North Country(54)

“So, they left her here?” Samir frowns. “Isn’t there a code against that?”

“They’re sixteen years old. They had curfews.” There are so many things I could say, but all we need are facts that might help us find Holly. “They said one of the truck drivers seemed really interested in her.”

Clara’s eyes flash with understanding. “What time was Holly supposed to be home?”

“Noon today, and she told her mother she was sleeping over at my house last night.”

She checks her watch. “We’re almost fifteen hours since anyone’s seen her.”

I take slow, measured steps, regarding tread marks left in the dirt. “And possibly seven or eight hours since that trucker left this morning.” The transport trucks usually roll out at dawn.

“The lot was empty this morning when I started shift,” Samir confirms.

That puts this driver potentially as far north as near Thunder Bay, deep into the US, or all the way in Montreal by now. That’s a lot of ground to cover.

And a lot of places to dump a body.

I push that grim thought aside. We’re not there yet.

I survey the area again. And curse. That busted camera above the door would have provided us with so much valuable information. It would have shown us Holly. I’m not seeing much in the way of lighting back here. I’ll bet this corner is dark.

“She’s Isla’s best friend, right? You know her. Is this a thing with her? Would she jump in with some truck driver and take off for a joyride?” Samir asks, and I know what he’s really asking: Is Holly a habitual runaway? Because if she were, we might wait before we declare a missing person.

“No. Holly’s a lot of things, but a runaway who abandons her phone is not one of them.” I pause, and then add, “She’s a Whitley.”

Clara’s lips twist with understanding. She’s been at this station long enough to know how Brad will react to this.

A glint of gold catches my attention. I close in and stoop to inspect the chunky tube-hoop earring. It’s relatively clean, not sullied by dust and rain. “Holly was wearing hoops exactly like these last night.” And now one lies in the dirt. Perhaps it just fell out. These backings can be finicky. Isla’s lost several.

Or perhaps this earring came off in a struggle.

My heart sinks as I meet my platoon sergeant’s worried expression, as the pieces are quickly falling into place to paint an ominous picture.

“You want to make the call?” she asks calmly.

“Get everyone who’s available to the station. And shut this place down. We can’t have any more people coming here.” It’s a potential crime scene.

With a growing sense of dread, I dig out my phone.





Chapter 19





Logan




The herd moves in unison, following Jon and Thomas in the UTV, Jon driving while Thomas baits them with protein range cubes, all in an effort to move them to another pasture.

“Always thought they were majestic creatures, since the first time I laid eyes on them, before I knew anything about bison.” My father muses as he leans against the fence post. “Such smart animals. You can see it in their eyes. If they let you get close to them.”

“Haven’t since I’ve been back.” A cow and her calf were at a water trough about sixty feet from me while I was mending a fence. Their tails started twitching and then they bolted.

“They don’t want us around. They do their own thing. We’re just bystanders, here to make sure they have enough land to roam and food to graze on.”

I know all this. I knew it as a kid, when the herd was a fraction of this, but I let my father prattle on because we’re having a real conversation for the first time in forever and it has nothing to do with the Murphys or Jay.

He clucks. “You know, I told Wyatt at least a dozen times over the years to get out of cattle and move into bison.”

“Why hasn’t he?”

“Says he likes his livestock dumb and slow.”

I snort. “Sounds like something he’d say.”

We watch the UTV vanish over a ridge, and the herd goes with it .

“Jon’s got it down to a science, managing the pastures for regrowth and seeding when we need it. There’s timothy and orchard grass growing over there. Red and white clover over there.” He gestures in the general areas. “Hay fields are doing well, but we’ve had to supplement with bales from the Shepherds’ lot in the winter, with how big the herd’s gotten. I warned him, we can’t grow any bigger. Hell, we’re already too big. The land can’t handle it and the herd will suffer.” He shakes his head. “Jon’s got all these grand ideas. He’s always chasing the next thing. Sometimes slow and steady is the right path. But him and Sarah buying up that acreage behind us will help.”

“Jack’s going to bring equipment in next week and start getting those stumps out before the winter hits.”

Dad peers over his shoulder at the chainsawed hunks of wood I loaded and brought in on a trailer this afternoon. “You’ve sure had a day, huh? Saved a woman’s life and then came home to cut down half the forest?”

“I don’t know about the saving part. She had a pulse when they took her away, but I guess we’ll see.” The woman was floating face down when I got to her. We managed to haul her into our boat without tipping it and then Jack raced us back to the landing while Jameson called 911 and I attempted to resuscitate her. EMS arrived in a helicopter to airlift her to North Bay. “They said the cold water could slow down the brain damage, but I don’t know. It didn’t look good. At least we got through to help.” Cell service is sporadic at best out there.