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“He didn’t speak a word to me,” she says tearfully. “That somehow made it worse. That he wouldn’t even say anything. He wouldn’t tell me what was going on or why he was doingthis.”
She tells how she finally managed to escape and go back out into the woods. She was so afraid she ended up getting turned around and was lost for days until she found her way to the road.
They ask how she managed to find the strength to keep going, especially since she had every reason to believe that the man who had taken her was still around and would be looking for her. He was likely far more familiar with the woods than she was, so he would have had an advantage over her.
“I had to keep going,” she says. “I couldn’t let myself even consider stopping. I had to think about Holden and trying to get back to him. I was so scared he was dead. And I thought about my friends. I couldn’t let him win. If I just laid down in the woods and gave up, he would have been able to take all of those lives and get away with it. I needed to be theirvoice.”
The reporter interviewing her lets out a trembling breath, clearly fighting tears as she nods along with Miranda’sspeech.
“Powerful words. You are truly asurvivor.”
She looks to the camera and signs off the segment. When rolling has stopped, the reporter reaches out and gathers Miranda in a tight hug. I hear her tell her how much of an inspiration she is and how proud everyone is of her.
“Miranda?” Detective Garrisonstarts.
The hug breaks and Miranda looks over her shoulder. Her expression falters when she sees us standing behind her.
“I hope you’re here to apologize and announce you’ve made an arrest,” Holdensays.
“Miranda,” I say, ignoring Holden. “We need to speak with you for asecond.”
She nods and follows us away from the crew. Chance starts to hold Holden back, but I gesture for him to let him go.
“He should hear this, too.”
We walk over to a picnic table out of earshot of the people clearing away after the interview and the families gathered at the park to play. Detective Garrison sets the forensic test results on the table.
“I don’t know how familiar you are with how investigations like this one are carried out, but one of the most important elements of it is forensics,” he starts. “When a crime is committed, a team goes in and tries to collect as much evidence as they can that could point to the person who is responsible. That includes things like hairs, fibers, fingerprints, and blood. Those can be examined and tested to give us more information about where they might have come from, which can be very valuable when comparingsuspects.
“One of the most important types of tests that they run is on blood. They can determine the blood type of the person who contributed the blood, which can then be compared with blood samples from persons of interest to narrow down the field. But before they do that, they determine if the blood is human or animal. Or if it is even blood atall.”
Holden opens his mouth to say something, but I hold up a finger to stop him, then nod for Garrison tocontinue.
“When we first went to the scene, our forensic team did a thorough investigation of your cabin and gathered a considerable amount of blood evidence. Enough that it seemed a fairly foregone conclusion that you were likely dead,” he explains. “The amount of blood was extreme to even consider that a person who had lost that much could survive. The only other explanation I could think of was that you had injured your attacker and they contributed blood aswell.”
“That’s what happened,” Miranda nods. “I told Agent Griffin that. He attacked me and I must have hit him with something and he was hurt. Some of the blood in the cabin would have shown up as being his, right?”
“That would explain if two human blood types were found,” I jump in. “The hospital took some of your blood while you were there and we tested it. Some of the samples collected did share your blood type. The others, however, were a different type altogether. Likely cow. More precisely, beef. Along with some other compounds that are not identifiable asblood.”
She looks stunned. Her cheeks flush bright red and her mouth trembles as if she’s speaking but nothing is actually comingout.
“You’re—you’re wrong,” Holden stammers. “That’s ridiculous. The test was donewrong.”
“No,” Garrison says. “The test was not done wrong. This is a state-of-the-art lab. The results areaccurate.”
“So, what are you saying? A cow attacked her? Or some hamburgers?” he snaps, sounding disgusted. “You’re supposed to be finding out what happened to her and protecting her, and what you come up with is that the blood in her cabin was from a cow? Along with… what? Something unidentifiable as blood? So, analien?”
“Holden,” Miranda says. “Stop. Just… stop. They’reright.”
He’s been flailing his arms in frustration, but at her words, he suddenly stops. “Miranda,” hewhispers.
She closes her eyes for a moment and shakes her head, then draws in a breath and looks at us.
“Yes, most of the blood in the cabin is from the kitchen. I took meat from the refrigerator and squeezed it out, then mixed it with Karo syrup and food coloring to make it thicker. I wanted it to smell likeblood.”
“Why in the living hell would you do that?” Iask.
“It was supposed to be a joke. Another one of the camp pranks. Anthony came up with the idea and I just went with it. I never thought it was actually going to gettested.”
