She turned toward Jonah’s voice. “Coming,” she called. “Go,” she urged Paul. “Zooey, you’ll call us if you get a hit on the DNA?”
“Will do,” Zooey said, gathering her bag up and plopping the enormous hot-pink sun hat she had come in with on her head. “It’s gonna be okay, boss,” she told him. “I’m gonna beat these jerks with science. Just you wait.”
Abby hurried out to meet Jonah, who had a big stack of ledgers in his hands and a smile when he saw her and Paul.
“Jonah, man, I hadn’t realized you were working for Abby now,” Paul said, holding his hand out and taking the shorter man’s, shaking it warmly. “She’s treating you all right, I hope?”
“She’s a great boss,” Jonah said. “I was so sorry to hear about Robin, Paul. The whole church is praying for her and your entire family.”
“Thank you,” Paul said. “We appreciate those prayers. I’ve gotta go. I’ll leave you to your business. Abby, call me if anything changes, okay?”
She nodded, watching him leave, wishing like anything she could follow him.
But life didn’t stop, and she’d been putting Jonah off for weeks.
“Come on into the living room,” she said with a smile. “You want something to drink?”
Four hours later, the monthly yields and budgets had been recorded and typed into the spreadsheets, thanks to Jonah’s meticulous record-keeping.
“You really are great at this, Jonah,” Abby said, shutting the ledger. She got up, stretching her arms over her head. “How’s Maria doing?” she asked, referring to his wife, who owned the diner in town.
“Great,” he said. “Diner’s busier than ever.”
“That’s great,” she said. Speaking of food . . . it was getting late. And Roscoe hadn’t whined for food in hours, even though it was past his dinnertime. Frowning, she whistled, but didn’t hear the click of his paws against the hardwood.
“Roscoe!” she called.
“He wander off again?” Jonah asked. “I swear, that dog’s getting senile.” He got up and went to the front door, calling for him.
But there was no response.
Getting worried—Roscoe wasn’t one to miss any meal—Abby shoved her feet into her yellow mucking-around boots and went out onto the porch. “Roscoe!” she yelled into the fading light. The sun was setting fast beyond the trees and the dog was nowhere to be found.
“I’m gonna go look for him,” she told Jonah.
“I’ll check out the barn,” Jonah said.
They parted, Jonah heading west and Abby heading east, toward the trees.
“Roscoe!” she called, her heart squeezing in her chest. Where was that smelly beast? If anything happened to him . . .
She didn’t need any more losses right now. She knew it was silly, especially with what was going on, but Roscoe was the last dog her dad ever had. He’d slept at the foot of her father’s bed every night, the entire time he was sick.
Her father had been a hard man, but his gentleness had always come out with animals. And sometimes, Abby would cling to that thought.
“Roscoe! Come on, boy! Mama has treats!” she called, wishing she’d thought to grab a bag of chips or something from the kitchen.
She heard the crack of a branch behind her. Was that him?
“Roscoe?”
Another crack. Footsteps. Coming at her fast.
Running.
Jonah wouldn’t be running. It was a flash of a thought, her stomach leapt and she turned—just a second too late.
Something smashed into the side of her head. Pain lanced against her skull, it felt like it was splitting in two, and something warm trickled down her forehead as she fell to the ground.
The last thing she saw, before her eyes fluttered shut and darkness overtook her, were the branches of the trees and the green of their leaves.
Chapter 30
Two hours earlier
“It’s going to be okay, Georgia,” Rose said soothingly, smoothing her sister’s hair off her forehead like she was a child.
Georgia didn’t even react. His sister’s normally bright eyes were dull, and the whites threaded with red. Someone had suggested giving her a Xanax, but Jason had shaken his head curtly.
His brother-in-law looked like he was fighting the urge to cry at every second. Paul had tried to talk to him earlier, but Jason had finally made him stop, shaking his head.
“I’m gonna lose it, man,” he’d told Paul. “And I can’t. Because Georgia and Robin need me. So just . . . tell me what I need to do.”
“You’re doing it,” Paul assured him. “Your job is to take care of Georgia. My job is to get Robin back.”
Jason had nodded, his face had crumpled, and Paul had wished to God he had the rest of his team here because he was usually good with victims’ families, but this was his family being victimized. He was no good at this. There were no rules for this. No handbook. No protocol.
There was just him. And everyone expected him to come through. And if he didn’t?
He couldn’t even think about what would happen—how it would break everyone—if he didn’t bring Robin home, safe and sound.
He was going to tear that man apart with his bare hands. And no one was going to stop him.
Rules had served him well for many years. But now? He would break every one to bring Robin home safe and whole to his family. Nothing else mattered.
He stepped out of the bedroom where his sisters were soothing Georgia, knowing they were much better at it than he was. His mother was making her way up the stairs with a tray of food. There were circles under her eyes that hadn’t been there at the start of the week and a tightness around her mouth that he remembered from the days before his dad got sober.
“How’s she doing?” she asked.
Paul shook his head.
“How could this happen?” his mother asked, looking at him like he had the answer.
He didn’t want to tell her the truth. That this likely happened because of him. That the bastard had taken Robin because he’d gotten involved.
“I am going to get her back, Mom,” he said, the promise in his voice ringing out, true and clear.
“I know you are,” she said. “I know, sweetheart.”
“Mom?” one of his sisters called from the room.
His mother sniffed, her eyes bright. “I need to bring this to them,” she said. “They need to eat.”
“Of course,” he said, stepping out of her way.
“Come sit with us,” she said.
But his phone had started ringing in his pocket. “I’ve got to take this,” he said, seeing that it was Cy.
He hurried down the stairs and onto the porch, where it was quiet and private. It felt like the entire orchard house was full of people—Pastor Jamison was in the living room with a whole slew of teenagers who must be Robin’s friends. Even the boys—especially a group of them in the back—had red eyes.
“Hey, Cy, what’s up?” he asked.
“You said you were looking for seven missing girls, right?” Cy asked.
“That’s right,” Paul said.
“Then I think you need to come out here.”
Paul frowned. There was a chilling note in Cy’s voice, and he wasn’t the kind of man who was easily ruffled. “Where are you?”
“I’m out in the Siskiyous, about forty miles in past mile marker 704,” Cyrus said. “Some firefighter buddies of mine just finished putting out the latest fire that firebug the sheriff’s chasing set. They came across something really strange out past McCloud, pretty deep in the backwoods, and called me in immediately. You need to see it. And you need to bring that pink-haired scientist of yours. Because I’m pretty sure I’m looking at a mass grave here, Paul.”
A chill went through him. Cyrus was not someone who leapt to conclusions. He’d traveled all around the globe—and he knew he had experience with horrors like mass graves.
Had he found their unsub’s burial ground?
“How do I get to you?” Paul asked. “Zooey and I are on our way.”
Chapter 31