“So what did we get out of that?” I ask.
“We got confirmation that there was a second car,” Kez says. “So either our missing woman set it up as her ride away from the crime scene or we have an abductor who might or might not have been stalking her. God, I hope he was. Her little town is just full up on busybodies. Somebody will have seen him. Probably got his damn license number too.”
“So . . . where to now?”
“I should probably join the grid search. Prester’s not up to it right now, tramping around through the woods. I’m taking over from him.”
“You want me to go to her hometown, then? Talk to her neighbors?”
Kez cracks a quick, grim smile. “Better you than me. Doubt I’d get a whole lot of cooperation.” There’s a thread underneath that, one of resentment and resignation. I understand it, at least to a very small extent.
I just say, “Of course, I’m happy to help. Is that going to screw you up with the state boys?”
She shrugs as her whole answer, and I can see she means it. She doesn’t care about the consequences. There’s a sharpness to her expression, the set of her jaw, that makes me think this is one of those cases that will haunt her for the rest of her days. She wants to solve it any way she can. Maybe she wants to do it for the child she’s bearing, the one who will change her life so completely. Maybe she needs to prove something to herself.
I hope that doesn’t put us both in real danger.
8
KEZIA
I have a secret I never tell anybody: I appreciate nature, but I hate the goddamn woods. I like the city, I like the brick and steel and sweat of it, and being out here in the wildest part of the green to me always feels like I’ve been scooped up by aliens and dropped in the middle of a Predator movie. God help me, I spend a damn lot of my time out here too. I pretend I don’t care.
I do. Violently.
Gwen drops me off to get my car, and I hook up with the TBI again, who offer to let me tramp the hills with their grunts; I take the opportunity mainly because I know Detective Prester is already up there, trying to hold up our end. Sure enough, when I pull up, I see Prester coming out of the woods. He’s moving slow. His color—never real good—has an ashy undertone I don’t like. God help me, I love the crusty old bastard; he’s a smart, capable detective, and more than that, he cares about victims, and he’s made me care about them too.
He doesn’t want my worry, but he gets it anyway.
I walk up to him, and he—of course—waves me back like I’m a fly bothering him. “I’m okay,” he says, which he isn’t. “It’s the heat is all.” It isn’t that hot, and we both know it, but I let it go. I’ve been nagging him to see his doctor, but he’s having none of it. He’ll just snap at me if I push, and I can’t really say I’d blame him. If I make it to his age, I’d like to be that independent, not have my bossy young partner ordering me around.
“I’ll finish up for you,” I tell him. “Not a problem.”
“You hate the trees,” he says, which is accurate, and I’ve never told him that, but somehow I’m hardly surprised he knows. “Too much imagination, Claremont. You think bears lurk every-damn-where.”
“What, you mean they don’t?” I flash him a grin, and a corner—just a corner—of his mouth quirks in response. “How long you been out there?”
“Few hours,” he says. Which is bad, given how he looks right now. I try not to tell him that. “You been out with Gwen?”
“I’ve been following up leads,” I say, which isn’t an answer, and he doesn’t take it for one either. “Any luck out there yet? Found anything?”
“Oh, found plenty, all of it junk. Old condoms, rusty cans, beer bottles. Nothing about our missing lady. Not a trace.”
“They’ll keep going until it’s dark,” I say. “Go on home. Please?”
He doesn’t like it, but he nods. I stand up and walk away without another word. I can feel him watching me, but I don’t turn around. I hear his engine start with a loud, rattling roar, and he backs that boat-size sedan out with the ease of a lifetime of driving these narrow roads.
I’m double-checking the laces on my boots when a young woman in the outfit of the sheriff’s office comes over. I silently produce my badge and ID, and she makes a note in her logbook. “Detective.” She nods. “Uh, the boys are all up in the hills right now. You want to wait at base or—”
I want to wait at base, damn right I do, but I put on a heavier jacket, then add a fluorescent vest. Don’t want to get mistaken for a damn bear. Or a black woman. “I’ll take the grid Detective Prester was walking,” I say. I strap on a flashlight; it gets dark under the trees even in full sun, and clues can be easy to miss. And I keep my sidearm handy, because there are indeed damn bears. And predators on two feet, too, who might enjoy a potshot at a cop. Bears don’t shoot back. I will.
I follow the accommodating deputy uphill to her small folding table. She’s got a map spread out that’s weighted down at the corners with rocks, and still rippling a little in the strong, chilly breeze. “Okay,” she says, and points to a spot on the paper. “This is your section. Grid search, north to south, then east to west, no more than three feet apart on each pass—”
“Thank you, Deputy; I know how a grid search works,” I say. “Channel?”
“We’re on seven,” she says, and hands me a walkie-talkie. It’s a brick of a thing, heavy enough to use as a baton in an emergency, and built so sturdy it would probably work if you ran over it with a truck. I turn the dial to the right channel and do a radio check. At her nod, I head uphill into the tree line.
Darkness drops a cloak on my head, and I pause to let my eyes adjust. It’s oddly warmer here, mainly because the breeze isn’t as strong and direct; I take a few breaths and flip on the flashlight to look for the marker Prester would have put in to show where he stopped his search. The fluorescent hit of the neon yellow flag jumps out at me. He didn’t get too far.
I walk to it, alert to the whisper of the woods. There are other cops out here doing their own grids, but I can’t see or hear them; I might as well be alone, as far as it feels. I love Javier, but if he laughs at me one more time about feeling vulnerable out in the wild . . . I shake that off and pull up the marker flag. The deputy’s given me neon orange flags to use if I find any potential evidence; the number of them in the bag is damn optimistic, seems to me. But I’ve noted which way Prester had his flag pointed, and I start slowly walking that grid. I frequently refer to my compass to be sure I’m straight on the path; too easy to get turned around out here.
I pause when I spot a glint in the light and crouch to examine it. A broken beer bottle, label long tattered from being out here for years. I mark it anyway and move on.
Prester’s grid is not rich in clues. I finish north to south, start east to west, and I’m halfway through (and an hour in) before I spot something odd. I examine it, trying to figure out what it is; it’s just a shape half-hidden by a scramble of ferns, but it looks wrong. I carefully move the plants and take a closer look.