"And your name is?"
"Adrian Slatton."
"Adrian, my name is Detective Fitzgerald. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?"
"Not at all. Go ahead."
"What do you know about what's going on?"
"I know a little girl is missing."
"How do you know that?"
"Her mother showed up at the cabin where I'm staying. She asked if I saw a little girl and told me she was missing."
"Had you seen her?"
"No. Like I told the mother, I just got here this morning. I've been getting everything in the cabin fixed up and settling in. I hadn't even gone outside since getting all my gear in."
"And did you see the family when you arrived this morning?"
"No. I got kind of a late start leaving home and when I got here, I was concentrating on getting everything inside. I didn't really look around."
"What was the rush?"
"What do you mean?"
"You're coming out to a campground. It's supposed to be a relaxing vacation. Why were you in such a rush to get settled in?"
"It's not a relaxing vacation. Not completely. I'm here for work."
"Work? What do you do?"
"I'm a photojournalist. I'm here doing research. I have a meeting scheduled with a local amateur historian to learn more about the lore of the area, and we need daylight to look around."
"Well, with everything that's going on, you'll need to stick close to your cabin rather than going out into the woods."
"Of course. I've already called and canceled."
"I appreciate your cooperation."
"What did you find?"
"I need you to stay calm, Travis."
"Don't tell me to stay calm. This is my daughter. Tell me what you found."
"It might not be anything. It's a single shoe. That's it."
"That's it?"
"Yes. It's not damaged. There's no blood."
"Blood?"
"Please, calm down. There is no blood. The shoe looks to be in fine condition. Like a child was wearing it while playing and it came off. I need to know if it belongs to Violet."
"I don't know."
"You don't know if these are the shoes she was wearing?"
"I said I don't know. Where did they find it?"
"In the woods. It was sitting on a log."
"No. That's not Violet's shoe."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Don't you think I know what my own child was wearing?"
"Carrie, I am only being thorough. This shoe was found only a few yards from your cabin and Travis couldn't be sure if it was hers or not."
"That doesn't surprise me."
"Why is that?"
"Where is my daughter, Detective?"
"We're looking."
"I'm going to look, too."
"No. You need to stay at the cabin."
"Why? I should be looking for my child."
"You need to stay there in case she finds her way back. You don't want her to show up to an empty cabin. Oh. One more question. Did you hear anything unusual before you realized she was missing? Voices? A car? Anything?"
"Don't you think I would have mentioned that?"
"Sometimes details don't stand out until you think about them later."
"No. I didn't hear anything."
"Can I talk to you again for a second?"
"What can I do for you, Adrian?"
"I thought of something that might matter. I don't know if it actually means anything, but I thought I would mention it."
"A lot of times people don't think anything of something, but it turns out to be exactly what we needed. If you think I should know about it, go ahead and tell me."
"Alright. I told you I hadn't left the cabin since getting the last load of luggage inside, but I realized that wasn't exactly true. After the last load, I realized I'd brought my trash bag from the car inside, so I brought it out to the trash can behind the cabin. When I was back there, I heard a scream that sounded like a little girl’s. It was just a short scream. Not like constant or anything. And I didn't really think much of it because I figured there were probably kids running around in the woods or playing at the lake."
"Can you show me where the trash cans are?"
"Sure."
"Where was the scream coming from?"
"I couldn't really tell. Everything seems to echo around here."
"But it was loud? A distinct scream?"
"Yes."
"I wonder why she didn't hear it."
"Excuse me?"
"Oh… the mother. Carrie. She said she didn't hear anything unusual."
"You know, she was a little strange when I talked to her."
"How do you mean?"
"She came to my cabin to ask if I'd seen the little girl. When I told her I hadn't, she described everything that was happening. That she was rinsing bathing suits and that her partner was getting things ready for lunch. She even pointed out the cabin they're staying in, and that there are green lights on the front and she always told the little girl to look for the green lights if she got lost. That just struck me as really odd."
"Why?"
"Because if my daughter was missing, I wouldn't be taking the time to rattle off all those details to a stranger. I'd be looking for my kid."
Detective Fitzgerald
Two months later…
He thought he was familiar with the area around the campground by that point. Since that first day nearly nine weeks before, when he was first called out to investigate the little girl who went missing, Ray had been out in those woods every day. Some of those days he was there when the sun came up and only left when it got too dark to see. Others, he brought a flashlight.
He wasn't going to give up. There was a team assigned to continuing and broadening the search for Violet Montgomery. As soon as the first several hours had passed without any sign of her, and they knew she wasn't just going to be found walking along one of the tree-lined hiking trails, he’d mobilized a task force dedicated to scouring the area and finding that little girl.
Ray knew it wasn't going to end well. He felt it in his gut. That was why
