Page 25 of In Her Sights

Together they worked, marking the boundaries of the scene with red tape. They moved in sync, a silent agreement between them that no stone would be left unturned, no clue overlooked.

“We should make sure we haven’t missed anything,” Jake suggested. He had seen enough in his career to know that time was not on their side.

Then they walked the road to see if there were other signs but found nothing except the faint marks of the vehicle that had recently retreated. The forest around them seemed to mutter dark secrets as the wind carried soft sounds through the trees.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Jenna stood motionless, her gaze fixed on Billy Schmitt and his deputies as they canvassed the churned earth by the side of the dirt road, reading the remnants of a struggle. She felt a chill despite the June warmth, knowing this was where Sarah Thompson’s fate had turned.

“Ranger, make sure every inch is photographed before anyone else steps in,” Jenna told him.

“Got it, Sheriff,” Billy replied with a nod, his deputies already snapping pictures.

“Secure the outermost perimeter,” he directed his men. The rangers focused on their work, the silence broken only by the occasional crackle of branches underfoot and the distant call of a lone bird. Their expressions were grim as they methodically marked off a large area with yellow tape.

“Jenna?” Jake’s voice pulled her back from her observations. “We should head back to the office and regroup.”

She turned to face him, the short strands of her hair fluttering slightly as a breeze swept through the pines. “You’re right,” she replied. “There’s nothing more we can do here. Let’s get back to Trentville and start connecting the dots.”

They trudged back to the ranger’s station where their separate vehicles were parked, but before they parted, Jenna pulled out her phone.

“You go on ahead,” she told Jake. “I’m going to call Colonel Spelling. He needs to know what we’ve found.”

“Of course,” Jake replied. His eyes met hers briefly, a silent nod passing between them—a shared understanding that boiled beneath the surface of their professional rapport.

“Tell you what,” Jake said. “I’ll pick us up something to eat on the way back. All that hiking has made me hungry.” With a grin, he got into his car and drove away.

Jenna hit the speed dial for Colonel Spelling of the Missouri State Highway Patrol. The ringing tone echoed hollowly before the familiar voice answered.

“Colonel, it’s Jenna Graves,” she reported. “We’ve found the spot in Whispering Pines where Sarah Thompson was taken. There’s no doubt in my mind—it was an abduction. She didn’t just wander off the trail or succumb to an accident. This was intentional.”

“Understood, Sheriff Graves,” came the eventual reply. “Sorry to hear it, but I’ll send a team to Whispering Pines. Is that all you need for now?”

Jenna hesitated, the line crackling with anticipation. There was something else, an intuition she couldn’t shake.

“Actually, Colonel,” she started, “I think this case might be part of something ongoing. An aspiring writer, Mark Reeves, disappeared from Trentville a decade ago. No trace of him since. I’m starting to think these aren’t isolated incidents.” She could almost hear Spelling’s mental gears grinding, processing her suspicion.

“You think there’s a connection?”

“Instincts say yes,” Jenna admitted. “It’s a hunch, but my gut’s telling me we’re looking at something bigger—a pattern we’ve overlooked.”

“Mark Reeves, you said?” Spelling’s tone was now laced with concern.

“Yes, but I don’t think you’ll find any records on him. He wasn’t from around these parts. He was just traveling through Trentville when something seems to have happened to him. As far as I know, he was never reported missing. But even so …”

Her voice faded, and she paused, trying to frame the request she was about to make.

“I need a comprehensive list of missing persons in Missouri,” she finally said.

There was a brief silence on the line, then Spelling’s reply came. “That’s a hefty request, Jenna. How far back are we talking?”

Jenna paused, considering that Mark Reeves’s decade-old disappearance could very well be a piece of a larger, darker puzzle. If there were others, they needed to know. And then she considered the span of years since Piper had vanished.

“Twenty years,” she finally said, her decision made. “I need to see everything.”

“Twenty years?” Spelling repeated, his tone revealing his astonishment. “You realize the active list alone is—”

“Yes, there must be hundreds of names, just the active ones,” she affirmed, the gravity of the situation pressing down on her. “But I believe there might be others before Reeves. Can you do it?”

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