Chapter 14 Jordan
FOURTEEN
JORDAN
—AP Wire
Gravel sprayed like buckshot off the bottom of his vehicle as Jordan sped down an unpaved road, checking his position against the screenshot Sydney had sent fifteen minutes ago.
Apparently, she and Bree had enabled location sharing through Snapchat, which allowed them to see each other’s whereabouts at all times with caricatures of each other—bitmojis—on surprisingly accurate Snap Maps.
According to the screenshots Sydney had been sending, Bree’s phone had traveled some distance from the crash site, in a completely different direction from where Jordan had been searching.
He had gone west while Cara Campbell turned east.
He’d wasted time chasing his gut instinct when the safer play would have been to wait for more information. Cursing himself—once again, he’d done something he would have been angry with his deputies for doing—he reversed course. But now she had a big head start.
Campbell had covered a lot more ground than he expected, climbing up into the hills before dropping down over a ridge, almost as if she were heading for Bass Lake.
If she made it to the mountains beyond that, it was going to take a large-scale operation to bring her in.
Was she trying to lose herself in the woods, or was she just lost?
He probably shouldn’t have been surprised by her endurance, though.
She was the type who punished herself on a Peloton and in high-energy gym classes, so she had probably been in great physical shape when she was taken into custody following the trial.
He wondered if she planned to make use of the free weights in the yard at Chowchilla.
Although most of Campbell’s outdoor experience consisted of what Amber called “fake camping,” the fact that she ran instead of waiting for rescue indicated that she was highly motivated to avoid recapture. And if she had killed once for money, she would likely kill again for her freedom.
He hadn’t told Beto or anyone at the department about the screenshots yet—departmental policy was fuzzy on whether or not he could accept his daughter’s help.
But it gave Sydney something to do and kept her from worrying about Bree.
He had to catch Cara Campbell before he lost her signal in the hills.
He pulled over near a house with a barn and a sign that read Hoof and Paw Pet Boarding, the location of Campbell’s last digital footprint. Was she still there?
He picked up his phone and texted Sydney. Anything?
Waiting for a new signal, she answered. I think she’s going in and out of range.
Jordan drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
Then the radio crackled. “This is Deputy 504, I’m at the substation. Just had a couple of walk-ins report that somebody stole several items from their campsite.”
Back at the station, Steve Symonds, the night dispatcher, said, “Go ahead.”
Jordan considered muting his radio. He was amped up and impatient, with too much stuff already buzzing around in his head.
Five-zero-four was the call sign of Germán Lopez, who was new.
All Lopez had to do was fill out an incident report and create a new case file for the detectives to review in the morning.
There was no need to call the station over pilfered coolers and beer.
“Somebody stole a pair of shoes,” continued Lopez.
“Crime of the century,” chimed in some wiseass, probably Osman.
Jordan almost laughed—but something tickled the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Yeah? Well, get this,” said Lopez. “They left their own footwear behind. Want to guess what they were?”
Jordan grabbed his mic. “If it was a pair of jail-issued orange Crocs, then let’s quit playing games and share the information. The clock is ticking.”
“Yeah, orange Crocs,” said Lopez sheepishly. “One of them has a torn strap. Looks like someone tried to run an obstacle course in them. That you, Sheriff?”
“Bag them and get them to K9,” Jordan said. “We’re going to want those in the morning.”
“Roger that.”
Jordan’s phone vibrated as a new text from Sydney appeared on the dashboard screen: Here she is! Are you close dad???
He expanded the image. Campbell was still moving. The latest signal appeared to be less than a half mile away but was nowhere near the road.
He put his vehicle in gear and drove forward. Houses were few and far between on this road leading to state forest land. If she was a survivalist, the route would have made sense, but his panicked quarry, running blind, couldn’t have realized she was heading away from civilization.
He hoped her recapture wasn’t going to turn into a body recovery.
When he’d gotten as close as he could in the car, he parked and got out.
He pulled on his tactical vest and tightened the Velcro straps until they were snug, then zipped a windbreaker over the top of it.
He retied his bootlaces, put on a headlamp, and looped a six-cell Maglite into his gun belt.
He grabbed his shotgun from the dashboard mount but didn’t rack a shell into the chamber.
Standing outside the trees, he checked his phone, feeling a tug as he studied the location of Bree’s smiling, purple-haired bitmoji. It felt like seeing a ghost.
Then he texted Sydney again. Give me one more screenshot? I’m close.
It’s still in the same place, she answered after a moment.
Thanks, honey. I’m going to go look.
Be careful dad!!!
I’m not your dad right now, he didn’t reply. I’m the goddamn sheriff.