Lisette raised a hand in the air. “Now you two, stop it. There’s no harm in me showing Josie where I last saw this girl. It will only take a moment. We’re passing by it on the way back to Griffin Hall anyway.”
Sawyer made a noise in his throat. Josie looked over and saw his eyes gleaming in the dim light. She realized then that he was just concerned about Lisette making it all the way back under her own steam. Josie was surprised she’d made the walk to the private residence without assistance. She’d be paying for it the next day. Josie said, “It’s a long walk, though. Why don’t you and I stay here and try to find that spot while Sawyer sees if he can get the staff to bring around a resort car to take you back?”
“Sure,” Lisette said. “That sounds good.”
Josie knew she must be getting tired when she didn’t argue. Lisette waited until Sawyer was out of earshot to say, “He’s a good boy, but he hovers a lot.”
“That’s not the worst thing,” Josie said.
“Didn’t say it was,” Lisette said. She maneuvered her walker through two of the small lanterns staked alongside the path and pushed it into the grass.
“Just a minute, Gram,” Josie said. She took out her cell phone and found the flashlight app. Turning it on, she caught up with Lisette and shone the light ahead of them. The tree line was about thirty feet off. “How do you know where you saw her?”
“There’s a tree trunk that looks like someone set it on fire, like it’s covered in soot.”
Josie panned the trees with her flashlight. “Not soot,” she said. “Black sooty mold. It’s from spotted lanternflies. When they eat, they produce this stuff. It’s sugary. I think it’s actually called honeydew. Anyway, it gets all over everything. That’s why the trees they feed on look like they survived a fire.”
Lisette kept pushing her walker along, now and again, when the grass was thick, picking it up and thrusting it forward. “To your left.”
Josie panned left with her flashlight.
Lisette stopped walking as they came within ten feet of the tree line. “There!”
The flashlight landed on a young birch tree, its trunk blackened. “You sure this is it?” Josie asked.
“I think so.”
They moved closer to the trees. “You’re sure she was alone?”
“Yes. I think so.”
Josie used her flashlight to pan the ground. Why had Emily left? Why would she walk into the woods within hours of nightfall? Was she running away? Was she looking for Rory? “Once Sawyer comes back, I’ll take a closer look, although by now she could be anywhere.”
A rustling sound came from within the trees. Josie swung her phone upward, but not before she saw a small pile of gray tufted buttons in her periphery. It lay at the base of the birch tree. Had Emily left them on purpose, or had she just dropped them?
“Emily?” Josie called, swinging the light back and forth.
“Josie,” said Lisette. She stepped away from her walker and placed a hand on Josie’s free arm. “Josie, we need to—”
More rustling sounded from beyond the ruined birch tree. Josie kept shining the flashlight but could see nothing besides low-hanging branches and tree trunks.
Lisette’s grip tightened, and Josie could only remember one other time in her life when she had felt her grandmother’s fingers dig into her skin so sharply. Josie had been a child and they were about to be separated. Josie had been going back to a house of horrors, and Lisette knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.
Josie turned her head and met her grandmother’s eyes, registering the fear in them. “Gram?” she said.
Lisette tipped her head ever so slightly toward the trees and mouthed the word gun. Josie’s heartbeat stuttered. She wanted to ask Lisette what she’d seen. A person? Rory? Josie wanted to sweep the light over the trees again but if Rory was there with a gun, only a few feet from them, they were sitting ducks. He’d already attacked Josie once that day without provocation. Josie wasn’t sure she could reason with him under the best of circumstances. What was he doing here anyway? Did he have Emily? Had he lured her into the woods? Josie used one hand to unsnap her holster and pull out her pistol, holding it in one hand while she shone the flashlight with the other. She kept the barrel pointed downward. She didn’t want to risk hitting someone who wasn’t a true threat, but if someone was in the woods pointing a gun at them, she wanted him to know she was prepared.
There was only one problem. Whoever was in the woods, she couldn’t capture him with the beam of her flashlight. It wavered under the weight of Lisette’s hand on Josie’s forearm.
“Police,” she called out. “Whoever is there, come out where we can see you.”
Lisette pulled at Josie’s arm and the flashlight beam jerked downward. “We should go back.”
In front of them, something moved, a dark blur. Lisette yanked at Josie’s arm with surprising strength, throwing her off-balance and sending her flat on her ass. Josie’s phone fell into the dirt, the flashlight facing down, plunging them into blackness. A gunshot cracked through the air. Josie sensed, rather than saw, Lisette’s body crumple. She placed both hands on the handle of her Glock and pointed it upward toward the trees. But she couldn’t shoot blindly. There were other police officers and searchers in the woods. She couldn’t risk it. Through the rushing in her head, she heard an unmistakable sound that turned her blood to ice. A shotgun being racked. Another shot was coming.
“No!” Josie screamed.
She scrambled onto her knees, taking one hand off the pistol grip to feel her way toward Lisette. Josie was aware that everything was happening in a matter of seconds and yet, time seemed to stretch out in an agonizing drip, like sap from a tree. Josie’s hand brushed against Lisette just
