Page 66 of The Summer Guests

“Funny, I never took you for a dog person,” said Maggie.

“I didn’t think I was.” Then Ben met Farley Wade’s black Labrador, and it had been love at first sight for both man and canine. “Evelyn never let me have one, anyway. Now I’m going to be royally pissed off if that asshole Wade decides he wants his dog back.”

“So what’s the quickest way down to the Stony Creek Trail?” Declan asked.

“There’s a connecting path just to the west of us,” said Ben, studying the map on his phone. “That should take us down to the trail.”

They left Ben’s car parked at the shoulder and walked west down the road until they came to a sign:Access to Stony Creek Trail, .75 miles.The footpath was almost invisible, just a pin scratch through the overgrown weeds. Maggie shifted the weight of her backpack and tightened the chest strap. They hadn’t even started their hike, and she was already sweating. “Gentlemen?”

“My knees aren’t going to like this,” muttered Ben.

The path descended a series of switchbacks that were so littered with loose stones and tree roots that every step was a fall or an ankle sprain waiting to happen. And going down would be the easy part; she didn’t look forward to scrambling back up the incline on this hot and buggy afternoon.

They descended into the intermittent shade of spruce and oak trees, past thickets of blackberry bushes that reached out with thorny canes to snag her trousers. From the stream far below came the faint rush of moving water. Mosquitoes buzzed and swarmed around her face, undeterred by the oily layer of DEET she’d sprayed on. She had always been insects’ preferred source of blood. On any hike, they invariably ignored her male colleagues and came straight for her. Age, alas, had not made her any less tempting a meal.

The group splashed into a puddle at the bottom of the ravine, where the mosquitoes were even more ravenous, and a thick cloud ofthem orbited her head. Here was the main trail, which ran alongside Stony Creek. They turned east, toward the location where Zoe Conover had been found.

And where any remaining evidence should be.

A few hundred yards later, they knew they were getting close when they saw multiple fresh boot prints on the creek’s edge, left behind by emergency responders. Trampled into the dirt was a torn bandage wrapping and the plastic cap of a syringe.

Declan pointed to paw prints in the mud. “This must be where the dog left the trail.” How miraculous a dog’s nose was, able to detect countless chemical signals in the air that humans were oblivious to. Or was it a noise the dog heard, a whimper or moan or some high-pitched keening from the injured girl? Something had drawn the dog’s attention, had made it leave its owners and burrow through this underbrush. And here, in the damp soil, its paw prints were a record of its passage. Now they saw more boot prints, left by those who had followed the dog into what was largely a bog. The clouds of mosquitoes thickened, and mud sucked her boots as they pressed forward. She could hear Declan walking right behind her, his boots snapping twigs, and it brought back the days when she was still young, still in the field, silently moving through the Burmese jungle, where the air smelled like rotting vegetation. She’d moved quicker in those days, unbothered by the heat and the mud, because it was still an adventure, with a heady dose of fear in the mix. The fear of capture, and what would inevitably follow: Interrogation. Torture. Possible execution. Today it was just a summer hike with two good friends and a full water bottle in her backpack, but she could feel that old jolt of adrenaline. This well-worn body wasn’t ready to give up the ghost yet.

At last, they reached the spot they’d been searching for. She looked down at all the broken branches, the confusing jumble of boot prints. She heard Ben breathing hard beside her.

“There’s the viewpoint, just above us,” he said, looking up through the trees, toward the road where his car was parked.

“And here’s where she landed,” said Maggie, pointing to the churned-up mud and medical debris, evidence of the frantic efforts to stabilize the girl. The first responders had been focused on saving a life, not on evidence collection, and they would not have worried about preserving the scene or searching for clues left by the assailant. Such clues would not be in this ravine anyway, because whoever abducted Zoe was probably never down here. He had been on the road forty feet above and from there had tipped her body over the edge. Perhaps he thought she was already dead, or if she wasn’t, such a fall would certainly finish her. What he hadn’t counted on was the cushioning effect of all those tree branches and bushes as she’d plummeted, softening her impact.

And here, in the ravine, Zoe Conover had had a second stroke of good luck: she’d landed on the edge of a stream. She might have been too broken to crawl her way out of here, but among these puddles of water, she could slake her thirst.

“A convenient spot for a body dump,” said Ben.

“But why bring her here? She was wearing a bathing suit, which means she was probably abducted near the pond. He could have disposed of her body right there. Drowned her in the water.”

“What if she wasn’t taken from the pond? The ocean’s only two miles away from Moonview. Maybe she caught a ride to the beach and was snatched there.”

“That still doesn’t explain why he dumped her bodyhere, and then disposed of her backpack miles away, on Route One. And why plant the cell phone in Farley Wade’s truck?” Ben shook his head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe that’s the whole point,” Maggie said. “To cause confusion.”

They fanned out and started searching the area for ... what? They didn’t know yet. An article of clothing, perhaps, or some item that had been touched and discarded by the abductor, hopefully bearing a fingerprint or DNA. She spied broken glass, but it was thickly coated in crusted dirt and had probably been lying there for years. Here and there were scraps of weathered paper, and Ben plucked up an emptysunscreen tube. None of it looked recent. It was merely the detritus of careless visitors who’d tossed their litter from the overlook above.

“Here!” Declan called out.

She tramped back through brambles and underbrush to where he was standing, at the foot of a towering white pine. He wasn’t focused on the ground but was looking up, at the branches arching overhead.

Ben joined them, red faced and sweating. “What is it?”

“Take a look.” Declan pointed upward.

Only then did she see what was snagged on one of the branches: a pair of swim goggles. “How the hell did you spot that?”

“I thought I heard an eastern towhee singing up there. I looked up, and instead of a bird, I sawthatdangling on the branch.” He handed Maggie his binoculars.

“Well spotted, indeed,” said Ben, impressed.

“You see? Bird-watching isn’t anentirelyuseless hobby.”

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