No tracks.
No Parker.
“She wouldn’t leave her unit,” Burke said, scanning the shoulder, the tree line. “Not Sara.”
Scout circled to the rear of the cruiser.
“Dispatch,” Burke said into the radio, “I want every available uniton Seventy-Three. Shut it down from the bridge to the county line. Nobody in or out without my order.”
“Copy that, Sheriff.”
Scout swept the shoulder with his light. A few shallow impressions marked the dirt, but nothing that looked like a fight.
“No scuffle. No drag marks.”
“She stepped out.”
Scout swallowed.
“Something made her.”
They followed the beam into the trees.
“Here.”
A phone lay half-buried in the leaves.
Her cell. Face down. No cracks. Dropped. Not thrown.
Burke placed an evidence marker beside it—01. The yellow plastic looked wrong against the pale ground.
They moved deeper, the ground sloping underfoot, rocks biting through dead leaves. A faint depression bent the underbrush.
“She came this far,” Burke murmured.
And then—nothing.
No trail.
No direction.
Only absence.
The radio cracked.
Static first—Dispatch, urgent.
“Sheriff, we’ve got units in place on Seventy-Three. Road’s locked down from the bridge to the county line.”
Burke’s jaw tightened.
“Keep it that way.”
He took one last look at the cruiser.
The empty seat.
The open door.
