Lance scanned the ground, tracking a line of smashed grass and weeds that led from the fence to the woods. Along the same path, three yellow evidence flags poked above the grass.
“Those flags mark partial shoe treads.” Harvey pointed. “All the tread marks look like they were made by Converse shoes, men’s size 13, which Mrs. Knox confirmed is Evan’s shoe size.”
“No second set of footprints?” Lance asked, thinking of the shooter.
“No. There are no additional tracks to suggest someone followed the boy.” Harvey walked toward the woods, parallel to Evan’s tracks.
Rogers hefted his AR-15 and gestured for Lance to go next. Rogers brought up the rear. They trudged through the wet, knee-high weeds and entered the forest. Once they were under the canopy, overhead branches provided some cover from the drizzle, but they all knew they had to move fast. The light rain falling now would soon become a downpour.
Thick, dense summer foliage also blocked some of the wind. The air became muggy, oppressive. Beneath his body armor, sweat broke out between Lance’s shoulder blades and dripped down his back. He continually scanned the surrounding forest, looking for signs that they weren’t alone and ignoring the swarms of gnats buzzing around his face. He listened for sounds of movement under the patter of rain on leaves.
Rogers bent to study the soft earth, eyeing the distance between tread marks. “He’s moving fast. Running through here at top speed. Not concerned with anything except putting distance between him and whatever he thinks is chasing him.”
Evan had run in a straight line for the woods during the initial stage of his flight.
Lance let Rogers and Harvey study the ground while he continued to watch the woods. The trees were dense, and the darkness pressed in on the men from all sides. Lance moved a few feet away from Harvey and Rogers. Instead of using his flashlight, which would show him only a small section of forest at a time, he allowed his eyes to adjust to the dimness.
Lightning flashed, illuminating the forest. In the split second of brightness, Lance scanned their surroundings. The woods were green from recent heavy rains. The lushness would provide plenty of cover for a shooter who had already proven himself capable of committing an execution-style murder.
Just because they hadn’t seen the killer’s tracks didn’t mean he hadn’t been there. Or hadn’t circled around in an attempt to intercept the teenager.
A person capable of executing an experienced cop might also be skilled enough not to leave a trail of footprints through the woods.
Rogers straightened, and they moved forward. It was impossible to move silently through the dense underbrush. Prickly plants snagged at Lance’s pants legs, and twigs snapped underfoot. For the first half mile, they were able to follow Evan’s flight by tracking freshly broken foliage and the occasional partial shoe tread in the earth.
They emerged from the underbrush onto a game trail.
Rogers crouched to study three shoe prints. “Looks like he took the trail from here. These prints are still far apart. And see the way he’s digging in with the balls of his feet? He’s still running at top speed.”
Lance hoped that meant the teen wasn’t injured too seriously, but he knew adrenaline could mask pain. Evan would be in panic mode. His bloodstream would be flooded with it.
Rogers stood, and they moved on. The trail was wide enough to open the canopy above their heads and expose them to the storm. The rain increased, now falling in a steady sheet. Wind whipped through the woods, blowing water droplets into Lance’s face. Each gust held a fresh chill as the temperature dropped. Soon, the storm would wash away all traces of Evan’s flight. On the game trail, there was no clear path of damaged underbrush, and his route was harder to track.
A road bisected the trail. Rogers surveyed the muddy shoulder and found a few broken twigs and one deep footprint in some thick mud on the opposite side of the road. “Looks like he stuck to the trail instead of taking the road.”
They picked up their pace. The rain became a downpour, hitting the ground faster than the already saturated soil could absorb it. Water puddled under their feet, washing away any remaining footprints that might have been in the earth. There would be no more tracks to follow. Lance hoped that the teen had stuck to the trail. Since they were no longer looking for tracks, they were able to move faster. Lance broke into a jog, his boots splashing in the mud, the rain lashing his face.
Rogers and Harvey wore brimmed hats, which gave their eyes some protection from the torrential rain. Lance was bareheaded. He didn’t raise the hood of his jacket. He didn’t want the nylon to impede his hearing. Water invaded his collar, ran around his neck, and trickled down his back.
