Was that blood on the photo Hannah’s?
Three times of their own volition, Kaycee’s right fingers raised to her nose. She swore she could still detect a faint metallic-sweet scent of blood.
As they rounded the corner onto Walters Lane, the other senses from Kaycee’s dream flooded her head. Screams, the running footsteps, a dark and closed space. Her limbs trembled. She took deep, steadying breaths and drew her arms tight across her chest.
In her peripheral vision Kaycee saw the stately gray Potters Inn B&B slide by on her right. Beyond it, Mark spotted something in the middle of the street. “Here.” He bent over low. “Looks like blood.”
Kaycee’s stomach fell to her toes. She stumbled over, heartbeat on hold, a buzz in her head. Chief hurried to the spot and squatted down.
The area was only about three inches long and smeared. Color — brownish red. If it was blood, it had long since dried. A few small pebbles were also stained.
“Look here.” The chief pointed to another spot about a diagonal foot away.
They stared at it. Kaycee couldn’t speak.
“Maybe she fell.” Mark held out his right hand, palm down. “She went down on a knee and threw out a hand to catch herself. The skin would be scraped in both places.”
“If she was wearing shorts.” The chief looked to Kaycee. “But she had jeans on in the video.”
Mark cupped his jaw, surveying the first area. “Maybe they tore.”
“We need to secure the street. But let’s see what else we can find.” Chief Davis pushed upright. “Kaycee, please move over to the grass.”
Kaycee obeyed as the two men quickly searched a little farther up the road and past its edges onto dirt and grass. They saw nothing unusual. The chief told Mark to run back and get his vehicle. “Put tape at the bottom of Rice until Seth gets here.”
Mark took off, arms pumping. Kaycee watched his retreating back in a fog of disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. Blood here on the road. Blood on the photo.
A car pulled out of Bethel Pointe and turned left, in their direction. Chief Davis strode toward it, hands out and fingers spread. The driver slowed to a stop. Kaycee remained frozen, vaguely hearing the chief ask the man to turn around and go the other way.
Her eyes cut back to the dark stain on the road. She was looking at a potential crime scene.
Mark returned in his car. Chief Davis told Kaycee to walk alongside the road up to her house. She needed to leave the area.
From South Maple, Kaycee watched as the two men strung a second line of yellow crime-scene tape just feet beyond her. Now all of Walters Lane and Rice Street was secured. Looking down Walters, Kaycee could see residents gathering at the Bethel Pointe entrance, other neighbors craning necks from their lawns and porches. Vaguely, she wondered what would happen if any of them needed to drive somewhere.
Officer Ed Freeling was called to guard the tape where she stood. He was in his late forties, a rotund man with a balding spot at the back of his head. In one hand he held a clipboard. Anyone having to go in or out of the area would be noted, Ed told Kaycee. The officer stationed at the bottom of Rice Street would do the same.
“How long?” she asked.
He lifted a shoulder. “Until we’re sure we got everything we need. At least till the dog comes through.”
They watched together as the chief squatted by the stained pavement. Using a flathead screwdriver, he loosened red-brown flakes and gathered them up. These, plus the small stained pebbles, were carefully placed in an evidence bag, sealed, and labeled. Chief Davis and Mark then searched within the area at a meticulous pace, looking for more blood, footprints, whatever they might find.
Time blurred. Neighbors gathered near Kaycee, asking Officer Freeling what was going on. Mrs. Foley was not among them. She’d consider it gauche to be so obvious. Kaycee glanced toward her living room window and saw the woman peeking out.
The people around Kaycee whispered and shook their heads. A child vanished — in Wilmore. The town had never seen such a thing. Kaycee heard the talk and could only draw away. This was
Mark
“No more.” Kaycee said the words aloud. A young woman who’d walked over from Jessamine Village frowned at her. Kaycee’s cheeks heated. Shoving the strap of her purse further up her shoulder, she swiveled and walked up the steps to her porch. She stared at the front door, knowing she should wait for the tech before going inside. Not that she wanted to enter that invaded house anyway.
Tears bit her eyes. Kaycee dug her fingers into the back of her neck and let her head tip up. “God.” Her voice cracked. “You’ve got to help me through this.”
Her chin lowered. She stared at her toes, wondering what to do, where to go. Her mind only half registered the sound of a car driving up the street. Its engine cut suddenly. A door slammed. Kaycee looked around to see Ryan Parksley jumping from the passenger seat of a police vehicle. Officer Sam Walsh, whom Kaycee only knew in passing, was getting out of the driver’s side. Ryan gawked at the crime-scene tape and the officer guarding it, then turned toward Kaycee, as if wondering who to talk to first.
“Hi, Ryan.” Kaycee walked down her porch steps.
He made his way over with the gait of someone lost. Ryan was in his mid-thirties, solidly built, with hair and eyes the color of his daughter’s. Now he looked more like sixty. His expression mixed hope and dread. Lines etched his forehead, and his eyes were dull.
“We left Gail at home.” His voice sounded rough, like an old man’s. “Just in case Hannah shows up.”
Kaycee nodded.
He gestured over his shoulder toward Walters Lane. “They said she’d been down there. An officer took a piece of clothing.”
For the track dog. Kaycee glanced at Sam Walsh as he sidled over to talk to Ed. “Yes. We saw her on the video. We just don’t know how far she got.”
Ryan’s throat convulsed in a swallow. His lips pulled downward, fingers flexing in and out. He opened his mouth but no words came.
Kaycee’s heart lurched. “They’re going to find her, Ryan.”
His head bobbed, even as his shoulders slumped. “Yeah. They will.” He turned halfway to stare at the yellow crime-scene tape, tongue poking out to lick his lips. Disbelief rippled across his profile.
Wordlessly, he wandered toward the two officers.
Kaycee backtracked up her porch steps and hovered there, wedged between two nightmares. In time she saw Seth and his hound advancing up Walters Lane. Kaycee ran down her sidewalk and across the street to join the onlookers near the yellow tape. She pushed in to stand at Ryan’s side.
Nose to the pavement, the dog sniffed its way along with much excitement, dragging Seth in a trot.
The hound led its owner right to the blood stain.
Kaycee’s hands gripped each other so hard she thought her fingers would snap.
Ryan moaned.
Some thirty feet beyond the stain, on the left side of the road — Seth’s dog lost the scent.
THIRTY-FOUR
After the hound lost Hannah’s trail, Chief Davis, Mark, Ryan, and Officer Sam Walsh gathered for a quick
