A Scarlet Cord

by Deborah Raney

  “Jerica!” he shouted, then waited for a response. The poor kid was probably scared to death, with everybody yelling at her. “Jerica!” he cried again, attempting to make his voice as friendly as he could at such high decibels.

  Though it was unseasonably warm for April, Matt felt the humidity rise and the temperature drop by at least ten degrees as he climbed in the shadow of the trees. He shuddered involuntarily, thinking how cold it would be in here once the sun went down.

  When he’d gone half a mile or so, he met a teenage couple coming down the trail. “Are you helping look for that little girl that’s lost?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” the boy said. “We went all the way to the end of this trail and didn’t see anything.”

  “We’re going to do the three-mile route next,” the girl offered.

  “Good,” Matt said. “Thanks … thanks a lot. She’s … my niece.”

  “Oh. Sorry, man,” the boy said. “I hope you find her. It’d be the pits to have to spend the night out here.”

  Matt nodded and started on up the trail, then turned back and shouted after them, “Was there anyone else searching this trail?”

  “We didn’t meet anyone,” the girl said, shaking her head. “But somebody was probably here earlier. They had people start looking about an hour ago.”

  “Okay, thanks. I guess I’ll stay on this one, then.” He waved and started back up the trail. He was glad Melanie hadn’t come into the woods. He was feeling a little panicked himself now that he was up here. The park might be less than seventy-five acres, but with the tangle of trees and vines and trails that wound back and forth over several miles, the task was daunting. He stopped and looked up at the trees, grateful to see the sun still peeking between the dense mesh of branches, well above the horizon.

  Half an hour later, Matthew reached the end of the trail and started back down. He prayed with every step that he would not have to emerge from these woods to see disappointment and despair on Melanie’s face.

  But when he reached the junction of the shorter trail, he came upon another searcher who confirmed his fears. Jerica still had not been found.

  Sweat-soaked and exhausted, he went to meet Melanie, who by now was beside herself with panic.

  “She’s probably fine, Mel,” he panted. “I wonder if she’s frightened with so many people calling for her. Maybe she’s hiding.”

  Melanie grabbed at his arm. “Matt, they’ve got to let me go in. Maybe she’ll answer my voice. Maybe I can explain what’s happening.”

  “Melanie, you don’t know what it’s like in there.” The terror on her face deepened, and he was immediately sorry he’d said anything. He put a steadying hand on hers. “I just mean that there’s a lot of territory to cover. And the acoustics are weird in the woods. She wouldn’t be able to understand much more than her name unless you happened to be within a few feet of her when you yelled.” He let that soak in for a minute. “Let’s go talk to Riordan and see what he thinks.”

  “Wait, Matt.” Something in her voice grabbed his attention.

  He turned back to face her. “What?”

  “Maybe if Joel went after her. Maybe she’d answer him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “What if she is hiding? You know how stubborn Jerica is. She went looking for Joel; maybe she’s decided she’s not coming out until she finds him.”

  “And how do you propose to get Joel here before … dark?” He could not keep the frustration out of his voice.

  “Hear me out, Matt. I think … if I tell Tim what’s happened, I think he could talk Joel into coming. I know it sounds crazy, but Joel’s in New York. He could get here in an hour. I am not”—her voice broke, and she bit down hard on her knuckle, then turned her hand into a fist and shook it at him—“I am not going to let my little girl spend the night in those woods.”

  The determination and strength that had come into her voice now encouraged Matthew. Maybe it was worth a try. A thought played at the edge of his consciousness. If on some wild chance Joel did come to help with the search, the local law enforcement agencies probably had the authority to take him in for questioning right here. He brushed the thought aside. Finding Jerica was all that mattered right now. “Do you have Tim Bradford’s number?”

  Melanie dug through her purse and finally held up a worn slip of paper in triumph.

  Matthew took it and keyed the Connecticut area code into his cell phone.

  Thirty-Two

  “I just got a call from a Matthew Mason.”

  Even through a hundred miles of telephone wire, Joel Ellington heard the tautness in his brother’s voice.