They kept moving. The wind howled, its force pushing against Lance’s body. He leaned into it and pressed on. The rain shifted to hail, the hard beads stinging his face. He gave up trying to hear anything, raised his hood, and tightened the chin strap to keep the wind from blowing it off his head. The short brim provided his eyes some protection from the ice pellets peppering his face.
Where was Evan? Had he found shelter? Visions of the teenager, bleeding and shivering, the violent storm raging around him, flashed through Lance’s mind. Worry fueled his steps, and he plowed forward.
As long as the trail was passable, he would not give up. Neither Rogers nor Harvey showed any signs of wanting to stop either.
Lightning flashed, the thunder booming while the sky was still flickering. The trees swayed, branches whipping and waving as the wind thrashed around them, but they kept going, moving as quickly as the slippery ground and poor visibility would allow. A bolt of lightning streaked across the sky. The thunder was deafening and felt like it was right over Lance’s head. The next gust of wind nearly took him off his feet.
Crack!
The sound of wood splitting echoed over the noise of hail and wind. Lance caught movement in his peripheral vision—a tree, crashing toward them.
“Look out!” He reached out, grabbed Rogers’s and Harvey’s arms, and hauled them backward.
The three men fell onto their asses in the mud. A huge oak tree crashed to the earth a few feet in front of them. The ground shook with the impact.
Lance climbed to his feet and shone his flashlight on the felled tree. On either side of him, Rogers and Harvey stood. The mature oak lay over the trail. Its trunk was too wide for Lance’s arms to reach around it.
Heart hammering, Lance climbed over the downed tree. He checked his watch. They’d been on Evan’s trail for nearly two hours, but Lance estimated they’d covered barely a few miles. Evan had a significant lead on them, but maybe they could catch him if the boy had taken shelter from the storm.
Gradually, the wind and downpour eased, allowing the men to pick up the pace. The storm broke with the dawn. The rain tapered off, and the sky brightened. Lance and the two cops emerged from the forest at the abandoned campground at Deer Lake. A run-down, rickety dock extended out over the water. Broken branches, leaves, and other storm debris littered the ground and the sandy beach that edged the lake.
“Maybe he holed up in one of the buildings.” Harvey shook the water from his jacket and unzipped it.
Lance did the same. “We’ll have to search each building.”
Which would take time.
Rogers walked in circles, scanning the ground. “Any tracks the boy might have left are long gone.”
Lance surveyed the old campground. A campfire ring ten feet in diameter occupied the center of a large open space. A dented canoe lay in the middle of the ring, as if dropped there by the storm. Cabins surrounded the clearing. A few squat cinder block buildings were nestled in the trees. He spotted restrooms, shower facilities, and a main office. Closer to the water was a boathouse with a hole in its shingled roof.
“Let’s start clearing buildings,” Harvey said to Rogers, then pointed at Lance. “Stay behind us.”
Weapons drawn, the deputies moved toward the cabins, entering doorways and securing cabins as a well-dri
lled team. Lance drew his gun and watched their backs. Most of the wooden doors were broken or hanging on their hinges. The cabin interiors were in ruins. Beneath collapsed roofs, dead leaves and animal feces were piled in corners. They moved from the cabins to the bath facilities. More substantially constructed of cinder block and metal roofs, they stood intact, but all were empty. Hypodermic needles, empty cans, and other trash littered the concrete floors.
As they emerged from the final restroom, they approached the boathouse near the lakeshore. The door stood open, revealing a dented aluminum canoe and a fiberglass kayak with a hole in its hull.
“Looks like blood.” Harvey pointed to a few dark spots on the floor. “I’ll have the sheriff bring the K-9 team to the campground.” Harvey lifted his handheld radio. “Maybe the dog will be able to pick up the boy’s trail from here.” He turned and walked away.
The clouds broke apart, exposing the sunrise. Light poured over the treetops and onto the lake, its reflection flowing across the surface like spilled blood. Lance walked out onto the beach.
