Tipton raises his brow.
“I keep forgetting you worked for the FBI,” Tipton says, removing his hat and wiping a cool sweat off his forehead. “Hard to abduct someone while on foot, but I suppose it’s possible he parked along the road.”
The bloodhounds disagree. The two dogs lead the troopers toward the end of the meadow, where moonlight reveals a break in the tree line—the trail. Are the dogs following the path Darcy and Jennifer took hiking?
Though Laurie insists Tipton allows her to help with the search, the sheriff orders her to stay in the house in case Jennifer returns. Darcy doesn’t like the idea. Laurie will be alone if the killer comes back. Tipton waves Filmore forward, and they rush to close the distance on the bloodhound-led troopers with Darcy and Hunter close behind.
Darcy’s concerns over the bloodhounds following an old scent fade when they begin the climb up the narrow incline. The dogs sniff and lunge up the hill, their barks echoing through the woods. The scent they pursue isn’t old and weak. It’s fresh, and the hounds drag the troopers as Tipton pushes through branches blocking their path. One branch snaps backward and cracks Darcy in the eye. Hot pain courses through her body as the trail turns blurry, but she pushes on.
Boughs snake together and form a thick canopy the moon can’t penetrate. The forest turns an inky black, the flashlights pulling out the trail and the overgrowth reclaiming the path. A black void exists at the periphery of Darcy’s vision. The path feels like a tunnel through the center of the earth.
She doesn’t recognize her surroundings until the dogs veer right and pull the stumbling troopers onto the state park trail. The falls are ahead. Darcy hears the distant roar growing as they climb toward the ridge.
Please not the cliff, she begs. An unbidden image flashes in her mind—Jennifer’s ruined body at the bottom of the chasm, the rocks sprayed black with blood.
As soon as the mist wets her face, the dogs twirl back and jab their snouts into the plants. She runs into Tipton, who steps back to give the dogs room. Relief pours through Darcy when the bloodhounds don’t yelp at the edge of the cliff.
“Impossible,” Quigley says. “They lost the scent.”
The second trooper leads his hound to the bushes on the edge of the trail. The dog sniffs once and turns back to the path.
Tipton leans close to Quigley and whispers, “You think they went over the edge?”
But Darcy hears. She rushes to the lookout point and stands at the rail. Far below, shallow water gurgles over the rocks. The full moon pulls the details into sharp focus. No bodies in the river.
“Over there,” the second trooper says, beaming his light off the side of the cliff.
Darcy’s pulse quickens again before she follows the trooper’s gaze. A steep, rocky grade leads down to the water. Traversing the grade would be treacherous in the daylight, impossible at night. But it’s the only path the kidnapper could have taken.
“No way,” Quigley says. “We can’t take the dogs down the hill.”
“Circle around,” Tipton says, pointing back where the two trails converged. “Sure as hell beats falling a few hundred feet.”
“How long will that take to go back?”
“Another half-hour to work our way to the stream, longer if we lose the moon.”
Tipton glances at the full moon, its face a hanging man over the treetops. Quigley rubs his lips in consideration, then he kneels to pet his bloodhound.
“All right, Sheriff. You know these parts better than the rest of us. Lead the way.”
As Darcy falls in line behind the troopers and deputies, the trees part. Tipton raises his gun. After a tense moment, he holsters the weapon, recognizing Hensel, Fisher, and Reinhold as they struggle up the hill.
“Anything?” Tipton asks.
“The dogs led you to the end of the trail, and that’s it?” Hensel asks, shaking his head as he averts his eyes from Darcy.
“We think they descended the hill toward the stream bed. The water is shallow enough that we’d know if someone fell. There’d be a body at the bottom.” Tipton’s lips press together as he gives Darcy a sidelong look. “Sorry.”
“No time for apologies, Sheriff,” Darcy says.
With the dogs and troopers in front, the search party descends the hill. They take a shortcut through the woods, a trip that ends up taking longer when they’re forced to struggle through the trees and scrub. But when they reach the stream, the dogs are silent. The scent disappears.
Like Jennifer, the scent vanished into the night.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Darcy slumps over the old wooden table, hand clutching one bandaged arm where a thorn bush took a bite out of her, one foot tapping out a nonsense beat on the freshly polished floor. Hensel offers her coffee. Darcy waves it away.
It’s three in the morning. Nothing good ever happens at three in the morning. That’s what her mother always told her. But now she tracks time by the number of hours since her daughter left their lives. Nine hours since they last spoke, and that was a trivial order to tidy up the bedroom before they left the house. Seven-and-a-half hours since Jennifer disappeared. She shouldn’t be here. They should be safe in the hotel room, sleeping soundly and dreaming of a continental breakfast awaiting them downstairs.
Darcy let her family down. She had one task—protect her children and keep the monsters from breaking down the door. Instead, Jennifer sneaked past Darcy to bypass her idiotic rules and walked into the monster’s clutches.
“Let me get you something to eat,” Hensel says, sliding into the chair beside hers.
Darcy shakes her head.
“I don’t need food or sleep. I need my daughter back, just like Sandy Young’s mother and father need their daughter.”
“Apparently, your son is on the same hunger strike. The deputies are having a helluva time keeping him in the building. He wants to search for his sister.”
He sets a toasted bagel on the table. Slides it in front of her. She pushes it away and stares up at the florescent strip lighting.
“Okay,” Hensel says with a sigh. “I’ll leave the bagel in case you change your mind. Hang tight while I speak with Tipton. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He pauses and waits for a reply. After none comes, he marches out the door and leaves her alone. Just the harsh, buzzing lights and a window overlooking the dingy hallway.
Praying a message awaits from Jennifer, Darcy lifts her phone. She scrolls through messages from her daughter, the thread dating back to Genoa Cove after the police convicted Aaron and Sam for assault and battery. Her phone log displays no missed calls, but as she digs through the archives, she eyes the call from Rivers.
Before she talks herself out of it, Darcy presses the number and dials the phone. As expected Rivers doesn’t answer. His helper inside the prison tossed the phone away after Rivers called Darcy, and now he has another disposable phone. Darcy jumps when she spots Hensel standing behind her, his reflection caught in the window. He’s glaring at the phone.
“Who did you call?”
Darcy releases a held breath and tosses the phone to Hensel.
“You already know.”
He cocks an eyebrow and squints at the screen.
“I could have told you he wouldn’t answer. Don’t you think he got rid of the phone after the FBI attempted to trace the call back to the prison? Shit, Darcy. He won‘t tell you where Jennifer is.”
“But he knows.”
Hensel taps the phone against his palm, considering. He hands it back to Darcy.
“It’s time we turn up the heat. I called the prison and left a message for Warden Ellsworth to contact me the minute he arrives this morning. Ellsworth might act like he has a rod shoved up his ass, but he runs a tight ship, and he won’t take kindly to one of his guards aiding a murderer who’s serving a lifetime sentence.”