“What?”
“We finally got the carver’s name, Charles ‘Junior’ Jones. We’re trying to track him down now. His address is a PO Box.”
“Good,” I said.
“Listen, I get anything more, I’ll call you, okay? Just answer your phone.”
I felt myself redden. “Okay, I will. But don’t hesitate to wake me up.”
There was nothing for me to do but go back to the motel. My dread increased with every mile as I thought of facing the wrath of Nate. But I deserved it.
I wasn’t even all the way out of the car before Nate’s motel room door opened, and he came out. “I’m sorry!” I hoped a preemptive strike would diffuse his anger.
He stopped short, looked at me, his eyes narrowed, and said, “That was a boneheaded thing to do. What were you thinking?”
I faced him straight on. “I needed to do something. I knew you’d tell me to stay here and wait. I couldn’t.”
“So why didn’t you tell me so we could do it together?”
I lifted my chin. “I saw you were tired. I was tired, too, but I knew I couldn’t rest. So I decided to go alone. I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “Get your dog and come to my room. I want to hear what you found out.”
Thankfully, the wrath of Nate was tempered by mercy and forgiveness.
We went into Nate’s motel room. He got Luke water while I used the bathroom. We talked for an hour. I asked him if he thought it was possible Luke was really tracking Brooke’s scent from the T-shirt.
“I cain’t say for sure. He’s a smart dog though.”
Luke thumped his tail when Nate said that. Honestly. You’d think the dog spoke English.
By 10:00 p.m. I was worn out, so we walked the dogs together and I took Luke back to my room. I promised Nate I wouldn’t leave the motel without letting him know.
I broke that promise just three hours later.
First, my recurring dream woke me up. I hadn’t had it in weeks. So why now?
I sat up, gasping for breath, shaking, my heart pounding. Luke came to me immediately and tried to calm me down. I let him up on the bed and stroked him while I tried to relax. I laid there, trying to figure out what had triggered my nightmare.
It had something to do with the sculptures. What had Scott told me? I went over our conversation in my head.
That’s when it struck me. Adrenaline hit me so hard I jumped out of bed.
I didn’t remember a lot about the night my partner was killed, but I did remember this— the suspect was a woodchuck. He sold firewood in the suburbs. His name was Charles Jones Jr. When I searched him, I found an unusual knife. A carver’s knife, maybe? And the woman he was choking before we arrested him was small and blonde.
Seriously? Seriously?
I paced. I worried. I tried to put the facts of that night together, but it was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing.
After Jones asked us to leave, we heard screaming. We reentered the house and found him choking his girlfriend. We arrested him, cuffed him, and put him in the car. I remembered it was pouring down rain. The roads were slick. I was driving when I heard a strange sound. I turned and saw Jones choking my partner. I reached for my gun, and then there was a terrible crash.
I began shaking, an anxiety attack creeping up on me like a wildcat in the grass. Could Charles Jones Jr. really be Junior Jones?
I checked my watch. It was 2:00 a.m. I hesitated, but then I clicked open the contacts app on my phone. I could not believe that after nearly three years, I was calling my police captain in the middle of the night.
Obviously, I woke him up. “Jones is a common name,” he said.
“I know it’s a stretch.” My phone beeped, signaling another call coming in. I looked. It was Scott. “I’m working with Scott Cooper, an FBI agent out of the Northern Virginia office. He’s calling me now. I gotta take it. If you find out anything—”
“I’ll look into it in the morning.” He paused. “It’s good to hear from you, Jess. Even if it is two in the morning.”
I clicked over to Scott’s call, desperate to catch it before it went to voicemail.
“Hey, we found your sister’s car,” Scott said.
My heart jumped.
“It’s on State Route 676, about a mile past Route 741, just beyond an abandoned gas station,” he said.
“Any houses around?”
“Nope. It’s a rural, wooded area, kind of in the middle of nowhere.”
What would she be doing there?
