Shadow Moon

by Alexandra Sokoloff

  He headed into the bullpen, where six detectives hunched over desks, eating, typing. Except for Bello, who sprawled in his chair like some big nesting spider. “Hey, College,” Bello called out to him. “How was your weekend? You finally pop that cherry?”

  Matt could feel his face and jaw muscles tense, but he was pretty sure he kept it from showing. He’d had plenty of practice not reacting. There were sixty sworn officers in the department and he figured he’d taken shit from every one of them.

  Most of them were good guys, and cops seemed to thrive on insult humor. Matt had played sports in high school, he knew the drill. He endured the ribbing, mostly took it for what it was. Blowing off steam. Passing the time. But there were a few men in the department that made him uneasy. Bello and a couple of his friends.

  Bello didn’t actually think Matt was a virgin. He was just trying to goad Matt into talking about Caitlin, his girlfriend. And not about her personality or her major or her thoughts. Bello wanted details. What they did. In bed.

  Not in a million years, he thought at Bello.

  Compared to Bello and the rest of them, Caitlin was a kid. It sickened Matt that a police detective, someone who was supposed to be protecting and defending, could act so much like—well, the bad guys.

  Bello’s needling about Caitlin was by far the worst of it, but he was constantly baiting Matt in other ways. It seemed to him sometimes that Bello and his friends wanted what Matt had. He couldn’t understand it. They were the adults. They were the ones with all the freedom to make their own choices. Matt was impatient to be where they already were: out of college, into the world.

  He moved through the bullpen into the corner he’d claimed as his own, to set up the day’s work. It was admin, secretarial stuff, really. Typing in reports for the detectives. Getting old reports into the new computer system. But he liked it because it gave him an overview of crimes, a steady tutorial on how to—and how not to—file reports.

  He’d first volunteered for police duty in high school, with the Explorer program in Palo Alto. His academic parents supported his choice, they just didn’t like it much. And Matt loved and respected his parents, but on this point, he didn’t give a damn what they thought. He’d decided on law enforcement a long, long time ago.

  In college he kept up the volunteer work with the San Luis Obispo Sheriff’s Auxilliary Volunteer Patrol, to get training and experience in observation and radio skills. Then Search and Rescue in the summer for CPR and emergency medical training. A psychiatric internship at Atascadero State Hospital, as part of his Criminal Psychology field major.

  All that volunteering had paid off exactly how he’d intended: it got him a real job with the SLO police department this year. And the waiting, the marking time, was almost over. Almost. He’d graduate from Cal Poly this month. And he’d applied for an internship he would give just about anything to get: a summer working at Quantico for the FBI.

  Being an FBI agent was a non-negotiable goal of his life, had been since he was nine years old. But today the thought of the internship brought a ripple of worry. It was only a few weeks to graduation and he hadn’t heard from the program yet. He’d been so focused on getting the internship that he’d made no other plans for the summer, including with the girlfriend that Bello was so keen to get details about.

  Unease swept over him. His stomach had been in knots since he’d woken up—

  And it hit him.

  The dream.

  He’d had the dream again.

  An isolated desert ranch house at night. A warm, dry, dusty wind whispering through a grove of eucalyptus trees. The split rail gate creaking open and shut, as if it was breathing.

  Walking up the stone pavers to the house, toward a gaping hole of a door…

  And the massacre inside. An entire family, slaughtered.

  All but one…

  It was a real thing that happened years ago, when Matt was nine years old. Three ordinary families, really not any different from Matt’s, slaughtered at night in their own homes. The whole state, parts of the whole country, had been gripped with the terror of it. The killer never caught… but there had been not a trace of him in the last thirteen years. There was no danger now.

  Matt knew that.

  But it had been a defining moment in his life. The lightning bolt that had set him on the law enforcement path. He had dreamed about it for years, had dreamed her, too—the girl who had survived the third and final massacre. Cara Lindstrom, five years old, a tiny blond waif. Her family slain around her, her own throat cut by the monster the media called The Reaper. She’d faced the most horrifying evil… and had lived through the encounter.