  “Matthew Mason? Melanie’s brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he want? When, Tim? When did he call?” Joel sank onto a chair in his tiny apartment kitchen and nervously wound the phone cord around his wrist, unwrapped it, then wound it again.

  “I just hung up from talking to him. Melanie is visiting him in New Jersey. I guess her daughter has run off—Jerica, isn’t it?”

  “Run off? What do you mean ‘run off’?” Joel sat up straight and instinctively reached to the desk behind him for a pen and notepad.

  “She’s lost in some park near where the Masons live. Just a minute … I wrote it down …” Joel heard the rustle of papers on Tim’s desk. “Yes … it’s Marta Vista County Park in Bergen County.”

  Joel’s heart raced. “How long has she been missing? And … why did they call you? I don’t understand.”

  “Apparently the little girl left a note saying she was going to look for you, Joe.”

  “Oh dear Lord,” Joel kneaded his temple as the implication of his brother’s words soaked in.

  “I guess they’ve had searchers looking for her for several hours, and she still hasn’t turned up.”

  “Several hours!” His heart lurched again, and he pushed his chair back and stood. Oh, Father, take care of her … Help them find her. “How big is this place?”

  “I don’t know. Mason didn’t give many details. He sounded upset. Apparently they’re thinking now that she might be hiding from the searchers. This place is in the Ramapo Mountains, but they—”

  “In the mountains! What can I do, Tim?” Joel paced the kitchen, as far as the phone cord would allow.

  “Melanie thinks she might respond to your voice. You know … since it was you she went looking for.”

  Joel’s mind raced. He went to the desk drawer and yanked it open again. Propping the phone on his shoulder, he pulled out the atlas and flipped to the pages that showed New Jersey. “Where’d you say this park was again?”

  “In Bergen County. The Ramapo Mountains … or near there anyway.” Joel traced a finger over the map’s grid until he found the thin, black letters that spelled out the name of the mountain range. He found a more detailed map of the area and located Marta Vista County Park.

  “Yes, yes … here it is. I found it,” he told Tim. He did some quick calculations. “If I don’t run into any traffic, I can be there in less than an hour. I’ll have my cell. Call me if you hear any news. Anything at all.”

  “I will. I promise. I’ll let Melanie’s brother know you’re coming. You be careful, Joe.”

  Joel stepped hesitantly out of the car, taking in the scene around him. Half a dozen people milled about on the asphalt road that ran in front of the entrance to the walking trails. A uniformed policeman and a middle-aged man in suit and tie seemed to be in charge. Another group—apparently curious bystanders—hung out across the street near a playground.

  The policeman took a step to the side.

  And then Joel saw her.

  Melanie was talking to the officer, gesturing in a way that was so familiar to Joel that it made him ache. Her face was a mask of grief. Her hair was matted to her forehead and spilled to her shoulders in disarray. Dark circles ringed her eyes, and her face was devoid of the usual carefully applied cosmetics. It had been so long since he’d seen her. Yet even
weary and tattered by grief and fear as she was now, to him she was beautiful.

  His eyes never left her face as he got out of the car and walked toward what was clearly a command center for the search team. His heart went out to her—she who had suffered such loss already—and for the thousandth time he sent up a silent prayer for her and for Jerica.

  He quickened his pace, anxious to see her, anxious to help. Just then, a tall, dark-haired man moved to Melanie’s side and put a protective arm around her. Something about him was vaguely familiar. And then Joel knew. It was the same man Melanie had been with in front of Port Authority bus station that day in New York.

  Melanie looked up at the man now, an expression of trust and love on her face. Seeing her with him felt like a knife in Joel’s soul. He hesitated at the edge of the walk, not sure how welcome he would be, even though he’d been summoned here.

  No one seemed to notice him as he walked toward the group of searchers assembled at the edge of the woods. He cleared his throat and stood just outside the circle, waiting for a lull in the sober conversation.

  Then Melanie turned slightly, and their eyes met. She gave a little gasp. “Joel … oh, Joel. Thank goodness, you came.” The look in her eyes was unreadable, but his name on her lips moved him as it always had.