Scott continued. “We’re finishing up here, then we’re taking it to a secure garage for more analysis.”
“What about the dogs? Have the dogs searched the area?”
“The K-9 officers want to wait until morning. They said it’s too dangerous to work these woods at night.”
Baloney. “Okay, thanks for letting me know.”
“You’ll tell your parents?”
“In the morning.” I clicked off my phone. My bed was waiting, but I knew there was no way … no possible way … I’d fall back to sleep.
I got dressed. I gathered up Luke’s things. I grabbed my SAR pack. And I snuck out of that motel again despite my promise to Nate.
GPS is good for finding an address, but a vague location like Scott had given me was harder. Fortunately, I had a paper Virginia map. I pulled it out and traced the curly path Route 676 took as it wound through the mountains. I found the intersection with Route 741, started the Jeep, and drove out of the parking lot.
As I drove, my mind raced ahead. If they’d already picked up the car, how would I tell where it was? Would they have left crime-scene tape? I doubted it.
I shouldn’t have worried. As I passed the abandoned gas station, I saw Brooke’s car was gone, but my headlights caught the reflection of two marked sheriff’s deputy cars. One of them was marked K-9.
I drove past them and pulled off on the shoulder, hoping against hope that Deputy D. Foster was not the K-9 officer. As I got out of my car, angry barking erupted.
I had to find Brooke. And two sheriff’s deputies stood in the way.
Making sure the K-9 was contained in a car, I took Luke out of the back of my Jeep. I leashed him up and showed him Brooke’s T-shirt. Then I stuck it under my jacket and walked toward where her car had been.
“Can I help you?” one of the deputies asked, moving to block my access to the site. He had that command-and-control tone I so hated. It was Deputy D. Foster.
I felt Luke tugging on the leash. I decided to be direct. I reminded Foster I was with the volunteer search and rescue team. I said it was my sister’s car they’d found, and I wanted to see where it had been parked. I told them I was worried about her.
“There’s nothing to see.”
I silently wished I had my badge and gun. “I’d like to look, if you don’t mind. I won’t touch anything or move across the crime scene.”
“Let her look,” the other guy called out. “It won’t hurt anything.”
After a second, Foster stepped aside.
I moved ten feet closer to the marked crime scene and cast my flashlight over it. Foster was right—there was nothing to see.
But there was lots to smell if you were a dog.
Luke did his job. Soon, he began pulling me toward the woods.
Would Brooke have run into the woods? Or been forced into them?
Quickly, I reviewed my options. I’d left my pack in the Jeep, but if I went back for it, the cops would get suspicious. I shouldn’t go into the woods on my own, but I wanted to follow Luke. I could call Nate or Scott once I was away from the cops.
“I guess he’s gotta go,” I said to the deputies. “Thanks for letting me see that spot.” Impulsively, I moved into the woods before they could stop me. “Be right back!” I said when they called out to me.
But I wasn’t going to be right back. I was going to follow my dog. Luke had his nose to the ground and barely deviated from the tiny
path he’d found. I was thrilled he was tracking something, but I was also growing more nervous by the minute. First, with the thought those cops might try to follow me, and second, with the fear of what lay ahead.
Had my sister come down this way? Would I find her in the woods? Who else would I find? Did Brooke see Laney get abducted and try to follow? Was she searching for her and got lost in the woods?
A strong wind had come up, and it whistled through the trees. Now and then I heard a limb break and crash to the ground. A few white clouds, illuminated by the half moon, raced across the dark sky. I had the feeling the whole world was adrenalized like me.
Luke pulled me like he was after a steak. Then I heard a text come in.
“Stop, Luke. Hold up,” I said. I was so out of breath. I tugged my phone out of my pocket and looked at the screen. It was from Scott:
Your sister’s car is intact, but she was definitely at that party. Left right after Laney.
Fear ballooned in me. Where was she? In front of me? Or not? Was Luke really following Brooke’s scent? Was I crazy to be following my dog through these woods when she could be … I shuddered.
