Chapter 49
Chapter
Forty-Nine
Austin’s phone vibrated in his hand. Nora’s name flashed across the screen, and he answered before the second ring.
“I found three drawings,” she said. “They’re all of the same farmhouse. My family stayed there several times when we were traveling.”
Austin turned away from Cross’s abandoned cruiser. “Where?”
“Outside Harriman. I don’t know the address, but I’m sending you the pictures.”
Three images appeared on his phone: a steep roof and stone chimney, a barn with a circular window, and a road curving between two stone pillars.
Austin carried the phone to Prine. “Nora recognizes this place.”
Prine enlarged the drawings while he told her what Nora knew. Luke brought up a map of the area.
“There are dozens of old farms out there,” Luke said. “Can her parents remember the road?”
Austin put Nora on speaker.
“They’re trying,” she said. “Roy Callahan arranged for us to stay there. The Dalton family stayed there with us one night.”
Prine looked up from the phone. “Zander was there?”
“Yes. Mom remembers him.”
The farmhouse might have been connected to Zander long before his abduction.
“Have them keep working on the route,” Prine said. “Call us the moment they remember anything.”
An SUV pulled onto the turnout. The K-9 handler stepped out with his shepherd while another deputy handed him the bag containing the shirt from the Loveless house.
The dog took the boy’s scent, circled Cross’s cruiser and pulled toward the passenger side. From there, he followed a trail through the wet grass to the fresh tire tracks.
He circled once, nose working, then looked toward the handler.
“The trail ends here,” the handler said. “He got into another vehicle.”
Austin looked at the farmhouse drawings on his phone.
Nora might know where Cross had taken the boy. But they still had to find the property.
And right now, every second counted.
Half an hour after Nora called Austin, her parents were still trying to reconstruct the drive to the farmhouse.
Dad had found an old tour notebook. He sat at the kitchen table with it open between them, working backward from a concert in Knoxville. Mom remembered the turn from the highway. Marlowe remembered getting out of the bus near a creek and walking while Dad drove across a narrow concrete bridge.
Nora repeated each detail to Luke over the phone. He checked the roads on his map, ruling out one property and then another.
“What about the feedstore?” Mom asked. “Wasn’t it just before the turn?”
“It may be gone now.” Dad flipped a page in the notebook. “But I wrote down the cattle gate. I was afraid I’d miss the entrance when we left.”
Luke went quiet as he searched.
“I have a creek and a concrete bridge behind one of these properties,” he said at last. “There’s a barn near the rear road too. I can’t see enough of the house to confirm it.”
Nora studied the drawing of the road between the pillars. “That’s the front entrance. There was another way in.”
“What kind of road?” Luke asked.
“More of a track. It turned near a stand of pines and followed the creek before coming out behind the barn. Dad used it because the bus couldn’t fit through the pillars.”
“It isn’t marked on this map.”
“It was easy to miss even then,” Nora said. “I can show you where it begins.”
“I want you to stay at the house,” Austin said.
“Please.” Nora kept her voice steady. “I want to do this the right way. I know I shouldn’t show up on my own, but your teams need to cover that back road. Let me show someone where it is.”
Silence stretched across the line.
“Agent Donnelly asked me on the drive out to keep you clear of this,” Prine said.
Nora went still. “Did he?”
Austin didn’t answer right away. “You’ve been hurt once this weekend already.”
“You could have told me.”
“You’d have argued.”
“Yes.” Her voice went quiet. “I would have.”
Rain ticked against the kitchen window.
Finally, Prine cleared her throat. “Deputy Harris is approaching from the east. I’ll have him pick you up and take you to a staging point outside the property.
The tactical team is coming from Knoxville, and I won’t send anyone onto that property until they’re in position.
That’s going to take a little time. You show him the rear road, then remain with him unless I give you other instructions. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
“You do not enter the property.”
“I won’t.”
Nora ended the call and closed her eyes, grateful Prine had listened. Austin hadn’t. He’d decided what she could handle without asking her.
She didn’t know what they would find at the farmhouse. She didn’t know whether the boy had gone with Cross willingly or what Cross intended to do with him.
But she remembered the road no map showed.
For once, that might be enough.