"So, you and Little D, huh?"

Carol looked up, surprised, and Katie wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

It was one of their slow nights. Jessica was out working the floor and Katie was at the bar, nursing a Diet Coke and harassing Carol.

"We're just friends," Carol told her, though her eyes sought him out even as she spoke.

She found him leaning against the wall, arms crossed as he kept a close eye on Jessica and the regular the girls called Mr. Hands for his proclivity for pushing his luck during lap dances.

For the past week or so, she'd noticed that Daryl always made a beeline for her at the bar when neither of them were busy. He still didn't have much to say but he kept her company and she found she enjoyed that very much.

Katie snorted, following her gaze, "Oh please. D doesn't have friends."

"What are you talking about?" Carol frowned. "He's nice."

"Nice?" Katie said skeptically, looking back at Daryl who, at Jessica's behest, now had Mr. Hands by the arm and seemed to be causing him some serious pain if the man's expression was any indication. "Whatever you say, honey."

Carol watched him for a few more moments and then looked away.

"He's got a thing for you, you know," Katie said suddenly, twirling her straw around her glass.

"What?"

"Little D," she explained. "He's got a thing for you."

"How do you know?" Carol asked, feeling a little breathless.

"You can see it all over him every time he looks at you!" Katie rolled her eyes. "Like he wants to lick whipped cream off of your –"

Carol cut her off, "Katie!"

"Well, it's true!" she said defensively. "But he's always been the hit it and quit it type, at least since I've known him."

"The what?"

"Oh, come on. You know what I'm talking about!" Katie insisted. "The type that'll do you in his truck with all his clothes on but won't take you to dinner, won't cuddle with you, and won't come back for seconds?"

Carol covered her face with her hands, cheeks flaming, "Oh, I did not need to know that!"

"Well just take my word for it, honey," Katie sighed. "But this time might be different, you know? He seems –"

She abruptly fell silent and Carol looked up to find Daryl standing beside her, rubbing his hand over the nape of his neck.

"Hey," she said quickly, hoping he didn't notice the way her voice came out somewhat squeakier than usual.

He greeted her with a nod, his eyes meeting hers, and she realized he hadn't heard their conversation. There was no way he'd be standing here if he had.

"Well, I better scoot," Katie told them, winking ostentatiously at Carol as she slid off her bar stool. "I think I'm needed elsewhere."

Daryl sat down next to Carol, his back to the bar so he could keep an eye on things.

The blue and pink lights blinked lazily overhead as she watched him twist the stool back and forth like a kid. He leaned his back against the bar, propping up his elbows, and she felt a little warm as her gaze traveled across the broad expanse of his chest. The man had shoulders for days and his black t-shirt fit just right, showing off defined muscles under the thin cotton.

He caught her staring and she smiled nervously, quickly meeting his eyes, "So…got anyone else to 'bounce' tonight?"

She could have kicked herself for saying something so stupid but he just snorted, motioning towards one of the few occupied tables with his chin, "Reckon that old geezer might get a little rowdy."

The man in question was at least 80 years old and wore a pair of glasses so thick Carol wondered if he could even see the girl on stage.

"They never get too old, do they?" she laughed, watching him wave a crumpled dollar bill at the dancer who looked to be in her own world as she swayed her hips for the empty room.

Daryl shrugged, swiveling back around to face the bar.

"I'm sure all the guys who come in here think you're the luckiest man alive," Carol said, bumping her shoulder against his.

"It ain't nothing special when you see it every night."

"Really?" she raised her brows. "Wow. Well, never tell your girlfriend that."

He looked over at her, eyes narrowed, and she smiled at him.

"I'll remember that," he told her, his own smile tugging at his lips.

"Carol!" the manager called from behind the bar. "You've got a call!"

She nodded and patted Daryl's arm as she left him, her thoughts consumed with what Katie had told her.

"Keep the personal calls to a minimum, okay?" her manager said, turning back to the register.