The thought of my parents’ reactions if it turned out I was chasing the wind while Brooke was in danger somewhere else nearly made my knees buckle.
“Dear God!” I whispered. I didn’t honestly know if that was a prayer or just an exclamation of profound horror and confusion.
I knelt down and Luke came to me, licking my face and nuzzling me. “Sit,” I said, and so he did. “Luke, focus.” I pulled my sister’s shirt out of my jacket. “See this? See it?” I moved it toward his nose. “Get a good whiff, Luke, because there’s a lot riding on it.”
Then I rose to my feet, showed him the shirt again, and said, “Find it! Find Brooke.”
He took off. Thankfully, he was still on leash or he would have quickly been out of sight. He raced forward, nose to the ground, maintaining the course we’d been on. Fifteen minutes later, he suddenly stopped.
I almost ran over him. “What is it? What do you have?”
Luke sniffed off the little path, then pawed at something in the leaves. “Wait. Sit.” I directed my flashlight beam to where he had been pawing. And there, in the middle of a hundred dry oak leaves, lay my sister’s phone in its instantly recognizable case.
“Oh, no,” I groaned, dropping to my knees. My first instinct was to pick it up. But then, I didn’t want to mar any fingerprints on it. It was evidence, and as a former detective I knew how important it was to maintain its integrity.
But what should I do? “Good boy, oh, good boy.” As I petted my beautiful dog, I ran through the options. But there was really only one.
I called Scott. “I got your text.”
“Where are you?”
I took a deep breath. “Luke is following a scent trail down from where Brooke’s car was parked.” My voice shook. I closed my eyes and confessed. “I’m in the woods, about fifteen minutes west of where Brooke’s car was found.”
“Who is with you?”
“Luke.”
“Just Luke?”
I knew it took a lot of restraint for Scott not to yell at me.
“Stay put. I’ll be there in twenty minutes. Okay? Jess?”
Luke was already pulling me further down the trail. If my sister was there, and she was alive, I wanted to get to her. I had to get to her. Before …
“I can’t.” My voice was barely a whisper.
Scott started to say something else, but I clicked off my phone.
46
Scott Cooper stared at his phone in disbelief. Had Jess really hung up on him?
He ran to find the lead detective. “Who’s standing by at the site where Brooke Anderson’s car was found?”
Grady Hunsaker stared at him, taken aback. “I told ‘em to go home ‘bout ten minutes ago. No sense guarding grass.”
“We need somebody back out there right away.” Scott keyed in a phone number.
“Why?”
“Just get somebody moving, and I’ll tell you in a second.”
Scott’s gut felt like he’d swallowed a thousand shards of glass. “Nate!” he said. “Where are you?”
“I’m on Route 656, trying to find Jess,” Nate said. “She took off again. Do you know where she is?”
Scott gave Nate the short version. “I’m afraid she’s going to do something on her own.”
“That’s likely,” Nate responded. “Hold on, I see her car parked up ahead.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes!” Scott replied.
“Looks like there’s a farm lane an eighth of a mile before where Jess’s car is parked. I’m going into the woods,” Nate said. “I don’t think I should wait.”
47
I knew I had to mark the location of Brooke’s phone. I hadn’t brought my SAR pack, just my GPS and a flashlight. I marked a waypoint in my GPS, then I took off a boot, removed a sock, and dropped it on the phone. After I put my boot back on, I pulled Brooke’s T-shirt out of my jacket again, gave Luke a good sniff, and said, “Find it! Find Brooke, Luke!”
He took off. I tripped once and nearly lost my grip on the leash, but I held on, got up, and we kept going. Ten minutes further on, we came to a clearing. I made Luke stop, and I marked the place we’d left the woods on my GPS. Just for good measure, I grabbed three rocks and piled them up.
Part of me was relieved to be out of the woods. Part of me was trying to see what was ahead. I had switched off my flashlight. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I could see a big building, a barn, about fifty yards ahead. A smaller outbuilding was behind it, and up on a nearby knoll, a farmhouse.
