The next morning, Lucy left a note for Nick while he was taking his shower, grabbed her pack, maps, and phone, and then took Bill’s truck down the hill and into town. The sun had barely nudged a thin crescent over the mountains to the east, but she felt wide awake and anxious to get going. The thought of joining the search volunteers at breakfast in the main lodge made her teeth ache—and she was still unsettled by her not-quite-argument-definitely-not-therapy-session with Nick last night. It drove her nuts when he tried to psych their relationship and he damn well knew it, which meant he must be pretty upset to have started down that road at all.
That didn’t mean it helped. Didn’t mean she wanted to continue the conversation, dissecting everything wrong with her psyche. And sure as hell didn’t mean she was in any mood to watch him ride off with the search team while she stayed behind.
She grabbed a quick protein and fat laden breakfast at the café in town and drove out of town along the Magruder Corridor to the turnoff for the Holmstead ranch—the last place Bill was seen—and parked. She climbed up to the truck’s dusty hood and scrutinized her map as she sipped her coffee. She circled the search territory, then marked the cell tower in Elk City and drew a ring at around twenty miles, a reasonable estimate of how far a tower’s reception could carry, and then another ring at forty miles, the outermost limit. A large swath of green dotted by amoeboid white blobs covered the intersection, a Venn diagram drawn by Salvador Dali.
A hell of a lot of ground to cover. But if Bill were inside the search radius—and wanted to be found—and if he could move at all or call out, he would have been found by now. That was where the SAR teams had gone wrong, she was certain. Because if Bill wanted to be found, why would he have spent almost twenty-four hours away from home without contacting anyone? And why send that cryptic text when he finally did make contact? To Judith, of all people.
No, he either did not want to be found or was in a position where he didn’t want civilians looking for him. Which meant the searchers were looking in the wrong place. But what was the right direction?
Her phone rang. “Hi, Megan. How’s it going?”
“Grandma said to call to ask if it’s okay if we go camping. It means I won’t be able to call again until Monday.”
“Do you want to go?” When she was a little girl, Megan had loved camping—the more primitive the better, to the point where she preferred to sleep outside without a tent if the weather was nice. But then she turned into a pre-teen and a teenager, and now it was a struggle just to get her to go on a day hike if it meant leaving her cell phone behind.
“Yeah. Dad sent me pictures of where you guys are, and it looks cool. Grandpa said there are places like that near here, so he’s taking me to his favorite spot where he took Dad when Dad was a kid.”
“Are you going to be in a tent? You know that means sleeping on the ground, right? And no electricity?”
“Grandma and Grandpa are coming,” she said, implying that if two old people could do it, so could she. “Please, is it okay?”
Lucy had to admit she had grown accustomed to having Megan tethered to the safety line that was her cell phone. But she also hated that Megan might miss out on the world beyond a six-inch screen. “Yes, it’s fine. But text or call as soon as you get back. And listen to your grandparents. Take it easy on them, okay? No complaining, even if you don’t like it.”
“Mom—” She drew it out to two syllables of teen angst.
“Love you. Have fun.”
“Thanks, bye.”
Her team back at Beacon Falls were three hours ahead in their work day, so she took advantage of the cell reception and called them. Wash would be on his second cup of coffee at least, so at his peak energy level.
“Hey boss,” he answered. “How’s the wild, wild west? Your friend okay?”
“I don’t think so.” She filled him in on what had happened. “Can you check the cell tower, see if there’s some way to narrow the direction or distance?”
“How accurate’s your timeline? That text might not have been sent when it said it was.”
“But it was time stamped—”
He snorted. “Have I taught you nothing? Anything can be spoofed. Easy as pie to schedule something for when you want it sent or who it appears to have been sent from, especially a text.”
Her phone dinged with a text from Megan, but when she glanced at it, it read: See what I mean? Not sent by Megan or her phone. Followed by a goofy set of emojis.
“Okay, you made your point. So if I can’t rely on the text or the time frame, what can I work with? How about the three calls he made to me?”
“Yeah, let me dig in to those.” Since her phone was a work phone, he already had access to its records. “Can you forward me the info the police there got from your friend’s phone? Or better yet, get me permission to talk with the cell company? Whoever owns that tower.”
“The state police handled it, but Deena gave us permission to access Bill’s account data. I’ll forward you the email with all the contact info and her authorization. Remind them this is a critical missing person case involving a law enforcement officer; they shouldn’t give you any trouble.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it one way or another. So where you’re calling me now, how far is that from the tower?”
“Not sure. I only have one bar, though.” She glanced at the map. “About twenty-eight miles. But I’m also getting a few bars on my Wi-Fi—does that make a difference?”
“Yes, if his phone was set up to piggyback Wi-Fi and cellular. Probably was—anything to boost a signal out there, right? Where is the Wi-Fi coming from?”
“I don’t know for sure, but there’s a ranch a few miles from here. They have a guest lodge, and their website said they have Wi-Fi.”
“Probably satellite. Maybe with extenders or repeaters? Let me play with this and get back to you.” He sounded distracted, as if she’d given him a puzzle box to unlock. “How do people talk to each other out there? I just pulled up the map, and you’re like in the middle of nowhere.”
