Page 26 of My Child is Missing

“No,” said Josie. “Look closer. There.” Careful not to disturb anything, she knelt and used her stick to point to two branches, no thicker than a baseball bat, that had been bound together with a vine. They formed an L shape. At the other end of one of them was more vine, loose and uncoiled where it had likely been tied to another branch.

“Someone made this,” said Chan. She threw down an evidence marker, pulled a camera from the bag at her waist, and started snapping photos.

“Kayleigh’s not—she’s not under there, is she?” Amber whispered.

Chan stopped taking pictures. She and Josie exchanged a glance. “I think Blue would have found her last night,” said Josie. She didn’t remember seeing this heap, but it was possible that they’d passed it and Josie simply hadn’t noticed it. Blue had been moving so fast, it had been getting darker, and without a careful, close look, it would have appeared to be a pile of leaves, just like Amber had said.

Chan said, “I’ll check just in case.”

She produced a pair of gloves and pulled them on before kneeling and carefully removing leaves, sticks, and loose vines from the center of the pile. Josie took a deep breath, relieved that the scent of decomposition wasn’t in the air, although a body probably would not last several hours this deep in the woods without scavenging animals having a go at it, even if it was hidden beneath leaves and sticks.

Murmurs went up and down the line of searchers as Chan worked. Clearing some of the leaves, she picked up another branch, this one clearly sharpened by human hands. A small piece of blue fabric hung from its point. She studied it momentarily and set it aside. Josie leaned in as she reached the forest floor beneath the debris. There were some droplets of blood and a cluster of purple wildflowers that had been crushed into the mud, but no Kayleigh.

Chan stood up. “I’m going to get one of the other ERT guys out here right away, but we have to keep on with the search. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

Josie looked up and down the line, noting the wide eyes and ashen faces of the other searchers. “Not her,” she called to them.

As the message spread through the line, Josie could practically feel the relief like waves lapping at her sides.

“What is this?” Amber asked.

“Whatever it is,” Chan replied, “it’s destroyed now. I’ll know more when my team sorts it out.”

Josie took another look at it. Spear. Cloth. Branches tied with vines. Leaves—for cover, most likely. Glancing upward at the trees next to the pile, she saw more vines hanging. They’d been tied to a much thicker tree branch overhead. Now their remnants dangled, swaying in the light breeze.

“It’s a trap,” Josie said.

“What?” said Chan.

Josie pointed to the hanging vines. “I’m not sure how it was shaped or the kind of trap it was, but it looks like a trap. It was hanging from up there. But look, those vines were snapped so either it broke, or someone tried to tear it down.”

“Or it was tripped and broke,” Chan said. “It’s made of hardly anything. No paracord. No metal. No heavy rocks. Nothing that would hold up to an animal.”

“But it was enough to hurt someone,” Amber said, keeping her voice low. “There’s blood.”

Had Kayleigh somehow tripped the trap and gotten stuck in it? Injured? Was that the noise that Savannah had heard? Had the person who built it been nearby, waiting? But there had been blood behind them, going toward the Patchett house. Had she been injured and then attempted to run home before the abductor caught up with her?

“We can talk about this later,” Chan said firmly. “Let’s keep going.”

EIGHTEEN

Josie dozed in the passenger seat of Gretchen’s car. It was warm, even for May, and the line search had left her sweaty and disheveled. While Gretchen went into Komorrah’s Koffee, Josie turned the air conditioning on full blast, hoping to dry the perspiration that had formed in every crease of her body. The cold air felt incredible and within moments, her eyes were drooping. When Gretchen opened the driver’s side door, Josie jumped. Her knees banged into the dashboard. If she noticed, Gretchen didn’t mention it, instead climbing inside and handing Josie a large flat white latte—her newest obsession. The heat of the cup stung her palms, but the smell of espresso and cream made her mouth water. Or maybe it was the anticipation of the infusion of caffeine about to hit her body.

From the other side of the car came the crinkle of a paper bag. “I got you two cheese Danishes,” said Gretchen. “’Cause I know you haven’t eaten in hours.”

“I think you’re my soul mate,” Josie said, taking the bag and hungrily devouring one of the cheese Danishes in two bites.

Gretchen laughed, setting her own drink in the center console. Another Komorrah’s bag appeared in her hands. From it, she produced a pecan croissant which she ate far more delicately than Josie had hers. “I think your husband would have something to say about that. Speaking of which, he briefed me on his progress before he left.”

“He must not have turned up much among Henry Thomas’s associates if he didn’t call or text me himself,” said Josie.

“No, he didn’t,” Gretchen said. “What about you?”

Josie had met up with Gretchen after the line searches. The Chief hadn’t found anything on his side, which had started at the Thomas cabin and proceeded halfway toward the Patchett home. The two lines had met in the middle. The only findings were the drops of blood and the bizarre trap that Amber and Josie had found. She described it to Gretchen. “Chan said they’ll type the blood to see if it matches Kayleigh’s blood type and she’ll try to reconstruct the trap—or whatever the hell that thing was—oh, and I talked with the Patchetts. They had no idea about the secret boyfriend.”

“So his identity remains a mystery,” Gretchen said.

“Looks that way.” Josie told her about the conversation she’d had with Kayleigh Patchett’s parents as well as the fact that she’d found marijuana hidden in Kayleigh Patchett’s room.

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