"Sorry," she told him meekly. Pressing the receiver tight against her ear, she struggled to hear over the music, "Hello?"

"Carol! Oh God, Carol!"

The anguish in her mother's voice washed over her like a bucket of ice water, the cold trickling down her spine and spreading out through her limbs. Fear gripped her chest in an iron vice and suddenly she couldn't breathe.

"What? What happened, Mom?" she gasped, clutching the edge of the bar for support.

She already knew it was bad. Her mother never called her at work and her mother never sounded this upset; not even when Carol's father died.

"I don't know how it happened, Carol!" her mother sobbed, her words indistinct between deep, shuddering gasps. "I just don't know! I was right here all night and when I checked on her, she wasn't there! She's just gone!"

"Who's gone? Mom? Mom, please tell me Sophia is okay!" she begged, the aching in her chest intensifying until she saw stars.

"She's gone! Carol, she's gone!" her mother told her hysterically.

The next thing she knew, the phone was dangling from its cord and someone was helping her sit down. Time slowed to a crawl and the music faded away. The voices around her were low and distorted like she was hearing them underwater.

She was too shocked to cry, though she thought she should. She was just…too numb.

Feeling as though she was looking at the world through someone else's eyes, she saw Daryl suddenly looming in front of her. Behind him, Katie rushed to pick up the phone, trying to figure out what had happened, and then turned to look at her with a stricken expression.

She hung up the phone clumsily, wobbling over on her towering heels to whisper something in Daryl's ear.

It seemed to Carol that most of her brain had shut down, short-circuiting under the massive strain, and leaving only her most basic mental functions intact. She breathed in, she breathed out, and she stared straight ahead.

Daryl's face filled her eyes as he knelt down to her level, his hands gripping either side of her chair. She saw him grimace, his face a tight mask of sharp lines and rigid angles.

"I need to get her out of here," he told Katie before meeting Carol's eyes again. "I'm taking you home, alright?"

She just stared, feeling like a rag doll as he helped her to her feet and then out to his truck.

The police were everywhere.

Their cars were parked at the curb, in the middle of the street, and even on the grass in her yard. Carol pressed her forehead against the cold glass, staring out the passenger window of Daryl's truck at all the blue and red flashing lights.

Daryl was talking to one of the police officers on the front steps of her house and she focused on him, on the strange, erratic movements of his hands as he explained something.

She imagined it must be very noisy outside, in the midst of all that commotion, but aside from her breathing it was completely silent inside the truck. Inside her head was a different story.

Sophia.

Sophia. Sophia. Sophia.

She repeated her name over and over, focusing on it and grasping at it until it made no sense; until it didn't seem like a name at all but just a jumble of letters. Sounds.

Sophia was gone.

Carol rolled down the window, sucking in a deep breath of cool, fresh air as the tears threatened to start again. She hadn't started crying until they'd pulled up in front of her house and saw the cops everywhere. Suddenly, it had become too real.

"Carol?"

She opened her eyes to see Daryl walking towards her, an officer on his heels.

"Ms. Williams?" the officer asked as Daryl opened the door, "I'm Officer Reynolds. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?"

She nodded, turning around to face him with her legs dangling out of the door. She saw the officer take out a pencil and a little notebook and glanced over at Daryl, finding him leaning through the open window and staring at the asphalt.

"Ms. Williams, do you have any idea who might have taken your daughter?" Reynolds asked, drawing her attention back to him.

She stared at him for a moment before answering, "Her father."

Reynolds nodded, "Can you tell me about him?"

She sighed, elbows on her knees and head in her hands, "His name is Ed Peletier. He took off when I was pregnant with Sophia and I didn't see him for two and a half years. He showed up again last week and stopped by the place where I work."

"And where's that?" he asked, pencil dancing across the page.

"Blue Diamonds Gentlemen's Club," she answered automatically, scrubbing at her eyes with the heels of her palms. The flashing lights were like ice picks to the brain; she didn't know why they couldn't just turn them off.