Where are you?
The lake was long and narrow. He could see the opposite shore a hundred yards away, but to the south, the lake doglegged to the right and disappeared behind thick forest. Beyond the bend, the lake fed the Deer River. Looking for a better view, he crossed the sand and walked onto the old dock. The weathered boards creaked under his weight.
He scanned the shoreline. Could Evan have found a boat in good enough condition to paddle away?
He walked to the end of the dock and stared out over the water. The southern end of the lake remained out of view, and no boats marred what he could see of the lake’s perfect surface.
Lance’s mind’s eye returned to another lake, another missing teen—and the body he and Morgan had found lying in the reeds the previous autumn. He could see her clearly, but his imagination replaced her face with Evan’s.
He pivoted to return to the beach. Something scraped under his boot. He looked down. A silver key chain lay on the dock at his feet. Lance used the sleeve of his jacket to pick it up. He dangled it in front of his face. A silver wolf’s head shone with the reflection of the bloody sunrise.
Chapter Five
In the Knoxes’ living room, Morgan balanced a notepad on her knee. Next to her, Tina perched on the couch, her posture rigid, her phone open in her hand.
Morgan jotted down Evan’s email accounts and passwords. There were only two—one issued by the school, the other personal. “He doesn’t have any other accounts?”
“Not that I know of.” Tina turned grief-stricken eyes on her. “Do you think they’ll find him?”
“They’re doing everything possible,” Morgan reassured her. “Are you working on the family timeline?” She had asked Tina to list everything she could remember happening during the previous week.
“Yes.” Tina kept a family calendar on her phone. The sheriff had already taken a copy of the last week’s agenda. But now Tina was interpreting abbreviations, adding notes, and listing phone numbers. She’d also given the sheriff access to Evan’s cell phone records.
“When you’re finished, we’ll work on a list of Evan’s social media account information,” Morgan said.
“OK.” Tina coped better when she was kept busy.
Morgan closed her eyes and rested her head against the back of the sofa, willing Lance to call with an update. Her gaze strayed to the window, bright with dawn. The storm had raged for nearly three hours. She prayed that he was all right, and that he’d found Evan.
Alive.
Morgan crept through the darkness, the reeds surrounding the lake waving in the night. Her feet splashed in the shallow water at the shore’s edge. The reeds parted, and a flashlight beam fell on the body of a dead teenage girl. Horror filled Morgan. Her stomach rolled into a tight ball.
Morgan’s body jerked. She glanced around, disoriented. She must have dozed off, only to have a nightmare about her first case as a defense attorney. They hadn’t found the victim in time. Sickening dread gathered behind her sternum.
The sheriff walked in. “Mrs. Knox?”
Tina’s eyes filled with fear.
The sheriff held up a hand. “I’m sorry. We didn’t find him, but I need you to look at a picture.” He pulled a chair to face her, sat down, and showed her his phone screen. “Do you recognize this?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “That’s Evan’s house key.”
“Kruger found it at the Deer Lake Campground.” The sheriff pocketed his phone. “We’re sending a K-9 unit to see if the dog can pick up Evan’s trail there.”
Tina exhaled. She blinked rapidly, as if light-headed. “But he was alive when he reached the campground. Why isn’t he coming home? Could the person who shot Paul—” She stifled a sob behind her fist, then took a deep, shaky breath and pulled herself together. “Could whoever shot my husband be holding Evan captive?”
The sheriff hesitated. A full thirty seconds ticked by before he finally said, “We don’t have enough information at this point to answer those questions.”
He knew more than he was saying.
“Have you determined how the intruder gained entry into the house?” Morgan asked.
“No, but the crime scene unit isn’t finished with the house yet.” The sheriff turned back to Tina. “We have the list of Evan’s friends that you gave us earlier. I’ll send a deputy around to talk to them.”
Tina frowned. “I thought you already called his friends.”
“We did.” The sheriff stood. “But maybe seeing a deputy in uniform on their doorstep or being brought down to the station might encourage them to cooperate more fully with us.”