  She’d started something in him. A vow, a path, a mission. He would save people. One day he would be old enough to make a difference.

  The dream still came to him periodically.

  Like an omen.

  He’d dreamed it last night. He’d dreamed of her. Calling him.

  He swallowed through a dry mouth. His stomach was roiling again, so bad he thought he was going to be sick…

  And then all hell broke loose in the station.

  “Code Adam!” “All officers and detectives in the bullpen now.” “Drop what you’re doing and listen up!”

  As the frenzied shouts continued and officers swarmed into the bullpen, Matt pieced it together.

  It was law enforcement’s worst nightmare. Not just a missing child—a verified stranger abduction.

  Matt could barely rein in his agitation as Sergeant Rodriguez briefed the room.

  “Eight-year old girl walking home from school to her grandmother’s house. Perp described by witnesses as a white male, late twenties to early thirties. Grabbed her off the sidewalk—threw a sleeping bag over her and lifted her into the trunk of a dirty blue Subaru parked at the curb.”

  Every alarm bell that could go off was going off. AMBER alert. Tracy Collier’s name and description on electronic billboards on freeways all over the state. Bulletins out to local TV and radio stations. A press conference scheduled outside the police department in an hour.

  Matt could feel fury blazing through his veins, a shocking sensation. He didn’t just want to see this guy caught. He wanted to kill him.

  He had to work to pull himself together when he heard his name.

  “Roarke. You’re on the hotline.”

  Matt felt it like a slap in the face. Phones? He wanted to be out there. Hunting.

  Rodriguez must have caught the look on his face. “Listen, Junior. These cases get solved on tips. We need a break. You grab that phone and you make it happen.”

  Matt managed a “Yes, sir!”

  He gritted his teeth. And reported to the conference room and grabbed the phone.

  For five hours he did nothing but field calls. The tip line was a dizzying view into human nature. People who wanted to help. People who wanted attention. People who were off-the-charts crazy.

  And a few pond scum who just wanted to fuck with the cops. Luckily those were too dumb even to pull off a prank phone call. Matt wrote down their information dutifully and found new ways of coolly communicating “Go straight to hell where you belong” without actually saying the words.

  But pay off it did.

  It wasn’t Matt who caught the tip. It came in on another line—a witness had spotted a white male in his thirties who fit the description of Tracy’s abductor, driving a dirty blue Subaru into Bishop Peak Natural Reserve.

  It was electrifying… and terrifying. Taking the girl up into that remote area meant only the worst intentions.

  Alerts went out to four agencies: San Luis Obispo Police Department, SLO County Sheriff’s Department, the Sacramento Bureau field office and Fish and Wildlife. All leapt into action, sending personnel to converge on the three hundred fifty-four acre reserve with all-terrain vehicles, mountain bikes, horses, search dogs.

  As the SLO police scrambled in the bullpen, Matt was up on his feet, pushing his way forward through the swarming chao
s of officers and detectives.

  “Sergeant Rodriguez, sir—”

  Rodriguez wheeled on Roarke, barked, “Roarke, I told you. Stay on that phone.”

  An order was an order. There was a reason for the chain of command. And in the chain of command, Matt was less than a snail.

  But.

  The other thing was, he knew that park.

  Hiking was his sanctuary. Those weekend excursions, nine or ten hours on a mountain, covering the distances, working his body into an adrenaline high. Hiking slowed his natural impatience, cooled his quick temper. He’d hiked every trail up to Bishop Peak. He’d camped there. He’d fixed the map of the reserve in his head, one Sunday at a time.

  All those hikes must count for something. It must mean he should be out there, in the park, searching, instead of inside, tied to a phone.

  So he steeled himself, and he told Rodriguez what he had to say. “Sir, I have my Emergency Medical Response card. I volunteered for the Sheriff’s Search and Rescue team two years ago. I’m CPR certified. And I know Bishop Peak.”

