55

Maggie stared at the laptops and iPads and cell phone screens until her vision became blurry.

So far, they had found enough exchanges between Sienna and Ellie to convince any reasonable person that Ellie had a solid plan to kill Charlie and had basically coerced and threatened Sienna into going along. But Sienna’s reluctance wouldn’t save her from a conviction. It would only - possibly—soften the sentence handed down if she was found guilty.

Besides finding the knife, Maggie was also hoping to find a more plausible motive.

Right now, the motive was simply that a fictional online character had told Ellie Hatton to kill someone. That had changed from her stepmother to her friend. Maggie couldn’t figure out why. She wondered if it was because understanding anyone who thought like that was nearly impossible for her. Some detective she’d turned out to be.

She put her head in her hands for a few seconds. She raised her head when she heard Hendricks scraping back his chair. He yawned and stood. “We gotta go. We’re both falling asleep. I need to at least catch a few zs. I’m no good unless I sleep at least four hours,” he said. “I’m sorry to wimp out on you, Mags. But I think you should try to get some sleep, too.”

She stretched. She didn’t want to admit it, but she had read the same document three times, trying to focus. She stood. “You’re right. I give.”

Holding the door for her, she gave one look back at all the evidence scattered on the big conference table. She double-checked that the door was locked after she exited.

As they walked down the dark hall, Maggie turned with a worried look. “Do you think it’s okay to leave all that? What if Earl or someone gets in there and takes or destroys the evidence?”

Hendricks pointed at a surveillance camera above them in the hall.

“He’d be caught, but let’s make sure. I trust Kim with my life.” He poked his head in the door to dispatch. “Hey, sugar.”

Maggie waited in the hall but could hear the dispatcher’s response.

“Knock that shit off, Hen. What do you want?” Kim sounded gruff but her voice held a smile.

“Okay, okay. You got me. I need a favor.”

“Anything.”

“Can you make sure nobody goes in the conference room until me, Bychowski or Kramer are back in a few hours?”

“Nobody?”

“Nobody else. Not even the governor. If someone comes poking around, will you let me know a.s.a.p.?”

“Of course, Hen. Go get yourself some sleep.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

He came back in the hall. Kim’s got the screens for the surveillance cameras in her office. She’s on it.”

Maggie looked back toward the conference room. She wasn’t convinced she should go home. She knew she should be tired, but she was too wound up to think about sleeping. “Maybe I’ll just stay here for the night. Sleep on the chairs.”

She stood still, not moving.

“What about that cat you were telling me about?”

Salsa. She’d named him finally after he refused to go outside again. She’d broken down, bought pet dishes and a litter box and named him.

Shit. Hendricks was right. She needed to go feed him. She hadn’t been home in eighteen hours and if the rest of the day was the same, she might not be home for another full day. Plus, it’d be nice to sneak a shower in and change clothes. Her uniform was feeling a little gross.

She nodded and walked out the door he held open.

Hendricks waited until she started her car and began to drive before he waved and pulled out of the parking lot.

Maggie gave a small wave and followed. She kept her eyes wide along the dark road, making sure she was alert even though the roads were deserted at this time of night. It was nearly two. She’d never be able to sleep. Her mind was whirring with all the evidence they’d been pouring through. It was damning. But not enough.

They needed the knife.

Ellie Hatton had hidden it somewhere. Texts had referred to some “secret hiding place” but the Hatton place had been scoured. Earlier, Maggie had made a note to find blueprints of the house from the county to see if there were any panic or other hidden rooms or spaces. She’d follow up on that first thing in the morning.

From what Maggie could piece together, the three girls had gone into the canyon, crossed the river and emerged into a clearing where Charlie was stabbed. Ellie Hatton and Sienna Clarke had then returned across the river and back to Ellie’s house where they had taken an ATV and tried to flee. From one diary entry, Sienna had said they were on their way to another clearing near Apple Valley where Shadow Man was supposed to pick them up in his helicopter.

Meanwhile, Charlie had somehow managed to claw and drag herself up the side of the canyon to Old Courtemanche Road. Along the way, the Clamper, Len Zimmerman, had found her. Maggie still hadn’t figured out what his involvement was and why he had Charlie’s blood all over him. The evidence against him was much stronger than her evidence against Ellie Hatton.

At the very least, a defense attorney could argue that even if Ellie had wanted to harm her friend, Len Zimmerman had beat her to it.

All these thoughts were racing through Maggie’s head as she passed a sign that pointed to Old Courtemanche Road. At the last second, with a squeal of her tires, she turned. Her car started bumping and heaving down the dirt road.

In her tired state, she was surprised she recognized the spot where Charlie Dawson had climbed up the canyon onto the road. It was only because she remembered it was right past a small sign that had an arrow and said “Dogtown Falls.”

What the hell was Dogtown Falls? She thought again. Stupid name.

Pulling her car to a stop in a cloud of dust, Maggie grabbed a massive mag light out of her glove box and locked her car before she headed toward the path crawling out of the woods. Her flashlight created a beam and subsequent shadows just big enough to freak her out imagining what was on the other side of the night in the black night.

At first, the dirt path was pretty easy to follow. For the most part it was free of leaves and debris and easy to walk upon. But after about twenty yards it became steep and started to wind. Now, she was in the canyon. Her footsteps were silent on the packed earth and her ears strained for any noises. Besides an occasional bird awake way too early, she didn’t hear anything else except possibly the sound of the river below.

