Chapter 1
Thanksgiving had come and gone. Radios played carols. Main Street glowed. For the first time in weeks, the town believed it could breathe again.
Caitlin West had been found alive. The case was closed.
For Sara, that sounded perfect.
She’d had enough adrenaline to last a lifetime. All she wanted tonight was an easy shift—an empty highway, hot coffee, and maybe, for once, a break from the worries she couldn’t quite name.
Ice clung to the shoulder of the road. The dark felt awake.
Quiet.
Waiting.
Sara sat in her cruiser beneath the hemlocks—perfect spot, perfect angle. She usually caught plenty here: speeders, drunks, even Darcy Nolan once—before anyone knew she was Caitlin West.
The heater hummed low. Leather and coffee lingered in the air. Weather like this left her restless. In the stillness, her mind drifted—
Always back to Scout.
She pictured him at the tree lighting—Special Agent Tessa Quinn beside him, suitcase at her feet. Easy banter. Easy spark.
Sara told herself she didn’t care.
She did.
Tessa was leaving now that Caitlin had been found and the case closed—and as far as Sara was concerned, it couldn’t come fast enough. She respected Tessa. That didn’t make it easier to watch.
She shook it off.
Nights like this always made her think of Lauren Pierce.
A thin file. A dead end. A girl who’d driven into the dark and never come back.
The case had gone cold—until Burke handed it to her.
She lifted her coffee as headlights crested the curve—
Two quick flashes.
One long.
Unit Six.
Scout.
She keyed the mic.
“Unit Six, you done for the night?”
“Copy that, Three. Headed home before Burke finds me another paper trail.”
“Try not to speed,” she said lightly. “I’d hate to write you up.”
“Wouldn’t give you the satisfaction. Night, Parker.”
“Night, Scout.”
His taillights slipped around the bend and vanished into the trees.
Silence rushed back in—too fast, too complete.
The radio crackled with routine chatter. Sara stretched, checked the radar gun.
Nothing.
She set it down and adjusted her holster, the motion automatic. Habit, not fear.
Sara pulled out her green notebook and jotted the time—2:47 a.m. The kind of detail that kept nights like this from blurring together.
Then—
Lights.
Two white orbs glowed deep among the trees behind her.
She stared—
And they slipped deeper into the trees.
Too high for headlights.
Too steady to belong out here.
And they didn’t throw a beam—just hung there, like eyes.
For a second, she couldn’t move.
The forest hushed completely—no wind, no birds. Nothing but the faint rush of blood in her ears.
She grabbed the mic.
“Dispatch, this is Unit Three. I’m out on Seventy-Three near mile marker twelve—”
Static exploded from the speaker—then cut out.
The dashboard lights flickered and died.
Radio dead.
Mic dead.
“Maybe some idiot spotlighting deer,” she muttered…
She stayed seated a second too long. Hand on the door.
Every instinct said wait.
Duty won.
The cruiser door groaned as she stepped out.
Frozen mud cracked under her weight. The chill knifed through her uniform as she reached for her flashlight.
Nights like this made her miss drunk college kids—anything noisy and dumb instead of quiet and wrong.
She’d never liked the dark woods. Not since—
“Do your job,” she whispered.
For a second, she was back on the range with her dad. Fourteen. Too stubborn for gloves. Determined to hold steady.
Each breath puffed white.
Her beam cut through the brush, skimming a crushed beer can half-buried in the dirt.
“Hello?” she called.
No answer.
Only wind.
A shape. Tall. Still. Watching.
She looked again—
And it was gone.
Scout’s laugh flickered through her mind—quick and warm—the way it cut through the dark.
For half a second, she almost smiled.
The world went hollow—no radio, no engine hum—just her pulse pounding in the silence.
Something moved at the edge of her light—too tall, too close—
Deputy Scout Wilson
Just before dawn, the phone jolted him awake, vibrating hard against the nightstand.
“Wilson.”
Static hissed—then Dispatch’s voice came through, tight and frayed.
“Deputy Parker’s cruiser. Highway 73. Engine’s still running.”
Scout sat up fast, already reaching for his jeans.
“Put her on.”
Silence.
“Dispatch,” he snapped. “Put Parker on the line.”
The reply came thin, shaky.
“Scout… she’s not here. The cruiser’s empty. Engine’s still idling, but she’s gone.”
Panic slammed into his chest.
“You call the Sheriff yet?”
“No. You first.”
“Call him now.”
He ended the call and stared at the screen.
One missed call.
Parker — 2:47 a.m.
The red notification burned like an accusation.
Whatever she’d needed—
He hadn’t been there. Not for Sara.
Not when it counted.
He never let her calls go unanswered.
“Damn it, Sara.”
He grabbed his keys.
The thought—Why didn’t I?—never finished forming.
He was already out the door.
Sheriff Burke Scott
Before dawn on Highway 73, Burke’s truck rolled to a stop.
Scout crouched beside the open cruiser door.
Coffee had spilled into the frozen dirt. A flashlight lay on its side, beam still burning—pinned on the trees as if she’d set it there and vanished.
No tracks.
No Parker.
“She wouldn’t leave her unit,” Burke said, scanning the shoulder, the tree line. “Not Sara.”
Scout circled to the rear of the cruiser.
“Dispatch,” Burke said into the radio, “I want every available unit on Seventy-Three. Shut it down from the bridge to the county line. Nobody in or out without my order.”
“Copy that, Sheriff.”
Scout swept the shoulder with his light. A few shallow impressions marked the dirt, but nothing that looked like a fight.
“No scuffle. No drag marks.”
“She stepped out.”
Scout swallowed.
“Something made her.”
They followed the beam into the trees.
“Here.”
A phone lay half-buried in the leaves.
Her cell. Face down. No cracks. Dropped. Not thrown.
Burke placed an evidence marker beside it—01. The yellow plastic looked wrong against the pale ground.
They moved deeper, the ground sloping underfoot, rocks biting through dead leaves. A faint depression bent the underbrush.
“She came this far,” Burke murmured.
And then—nothing.
No trail.
No direction.
Only absence.
The radio cracked.
Static first—Dispatch, urgent.
“Sheriff, we’ve got units in place on Seventy-Three. Road’s locked down from the bridge to the county line.”
Burke’s jaw tightened.
“Keep it that way.”
He took one last look at the cruiser.
The empty seat.
The open door.
The forest.
Somewhere out there, someone had his deputy, and he was going to find them.