  The sergeant looked about to explode. But this was what Matt admired about Rodriguez. He listened. He heard. And he did now.

  Wasting no words, Matt outlined his experience in the park.

  Rodriguez’s voice was gruff and grudging, but he gave Matt a nod. “Tell Camden to take over your phone. Go.”

  Matt grabbed his backpack from the locker room and hustled out to the parking lot.

  He had a bigger, emergency pack in the trunk of his car. Hiking boots, water, trail foods, compass, nylon rope, flint, first aid kit, a headlamp for night hiking. Keeping a pack ready was something he’d done ever since he’d started driving—partly because this was California and his parents were freaks about earthquake preparedness. But part of it was that whole law enforcement mindset. Always being prepared for the call.

  Like now.

  He made only one quick stop at a gas station convenience store for bottles of cold water and trail bars, but his assigned search party was already gathered when he caught up with them at the Bishop Peak trailhead, assembled under a shelter of gnarled oak trees. Even in late afternoon, the sun was blazing. Matt could feel the heat radiating from the sandy path, up through the soles of his boots, as he looked over the assembled ten men and two women: deputies from the SLO Sheriff’s department, several park rangers, and a few community volunteers. Matt’s civilian clothes and youth stuck out.

  The search party leader spread out a map of the area, separated into grids, broken into areas related to terrain. He divided the team into two, one to cover the Bishop Peak trail and one to search the Felsman Loop, then assigned the volunteers to specific areas of the grid and passed around Xeroxed copies of the maps.

  A sheriff’s deputy handed out photos and gave the volunteers a detailed report of the clothing Tracy had been wearing: a T-shirt with a sunflower design and jeans, red Keds, a Bratz backpack.

  The photo showed a cute kid: mocha skin, braces, pigtails. Someone who should be jumping rope or playing tetherball in a schoolyard. Anything but this.

  Matt’s face tightened as he stared down at the sketch of the man who’d taken her. No one looked benevolent in a composite. But the hairs on the back of Matt’s neck bristled at the sight of him.

  Their group coordinator took note of all of their cell phone numbers, those who had them. “We search the trails and any shelters first. Any runners here?”

  Matt raised his hand, along with a few others.

  “I want you folks to run your assigned trail to get out ahead of the slower searchers. When you get to the end of your marked section, start back parallel to the trail and search the less likely hideouts, further from the trail. No one is to go past the ‘End of Trail’ sign—even though you won’t be at the top of the peak. He’s not going to be taking her to the top. He’ll want something off-trail and secluded.”

  The coordinator cautioned them to look out for light reflections, and listen for any anomalous sounds as well as searching for discarded clothing or pieces of it that matched the description of what Tracy was wearing. “Don’t touch anything. Take photos of anything significant. Keep hydrated and watch for poison oak. And you. Rookie,” he snapped, and Matt realized the coordinator was talking to him. “You are to stay on the trails. No wandering. No deviation. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He was clear. And he was ready. There was a monster out there, trying to steal the life force of a child. And he wasn’t going to allow it.

  He did as the team leader had instructed: taking off at a run, following the packed, sandy trail through oak woodland at the base of the hike. Dodging sharp rocks, jumping the gnarled roots of twisted old oak trees. Slowing on the massive boulders and rock falls.

  He jogged past a cattle gate, and the trail opened up into meadows with views of Los Osos Valley and the greater San Luis Obispo area. Ahead was Bishop Peak itself: a summit of rugged rock, the tallest in SLO, one of the “Nine Sisters,” a chain of volcanic peaks stretching to Morro Bay.

  Matt was so tense his whole body was shaking. His emotions boiled inside him. It was a state he hated, because all he could do was get in his own way. Sometimes he was so furious at things he couldn’t speak.

