“You okay?” Santos asked as they stood in the blinding sun.
“Yeah,” Butler said. “It’s not like we don’t see bad shit around here, but when kids are involved…” he trailed off.
“I understand,” Santos said. “If Ethan Doyle did this—this community will never be the same.”
The radio on Butler’s hip squawked. He toggled his microphone, “This is Butler, go ahead.” A muffled voice came through the speaker, but the message was clear.
“Sheriff,” the voice said. “Just got a report from the Allen house. Margo Allen said they received a phone call from someone claiming to be the one who has their daughter.”
Butler looked to Santos. “We’ll get someone over there right away to see if we can trace the number in case they call back,” she said. “Do the same for Josie’s grandparents.”
Butler relayed the message to dispatch while Santos called for more tech help.
“Could be pranksters,” Butler said as Randolph pulled up with the car.
“Yeah, but we can’t take that chance,” Santos said. “If it isn’t the killer, at least we’ll catch the sick asshole playing games with the family.”
Butler checked his watch. “Ethan and Becky have been gone for about eighteen hours now.”
“We’ll find them,” Santos said. “I just hope they’re alive.”
“What’s next?” Butler asked.
“We keep searching, asking questions, following up on any tips that come in,” Santos said. “And tomorrow, we bring in the dogs.”
Josie’s ride from the hospital to her grandparents’ house was made in silence. Her arm ached and her stomach churned. Images of her mother’s and father’s bodies flashed behind her eyes. They came to her in snapshots, brief but vivid. In Technicolor. Josie begged her grandmother to pull the car over and Caroline swung the car to the side of the road.
Josie opened the car door, gingerly stepped across the gravel to the edge of the ditch, and stood cradling her injured arm. She took big swallows of air until the nausea passed. The Queen Anne’s lace bobbed their white heads, and Josie snapped one from its hairy stem, rubbed it between her fingers, and pressed the tiny crushed flowers to her nose. They smelled like the carrots that grew in her mother’s garden.
Josie got back in the car, and her grandmother dug into her purse until she found a small wrapped disk of peppermint candy. She handed it to Josie and then went in search of another one. “It helps with upset stomachs,” she said. Together they unwrapped the red-and-white candies and slid them between their lips. The crinkle of cellophane and soft sucking sounds filled the car. After a few minutes, Caroline pulled back onto the road. She was right; the candy did help, but only a little.
By the time they got to the house, it was nearing 8:00 p.m., and the sun was melting into the horizon. Orange sherbet sunsets, Josie’s mother had called them. Just one mile down the road was her own house, so close, yet she knew that it would never be home to her again.
Night came flooding in so quickly and the house was dark and still. Caroline came to the car’s passenger side, opened the door, and held out her hand. Josie took it gratefully. Together they went through the back door and into the mudroom. Matthew’s shoes and boots were lined up in a neat row atop a rubber mat and brass hooks on the wall held his barn jacket and an oversized cardigan that Caroline wore on cool summer nights.
A wave of despair settled over her and she began to cry. Great, gulping sobs that came from an unnamed place deep within. Startled, Caroline pulled Josie onto her lap, though she was much too big. Josie pressed her face into her shoulder and cried. They sat there for a long time, Caroline rocking Josie back and forth on her lap like she did for Lynne when she was a little girl.
When Josie stopped crying, Caroline wearily led her up the steps. “We’ll have you sleep in here,” she said, opening up the door. It was a cozy room, recently painted a soft sage color, outfitted with a twin bed and a table with Caroline’s sewing machine atop it.
Gauzy white curtains framed the window, and Caroline went over to pull down the plastic shade, but not before Josie saw a strange car sitting in front of the house.
“Who’s that?” Josie asked.
“Just a deputy. He’s going to sit outside the house tonight,” Caroline said offhandedly as she began to fuss with the bedcovers.
“Just as a precaution, honey. They do that sometimes.”