Gabe to want to help. In HRT, they were often a last resort—an overwhelming tactical solution when all else failed—so they’d seen a lot of screwed-up situations. But the ones where kids were in danger tended to piss off the guys the most. The rest of his team would probably take a shift later in the afternoon.
When he and Gabe had arrived, he’d pulled aside Noreen Abbott, one of the administrative assistants from the Rose Bay PD who was coordinating the search parties. He’d quietly told her their full names and shown her their badges, knowing they’d be checked out otherwise. All volunteers were, because sometimes the perpetrator joined the searches. He didn’t want anyone wasting time doing background checks on him and Gabe.
Exhaustion weighed down his steps. He’d managed a three-hour nap after his team came in from their mission around 8:00 a.m. But he and Gabe had vowed to help as soon as they were marginally functional. Sleep was overrated, anyway.
Except that now, as the turkey vultures narrowed in on something they wanted down below, sleep sounded like a damn fine idea.
“Shit,” Gabe muttered next to him. He swiped a hand over his forehead and Kyle knew it wasn’t the ninety-degree heat, but fear of what they might find that was making his normally unflappable teammate sweat.
“Not a good sign, turkey vultures,” a man said.
Kyle turned around, surprised someone had come up behind them without him or Gabe noticing.
And the man was big, considering his stealth. He wasn’t tall—he was actually a solid four inches shorter than Kyle’s six feet. But he was wide. And none of his girth was fat. He appeared to be in his sixties, although Kyle’s gut said he was younger, and the deep lines on his face were from hard living.
Kyle held out his hand. “I’m Kyle. This is my friend Gabe. We’re here on a company trip, so we figured we’d help with the search.”
The man’s dark gray eyes narrowed in his craggy face, then he put his hand in Kyle’s and shook forcefully, before pulling his hand free. “Frank Abbott.”
Gabe gestured back toward the sign-up table for the search parties. “Are you related to the girl handling the sign-in?”
“My niece,” Frank replied. “She works at the station. And I didn’t have any jobs today I couldn’t reschedule, so here I am.” He heaved out a heavy sigh. “This again.”
“You lived here during the original abductions?” Gabe asked.
“I’ve lived here all my life. Can’t believe this shit has started up again.” He shook his head, suddenly looking tired, and headed toward the marsh, glancing back to call, “You want to check this out with me?”
Hell, no. Instead of saying it, Kyle nodded tightly and fell into step beside Frank. The older man walked fast, with purpose, his jaw set in a grim line.
The sounds of the search party faded as they walked, replaced by the strange clapping sounds someone had told him were made by Clapper Rail birds. It would’ve been peaceful had the circumstances been different.
Beside him, Gabe and Frank were silent, too. Gabe had the same training he did, the same ability to force back fear and get the job done, but a civilian wouldn’t. To Frank’s credit, he didn’t slow as the low, nasal whine of the vultures reached their ears.
Kyle tried to prepare himself as they continued walking, as the marsh grasses got taller and thicker, as his feet began to get stuck in the muddy ground.
“Watch your step,” Frank warned, trudging ahead without looking back. “The marsh is low now, but to get to the vultures, we have to go in.”
“If there’s a body out here, wouldn’t the alligators have gone after it by now?” Gabe spoke up, shoving back blond hair in need of a cut.
Frank snorted and kept going. “No gators. Not in these marshes. Down the coast, maybe. But not here. Come on.”
Kyle followed, his shoes sinking deeper until it was difficult to pull them free. The marsh grasses crept up around his knees as they got closer to the water. High enough to hide a body. And definitely deserted enough. The sound of the other searchers had become nothing more than a low murmur.
Kyle knew that as soon as Evelyn gave her profile, she’d be out there among them, just like she’d probably insisted on doing eighteen years ago. It was easy to imagine her as a young girl. Her best friend torn from her life, abducted only hours after Evelyn had seen her.
Even at twelve years old, Evelyn wouldn’t have sat home hoping everything would turn out okay. He could picture her, green eyes too big for her face, long hair in pigtails, wearing the determined look that seemed to be her default expression. There was no way she would’ve tolerated being left behind.
And he knew there was no way she’d leave Rose Bay now until she uncovered the truth. No matter how horrible it was, no matter what it cost her.
The image of Evelyn faded as the smell of something rotting wafted up. Please, God, don’t let it be Brittany Douglas.
He tried not to inhale too deeply as Frank splashed into the low marsh waters, startling three turkey vultures. They gave deep, guttural hisses, then took off into the sky, revealing a carcass along the edge of the marsh.
The breath stalled in his lungs. It was the remains left by some hunter, but it wasn’t human. Just a deer. He shut his eyes and allowed himself a moment of relief.
Beside him, Gabe sighed. “Thank God.”
Frank stared down at the carcass, then off into the distance, where the marsh wound through tall grasses and eventually disappeared from sight. “Let’s keep looking.”
Far behind them, the search was continuing.
* * *
Each time Evelyn read the note that had been taped to Brittany Douglas’s bike, goose bumps rose on her skin.
It wasn’t so hard,
I went to the yard,
Where you’d left the poor child alone.
When I got there,
It felt like a dare.
I thought to myself, Take her and run.
It matched the notes from eighteen years ago...and yet, it didn’t. Back then, just like now, the nursery rhymes focused on two ideas. First, that the child was being neglected in some way by the parents. And second, that the abductor was rescuing her from that.
But eighteen years ago, the abductor hadn’t displayed such obvious joy at the abduction. That idea dominated the new note, a macabre revision of “Old Mother Hubbard.”
Unlike the notes eighteen years ago, which had talked to the victim, this one was directed at the parents. In context, the change made sense, given the increased focus on the abduction stage.
But was it because the abductor had developed a taste for the actual abduction? Or because it was a new predator entirely? She’d pored over the case details from the three old abductions and the new one for more than an hour, but still wasn’t positive.
And that was the most important part of the profile she’d promised to deliver to the cops in less than two hours.
So far, what she knew were the statistics. She knew the chances of a child abductor going dormant for eighteen years and then starting up again were slim. She knew Brittany Douglas, at eleven years old, was the average age of child abduction and murder victims. Statistics said Brittany had first met her abductor within a quarter mile of her home. Statistics also said she’d been dead before Evelyn had even arrived in town.
But it didn’t matter how slim Brittany’s chances were; if there was any hope at all, Evelyn had to try.
A rush of cold swept over her in the too-warm hotel room, leaving behind an intense fear. The fear that she might fail.
Evelyn