At one point, she paused, holding her breath because she thought she’d heard an engine, but after listening for a few seconds, it was silent, so she started walking again. She trained her flashlight along the sides of the path, looking for any trails leading away that might lead to mineshafts. She swore, wishing she’d grabbed the map of the canyon off the table in the conference room. She’d have to rely on her memory.

The map had showed a mineshaft about halfway down into the canyon to her right. But she was less interested in that one. The mineshaft she wanted to explore was on the other side of the river, closer to the Hatton house.

A few times after she slipped, sending dirt and rocks careening down the canyon below, Maggie had stopped and held her breath. She wasn’t sure what she was waiting for. Maybe some deranged Clamper who lived in this canyon confronting her. Or maybe a bear or cougar. She thought about what her landlord had said and her blood ran cold. She still had her gun in its off-duty shoulder holster beneath her light jacket, but she doubted her ability to get it out in time if a bear started chasing her. And she couldn’t hold it in her hands. She needed to hold the flashlight with one hand and used her other hand to steady herself on nearby tree trunks when she lost traction or her balance, which was happening more often as the trail grew steeper.

At one point, her feet slipped on a slippery rock that was wet from a nearly invisible trickle of water. Although she managed to keep ahold of the flashlight, whose beam jerked wildly along the treetops, she skidded and slid on her butt for about ten feet. During the fall, bushes and branches tore at her face and hair, until she finally was able to grab ahold of a small tree trunk and come to a stop. Feeling a little dizzy, she waited a second before standing. Besides the scrapes all over her face and a sore behind, she seemed to be okay. She brushed off the back of her pants, but they were muddy and wet, which just made her hands dirty. She scraped her hands on the front of her jeans, figuring the front could match the back. Better than having hands too slick to hold her flashlight.

After a few minutes, she was at the bottom. The path she was on led directly to the clearing where Charlie Dawson had been attacked. Maggie didn’t linger or look. Crime scene investigators had scoured the area. It was unlikely they had missed a stray animal hair.

Not far from the clearing was the shaky bridge leading across the river. Maggie had to tuck her flashlight into her back pocket so she could use both hands to hold the ropes. The river churned noisily below. She wondered if the three girls had flashlights the night they came down, but then remembered it had been a full moon that night.

The night was dark with clouds blocking the moon, so she clung to the ropes and put one foot in front of the other until she was at the other side. She paused trying to visualize the map in her mind. The old mineshaft should be about thirty yards up the path to her right.

Working very slowly, she started to climb the path. She held the flashlight up and over the waist high brush lining the trail. If her hunch was correct, this mineshaft had never been found by the search team because the brush had overgrown the trail leading from the main path and possibly even its entrance.

But Ellie Hatton had spent a lot of time in this canyon according to her father. She must have stumbled on it one day and if Maggie was right, that’s where she’d stashed the knife.

Right about where she thought it would be, Maggie noticed that over the small brush lining the trail there seemed to be a bare spot without as much growth. She parted the bushes and peered in and sure enough, there was a nearly overgrown narrow dirt path.

If she squeezed to one side of the small Manzanita bush she could get onto the path without too much resistance. The branches of the bush slapped hard behind her, but she was on the trail. It was narrow but wide enough if she walked sideways. She could have pushed her way through, but felt beat up enough by nature from her slide down the hill on the other side.

About fifty yards in, the path stopped abruptly at what appeared to be a dirt wall covered with vines. When she pushed the vines aside and shined the flashlight beam in, she gasped.

It was Ellie Hatton’s hide away.

Behind the heavy curtain of vines, lay a little girl’s secret fort. A small, deflated air mattress was against one wall. It was covered with a thin soft purple blanket and a battery-operated air compressor stood nearby. A small purple milk crate was on its side and served as a table for a kerosene camping lamp. Inside the crate was a closed clear plastic box with what looked like juice boxes and granola bars. A small portable radio was on another overturned crate. Next to that was a small plastic tub. Maggie lifted the lid. On one side was a stack of about a dozen journals with colorful covers. Beside them was a small pink box the size of an iPad. She gently lifted it out and set it on the purple blanket on the bed. Every inch of the box, including its bottom was plastered with pink rhinestones.

With fingers shaking, Maggie lifted the clasp for the lid.

She closed her eyes for a second after she saw what was inside. Then opened them to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating from lack of sleep. Nope. It was there.

The knife.

It was covered in dried blood and nestled on a piece of white fur. A showpiece. A trophy.

Her souvenir. She not only was trying to hide the knife. She was saving it to revisit later.

Maggie’s blood ran cold.

Serial killers kept souvenirs from each kill. Small mementos they could look at and touch later to let them experience the crime all over again.

Backing up, she pulled her cell phone out of her pocket as she lifted the heavy curtain of vines and stood outside the mineshaft. Dawn was just starting to break above her. An ethereal pinkish orange was filtering through the dark silhouettes of the pines trees lining the hillside to the east. At the same time, all the birds in the woods were chirping and tweeting and greeting the morning. She smiled and took in the view for just a second before she turned her attention back to her phone.

After making her call to the crime scene techs, Maggie made her way onto the path. As soon as she stepped onto the trail though, she froze. Something was off.

Something was different.

It was the birds. They’d suddenly become silent.

That’s when she heard it. Someone clearing his throat behind her.

Earl.

She began to run.