He retrieved a new black shirt from another compartment and pulled it on. Then he bent over, picked up her feet, and began walking backward down a hill, dragging her with him. Panic raced through her. She kicked her feet against his hold, but she barely swayed him.
“You can’t fight Fate, Ama. She brought us this far. She won’t back out on us now,” he said. Her head struck a root, sending a burst of white across her vision. The gag shifted, the knot in the back pulled up by the root, and she forced it over her teeth and to the cleft above her chin. She gulped air, spitting. Then she screamed, a sound so shrill she didn’t recognize at first that it came from her, so filled with panic and instinct, so devoid of any measure of control it barely sounded human. Jonathon froze and gazed down at her, his face round, his eyes wide.
“I wish I’d been ready for that one,” he whispered. “I don’t want to waste anymore. If I tell you a little bit about what we’re going to do together, can you promise me you won’t scream again until I tell you to?” he asked.
His face was within a breath of hers. She held his gaze. Her pulse drummed in her ears.
“I promise,” she said. “As long as we stay right here, I won’t scream unless you tell me to.”
Jonathon frowned, searching their vicinity. “There,” he said, pointing down a steep ravine to a row of downed trees, which made a haphazard awning over a pile of boulders. “We can wait there. Feels like it’s going to rain again soon, and I wouldn’t want you to catch cold. It’ll alter your range, and that just won’t do.”
“My range for what?” Ama demanded. Then it clicked, and her hands traveled together to her throat. He was talking about her voice.
Jonathon smiled. “I’ve imagined this encounter so many times. You’d think I’d know how this was going to turn out. But I don’t. We’ll arrive at perfection together. I have faith in us,” he said.
MARTIN Chapter 8 | 5:31 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
THE TIP LINE CHIRPED AGAIN. On the second ring, Martin glanced up from Hazel Stevens’s case file, which he’d dived into after Stanton filled him in on her disappearance. The room was empty. He hadn’t noticed Stanton leave. Captain Barrow was in his office with the door closed and the shades drawn. Martin pushed his chair across the room with the balls of his feet and picked up the receiver.
“Tarson PD, Detective Locklear speaking,” he said.
A woman’s voice came through the earpiece, shrill and quick. “I need to report a missing person.”
“What is your name?” he started.
“Lindsey Harold. My boss’s name is Ama Chaplin. She’s missing.”
“Why do you believe she’s missing?” he asked as he gathered a pen and paper.
“I don’t believe she’s missing. She is missing,” she snapped.
“Tell me why you think so,” he replied.
“She told me she’d be done with her run by five, and if she didn’t call by five thirty, something was wrong. Did you guys run the tag I gave you?”
Martin’s attention drifted back to his desk. Notes about Hazel’s father, Eddie Stevens, were the only decisive pieces of information in the entire file. He had been ruled out as a suspect from the outset. He’d kept the search up on his own even after it officially ended. The only trouble he ever got into was when he called the local paper in a rage because they’d called Hazel’s disappearance a vanishing act instead of an abduction.
“Neither the vehicle nor the owner came up in our system as being wanted for any reason,” he answered.
“So you didn’t even go look?” she shrieked.
“There was no credible reason to go check a car legally parked in a parking lot,” Martin answered, losing patience.
“Well, you have one now!”
“Could she be waiting out the rain?” he reasoned.
“If she was going to wait out a damn storm, she would’ve called,” she argued.
Captain’s door opened. The smell of whisky accompanied him into the main room. Once he realized Martin was with a caller, he gave him a questioning look.
Martin covered the receiver and said, “It’s the same caller from earlier.”
Captain frowned and took the phone. “This is Captain Barrow. What seems to be the problem?”
Martin could hear the woman’s voice, fading from irate to pleading, as she told the captain about her boss’s concern and plan to call by 5:30. Captain’s gaze flicked to the hanging wall clock. 5:32.
“Tell you what, I’ll have an officer go check the lot. If we see her, or any reason for concern, I will call you back,” he said.
He paused, listening to her rattle off a few more words. “Yes, ma’am. You’re welcome. Take care.” He hung up the phone and reached for his radio. “Damn city girls. Stick to running on your sidewalks,” he grumbled. He pressed the call button on his radio. “Stanton, swing by the north trailhead parking lot at Tarson Woods and take a look around. I’ll have Bordeaux check the south lot. Seems we might have a city girl lost on those trails. I’d like to get this wrapped up before it gets any darker.”
“On my way, sir,” Stanton answered.
Captain pulled his hat onto his head and moved for the door.
“Do you want me to go check anything out?” Martin asked the captain’s back.
“You’re a detective. You work at crime scenes. If I find one, I’ll let you know,” he said, and walked out.
EDDIE Chapter 9 | 6:00 PM, December 1, 2006 | Tarson, Georgia
THE RAIN HAD LET UP again, but it was almost worse when it did because the fog rolled in, making it impossible for Eddie to see the terrain ahead. He missed another dip and slid in the mud about a foot before his trick knee gave out under his weight. He threw his hands in front of him and yelped as a jagged, skinny tree stump bit into his palm. He rolled to his back, grimacing, and clutched his hands against his stomach.
He opened his mouth and closed his eyes. Hazel was gone. That lady was gone, too. And he was just a poor old fool lying on his back in the woods. He couldn’t save any of them.
Eddie pulled himself upright. It had taken him an hour to get this far, and with one good leg, it was going to take a lot longer to get back. There was an old stone single-room hutch less than a quarter mile from where he stood, marked a few years back with a plaque honoring those who lost their lives in the Evansbrite factory explosion. The little room was mostly used by local teenagers to drink and take dates or play with Ouija boards. Police had theorized Hazel had met a secret boyfriend there, supported by physical evidence Hazel had recently been inside the little structure. Eddie saw the evidence—Hazel’s silver pinkie ring dropped among the blanket of rotting leaves, a token from her mother—as something different: Hazel leaving bread crumbs.
I was here. Keep looking.
He wouldn’t go back to his car. He’d go to that old building and wait out the fog or the night, whichever let up first. Then he’d keep searching.
Eddie worked his way back to the trail. Between the steep grade, the exposed roots, and the standing water, every step was a balancing act. He tried to focus on his breathing as it marked time, in-in-out, and not the sinking familiarity washing over him, through him. Still, hesitation made a home in his chest, swelling as the distance between him and the little stone structure evaporated.