The stranger shoved his hand against Vance’s chest to move him aside. As the man’s hand pressed against the heavy leather vest, Vance’s eyes caught something.
There, on the back of the stranger’s right hand, was a jagged, white scar shaped like a crescent moon.
Vance’s breath caught in his throat. The memory rushed back with violent clarity. Six years ago. The night before Sarah vanished. Someone had tried to break into Vance’s garage. Vance had fought the intruder in the dark, smashing a heavy wrench across the man’s hand before the thief escaped into the rain. A crescent moon scar.
It was him.
The realization paralyzed Vance for a singular, crucial second. In that second, the stranger shoved past him with the desperate strength of a cornered animal, dragging the little girl toward the exit.
“Hey!” the waitress yelled from behind the counter. “Is everything alright over there?”
“Fine!” the stranger shouted back, throwing open the glass door. “We’re leaving!”
Vance broke from his shock and rushed toward the door, bursting out into the bright, blinding sunlight of the parking lot.
“Stop!” Vance roared.
But the stranger was already throwing Mia into the backseat of a dark blue sedan. He slammed the door shut, scrambled into the driver’s seat, and fired up the engine. The tires screeched against the asphalt, sending a cloud of white smoke into the air as the car tore out of the parking lot and merged recklessly onto the highway.
Vance ran forward, but he was too late. The car was gone.
He stood alone in the middle of the empty parking lot, the smell of burnt rubber stinging his nostrils. His chest heaved. His hands were shaking so violently he had to ball them into tight fists to stop the tremors.
He hadn’t been able to stop them. He had lost her again.
But as the dust settled, Vance forced himself to breathe. He closed his eyes and saw the image of the fleeing car burned into his retinas.
A dark blue sedan. A dented rear bumper. Texas license plate: JKL-492.
Vance opened his eyes. He wasn't the broken, helpless man he had been for the last six years. He had a thread. A real, tangible thread.
He walked back to his motorcycle parked near the diner window. He pulled his phone from his heavy denim jacket and dialed a number he hadn't called in three years.
“Miller,” a gruff voice answered on the third ring.
“It’s Vance,” he said, his voice steadying into cold, hard resolve.