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“Sneakers.”
“Great. What color?”
“White.”
It was enough to start with, enough for an Amber Alert. Josie smiled. “You did an awesome job, Savannah. Let’s start walking back. I’m just going to need you to let go of my hand for a few minutes while we walk, so I can call my team on the radio and let them know that they need to start searching for Kayleigh immediately.”
Reluctantly, Savannah peeled her hands from Josie’s arm. Luke approached, holding out Blue’s leash. “I have to keep my dog on his lead, but if you want, you can hold onto the middle part of it, and we can let him lead us both back. I’ll hold it here, and you can hold it there. This way you’re always between me and Blue and you can’t get lost again.”
She stared up at him, eyes moving from his face to his hands. Unlike her mother, she didn’t recoil. Only curiosity flared in her eyes. She said, “Are your hands okay to hold onto the leash?”
Luke smiled. He lifted one of his hands and flexed it. “Oh yeah. I’ve had lots of practice. They look bad but they don’t hurt.”
Savannah glanced back at Josie, as if for reassurance. Josie nodded and Savannah walked over and grabbed Blue’s leash. Josie stood up and the three of them began walking. Josie hung back until she was out of earshot of Savannah. She got Noah on the radio and began briefing him as quickly as possible.
“Get an Amber Alert out as soon as possible,” she concluded.
“Roger,” came Noah’s response.
As the last squawk of the radio sounded, she thought she heard the snap of a twig somewhere behind her. She froze, scanning the forest all around, but saw nothing. Her eyes strained against the dimness of evening encroaching. There was nothing. No movement. No sound either, beyond the ambient noise of birds, insects, and a few toads. After a few moments, she turned away and ran to catch up with Luke, Blue, and Savannah.
SEVEN
Savannah clung to her mother like a barnacle, her long legs wrapped around Shelly’s waist. Dave gathered them in his arms, holding them close. Tears poured down both parents’ faces. While Luke took Blue over to their vehicle for some food, water, and rest, Josie gathered in a tight little knot with Noah and Gretchen.
“Did you tell them?” asked Josie.
Gretchen sighed. “They haven’t stopped crying since.”
Noah said, “Dad got us one of Kayleigh’s pillows for Blue to scent, but Josie, it’s going to be dark within the hour.”
She glanced over at Luke, who sat on the tailgate of his truck with Blue beside him. He stroked the dog’s back. “They can work in the dark. I talked to Luke on the way back. He’s ready to go. So is Blue. We just need lights. Did you call the state police? Can we get a helicopter out here? They’ve got infrared. Besides Blue, that’s probably our best bet to find her.”
“I called the Chief,” said Gretchen, opening her notebook and paging through it. “He’s trying to get it. Can’t make any promises.”
“Josie,” said Noah, hesitating. He looked over at the Patchetts.
She sighed. “I know, but we have to try everything.”
What none of them needed to say out loud was that if a man had taken Kayleigh Patchett, there was a very high chance that she was dead already, in which case the infrared sensors would not pick up her body heat. With each step that Josie took back toward the Patchett home, the dread in her stomach had grown heavier.
Gretchen tapped her pen against a half-filled page in her notebook. “What are we looking at here? A random guy skulking around in the woods? Sees Kayleigh and on impulse, decides to attack her?”
“There’s no way to know for sure,” Josie said. “But on the way over here, Noah mentioned a couple of cases from Lenore and Montour Counties that sound similar. Two kids go into the woods and get attacked.”
Gretchen used her pen to scratch her temple. “Yeah. I heard about those, too. I think it’s too soon to say this is related to that, though.”
Noah said, “We have to consider that maybe someone was out there stalking these girls and as soon as they got separated, he went after Kayleigh.”
Josie said, “If we don’t find her tonight, we have to entertain both possibilities: either it was a random guy out in the woods who saw Kayleigh and took his opportunity, or it was someone stalking her. First thing in the morning, we do a line search.”
A line search was a way to look for evidence, usually outdoors, by having several people line up side by side and walk slowly across a designated area together, scanning the ground in front of them for anything that was significant to the case.
Noah looked behind Josie where the forest was shrouded in darkness. “A line search? That’s a lot of ground to cover.”
Josie nodded. “Especially since we don’t really know where Kayleigh was last seen by Savannah. Blue should help us with that, though. The Amber Alert should be going out any minute. Everyone will know we’re looking for this girl. We can get the press involved. Call on the community. People will show up to help with a line search. They’ve done it before here in Denton.”
“Sadly,” Gretchen sighed. She scribbled something on her notepad.
