She could see another team’s members, not too far away, and realized that even though she was breaking the rules by wandering off on her own, she still wasn’t lost. It wasn’t like she was out here on her own. This morning, the forest was swarming with dozens, maybe hundreds, of people. She wasn’t alone.
She heard it again, only slightly louder, and she wondered why it was still ringing.
An ear-piercing bellow broke through her concentrated silence, and Violet jumped. She felt foolish when she realized that it was just another searcher, moving between the trees to the right of her, calling out the missing girl’s name. She silently chided herself for being so skittish.
That was when she realized why she was so skittish…so jumpy.
It was the cell phone.
But it wasn’t really a cell phone at all.
The sound that she’d been following, the sound she’d been drawn to, the very one that had pulled her away from her own search team as she wandered closer and closer to it…it was never a cell phone.
It was the sound of bells.
The spectral sound of Brooke’s bells.
Far away, muffled, obscured over the distance…but growing clearer…stronger.
Her heart pounded violently, and her feet suddenly felt like they were mired in quicksand that was slowly sucking and pulling her down. She was afraid to struggle, afraid to move or even breathe, for fear of being dragged beneath the surface forever.
A thought flashed through her head that maybe she had never been moving closer to the sound at all, but rather he was out here and moving closer to her. She wasn’t sure whether that was good news or bad. This was a man she’d been hunting. A man she’d been determined to find. A killer who needed to be stopped.
But why would he be out here? Now, of all times? Was he part of an assigned rescue team, searching through the forest and pretending not to know the fate of this poor girl? Or of all the others before her?
And, now, he was out here with her?
She suddenly felt trapped, and she wished that her father were here. Or her uncle Stephen. Or Jay.
And then the sound grew fainter, and Violet knew that could only mean that he was moving away from her. An unexpected panic settled over her as she realized that she could lose him. He could still get away from her, and they would be no closer to ending his reign of terror than they had been yesterday or the day before that. And no closer at all to finding Mackenzie Sherwin or Hailey McDonald, both of whom were still unaccounted for.
Violet moved then, stumbling in an effort to keep up with the sound of the bells…not wanting to lose his trail. She caught herself before she actually fell and was practically running before she’d fully recovered. She passed through areas being searched by other teams and felt a little like she was trespassing on their assigned coordinates, but that didn’t slow her down. Thankfully no one seemed to notice her as she rushed past them.
She barely watched where she was going, concentrating only on following the sound of bells that was resonating, louder and louder, as she drew closer to the man carrying it. She didn’t bother planning what she would do when she found him, when she could see into his face and feel the imprints he wore like a tainted uniform woven from his monstrous deeds.
She was more afraid of not finding him. Terrified that she would lose him inside the vast, crowded, overgrown woodlands.
She didn’t even see the man in front of her until she had run smack-dab into him. The impact knocked the wind out of her in a breath-stealing whoosh as she collided against his rock-solid chest. He caught her with one strong arm before she could fall backward from the force of the collision.
She was too stunned to be immediately embarrassed.
“Whoa! Are you okay?” he asked, not releasing his grip right away, probably afraid she was too klutzy to stand on her own two feet. He looked down at her with genuine concern. “Do you need some help?”
Violet didn’t recover quickly, and she looked up at him in confusion, still processing what had just happened. “I…uh, I…I guess I’m okay,” she stuttered, wondering at the buzzing sensation in her head. Had she actually hurt herself when she’d so gracelessly run into this man?
He let go of her cautiously, watching her for any sign that she might not be ready to stand on her own.
“Er, thanks.” She started to feel the lagging humiliation wash over her.
She took an unsteady step back and saw that, beneath his orange vest, he was wearing the standard-issue uniform of the Buckley Police Department. He was one of her uncle Stephen’s officers.
She didn’t recognize his face, and she silently hoped that he didn’t recognize her, especially since she’d practically run him over.
“Sorry about that,” she offered lamely.
“Don’t worry about it. Did you need something?” he asked her. He raised one eyebrow, studying her. “Did you find something?”
Violet had the sudden, inexplicable feeling that she shouldn’t tell this man anything, and she wondered a little at why she would feel that way. “No,” she stammered, uncomfortable about lying to a cop. “No, nothing like that. I was just…leaving.”
He looked down at her, and she wondered if he believed her. She wasn’t even sure that she’d been moving in the right direction if she had actually been leaving.
She met his gaze, smoothing her face into what she hoped looked like a convincing smile. “Thanks, by the way,” she said, trying to laugh at her own clumsiness. “You know, for catching me.”
He smiled back and reached out to pat her on the shoulder. She felt the vague buzzing again, and she realized that it was coming off him. An imprint, probably…not all that unusual for someone who carried a gun for a living.
“Anytime,” he responded. “Just take it easy. Oh, and keep an eye on where you’re going-it can be dangerous out here.”
His warning hadn’t really been necessary. Everyone who was out here this morning knew just how dangerous it could be.
But Violet knew, better than anyone else, what the real danger in the woods was today.
She thanked him again and moved away as casually as she could, trying to maintain the appearance that she was calmer than she felt, all the while focusing to stay tuned in to the sound of the haunting bells that were still too far away from her. Once she was sure she was out of the officer’s sight, she sped up again, paying little notice to where she was stepping.
The sweetly melodic sounds drew her closer…seeming to pull at her from the inside out.
She came upon it quickly, much more quickly than she’d expected, thinking that it was farther away…so distant. But now she was sure he was nearby.
She slowed down, only now noticing that her shoes were muddy and the lower half of her jeans were soaking wet and filthy. She wasn’t cold, she wasn’t even afraid, but she was shivering, and her teeth were nearly chattering as she shuddered all over. She thought that it must be the anticipation, the adrenaline coursing through her as she approached a killer, still not knowing what she would do when she saw him.
She looked around. The bells were nearly deafening here, louder even than they’d been at Brooke’s grave site. A volunteer moved past her, but she knew when she looked at him that he wasn’t the source of the echoes.
Violet was sure, beyond any doubt, that she would recognize the killer immediately when she saw him.
She slowly scrutinized the area now, searching for something that no one else knew how to find. She moved in and out of stands of evergreens and stepped around the giant ferns that sprang up from the damp, shadowed forest floor.
She passed other searchers, as voices called out from all directions, but nothing could penetrate the musical chimes of the bells.
She saw the oil-slick echo, like the one that had come off the dead girl in the lake, clinging to him before she saw anything else. It seemed to glow, shimmering over him in slippery ripples that danced over his skin, obscuring the rest of him from her immediate view.