Her Silent Cry (Detective Josie Quinn Book 6)(97)

“Do we still have dogs?” Gretchen asked.

Noah said, “The sheriff’s K-9 unit is on standby and Luke Creighton is still in town with his dog.”

Oaks said, “Let’s go. I don’t want to waste one more second.”





Seventy





It was pitch black on the mountain road going north out of Denton. It took Josie three passes to find the mouth of the hiking trail that would lead them to the Overlook. Once she located it, she pulled over and got out. Down the long winding road was an unbroken line of headlights as far as the eye could see. On short notice, they’d managed to round up over seventy people to help search for Lucy. Members of the Denton PD had come in on their night off. The sheriff’s office had sent several deputies, the state police had sent troopers, and the FBI agents who had already been working the case were amassed there as well. They fanned out along the shoulder of the road, covering a half mile on either side of the hiking trail.

Flashlights bobbed in the darkness as Josie gave the signal for all of them to step into the woods. The temperature had dropped. Josie felt a slight palpitation at the thought of Lucy out there alone in the cold and the dark. There wasn’t even any ambient light in this area of the city.

“You okay, boss?” Gretchen asked as the two of them picked through the underbrush side by side. Chitwood was a half mile south of them, and Oaks was a half mile north. Mettner was with Oaks.

“I’ll be okay when we find Lucy,” Josie said.

As they waded deeper into the forest, they could hear the sounds of branches snapping, leaves crunching beneath feet, dogs panting and running ahead, and a chorus of voices calling out Lucy’s name. The Overlook was a mile into the wooded area. Josie knew there was nothing resembling civilization for several miles in every other direction. She tried not to panic, thinking of the vast area they had to cover. Her hope was that Gideon had left Lucy at the Overlook and that she had either stayed there or simply hadn’t gotten very far in whatever direction she had taken.

Their flashlights illuminated the bottom of the Overlook as it came into view. They kept calling Lucy’s name, but no response came. They searched around the bottom of the massive rock but found no signs of Lucy. Josie said, “I’m going to climb to the top.”

Gretchen shone her light upward. “That’s pretty far up, boss. In the dark.”

“I have to,” Josie said. “What if she’s up there?”

But she wasn’t. Josie reached the top in a few moments, breathless and trying to stay in the center of the rock’s surface so she didn’t fall off. On her knees, she shone the light around the top of the Overlook. After two sweeps, her light caught something unusual. She crawled over and saw two small flat rocks wedged up against one another making an upside down V, like a little arch. Beneath it was a small mass of leaves. Molded into a chrysalis.

“Lucy,” Josie whispered.

She scrambled back down to the ground, excitement propelling her. “She was here,” she told Gretchen. “She was here. She left a cocoon up there.”

“Maybe she’s nearby,” Gretchen said. “Which direction do you think she would go?”

Josie panned her flashlight around them, seeing nothing but tree trunks. Somewhere nearby an owl hooted. She thought about Lucy. “Her mom said she has a terrible sense of direction.”

“I remember,” Gretchen said.

“But she was completely obsessed with bugs.”

Gretchen laughed. “Not sure that helps us here.”

“She liked butterflies and ladybugs best.”

“Again, boss, not sure that is helpful in this particular scenario.”

“If you’re at the top of the Overlook, which way does the sun come up? Which way is east?”

Gretchen pulled out her phone. The screen lit up as she punched something in. “I’ve got a compass app. Not sure it will work out here—oh wait, here it is—east.” She turned and pointed away from the bottom of the Overlook. “That way.”

“Then she would have gone the other way,” Josie said.

“West?”

“Yes, when ladybugs hunker down for winter, they find light-colored homes and they like to land and burrow into the west-facing walls because the late afternoon sun warms them. Lucy knew that. She told her mom that if she ever got lost, she would fly home like a ladybug. She would go west.”

“But the Ross home isn’t west of here, it’s south.”

“And Lucy Ross is seven,” Josie said with a laugh. “The logic isn’t precise. She would have spent the night here. The sun would have come up over there and she would have known that the sun comes up in the East. She would have flown home to the west-facing wall of her home.”

Gretchen put her flashlight under her chin, illuminating her face. “At the risk of sounding like Chitwood, are you serious?”

Josie put her flashlight under her own chin and grinned. “We’ll get one of the dogs, and see if they can capture her scent from the Overlook. Betcha the dog heads west.”

Josie made a few calls. Luke was closest to them, with Blue. Ten minutes later, he and the dog had thrashed their way through the woods to the Overlook. Blue greeted Josie with a long, wet tongue on her hand. “Hey boy,” she whispered.