“The most remote area of the lower forty-eight. The locals take that as a point of pride.”
“Yeah, but police covering all that, not to mention the search parties—”
“Radios. They all have radios. Even Bill’s home has a base station. Deena said he took calls from there. And I’ve seen a few folks with sat phones.” Like what Judith and those geologic engineers who’d hitched a ride with them yesterday carried.
“I got your email with those old cases,” Wash continued. “Nothing interesting yet, but I’ll keep looking.”
“Thanks. Maybe do background checks on anyone that pops out at you?” She glanced over her shoulder at the sound of a vehicle approaching. “Gotta go. Text me if you find anything.”
“So you’re staying in one place where I can actually reach you?”
“No, but I’ll be checking in with Deena.” She gave him Deena’s landline number. “You can call her if it’s urgent.”
“What about Nick?”
“He’s out searching.”
A forest service truck pulled up beside her, Gleason at the wheel. The road was barely wide enough to accommodate both trucks even though she’d parked at the far edge.
“Bye, thanks.” She hung up.
Gleason slid out from behind the wheel over to the passenger window and rolled it down. “You lost?”
“No, I was headed over to the Holmstead ranch. I wanted to see if they remembered anything, but then I was afraid maybe it was too early.”
He glanced at the sun cresting over the mountains. “Not for Amy and Gus. They’ll have been up for hours—got livestock to tend to. I’m headed that way myself. A bear trap needs fresh bait. Want a ride? I can introduce you. Gus gets a bit ornery around strangers.”
“Sounds like a plan.” She grabbed her map and pack and hopped into his truck. “Shouldn’t you be out coordinating the search?”
“The District Ranger came in from Darby, and is taking over. And someone’s got to take care of business.”
Lucy wondered if the District Ranger was there because a sheriff missing for two days was bound to attract media attention or because he thought Gleason hadn’t done a good job with the search. “Why do you have a bear trap on private land? Wouldn’t you want to keep the bears away from their livestock?”
“Exactly. The Holmstead spread includes a lot more than just grazing land. Most of it is just as much wilderness as the Forest Service land. And it’s not like bears or wolves can read a map—they simply head to where the water and food is.”
“Wolves?”
“Yes ma’am. They’re smarter than your average bear, too.” She smiled at his cartoon reference, then realized he was serious—and probably too young to even know who Yogi Bear was. Which made her feel even older.
They slowed and turned off the main drive leading to the ranch and onto a more rugged track heading into the woods. He stopped the truck in a small clearing at the base of a tiny waterfall that cascaded down to create a creek bed. Across the water was a boulder field climbing up the side of a hill, while to their right a timber fall acted as a dam. The area in front of it was teeming with sumac, wild flowers, and small bushes with dark blue berries. Nestled in them sat a ten-foot steel cylinder on a trailer with a heavy door raised in the air by a hoist. The bear trap. It looked a lot more sophisticated than the simple culvert traps she’d seen back in Pennsylvania.
Gleason turned the truck around—it took a five-point turn, given the trees and bushes—and parked. “Here.” He handed her a laptop and opened a video file. “You watch this while I check for scat and tracks. Don’t get out until I give the all clear.”
At first Lucy bristled, feeling like a child being given a toy to distract her and make her stay put. But Gleason was a professional, and he was doing her a favor, plus the video…fascinating. It was from a trail camera aimed at a similar culvert trap. It must have been motion-activated, judging from the choppiness—but the animals that had activated it weren’t the bears the trap and its bait were meant to entice, but rather a lone wolf creeping into position near the trap’s open door.
Like the trap here, this one lay in a canyon near a creek bed. The wolf easily concealed itself among the bushes at the edge of the stream—if the camera hadn’t caught it, Lucy never would have been able to track it. The footage stuttered and then began again as a large black bear ambled past, stopping almost in front of the camera. It raised its head, sniffed, circled, almost started back away from the trap but then stopped and sniffed again, shaking its snout as if torn. Then it shuffled a few steps toward the trap—and the wolf waiting in ambush—before stopping again.
Lucy rewound the video and focused on the hillside behind the bear. She zoomed in and slowed it down, the video turning grainy but still clear enough that she saw that the wolf wasn’t alone. As the bear hesitated, she spotted three more wolves moving into position, outflanking the bear. She started the video at regular speed again. “Run,” she urged the bear. “Can’t you see it’s an ambush?”
The bear rose up from four feet to two, snout in the air, sniffing again. This time it shook its entire body, made a snuffling grunt, and whirled to run back the way it came. But the wolves didn’t give up so easily. The one hidden near the trap quickly gave chase, followed by the others across the creek on the ridge.
The final frame caught the silhouette of a large silver wolf alone, staring upstream. Lucy could swear it wore the same expression every field instructor she’d ever worked with had when they dissected an operation during the after-action brief, figuring out what went wrong and how to do it right next time.
For a brief moment the wolf turned and stared directly at the camera—at her. As if it knew it was being watched. It bared its teeth, eyes gleaming with anticipation. She shuddered. She’d seen that expression before—eight months ago on the face of the dog right before it attacked her.
Next time, you’re mine, it seemed to say. Next time, you won’t get away.