  “I’m so sorry, Melanie.” The words were ripe with meanings that stretched back far beyond this day. He marveled that he was beside her again after so many months of aching to be with her. He reached out and gingerly touched her hand, trying to focus on his reason for being here. “What can I do? How can I help?”

  Melanie turned to an older man who seemed to be heading up the command center. “This is … Joel Ellington.” Her voice broke. “He … He’s the one Jerica went looking for.”

  Joel heard it as an accusation, but this was not the time or place to ponder it, or to defend himself.

  The older man extended a hand. “Detective Clark Nathanson.”

  Joel shook his hand and acknowledged the man beside Melanie with a brief nod. Melanie moved back to the man’s side.

  Nathanson took Joel aside. “From the things the child told the elderly couple who found her, we think maybe she can hear us, but she’s just too frightened to respond. The mother said she’s stubborn—and apparently on a mission. She went looking for you?” He made a question of it.

  “Yes,” Joel acknowledged. He didn’t explain. How could he explain?

  “We’re going to want you to stick around. You might be able to talk her into—”

  A sharp bark split the air, and from the edge of his vision, Joel saw a blur of fur. He turned to watch a K-9 van unloading two German shepherd search-and-rescue dogs across the road.

  The detective turned away from Joel and sprang into action. “Okay, people!” he shouted, “The dogs are here. Let’s go!”

  Volunteers and emergency personnel began to congregate around Nathanson. Joel followed the man back into the circle, in uncomfortable proximity to where Melanie and her friend were standing.

  But Joel’s concern was for Jerica. He reached out and put a firm hand on the detective’s arm. “You’re taking the dogs in there?” he asked, indicating the wooded area.

  “Yes, sir,” Nathanson said.

  “That little girl is terrified of dogs,” Joel said firmly. “If you think she’s hiding now … not answering because she’s frightened, you’ll never get her out of there if she hears those dogs.”

  “He’s right,” Melanie’s friend agreed.

  “Oh dear God, why didn’t I think of that?” Melanie turned to Nathanson, her hands fluttering in front of her face. “Jerica gets hysterical around dogs—especially big ones. Can’t you wait? Just a few—”

  Nathanson waved the dog handlers aside. “Hold off a minute,” he yelled. He pulled Joel from the knot of searchers. “Okay, we’re going to send you in … have you walk the main trails. We’ll keep everyone else out for now. Maybe she’ll respond to your voice.” The older man shaded his eyes and looked up at the sky. “We’re losing daylight quickly though. You’re going to have to get in and get out in a hurry. If what you say is true, I don’t want to have to send the dogs in after dark.”

  Joel nodded, feeling energized by the assignment.

  Nathanson showed him a map of the trails, pointing out the ones they thought were most likely for the little girl to be on. “Call out to her every few minutes,” the detective told him. “Your voice will be muffled in there, so make it loud and clear, but keep it friendly, too. Make sure she knows you’re not angry with her. Use her name often, and if you have a pet name for her, or something that only you would know about her, use that, too. If the mother’s hunch is right, it’s your voice that will get a response.”

  Nathanson lowered his voice. “There’s a lot of rough terrain in there if she went off the trails. A couple of bridges with pretty steep drop-offs. There’s a chance she’s fallen. She could be unconscious. I don’t know the child, but she must be a pretty determined little girl to have gotten this far from home. It could be—like her mother said—she’s just decided she’s not coming out until she finds what she went looking for.”

  The detective paused and eyed Joel. “That would be you,” he said finally. “I hope you were worth it.”

  Joel acknowledged his judgment with a nod. The detective walked with him to the edge of the woods. “Unless you hear or see something,” Nathanson told him, “don’t veer too far off the paths—we don’t want to lose you, too. It gets dark in there sooner than out in the open.” He glanced up at the sky and his brow furrowed. “Stop to listen for a reply every minute or so.”

  Again, Joel nodded soberly.

