“Sam,” I say. “Call the police.”
Within a few minutes the police are in the house, looking at the severed hand from the box. A note found inside, dappled in blood, sits on the table.
Bring her back, Emma
“What is that supposed to mean?” one officer asks. “Bring who back?”
I shake my head, my arms wrapped tightly around me. “I don’t know.” I look over at Sam. “Something’s changed. There was no door. No three days. Something happened.”
“Do you know who this belongs to?” another officer asked.
“I can’t be positive. But if I had to guess, I would say Julia Meyer.”
A crackle comes over the radio, and the officers step aside to call in. Sam steps up closer to me.
“Emma, that hand is fresh. It’s not from someone who died thirteen years ago,” he says.
“No. It’s not. It also has every bone crushed.”
The officers come back. “There’s been another call. You might want to stay by your phone. It could have something to do with this.” He looks at two of the other officers. “Stay here. Forensics is coming.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, following the officer to the door.
“Hunters just found a woman in the woods.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
We run into the emergency room and an officer comes toward us, holding both hands up to try to stop us from storming in.
“Where is she?” I ask.
“The ambulance hasn’t arrived yet. The woods are almost an hour away from here,” he says.
“Then why are they bringing her here?” Sam asks.
“Her condition is severe,” the officer says. “This hospital has the best trauma department available. I have to warn you, the first responders aren’t optimistic. She seems to have been out in the elements for several hours. Maybe even up to a day. Very little clothing. She is undernourished and dehydrated. With the snow and her injuries, it’s not a good situation.”
I pace back and forth as I wait for word that the ambulance is arriving in the emergency bay. When it does, I run to the door to watch it come through. The First Responders and the trauma doctors from the hospital run by with the gurney so fast it’s a blur. I can barely see her, but it processes before the officer even comes up to me.
“Emma, it’s not her,” Dave Evans says.
I remember Dave as being one of the officers assigned to the task force that watched my house while I was being stalked by Jonah. He looks at me with sympathy in his eyes, but I shake my head.
“What do you mean it’s not her? How do you know?” I ask.
“She’s too young,” he says. “A teenager.”
“Her hands,” I say.
“Both are intact,” he says. “She had no identification. She has barely anything. She’s in nothing but a torn t-shirt and a bracelet.”
“A bracelet?” I ask. “What kind of bracelet?”
“Silver,” he says. “An ID bracelet type of thing. One of those that was popular a while back.”
“Can I see her when they’re done working on her?” I ask.
“Emma, you know I can’t let you do that. Until we’re able to identify who she is, she can’t have visitors. And I’m going to ask you not to mention the bracelet to anybody. As of right now, I’m considering this a crime investigation and that’s a piece of evidence that I want to keep confidential,” Dave says.
“I have to go. You have my number, and you have Sam’s number. If you find out anything at all, you call us immediately,” I tell him.
“I will,” he says. “But, Emma, it isn’t her.”
“Call me,” I repeat.
I run out of the hospital with Sam close behind me. I jump into the car and he’s barely in his seatbelt when I tear out of the parking lot.
“What’s going on?” he asks. “Where are we going?”
“Back to the house to put on better clothes,” I say.
“So we can wait in a hospital?” he asks.
“No. So we can go into the woods,” I say.
We get to the house, and I layer on leggings under jeans, then several shirts before putting on my hat, gloves, and coat.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” he asks as he puts on the heaviest clothes he brought with him.
“We’re going to the woods where they found her,” I explain. “And we’re going to search.”
“It’s dark, Emma,” he says. “And well below freezing.”
“And she was out there in a t-shirt. Which means Julia might not be much better off, not to mention the others he might have. The woods are almost an hour away. It will be sunrise soon.” I look at him seriously. “You can stay. You don’t have to go with me.”
“You know I’m going with you.”
I let out a breath. “Thank you.”
I didn’t sleep last night, but I’m wide awake as we drive, following the directions Sam got from one of the responding officers.
“Do you know anything about these woods?” he asks.
“I know of them. I’m not especially familiar with them, but I’ve been there before. It was a really long time ago. This is where a lot of kids from the school will go to hike or camp during breaks or on weekends.”
“If it’s that popular, how could anyone be hiding girls?” Sam asks.
“In the middle of the winter, there aren’t as many people going out and doing things like this. Besides, there are whole sections of the woods that are essentially wild. There are no established campgrounds and trails. It’s a lot of land,” I say.
“We’ll do our best,” he says.
We don’t make much progress in the woods. The police have set up a barrier and are searching the area inside it, where they found the girl. Sam and I are able to stand outside the line and look around, but the scene gives us almost no information.
We’ve been trying to get any information we could and then convince them to let us search, when I get a