Morgan thought the opposite was more likely. Kids with previous legal problems did not rat out their friends to the cops.
“Do you have any reason to believe these kids are not being forthright?” she asked.
“Nothing specific.” Sheriff Colgate shrugged. “But you know how these kids are.”
Morgan didn’t. “What do you mean by these kids?”
The sheriff met her gaze. His face hardened. “None of these kids are honor students,” he said, as if that one statement was explanation enough.
Morgan didn’t let it go. Did the sheriff know that Evan wasn’t an honor student either? And more importantly, did that make him less important? “I don’t understand.”
The sheriff’s jaw tightened. “Kids with prior arrests are less likely to be honest with us.”
Morgan didn’t respond, but her mind was busy. Evan had prior arrests. Was the sheriff making similar assumptions about him?
Sheriff Colgate scratched his head. “Do you have Evan’s email account information?”
“Yes.” Morgan handed the sheriff the paper, glad that she’d made a copy for herself. The stubborn set to the sheriff’s shoulders gave her an uneasy feeling that she and Lance could be shut out of his investigation. Paul had been a deputy. His retirement was recent, and the sheriff’s department still considered him one of their own. All of these factors might make the sheriff want to keep the case details to himself.
“What are you doing to find my son?” Tina’s voice had toughened. She was no longer begging, and her tone was more defensive. Clearly, she had also noticed the sheriff’s change of attitude.
“Law enforcement has been notified statewide.” The sheriff looked up from the list he was scanning. “Officers are trolling the teenage hangout spots in Randolph County. The Scarlet Falls PD is looking for him there in case he went back to visit his old friends. I’ve put out a press release with his photo. We’re reviewing his phone history, and we’ll go through his social media accounts to see if he had any new or strange contacts.” Colgate paused, his mouth flattening into a grim line. “We won’t stop looking for him, Mrs. Knox.”
Tina studied the sheriff with an intense expression. “What about an AMBER Alert?”
“We can’t issue an AMBER Alert unless we confirm that Evan was abducted,” he explained.
“Have you talked to the neighbors?” Morgan asked. “Surely someone heard the gunshots.”
“We have. The neighbor over there”—the sheriff gestured toward one side of the house—“is away on vacation. The neighbor on the other side is deaf and was in bed without her hearing aids. No one else heard anything except thunder, which could have masked the sound of the gunshots.”
“Paul was a deputy for a long time,” Morgan said. “He must have put away some nasty criminals. Have any violent offenders been let out of prison recently?”
“We’re looking at Paul’s old cases.” The sheriff nodded. “Mrs. Knox, did Paul say anything recently about being threatened? Was he getting unexplained calls or texts? Was he acting strangely, or did he seem particularly worried about anything?”
“Paul is—was serious about home security. He changed all the locks when we bought the house, and he was going to install a security system. We didn’t have the money for a professional company. Paul was going to do it himself. He was worried about my ex-husband. Kirk was in prison for assault for the last couple of years. He was released on parole a few months ago.”
“Has your ex-husband ever threatened you or Paul?” Colgate asked.
“No, but he hated Paul.” Tina’s fingers worried the seam of the sofa cushion. “Paul was the deputy who arrested Kirk for assault. It’s how we met. Although we didn’t actually get together until months later when Paul came into the urgent care. Kirk blames Paul for the divorce. Kirk had zero interest in Evan when we lived together, but the minute Kirk was paroled, he sued for visitation. He just wants to get even with me. Can you believe he even tried to get alimony? Thank goodness the judge turned around and asked me if I wanted to countersue for child support.”
Did Tina’s bitter ex kill Paul?
Tina paused for a breath. “Kirk lives in a group home. Visits with Evan are supposed to be in a public place. We agreed that they would have dinner every Sunday night, but I still can’t believe the judge granted him visitation, even community supervised. Anyway, two months ago was Evan’s first scheduled meeting with Kirk. Evan isn’t happy about it, but he goes.”
Secrets Never Die Page 4