  Nathanson looked at his watch. “I’m gonna give you half an hour—forty-five minutes tops. After that we’re sending the dogs in. The volunteer crew has already combed the woods twice, but we’re talking close to seventy-five acres, so it’s likely we could have missed something. Oh—” The detective handed him what looked like a hair ribbon, knotted and crumpled. “The little girl lost this. She was wearing overalls this color. That should make her easier to spot.”

  Joel took the ribbon and curled it into his fist. “Do you need this?” he asked. “In case you have to use the dogs?”

  Nathanson shook his head. “No. Someone brought some of her clothing. We’ll get a better scent off that.”

  The detective turned away, and Joel started up the trail. Something about that orange ribbon got to him. Made it all too real. He wanted to fall to his knees on the side of the trail and weep. But he couldn’t afford that luxury. He had to find her. He had to.

  For the first two hundred yards the path was wide, and the overgrowth was well contained. But as he went deeper into the woods, the trail rose and tapered, and there were places where it dropped sharply into a narrow ravine. Fortunately the gully was dry in most places and shallow in the rest. Still, he couldn’t help but recall an old warning that a child could drown in half an inch of water.

  “Jerica!” he shouted, his imagination urging him on. “Jerica!” He wondered if Melanie could hear him in the park below. Over and over, he called the little girl’s name. And while he listened for a response, he sent up a silent, anguished prayer. Oh, Father, help me find her. If only I could find her and give her back to Melanie … that would be something … something that might make up for what happened. Make up for my leaving them. For the pain I’ve caused.

  Joel glanced at his watch and was surprised to see that its phosphorescent face was glowing in the dusky half-light. He hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten. He looked up at the trees above him and saw through the lacy branches of red oak and dogwood that the sky beyond was still bright and blue. But deep in the woods the tall pines and the tight-knit foliage and vines blocked out much of the sunlight. The air was cooler here, dank and mossy smelling. The nascent leaves rustled overhead, and all around him there was a constant creak and rasp of branch rubbing branch. Myriad insects and birds added to the eerie symphony.


  Joel shivered involuntarily. He called out her name again with greater urgency. “Jerica! Jerica, it’s Joel! Can you hear me? Jerica? C’mon, babe, answer me … please!”

  He looked at his watch again. He’d been in the woods for twenty-five minutes. He’d probably covered over a mile on the winding trails. It would take him fifteen, maybe twenty minutes to get back out if he didn’t stop to holler or listen. He wanted so desperately to be the one to find her. He trudged on, kneading the limp orange ribbon in his fist.

  “Jerica!” he shouted again. Please, God. Please. She’s got to be all right. Help me find her. Please. He stopped again to listen. The chirrup of insects answered him, building to a deafening crescendo. He needed to start back, but what if she was just around the next curve in the trail? What if she was injured—or even dying? He walked faster. “Jerica!”

  He walked a few yards and stopped again. Suddenly the woods fell silent.

  Dead silent.

  The cicadas stopped singing, as though they ran on electricity and someone had pulled their plug. The breeze that had caused the hemlocks to whisper was stilled. For one fleeting moment there was not a sound in the entire woods.

  Except for a faint, mournful wail that Joel heard from behind him. It seemed to be coming from a secondary path he’d just crossed. He heard the sound again—briefly and below him, it seemed. He strained to listen, willing nature to hold its breath one minute longer.

  There it was again. The mewling sound came from beneath him. He backtracked and took the lesser trail, peering into the grey-green haze of vegetation that framed the sound. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that some twenty feet off the trail was a rift. He scrambled cautiously over the tangle of tree trunks and dead limbs until he could see into the ravine.

  He listened again. Silence. Then a flash of light caught his eye. He glared into the dim light in the ravine, desperate to see what was below. He heard a rustling of leaves, and again he saw a flicker of light, and then a patch of orange. Pumpkin orange. Like the hair ribbon in his hand. He scrambled down the steep terrain and crossed the rocky bottom of the creek bed. He could see the heap of orange on the other side clearly now. It looked limp and lifeless. His heart stood still. He forced himself to breathe.