Page 87 of My Child is Missing

“When I was here last, Henry Thomas was outside, working on the car. He was going to paint it.”

“Doesn’t look like he did,” Noah said.

“No. We got interrupted.”

She crossed the boundary between the gravel and the grass. It spread out about ten or fifteen feet before it met an uneven line of trees. In the direction of the cabin, it narrowed and meandered around to the back of the structure. In the direction of the road, it curved into a barrier of knee-high weeds and brush. Josie followed the weeds until she found what she was looking for—an area of the brush that had been tamped down. Not enough that anyone would notice unless they were looking for it. From the driveway it didn’t look like much but now that Josie stood over the top of it, she saw the mud and the light tire tracks.

Returning to the El Camino, she looked at the rear passenger’s tire. It was clean. Looking back to where she had seen the tire track, she tried to envision it. “Can we get the hood open?”

Luke raised a brow but said nothing.

Noah said, “What for?”

“To see if the torque converter is there.”

Luke said, “You won’t see it by looking under the hood.”

“Yeah,” said Noah. “You’d have to be under the car. We’d need lights. Maybe a lift of some kind. Even then, I’m not sure it would be visible without removing some stuff. Wait—you think it’s there?”

“Yes,” Josie said.

“But how?” Noah said. “The torque converter was not in here when Hummel impounded the car. I’m telling you. I saw it with my own eyes. The mechanic had it up on the lift. He showed us where it should have been.”

“Well, Henry Thomas got one after the car was returned and installed it. He’s probably had it all along. He installs it when he needs it, like to travel to Montour or Lenore Counties and not leave a GPS imprint.”

Luke said, “And what? He just takes it out when it’s here? Josie, that’s no easy feat. He’d need a lift. He’d have to lift up this whole car and remove the transmission.”

“How long would it take?” Josie asked.

“I don’t know. A couple of hours, maybe more, but I don’t know about doing that in this driveway. This is gravel.”

“But could you do it?” she asked.

Luke studied the car. “I mean, I guess, but you’d need at least four jacks with jackstands and a piece of cardboard or plywood to put over the gravel to steady them. It would be difficult but not impossible. I don’t know about doing it over and over again.”

“Then maybe he only did it recently,” Josie said. “After Kayleigh staged her own disappearance and he realized that the police were going to come looking for him. He would have had time. He had cardboard. The last time I was here. He was getting ready to paint the car and he was standing on it. A big piece.”

Luke gestured toward the car. “This hasn’t been painted.”

“I know,” Josie said.

“He’s got the jacks and jackstands, too,” Noah said. “We found those the night we searched his cabin.”

“But why would he go to all that trouble?” asked Luke.

“So that we would have nothing on him,” Noah said. “Or to buy himself some time until the DNA from the cabin came back as Kayleigh’s.”

“Or so that he could hide all his secrets,” Josie said. She walked back to the El Camino, getting down on her stomach and shimmying underneath.

Luke said, “You might not be able to see the torque converter from there.”

“That’s not what I’m looking for,” she called back.

Then came Noah’s voice, “What makes you think the torque converter is there now?”

“Henry Thomas moved this car. Recently. There’s mud on the back tire. There was no mud when I was here the last time. These tires were pristine.”

Noah’s face appeared, upside down, near the car’s undercarriage. “I’m having someone search the cabin for the keys now.”

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