll, and someone grabbed her and took off."
Silence. Then the sheriff spoke. "We already considered that, Jack."
Of course they did, he and his people are trained for this sort of thing.
"From a logistics standpoint, it makes sense," he continued. "And would explain why there wasn't any evidence of a struggle in the house."
"Right, that's what I—"
"But," he interrupted, "that doesn't take the Bible into account."
Right. Crap.
"The kidnapper would've had to force Melanie into the car, subdue her, then drive back to the house and leave the Bible."
I was actually a little surprised that he was taking the time to explain his thinking to me, but I let him continue without interrupting.
"So if he'd grabbed her in the driveway or in front of the house, that might've explained it, but the neighbors all said they didn't recall seeing any unknown vehicles on the street that day." He sighed.