There were no signs of life except for a dim light on the front of the barn. As I moved around, trying to get a better view, I saw a truck parked nearby.
Luke wasn’t finished following the scent. Frustrated at the brakes I’d put on our search, he barked three times. “Shhh. Quiet.”
I texted Scott. I found a clearing and an old farm. Barn, outbuildings, house. One small light. Truck parked outside. Then I gave him the coordinates.
It took two hands to text. I was lying on the ground on my belly trying to be as invisible as I could. I had Luke’s leash secured under my elbow … I thought.
I heard a noise, looked up, and saw a door at the back of the barn open up and light spill out. Luke took off running.
“Luke!” I cried and started to scramble to my feet.
A hand grabbed the back of my jacket and pushed me to the ground. “Leave him be.”
Astonished, I turned and looked at Nate. “How’d you get here?”
“While you were in the bathroom earlier, I turned on location sharing on your phone. I’ve learnt I got to keep my eye on you.”
A kaleidoscope of emotions swirled through me. I was embarrassed, chastened, and happy all at once. “I’ve got to get Luke.”
“He’ll come back on his own.”
When I looked up, the door had closed, and Luke was racing back. I grabbed his leash. Then I turned to Nate. “I think my sister may be in there!” My breath came in short gasps.
“Scott’s coming.”
“I can’t wait for him! That guy could be killing her!”
“You have to wait.”
But brutal images flashed through my mind, and I panicked. “No!”
Just then we heard a noise behind us. We turned as two cops emerged from the woods. D. Foster was one of them, and he had his Malinois, who erupted in barking when he saw Luke. I tightened my grip on my dog’s leash and stood up.
The cops were out of breath. “What’s the story here?” a deputy with the last name of Martin asked.
“I think my sister may be in there. I think she’s in danger.” I pointed toward the barn.
“I just see that one light.”
“I think I saw a door open, there in the back.”
“I’ll check it out,” Foster said, and he and his dog started toward the barn.
“T
here’s more help coming,” Nate said. “Might be smart to wait.”
“We got it.”
Deputy Martin muttered something under his breath as Foster walked away. Then he gestured toward the east. “Look.” A line of cars with their lights off, at least five of them, were edging their way down toward us.
I was so anxious about my sister that I was trembling. My heart sank as I saw Foster head toward the front of the barn. Didn’t he hear me say I’d seen a door open in the back?
The clouds streamed by and exposed the half moon. I could see Foster near the barn. I saw him let his Malinois off-leash, and I saw the dog racing around toward the back.
Good. But Foster must have thought entering through the double doors in the front was a better idea. I saw him slide the double door open a crack and saw him disappear inside.
Nate squeezed my arm. That’s when I realized he’d been holding on to me this whole time. He gestured toward the cars. They’d stopped and were parked five abreast, blocking the egress from the property. I could see officers getting out.
“Let’s head over there,” Nate said. I knew he was trying to keep me from doing something stupid.
But before we could move, there was a tremendous explosion. We turned just in time to see flame and smoke erupting from the barn.
Both of us started running toward the barn. Martin did as well. All I could think about was my sister. My sister! Fear made my tired legs pump hard.
The fire blazed in the front where Foster had entered. I raced toward the back, just in time to see a small vehicle—a Gator or a Suzuki Sidekick—disappearing over the hill. Luke saw it, too, and pulled the leash out of my hand.
I thought I could see people in the Gator. Two, maybe three. I turned to tell Nate, but he was gone. And I knew in an instant what he’d done. While I’d headed for my sister, he’d gone to help the deputy. He’d run straight into danger. Fire danger.
I hesitated a second, but even I knew there was no way on foot I’d catch the vehicle I’d seen. My dog was disappearing over the hill, but Nate—with his war wounds, his aversion to fire, his anxiety—was also in danger.
All That I Dread Page 24