The sounds of pencil on paper stopped and she lifted her eyes to find Officer Reynolds staring at her with an odd look on his face. Then he bent his head and continued writing.

"I'm a cocktail waitress," she explained wearily. "I just bring people their drinks."

"Uh huh," he said absently. "So what sort of interaction did you have with Mr. Peletier that night?"

"He was rude to me. He kept grabbing me and trying to force me to talk to him. And he shoved me and…and tried to kiss me," she swallowed hard, looking over at Daryl as she added, "He ended up getting kicked out."

It seemed unnecessary to rehash what had happened after that.

"Was Mr. Peletier ever violent during your relationship?"

"He was…he was more controlling than violent. He wanted to control where I was, who I talked to, what I wore. I didn't realize how bad it had gotten until he was gone," she said, more for herself than for the officer. "Sometimes he'd slap me around when he thought I wasn't obeying him."

She felt Daryl's eyes on her and looked away, ashamed of how that sounded.

"The night he left," she began and then stopped, trying to get ahold of herself. "The night he left he beat me pretty badly."

"So he was physically abusive on more than one occasion?" Reynolds asked, still scratching away.

"Yes."

He nodded slowly, "Did you ever contact law enforcement or file a restraining order against him?"

Cheeks hot, she shook her head.

"And do you know why Mr. Peletier would want to take his daughter?" Reynolds asked, the set of his jaw making her think he'd already made his mind up.

She felt her hope ebbing away, "To hurt me."

Officer Reynolds snapped his notebook closed and tucked it away in his pocket, "Okay, that's all I need for now, ma'am. We'll probably have a few more questions for you but you can go on inside if you want. Someone will be in shortly to tell you what's going on."

She mumbled a half-hearted thanks and he walked away, joining some of the other officers in the driveway.

Daryl's eyes were still on her, his fingers gripping the door frame, "You should probably get inside. It sounds like your mama is real upset."

Carol acknowledged his words with a nod but made no move to get out of the truck.

"You need some help?" Daryl asked, stepping around the door.

She shook her head, "I just don't want to go in there. I can't. He was in there. All of her clothes, her little toys…he probably didn't even take her favorite doll. She won't sleep without that doll."

She broke off as her throat tightened and tears once again filled her eyes. She buried her face in her hands, feeling like her heart was being wrenched out of her chest.

She heard Daryl clear his throat and when she looked up at him through the tears swimming in her eyes, his face was pained. Behind him, she saw two of the officers burst into laughter and wanted to strangle them.

"They're not even going to look for her are they?" she asked suddenly, clenching her fists. "They're not even going to try to find Ed."

"They're all here, ain't they?" he asked, though his expression was somewhat doubtful as he looked over his shoulder at the officers milling around the yard seemingly without purpose. "They're gonna look for her."

"They won't," she told him, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "They won't because I'm a single mom who works at a strip club and he's her father."

He didn't deny that. He just stood there and, though he looked profoundly uncomfortable, he let her cry.

Daryl didn't leave until after the last cop car had pulled away and the street was quiet again. Carol was delirious by the time he helped her inside and handed her over to her Aunt Angela who'd driven down from Calhoun.

"Your mother's in bed," Angela told her, wrapping her arm around Carol's waist. "I gave her something to help her sleep, poor thing. She was just hysterical."

The house was eerily still and silent as the grave. Carol heard Daryl's truck starting up outside as Angela led her down the hallway, hurrying her past the room she shared with Sophia and into the guest room.

After Angela put her to bed, Carol stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours. But one look at the clock told her only forty five minutes had passed.

Feeling like a ghost in her own home, she drifted into the living room and ended up staring out the front window. The street was quiet in the glow of the streetlights, still sleeping peacefully despite all that had happened. She wasn't sure how the world could go on turning as if nothing was wrong.

In the morning, she knew clocks would go off, people would get up to drink their coffee, they'd go to work, and her baby would still be gone.