We complete our search. There’s no sign of Jolene anywhere, and all we did was stir up anxieties. We also get the same question Marissa asked. Why aren’t we searching the forest? We turn the question back to them. Have they ever seen Jolene in the forest? Close to the forest? Heard her talk about going into the forest?
No, no, and no. Before dinner, I’d also checked the logs of every excursion. She’s never joined one. There’s zero indication that she’s set foot outside our boundaries since her arrival.
Still, the residents will expect a proper forest search. Dalton rails against the waste of time. I let him have his moment of strenuous objection, knowing that if I hadn’t suggested it, he’d have been out himself searching for her come morning. It must be done.
We organize search parties to set out at 7 A.M. Then Dalton and I spend the next hour with Storm, circling the town again on the border path. It’s mostly for show. The entire search will be mostly for show. Finding someone in the forest is a logistical nightmare. It only works when we can actively pursue them—as we did with Brandon—or they haven’t gone far—as with Conrad. When we have no proof Jolene entered the forest, let alone know where to find an entry trail? It will be an exercise in futility.
So where is she? That’s the question I cannot even begin to answer. Could someone be holding her hostage in town, stashed in a place we didn’t search? I guess so. But why?
Dalton thinks she’s hiding. Intentionally making us search for her. Causing trouble. Again, I don’t see her motive. Is it possible she wandered into the woods? Got drunk and stumbled out there alone despite hating it? Maybe, but I don’t see it.
By the time we call it quits for the day, it’s too late for our fantasy evening of relaxation and conversation and sex. We manage one drink in front of the fire, conversation meandering aimlessly, and then it’s off to bed, where we don’t have the energy for anything more than quiet talk, cuddled up together until we drift off to sleep.
The knock comes at 2 A.M. I rouse from a dream where Dalton and I are enjoying an overnight in Dawson City, and someone comes banging on our door in the middle of the night. I lift my head, blink, and realize I’m at home in Rockton. The knock comes again, more urgent now.
Then the front door slaps open.
I bolt upright, my sleepy brain screaming that we have an intruder.
Yeah, an intruder who signals their entry by knocking.
I roll out of bed as Dalton wakes with a gasp, as if he missed the knocking but somehow senses intrusion.
I’m already out of bed and yanking on Dalton’s T-shirt, which covers me enough to leave the room. As I do, I smack straight into Storm standing in the doorway, having not so much as growled.
“Good watchdog,” I mutter.
She glances over and grunts. Feet pound on the steps. I throw open the door just as Anders hits the top step.
“Problem,” he says between deep breaths. “Big problem.”
TWENTY-SIX
“I couldn’t sleep,” Anders says, his voice hushed as the three of us jog through the forest, Storm at our heels. “I heard something. At first, I thought I was being paranoid. I was downstairs in the living room reading a book. I had the back windows open, and I was pretending it was for the night air, but really, I was listening for trouble.”
“And you heard it,” I say.
“I heard something.”
He cuts around a tree. We’re circling along the border path, heading toward his end of Rockton.
“I thought I caught a voice. That’s when I went outside. Grabbed my gun and stepped onto the back deck. It was quiet. Then I heard something in the woods. I went to investigate and…”
He slows. He hasn’t told us what he found. He’s too agitated.
Storm whines. I drop my hand absently to her head. I’m peering into the forest as we continue forward at a walk.
Dalton sees it first, muttering, “Shit.”
I follow his gaze. It takes a moment, my eyes still adjusting. Then I make out a figure sitting at the base of the tree. I pick up my pace. I’m not worried about startling the person. I know I can’t.
I recognize the figure in a blink. It’s Jolene. Dead. Sitting at the base of a tree, eyes closed, throat slit.
Around her throat hangs a wooden sign. A sign with a single word burned into it.
Killer.
We stand there, looking down at Jolene’s body in the glare of Dalton’s flashlight beam. I lower myself to one knee and check her body temperature.
“Well, we found her,” Anders says. “Tell me I wasn’t sitting in my house, listening to her being murdered, while telling myself I was hearing things.”
I straighten. “You weren’t. She’s cold.” I borrow Dalton’s flashlight and shine it on the ground. “There’s no blood. She was dead when she was brought here.” I bend again and shine the light on her face. “Her throat might have been cut here, but her heart had already stopped beating. That’s conjecture, of course. April can confirm. I don’t think, though, that if your throat is cut, you’re going to die with your eyes shut. Not unless you’re heavily drugged.”
I rise. “And I’m wildly theorizing because it gives me something to do, rather than deal with the fact that this is, as you say, a very big problem. Bad enough she was murdered after residents didn’t think we were looking hard enough. But that sign…?” I shake my head. “We do not need that.”
“Do we know whether it’s true?” Anders says. “That she killed someone?”
I glance at Dalton, who grunts and says, “That wasn’t her official story. We had no reason to investigate her.”
“Which means this could be a shot in the dark,” I say. “Or it could be someone who knows her backstory better than we do. It’s not Conrad or Brandon. Brandon’s locked up. Conrad is under watch. I’ll check on that, of course.”
Anders shakes his head. “Conrad or Brandon would have needed to break out yesterday to kidnap her and then break out again to pose her body tonight. Storm’s been by here a few times. She’d have scented a body.”
“Her body definitely wasn’t here last night. But that only rules out Conrad and Brandon if she’s been missing because someone was holding her captive.”
“Ah, okay. The other possibility is that she was in hiding herself. Then she was killed. That would only require Conrad or Brandon to sneak out tonight.”
“All speculation,” I say. “I only even mention them because of the sign. Even Conrad admits he didn’t have any more background on anyone. Jen told Conrad about you, and she’s been out in the woods somewhere with Tyrone. This seems to be a one-hundred-percent new case, unrelated to yours.”
I glance at Dalton. “So the question is what we do about this.”