CHAPTER ONE
When Jenna Graves crested another hill on the winding county road in her police cruiser, the Ozark Plateau stretched before her.
For four days now, she had methodically combed these back roads, searching for a farmhouse that might exist only in her dreams—white walls, red roof, weathered barn.
The phantom image of her sister Piper working those distant fields drove her forward, even as the rational part of her mind cautioned against hope born from spectral visions.
“This is insane,” she muttered to herself. Twenty years of searching, and now she was chasing ghosts through the countryside—literally. Patricia Gaines, a dead girl who had visited her in dreams, had told her where to find Piper. Find the scarecrow at the crossroads, she had said.
As she approached Irvington, fields of late corn and soybeans formed patchwork patterns on each side of the road. She slowed as she neared an intersection, the four-way stop marked by faded signs pointing toward Irvington, Trentville, Clendon, and Beckford.
And there, at the nearest corner of a fallow field, stood a scarecrow.
Jenna’s breath caught. She pulled over sharply, gravel crunching beneath the tires of her cruiser as she braked.
The scarecrow wasn’t unusual in itself—a weather-beaten figure with a burlap head, straw spilling from the sleeves of a flannel shirt, perched on a wooden cross.
But the position—at a crossroads—sent a jolt through her.
“Find the scarecrow at the crossroads,” she whispered, echoing Patricia’s words from her dream.
She stepped out of the car, September air warm against her skin. The scarecrow swayed slightly in the breeze, an eerie figure against the blue sky. Jenna turned in a slow circle, scanning the landscape. Fields, trees, the distant rooftops of Irvington. But no white farmhouse with a red roof.
A truck rumbled past, the driver lifting two fingers from the steering wheel in the casual greeting of rural communities. Jenna nodded back automatically, her mind still sifting through the implications. The scarecrow was here, just as Patricia had described. But where was the farm?
She climbed back into her cruiser, disappointment warring with a stubborn spark of hope. How many scarecrows had she passed in the last four days? Dozens, probably. Each one a momentary surge of anticipation, followed by the familiar crash of letdown.
Still, this one was different—positioned exactly at a crossroads. She hadn’t seen that configuration before.
Jenna drove into Irvington proper, a single main street lined with brick buildings that she thought must date back to the early 1900s. A diner, a hardware store, a post office, and on the edge of town, a gas station with a faded blue sign: MORTON’S GAS & GROCERY.
Her fuel gauge hovered just above a quarter tank. Good enough reason to stop, ask questions. She pulled in beside a pump and cut the engine.
As she entered the store, a middle-aged man with graying hair looked up from behind the counter where he’d been reading a newspaper.
“Afternoon,” he said, folding the paper. “Help you?”
Jenna approached the counter, badge visible on her belt. She saw the man’s eyes flick to it, his posture straightening almost imperceptibly.
“I’m Sheriff Jenna Graves, from Genesius County,” she said, feeling a twinge of guilt at the implied official nature of her visit. This wasn’t county business—this was personal. But the badge opened doors, loosened tongues. “Just passing through, thought I’d fill up.”
“Pump’s all yours,” the man said. “Pay before or after?”
“After.” Jenna hesitated, then reached into her pocket for the folded sketch she’d made after waking from her dream. “Actually, I was also wondering if you might recognize this place.”
She unfolded the paper on the counter. The drawing was amateurish—she’d never had much talent for art—but the essential elements were there: a farmhouse with a steep red roof, white clapboard siding, a large barn nearby, and rolling hills surrounding the property.
The man studied it, his brow furrowing. “Huh,” he said finally. “Lots of white farmhouses out here, and barns. But that red roof on the house isn’t common. Most houses out here still have those old gray tiles or aluminum sheet roofs.”
“It was described to me as being red on the house I’m looking for,” she replied.
“Well then,” he muttered and took another look at Jenna, then made a decision. “Then this kind of looks like my family’s place. Dad’s farm, out on Route 16.”
Jenna’s pulse quickened. “Your family farm?”
"Yeah. I'm Clyde. Clyde Morton." He extended a hand, which Jenna shook. "Dad's place has been in the family for over a hundred years. Still looks pretty much like that, though the barn's seen better days."
“The house has white siding? Red roof?”
Clyde nodded, curiosity evident in his expression. “That’s right. Why you asking about it, Sheriff?”
Jenna’s mind raced. Could it be this simple? After days of searching? “I’m looking for someone who might have worked there at some point. A woman.” She didn’t elaborate, didn’t mention Piper or dreams or ghosts.
“Dad keeps to himself mostly these days,” Clyde said. “My boys help him work the land—Amos, Tyrone, and Ross. They’d know better than me who’s been through there.”
“Could you tell me how to get there?”
Clyde gave her directions—straight through town, left at the Baptist church, five miles out on a gravel road. Simple enough.
“Thanks for your help,” Jenna said, folding the sketch and returning it to her pocket.
"No problem. Tell Dad I said hello if you see him. His name is Samuel. Samuel Morton."
Jenna nodded and went out to fill her tank, her mind spinning with possibilities. The farm matched her drawing. It existed. But did that mean Patricia’s vision was real? Had Piper really been there?
She filled up her gas tank and paid the bill, thanking the proprietor again.
Twenty minutes later, Jenna turned onto the gravel road that led to the Morton family farm.
Dust billowed behind her cruiser as she drove, her eyes scanning both sides of the road for another scarecrow, another sign. There was none.
