The dogs barking echoed through the cold morning air. The Hoovers awoke to find little Sally Lynn missing. She was only three years old, with the blondest, curliest hair you could imagine. Her eyes a sky blue.
There were no signs of forced entry, authorities tore the house apart but there was nothing leading to her where abouts. The only thing concrete were footprints in the snow.
Her mother, wrapped up in an afghan refused to let the search team go at it alone. Her husband, close by, his hand tightly intwined with hers. He whispered as the dogs sped across the wooden bridge. “There’s no way she’s in that frozen pond.” His words causing Sally’s mother to fall to her knees. He quickly lifted her back up. The lead detective gave him a scowl. “Mrs. Hoover, we are doing everything we can. There is no reason to believe Sally is in the water. We just want to be thorough in our efforts.”
The closest neighbor, nearly a mile away, no one seen or heard anything.
Mrs. Hoover’s freezing red face turned an abrupt pale, stopping the officers in their tracks as they called for the dogs to halt.
She reared back and with an abundance of force smacked Paul Hoover across the face, screaming at the top of her lungs. “What did you do to my baby?” The couple had only been married for about a year. The suspicion was there for all of us, and a mother’s intuition is usually the biggest clue to be found.
It wasn’t long before cell phone pings and cameras gave way to Paul Hoover’s secret.
Mrs. Hoover had been sick with the flu and in the bed for nearly three days. Paul’s urge for a drink pushed him to take little Sally Lynn to the local bar, leaving her unattended in his truck for what he believed would be just a moment. The already subzero temperatures dropped. Paul’s minutes turned to hours as Sally Lynn shook and froze in her car seat that he so caringly put her in.
He confessed, though his crime would have found him out when the spring thaw revealed her location.
Leesa Writes 