Finley guessed he was talking about Chuck Ferrigno, the only detective at The Hollows PD. There had been others, according to Eloise, but budget cuts had reduced the department to the bare bones, which is why Jones Cooper consulted regularly.
A pretty woman appeared in the doorway as Jones and Finley were headed over toward the SUV. He walked to her and they exchanged a few quiet words, a quick embrace, and she went back into the house, casting a motherly, concerned glance in Finley’s direction. Maggie Cooper offered Finley a wave, then disappeared back inside. She came back a minute later with a blanket and some towels, and handed them to Jones. After giving him a quick kiss on the cheek, she closed the door.
In the car, Finley used the towels and some antibacterial ointment Jones had in the center console to wipe some of the blood off her hands. Then she wrapped herself in the blanket, still shivering, foggy headed, afraid.
“There was a girl there, too,” Finley said, as he pulled out of the driveway. Finley could see her, slight and dirty, standing among the trees. Her face was a strange blur, in focus but not. A pulse of frustration moved through Finley. What was happening to her?
“Are you sure?” he asked.
Finley nodded. She wasn’t crazy; she knew that much. Whatever she saw was real; she just couldn’t get the pieces to coalesce, couldn’t understand where she’d been when she saw what she saw.
“Who was she?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she said. How many times had she said that? She thought that she must sound like an idiot. She bet Eloise was never so uncertain. “Her face is unclear. They were deep in the woods.”
“How did you get up there?” he asked. “Did you walk from the path?”
She wasn’t going to say “I don’t know” again.
“Is there another way up into the woods?” she asked instead. “Is there a road that goes up to wherever someone who veered off that trail might go?”
Jones seemed to consider her question. “There’s a rural road that leads to private drives connected to old properties—all of which were thoroughly searched when Abbey disappeared.”
She’d never been up that way on her bike. “Who lives up there?”
Jones shrugged. “Back when I was a kid, we called them hill people. I suppose that wouldn’t be considered politically correct these days.”
“Hill people?” asked Finley. The phrase sounded strange, made up.
“Yeah, you know, folks who live off the grid. They have generators, hunt for their food, come into town to do odd jobs, get supplies. But mostly they stay up past The Hollows Woods.”
Finley tried to process this. It was totally new information to her, something her grandmother had never mentioned, something she’d never read online. “You mean like a Deliverance kind of thing?”
“Well,” said Jones. “That’s a little oversimplified. They’re just people living the way folks used to live. They’ve rejected the modern world. Some might argue that they have good reason. Not everybody wants wireless internet, a smart phone, and a latte or whatever from Starbucks.”
“So they just live up there and never come down? The kids don’t go to school? What if someone gets sick, or dies? What if a crime is committed?”
Jones shook his head. “The kids get homeschooled, some of them. We’ve had a few people come down for medical care—but you know they don’t have money, insurance. Most of the babies aren’t born in hospitals. They bury their own dead up there.”
“Is that legal?”
“It’s legal to live the way you want to live,” said Jones. He had pulled out his phone and was dialing. “Within reason, anyway. This is America.”
“That’s not true,” said Finley. “You can’t just not have a Social Security number, not pay taxes, bury your own dead. Can you? Don’t the police ever go up there?”
Jones pushed out a little laugh. “Not unless they absolutely have to. These folks don’t like visitors. Locals know to stay away.”
Locals know to stay away. Something about this cleared the fog from Finley’s head.
“So when you say these properties were thoroughly searched . . .” said Finley, letting the sentence trail.
Jones dialed the cell phone in his hand and put the phone on speaker. The tinny ringing ended when a deep, resonant voice answered. “Ferrigno.”
Jones identified himself and ran down the situation—Finley Montgomery, blood on her hands, someone hurt, heading up north on the rural road.
“Actually, I’m heading up there, too,” said Chuck. They could hear rustling, a car door slamming, an engine coming to life.
“Why’s that?” asked Jones, casting a glance at Finley.
“We got a lead on that missing real estate developer. The beacon on his car is sending out a GPS location, and the warrant finally came through allowing the NYPD to get the information. I was just going to call you, actually.”
“Where is it?”