The road curved, dipped through a stand of trees, and then the land opened up again. And there it was—a white farmhouse with a red roof, a gray barn standing nearby, fields stretching in all directions. Just like her drawing. Just like her dream.
But as she pulled into the dirt driveway, a sense of wrongness settled over her.
The proportions weren’t quite right. The barn was on the wrong side.
The hills didn’t rise in exactly the same way.
It was close, tantalizingly close, but not exactly the farm she’d seen in her dream.
That image was still strong in her mind, but had it gotten scrambled somehow? Or was she in the wrong place?
Well, she had come this far…
Three young men were working in the yard, one splitting wood with an ax, the others loading bales of hay onto a flatbed trailer. They paused as her cruiser approached, exchanging glances before the tallest stepped forward.
Jenna parked and got out, badge visible, professional smile in place.
“Afternoon,” she called. “I’m looking for Samuel Morton.”
“That’d be our grandfather,” the tall one said, wiping sweat from his brow with a forearm. “I’m Amos. These are my brothers, Tyrone and Ross.”
The other two nodded but kept their distance, eyeing her cruiser warily.
“I’m Sheriff Jenna Graves,” she said, then added quickly, “Just here to ask a few questions, nothing official.”
Amos relaxed slightly. “Grandpa’s in the house. You want me to get him?”
“In a minute,” Jenna said. She reached into her pocket and withdrew a small photo—one of the last taken of Piper before she vanished.
Sixteen years old, dark hair, bright smile.
A face so like Jenna’s own, yet uniquely Piper’s.
“I’m actually looking for this woman. She would be in her mid-thirties now, but she might look similar. ”
She handed the photo to Amos, who studied it carefully before passing it to his brothers. They huddled around it, frowning in concentration.
“She’s my twin sister,” Jenna explained, the words still painful after all these years. “She disappeared twenty years ago, when we were sixteen. I have reason to believe she might have worked here at some point.”
“Don’t recognize her,” Amos said, shaking his head. “Tyrone? Ross?”
Both brothers shook their heads.
“We’ve had seasonal help come through over the years,” Tyrone said, his voice gentler than his rough appearance suggested. “But I don’t recall anyone looking like her.”
“Maybe Grandpa would know better,” Ross added, handing the photo back to Jenna. “He keeps track of everyone who’s ever set foot on Morton land.”
“I’ll get him,” Amos said, heading toward the house.
Jenna waited, trying to suppress the familiar tide of disappointment. She’d known it was a long shot. A dream, a ghost’s whisper, a crude drawing—hardly reliable intelligence. But she’d hoped. God, how she’d hoped.
Amos returned with an elderly man, stooped but moving with purpose. Samuel Morton had the weathered face of someone who’d spent his life outdoors, deep lines etched around pale blue eyes that missed nothing.
“Sheriff,” he acknowledged with a nod. “My grandson says you’re looking for someone.”
Jenna offered the photo. “My sister, Piper. She went missing twenty years ago. I thought she might have worked here at some point.”
Samuel took the photo in gnarled hands, holding it at arm’s length to study it. “Can’t say I recognize her,” he said after a moment. “Why’d you think she was here?”
Jenna hesitated. How could she explain? I saw her in a dream. A dead girl told me to find a scarecrow at a crossroads.
“I received information,” she said carefully, “that she might have been in this area. Working on a farm similar to yours.”
Samuel’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What kind of information?”
Before Jenna could formulate a response, her phone rang. She glanced at the screen: Jake Hawkins.
“Excuse me,” she said, stepping away. “I need to take this.”
She pressed the phone to her ear. “Jake, what’s up?”
“Jenna, we’ve got a situation in Trentville,” Jake’s voice was tense, controlled. “I need you back here as soon as possible.”
“What kind of situation?”
“Hard to explain over the phone. I’m at 1423 Maple Street, Harry Powell’s place. He called in something... unusual.”
“Unusual how?”
Jake hesitated. “You really need to see for yourself. How fast can you get here?”
Jenna glanced at her watch. “I’m out past Irvington. Give me an hour.”
“Drive safe,” Jake said, and hung up.
Jenna pocketed her phone and turned back to the Mortons, who were watching her with undisguised curiosity. She realized that she had no more questions to ask, and they knew nothing that she wanted to know.
“I’m sorry, but I need to get back to Trentville,” she said, retrieving Piper’s photo from Samuel. “Official business.”
Samuel nodded, though his expression remained skeptical. “Hope you find your sister, Sheriff. Twenty years is a long time to be missing someone.”
“Yes,” Jenna agreed softly. “It is.”
She thanked them for their time and returned to her cruiser. As she turned around in the driveway, she caught a last glimpse of the farmhouse in her rearview mirror. So close to her dream vision, yet not quite right. Another dead end.
The gravel crunched beneath her tires as she accelerated back toward the main road, frustration burning in her chest. Twenty years of searching, and she was still no closer to finding Piper.
But now there was something else to focus on—whatever awaited her at Harry Powell’s house. Jake wasn’t easily rattled. If he said it was unusual, it must be significant.
Jenna merged onto the highway toward Trentville, pushing her speed just above the limit. The scarecrow at the crossroads receded in her memory, another false sign on a journey filled with them. Yet Patricia’s words had been clear: “Find the scarecrow at the crossroads.”
Perhaps she’d been looking in the wrong place. Perhaps the true crossroads still lay somewhere ahead.