It’s much worse being locked in the back of the car when Officer Kendall leaves this time. At least, it doesn’t take long for him to get through the first building and then the next, but the last of the small cabins he’s inside for a while. We can see his flashlight through the window, moving this way and that like he’s teasing a cat.
A minute later he’s coming back in our direction. But this time, he’s moving fast. He’s found something. And it isn’t good.
“I’m g-g-going to need the two of you to c-c-come with me,” Officer Kendall says when he opens my door. And all I want to do is slam it shut again. “There’s s-s-something I need to see if you can identify.”
Cassie’s body? That’s all I can think. “Identify what?”
“Just some c-c-clothing and a b-b-bag. New and expensive, not like an addict would have. I need to know if they belong to your f-f-friend. I’d bring them here, but I d-d-don’t want to disturb the scene, in case—” He doesn’t finish the thought. In case something horrible has happened to Cassie, that’s what he means. What’s inside could be evidence of a crime. Officer Kendall looks down the driveway and around the edges of the woods, like he’s considering. “Would p-p-prefer to wait for b-b-backup, but they could be a while.”
But we might not have that kind of time. Cassie might not.
The air is full-on bitter when we get out of the car. The cold burns my lungs, and a white cloud of steam gathers around my face as I exhale. Officer Kendall starts forward quickly across the grass, waving silently for us to follow. He swivels his head right and left, watching for danger, checking the perimeter as we make our way toward the cabin to the far right. As we pass the other cabins, I can see the screens aren’t peeled back and the doors look solidly on their hinges. But it’s making me feel worse, not better. Of course, up here at these cabins is where you’d go to hide something or someone. I clench my fists like the pain of my fingernails digging into my palms is going to release some of the pressure in my gut. But what I really need to do is breathe. I know that. For real, I have to. If only that wasn’t so much easier said than done.
“I’m scared,” I whisper to Jasper.
“Me too,” he says.
“L-l-let’s pick up the p-p-pace,” Officer Kendall says once we’re in the middle of the lawn. Like it’s a threat, us being out in the open. “Your f-f-friend didn’t tell you anything about these people she was with? No details at all?”
He’s really listening for our answer now. He wasn’t before, that’s obvious now. They had written Cassie off as just another junkie. Maybe even the kind they had agreed to turn a blind eye to.
“Just that she got herself into something and that her mom would be mad,” Jasper says, doing his own nervous survey of the perimeter. “Then all of a sudden she said she was scared that they were going to hurt her.”
Which means, of course, that she had her phone. I’ve known that the whole time but haven’t really thought about it until now. Why would they have let her keep her phone? Maybe she really did come up here to “party” like that sergeant said. And it got out of hand.
“Stay to the left inside,” Officer Kendall says when we finally reach the steps up to the cabin door. “There’s a big hole in the floor to the right. And there’s boxes, furniture everywhere. Flashlight will only do so much.”
As we start up behind him, I feel more light-headed. I grab the handrail to steady myself. Breathe. Something new feels wrong, though. Something more than everything that is already so very bad—Lexi and Doug, the men chasing us through the woods, Cassie’s things maybe being on the floor of some meth den. It’s like I’ve left something crucial behind—my backpack, my phone, a piece of my body—and haven’t fully realized it yet. Breathe, in and out to a count of four. Officer Kendall stands to the right, holding the door open for us, his flashlight pointing us left.
I’m trembling as I step inside, glimpse the outline of a desk along the wall, a filing cabinet in the corner. The camp office, probably. It smells dusty and a little mildewed but not terrible. Not like death. And that seems important. But there is still that other something in the air, something that feels extra off. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.
“It’s right there on the floor, under the window,” Officer Kendall says, drawing a circle on the floor some distance ahead with the beam of his flashlight.
My heart catches when I finally see it: Cassie’s floppy hobo bag. The one she always carries. There’s her sweatshirt, too, right there on the floor—the red Boston one with the hole in the right sleeve. I rush toward it because if it doesn’t have that hole, then it won’t be hers after all. And that bag, they are pretty popular these days. It could be anyone’s.