Chapter 1 Above #2
“Not exactly the same type. Serial killers have types, right?” he asks.
“There’s no indication there was anyone else involved.
” I try to make it clear with my tone that the conversation is over.
Not that I’m terribly intimidating at my towering five feet, four inches, with a face that even in my thirties gets “cute” at best, in the same voice you’d use on a spaniel. At least I know how to growl.
“Still. People are talking. There have been other missing girls, you know.”
I know. All of them he does and probably more. You could call it an obsession, maybe, but I think of it more as penance. The same reason I’m out here every weekend, after work, every time I have vacation days to spend. Because years ago, my best friend disappeared.
And I didn’t even notice.
“Cut the chatter,” Rick says. “We need to be listening, not talking.”
New Guy ducks his head, mumbles something.
I check the GPS, confirm we’ve reached our designated search area, and wait as Rick relays this back to Tamara.
Then we’re on the move again. We stick together on the path, pausing periodically to call out Bryson’s name in unison and then listen for a response.
This area’s already been gone over once in the hasty search stage, those first few hours spent setting up the command post and doing an initial sweep. A lot of the time, it ends there.
Time bleeds, smears into monotony, the endless scanning for a footprint or scrap of cloth or dropped toy.
Bryson’s name echoes in the distance as well, other teams probing.
The underbrush here is thick. It makes it hard to maneuver off the path.
It’d slow a kid down, too. “He’d never have made it this far, would he?
” New Guy says quietly. Rick calls out Bryson’s name, and we all pause, listening.
He’s out here.
I’ve got that feeling. The one that I’ve never talked about even to the others because it feels a step beyond luck, beyond intuition.
More like mysticism. Because here’s what I won’t admit to the others: All those jokes and superstition—-I believe them, at least a little.
In a part of me that I can’t logic out of it.
It’s the part that says that there is an equation the universe wants me to balance. I could have saved a life and I didn’t. And so now I have this penance, this purpose—-but also an awareness.
I believe that I am meant to find these people; that the times I don’t, it’s because I have not been able to listen to this small voice inside me.
And that voice is saying that I am supposed to be here today.
The clouds are moving fast, filling in the gaps between the leaves and branches above, and as a shiver of wind blows past, the first cold pinprick of rain hits the back of my hand.
I turn up the volume on my radio a tick, hoping for the word that he’s been found—-the too--loud volunteer, the matter--of--fact cop, Tamara’s no--nonsense orders that bleed with heartfelt relief as she delivers the news.
Nothing yet.
There’s a holler from my right. I look over in time to catch New Guy going down, arms upflung as he loses his footing.
A quartet of starlings startles into flight.
I swear under my breath and stride over, already certain by the way he’s huffing and puffing and grabbing his ankle that we’re done here. I flag our medic.
“I think I twisted it,” he says as we approach. “It’s not too bad.” He grimaces.
Rick radios in as the kid strips off boot and sock. It doesn’t, in fact, look serious, but the rictus expression on his face suggests it’s bad enough.
“I’m fine,” he insists. “I can keep going.”
The last thing we need is him walking on a bad ankle and getting so messed up we have to divert resources to get him out of here. Rick tells him this, as gently as possible, and he hangs his head.
A quick flurry of conversation on the radio results in a plan.
We’ve got a spare radio, so the other two will head back to CP while Rick and I join up with another group.
Not ideal, but it happens, and all of us reassure the guilt--stricken young man as he toddles off.
As they move away, Rick and I stand in a sudden moment of stillness.
Just before rain, when the mist of it is in the air but the clouds haven’t yet let go, there is a furtive quiet to the woods.
As if all the business of the wilderness is suddenly being conducted in urgent silence.
The squirrels have stopped chuffing and scrambling; the birds sit expectant on their perches.
The light gains a quality of gray that leaves the world half real at best.
I breathe in, scenting the damp. Too many hours already, and Bryson Lee is such a little boy, but there is no fear in me.
And in that silence, I hear something. So faint I can’t be sure I heard it at all, but I tip my head, hold up a finger to keep Rick from speaking.
Nothing.
And then there it is again, a sound that could be anything. A bird, a squirrel. The sob of a lost and frightened child.
“What is it?” Rick asks.
“I don’t know. I thought I heard crying,” I say, frowning.
I stare in the direction the sound came from.
Three trees down, a red flag flutters on a branch.
The GPS is clear. We’re snug up against the property line we’re not meant to cross, and the noise is coming from the wrong side of it.
As if a child would notice that flag, or care what it meant.
As if Bryson is any less likely to be in that square foot of woods than the one next to it.
Rick looks at me. I look at Rick. “Where’s the property line, again?” he asks.
“Hard to say exactly,” I reply. “Signal’s pretty bad out here.”
He nods. “Easy to get turned around.”
Rain begins to patter against the leaves above, but hasn’t yet reached the ground. There’s no change in the air when we cross that invisible line, but I feel it on my skin just the same. We stop, listen. Move again.
“Bryson?” we call, voices hoarse after hours of use.
Nothing, and more nothing. No sign of a boy or anyone else out here.
Something pale lies in the dirt up ahead, too uniform to be something natural. I walk over toward it and kneel down to get a better look.
It’s a string of six cheap white plastic beads. The cord is packed with dirt. It’s been here for a while. Days, weeks. Could even be years, I suppose—-the cord looks plasticky, immortal. I’ve seen it before. Not this one, but ones like it.
“What is it?” Rick asks, drawing close. “Something we should call in?”
If it’s a clue, we don’t touch it. We take a photo, call it in for instructions. But these beads have nothing to do with Bryson Lee. “Witch beads,” I say. Rick gives me a blank look, and I remember he’s not from here. “It’s a local superstition.”
I reach to touch the string of beads hanging from my pack.
Six white beads on a leather cord, all but identical to the one on the ground.
The tokens of Jenny Red--Hands, the witch of Franklin, doling out vengeance for wounded girls.
They’re supposed to be teeth, Janie told me.
The original ones were teeth, not beads.
I could never tell if she was making it up to mess with me.
She left them on my windowsill that last night. I never found out why.
Girls still wear them now and then. The ones a little on the goth side, the ones with tarot cards and crystals on their dressers.
But even the cheerleaders will sport them sometimes, after a bad breakup.
A boy cheats and the girl’s friends are all suddenly clipping white beads to their zippers like a warning.
And I can almost remember seeing them not so long ago. Swinging from the zipper pull of a black backpack covered in patches. The girl had red--gold hair, and for an instant, she reminded me so keenly of Janie that I almost said her name, but when she turned around, I didn’t know her.
Meghan Vale, I think, but I can’t be sure. I didn’t know her then. She looked familiar when they showed her picture around, but that only meant that she was, in fact, a student at the school. I can’t tell now if I’m conflating the memories. Still. How long have these beads been out here?
Three months? More? She could have left them here. She could have been here.
Jenny, Jenny, hands of red, I remember Janie chanting, but the rest of the rhyme escapes me.
I don’t register the footsteps behind me until I hear the voice.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” comes a growl.
I turn, apology and explanation on my lips—-and find myself staring down the barrel of a gun.