Page 50 of Cold Case Discovery

He hadn’t, though, in fairness, it was hard to determine what was wind mark and what was made by car and human in the dirt of the parking area. It wasn’t an often-visited area since the campground was on the other side of the preserve. You’d have to be a pretty intrepid hiker to be on this side. So a lack of evidence of other peoplecouldpoint to something.

He supposed it was just as possible Ry was still in the preserve as not. But it was avastpreserve. “I’m not sure even with Laurel’s okay they’re going to let us walk down that trail again.”

“Let’s go around and meet it up a ways after.” Chloe looked down at her phone screen and the map of the forest preserve she’d pulled up. “If we walk back to the road, then take it a while, we can cut over. Should be light by then, and we’ll have an easier time of meeting up with the trail from the road.”

Jack wasn’t sure it was the best idea, but he knew Chloe needed to feel like she had a handle on something. Besides, even if it was the wrong avenue to go down, the entire Bent County Sheriff’s Department was also looking into this whole thing. They could stumble into finding Ry as well.

Hopefully alive. Hopefully not a murderer.

But first, he had to be found, so Jack nodded at Chloe, and they started walking back out to the road. There was a hint of a sunrise to the east. She was right: it wouldn’t take long for the light to catch up with them.

That would be good. That would help. Jack told himself this over and over again. That he was the sheriff, that this was hisjob. Not a painful tightrope walk with the woman he loved, trying to unearth secrets that would hurt them both.

“Losing service,” Chloe muttered, holding her phone up to the sky as if that might help. “I don’t think we should cross over to the trail just yet. We need to go at least another half mile.” She lifted her hand, poked at something on one of those high-tech watches Jack couldn’t begin to understand.

“You know, you should get one, Jack,” she said, as if she’d read his mind.

“I don’t even like my cell phone. Why would I want it on my wrist?”

She shook her head, her mouth curving ever so slightly. The old, familiar argument was something like a comfort in the middle of all this unfamiliar.

“Do you know where it was?” she asked, not looking at him as they walked.

He didn’t have to be a mind reader to understand what she was asking. “The campground on the north side was the last place anyone saw them. I’ve been up and down every inch of it, and this preserve. We’re pretty far away.”

She nodded. “Ry was too young to have been involved in that, but... Maybe we should head that way after we follow the trail for a bit. I don’t think any of these things make sense enough to connect, except for the timing. I want to ignore the timing, I really do, because it feels so circumstantial. But...”

“Timing is part of it. I agree. We’ll head out that way if the trail doesn’t offer anything.”

This time, she did look over at him. “Another thing you don’t have to be here for.”

“I’ll be here,” he said, and realized she had said the same exact thing, at the same exact time, mimicking his deep voice while she did it.

He frowned at her, but there was no heat behind it. In truth, he was glad she could still make fun of him in the midst of this mess.

Still, he wanted to make sure she understood. “Not leaving your side, Chloe.”

She reached out with her free hand, laced her fingers with his. “Thanks.”

They walked, hand in hand, in silence for the rest of the way until her watch beeped, signaling they’d walked far enough to cut through the low-level brush and find the trail.

The world was all alight now, still pearly and dim, but they wouldn’t be risking twisting an ankle or stepping on something that didn’t want to be stepped on by heading off-road to cut toward the trail.

They’d taken only a step or two off the road when they both paused. Jack thought he’d heard something from behind them. Likely from the parking lot, where even now a couple of Bent County deputies were working; though that wasn’t the direction the sound hadseemedto come from.

But in their stillness, Jack heard it again. A noise. A human noise. From the opposite direction of the parking lot. It had to have been.

Because it was someone’s voice. And whatever they’d said sounded a lot likehelp. The cops certainly wouldn’t be yelling for help.

“Is that someone calling for help?” Chloe asked, her hand squeezing tight in his. Too hopeful, too desperate for it to be Ry.

So he held her still to keep her from immediately running toward it and hated having to be the voice of reason. “Sounds like it—but we need to be careful, Chloe. We don’t know what we’re dealing with. Calls for help are just as likely tricks to—”

“I know, Jack,” she said, but she was already moving toward the noise. Though she didn’t pull out of his grasp, just pulled him along with her. Back onto the road and farther up.

He could have stopped her, but he didn’t have the heart. They’d approach carefully. Together. They’d protect each other.

Jack realized they were close to the edge of the preserve that backed up to the highway. It could have been a trick of noise carrying. It could have been...

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