Melinda arrived at the store by 8:30. She loved working here with Delia.

Since it was only 8:30 she didn't have to open the store just yet so instead she decided to do some inventory and get the store ready to open that morning.

By 9 Delia herself came walking through the door.

"Is Ned at school?" Melinda asked her friend.
"Yeah. It's a Wednesday Mel and it's 9 am. Where's your head at this morning?" Delia asked Melinda raising an eyebrow at Melinda's strange behavior.
"I guess it's on the fact that a little girl needs my help, but won't tell me what she needs my help with." Melinda responded.
"Another one?" Delia asked.
Melinda just nodded her head yes as a customer walked in.

Melinda smiled at the man that walked in before asking, "Do you need any help finding anything?"
When the man replied no that he was just browsing, she replied "Alright. I'll be over here if you need any help."

She walked into the back of the shop to pull out a couple of new items when the little girl returned to her.

"Amber, hi." Melinda said.
"I need your help."
"I know Amber. What do you need my help with? What do you need me to do for you?"
"I need you to tell my..." The young girl trailed off and got a scared look on her face. "He's coming. I have to go. I'll be back later." Then she disappeared.

'I think it's time I researched this young girl.' Melinda thought.

She walked back out to the front of the store without bringing out any of the new items like she had intended to and set her laptop up.

"Who were you talking to back there?" Delia asked.
Melinda just gave her a look and Delia understood.

Once the laptop was up and connected to the internet Melinda went to the site she always used to look for people. Once it loaded she typed in the name Amber Hagerman and waited for the search results.

Delia looked over at the name and raised an eyebrow and squinted a bit like she was thinking about something.

"Amber Hagerman. That's the little girl that disappeared and was found a few days later with her throat slashed. She's who they named the Amber Alert after." Delia told Melinda after a minute.

"Yeah, says here that Amber and her brother Ricky, who was 5 at the time, went to their grandparent's with their mother. The grandfather always kept a couple of bikes at the house for when the kids visited and they asked if they could go for a ride while their mom and Grandma talked." Melinda paused for a second while she scrolled down the webpage. "They were supposed to just go once around the block. They rode over to the parking lot of a Winn-Dixie grocery store. It had been abandoned for some time and the neighborhood kids enjoyed riding on a ramp there. It wasn't an isolated area so their mother and grandparents didn't think give it a second thought as they rode off. After a couple of minutes Ricky told Amber that he was going to go back since their mom had said only once around the block and rode back to their grandparents house. When he made it there his grandfather asked where his sister was. He told his grandfather that she had stayed for one more ride on the ramp so they sent him back for her." She paused again to scroll down a little bit further. "He was only gone a minute or two before he came back and said, "I can't find Sissy". The grandfather jumped in his truck and sped over to the parking lot where he found a police officer. The officer told him that a man nearby called in and said that he heard screaming and when he looked out his window he saw a man dragging a girl into a pick-up truck. The officer raced over to the scene but all he found was a bike. The grandfather looked crest-fallen as he said, "That's my grand-daughters bike". The only other thing that it says is that when the grandmother spoke to the reporters all she told them was that it was a span of simply 8 minutes from when the two children left the house to when the man called the police." She finished with a sigh and her eyes were watering a bit. She felt bad for the grandparents and mother. She knew that abductions and killings could happen fast, but she never realized that it could all happen in 8 minutes and by the look on Delia's face, neither did she.

When Delia realized that Melinda was done reading to her, she went over to assist the man that had come in before Melinda even started reading about Amber, as he was still just browsing even though it looked more like he was eavesdropping more than browsing their products.

Melinda scanned through the next couple of articles before stopping on another one that interested her.

She scanned through it before realizing there really wasn't anything interesting there other than the case was still open today.(AN: I usually wouldn't put this in here, but Amber Hagerman's case is still open today. She was abducted in 1996. They haven't caught her killer and her grandparents and mother are loosing hope of the police ever actually finding out who the man even is.) Amber's body was found by a man walking his dog down by the river. They pursued over 5,500 leads in 18 months hoping to find young Amber's killer. Melinda really didn't find those facts too interesting. It just meant that if she needed any help from the police with anything, that they wouldn't be able to tell her anything as it's still an open case and an on-going investigation.

"Was that Amber Hagerman you were reading about?" The man asked Melinda, startling her and making her jump a bit.
"Yeah. May I ask why?"
"I know her grandparents. They still live in the same place. Still in the same house in Arlington, Texas."
Melinda just raised an eyebrow a bit, wondering why this man was telling her this.
"Sweet old couple really. The mother is too. That family really didn't deserve what happened to them. I just talked to them a couple of days ago when a report came on TV that said that the Amber Alert had helped the police find another young child, and the grandmother just said, 'You did it again baby.' "
"That's sad." Melinda said. "Amber still had her whole life ahead of her." She told the man with some tears in her eyes.
"Yes, she did. How much would you like for this?" The man asked, signaling to the old jewelry box he had in his hand.
"Oh, 25." She said smiling slightly. "If you take it over to Delia over there at the cash register, she'll ring you up."
"Thank you." The man replied and walked away.

The rest of the morning was pretty slow. They had the occasional customer, but they were few and far between and soon after that it was lunch time and about time for Rick to show up to talk to Melinda.

She checked the time and saw that it was 12:02. She sighed and looked out the window resting her elbow on the counter, she placed her chin in her hand, then placed the other arm across the counter with her hand sitting next to her elbow. She noticed a dark green truck sitting outside, but as soon as she blinked it had disappeared, almost as if it was a ghost itself. She scrunched up her nose a bit at the thought of it. Right then her cell phone rang. She sighed and answered it.

"Hello?"
"Yeah hold on Rick." She looked over at Delia and asked, "What do you want for lunch Dels?"
"Uhm, a burger from McDonalds and a cup of green tea from next door would be great." Delia replied after a moment.
"A burger from McDonalds and a cup of green tea from next door for Delia and I think I'll have a taco salad from Wendys and a cup of coffee." Melinda told Rick.
"Yes Rick, I do realize you only have an hour and a half for lunch. And Yes, I do realize I'm making you go across town, but since Delia and I are stuck here in the shop waiting on you we can't get our own lunch and since you asked, you're getting it for us, and paying for it." She replied her smile evident in her voice.
"Alright Rick. I'll see you in 10 minutes." Melinda finished as she flipped her cell phone closed, ending the phone call with Rick.