  He breathed in deep and focused on his running, and in his mind, he catalogued what he knew. First, the profile. Ninety-eight-point-five percent of non-family abductors were male. Average age twenty-seven. Unmarried, living alone or with parents. Unemployed or engaged in unskilled or semi-skilled labor. Tracy would likely have been chosen just out of opportunity. The primary objective would be sexual assault. In seventy-six percent of cases, the abducted child would be murdered within three hours; in eighty-eight percent of cases, murdered within twenty-four hours.

  “Not this time,” he panted, and ran harder.

  It’s not like he thought he was going to rescue Tracy himself. He wasn’t some delusional kid.

  But he was here for her.

  You need to scream, he told her in his mind. You need to scream and keep screaming. Make noise so we can hear you. I swear to you I’ll come.

  The vegetation changed from shady trees to scrub and chaparral, aromatic coyote bush and monkeyflower. Sweat poured down his back and matted his hair. He swigged water from a bottle on his belt and cut through hills of golden, scorched grass and sage-green scrub, heading up the granite mountain topped by the triangular crag that gave it its name. Different trails snaked off for different approaches to the peak and he veered off on the trail toward his assigned search area.

  The gently rolling, sandy golden hills falling away from the path disguised the trail’s real height. It was a steep and strenuous rise. Hawks soared above and Matt found himself wishing for that bird’s eye view. There were far too many wooded areas in the reserve where Tracy’s captor could be holding her.

  On the switchbacks the trail got so rocky and uneven Matt had to slow to a panting walk.

  He stopped when he reached the last ascent of the trail: enormous boulders of the peak forming natural caves and crannies. He gulped more water and walked in a circle to keep from cramping.

  It was highly unlikely that Tracy’s captor would have taken her this far up, so Matt turned to work his way back, searching the rock piles along the trail, alert not just to human sounds but also to the telltale rattle of sunning snakes.

  And he spoke aloud, again.

  “I’m here, Tracy. I’m here.”

  He listened with everything in him.

  And heard the wind.

  For the next four hours he scoured the trails in his section of the grid. The sky changed from blazing blue to afternoon haze to smoky twilight. And the darker the sky, the bleaker Matt’s thoughts.

  He could feel the fatigue of the intense concentration. His neck ached from looking down, searching the ground for anything: pieces of clothing, some disturbance in the sand, broken branches next to the trail, hair….

  And he’d found—a big fat noth
ing.

  It wasn’t just him, either. He’d gotten a rare patch of cell phone reception fifteen minutes ago and phoned in to the trail coordinator. No one had reported anything useful.

  But he was ready to go all night. He was outside. He was free. He was fine. That little girl was alone with a monster.

  And there was a feeling nagging at him, growing steadily stronger.

  This is a popular trail.

  Tracy’s abductor must know it well, and he must have headed for some spot significantly off-trail, someplace he would feel hidden.

  He’s not going to risk running into people—

  A shrill beeping startled Matt out of his concentration. It was his phone, the timer he’d set for himself so he would make the end-of-day check in on time. There were no volunteers allowed on the mountain after dark.

  He stopped in his tracks on the ridge, looking over a steep incline, the creases and folds of a valley.

  Come on, Tracy, he begged her in his head. I’m here. Give me something.

  The acres of sage brush below him moved like the sea, as wind rushed through the hollows of the valley. An eagle glided on the wind above him.

  But nothing human.

  He did one last scan of the valley below.

  And turned to head back down the trail, his heart sinking with every step.

  He checked in with the team leader at the trail head where they’d started. He looked as grim as Matt felt, but he thanked Matt for his work and gave him a firm handshake. “Search resumes here at five-thirty am.”

  “I’ll be here, sir,” Matt promised.

  He had every intention of hiking back down to his car. Logically he knew: the last thing a search ever needed was some overzealous volunteer going rogue and needing to be rescued himself.

  But his boots on the path were slower and slower.

  How can I go home when she’s up here, somewhere? How can any of us? How can we leave her to whatever is happening to her?

  His thoughts became angrier.

  What were they there for if not to search every square inch of this mountain until they found her? How the hell were they supposed to go home when this creep was holding Tracy somewhere, doing things he didn’t even want to think about?