Chapter 1 - The Morning Piper Disappeared
The first thing Cal Benton heard was not the crying.
It was a little girl saying, “Daddy.”
He had already driven half a block from the Mercer house in Dublin, Ohio, when the sound reached him through the open cab window of the garbage truck.
Cal hit the brake.
The truck stopped hard enough to make the empty coffee cup in his console roll onto the floor.
He killed the hydraulic controls before leaving the cab.
“Hello?”
Another sound came from the rear hopper.
Crying.
Cal hurried around the truck.
A large canvas laundry sack lay across two soft bags near the edge. The top had been pulled loosely closed, but something inside was moving.
Cal climbed onto the rear step, dragged the sack carefully toward himself, then lowered it onto the sidewalk.
“Easy. I got you.”
He opened the top.
A four-year-old girl looked up at him.
Her reddish-brown hair had been braided into two uneven braids. Tears ran over a freckled face. A faded pink hoodie was twisted around one shoulder.
Cal’s stomach dropped.
“Hey, little girl. Who put you in there?”
The child tried to answer and instead started sobbing harder.
Cal helped her out.
The moment her sneakers touched the sidewalk, she wrapped both arms around his reflective vest.
He crouched.
“You know your mom or dad’s phone number?”
“My mommy died.”
The words came out against his chest.
“I only have my daddy.”
Cal stayed still for a second.
Then he asked her father’s name.
“Grant Mercer.”
The number Piper remembered was incomplete, but Cal found an emergency contact card folded inside the little front pocket of her hoodie.
He called.
A man answered on the third ring.
“This is Grant.”
Cal looked toward the large stone house visible down the street.
“Sir, my name’s Cal Benton. I’m with Dublin sanitation. Your daughter was just thrown into the back of my garbage truck. She’s safe, but you need to come home.”
Nothing.
Then Grant’s breathing changed.
“What?”
Cal moved the phone slightly away from his ear.
“Piper?” Grant shouted. “Piper!”
Piper looked up.
“Daddy?”
Grant made a sound Cal would remember for years.
Cal told him he was calling 911 and staying with Piper.
Grant said he was in Indianapolis for a construction meeting and would start driving immediately.
Within minutes, police and paramedics arrived.
Cal gave them the collection address.
The Mercer house.
Piper was medically examined inside the ambulance while a patrol officer took Cal’s statement.
“Did you see who put the sack in?”
“No. I was already in the cab.”
The officer looked toward the house.
“Anyone come out afterward?”
“No.”
Piper heard him.
She lifted her head from the paramedic’s shoulder.
“My Nadine did.”
The officer crouched several feet away.
“Who’s Nadine?”
Piper’s lower lip shook.
“My daddy’s wife.”
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Then she said something that changed the expression on every adult standing nearby.
“She said Daddy would love her again if I was gone.”
