Chapter 52
Chapter
Fifty-Two
The dog strained toward the mattresses, his nose sweeping rapidly over the blankets. He worked the longer mattress first, then the smaller one. Instead of moving toward the door, he doubled back and began investigating the corner.
The shepherd pressed his nose into the narrow gap between the mattress and wall, then pawed at the baseboard.
“He has something,” the handler said.
He directed his flashlight into the gap. “There’s paper back there.”
The Evidence Response agent retrieved the object with gloved fingers.
A sheet of paper had been folded into quarters and wedged flat between the baseboard and wall.
Prine stepped closer as the agent carefully unfolded it.
Austin recognized the school assessment almost immediately. The district heading and numbered questions matched the pages Nora had photographed in Christian’s room. But pencil lines covered the blank side.
This drawing didn’t show the farmhouse.
It showed a line of trees descending toward a creek. A narrow wooden footbridge crossed the water, and an arrow pointed over the bridge toward a road on the opposite bank.
Austin studied the quick, uneven strokes. This wasn’t another picture Christian had drawn from memory.
It was a route.
Away from the farmhouse.
“This was Christian’s,” Austin said.
“You’re certain?” Prine asked.
“It’s the same paper and the same drawing style.” He looked at where the page had been wedged behind the mattress. “He hid it there deliberately.”
Christian had only been gone since last night. Somehow, he had brought the assessment page with him, drawn the route and left it where someone searching the room might find it.
He had been trying to help them.
Nash pivoted toward the window and wiped a clear patch in the grime with his sleeve. “If Cross heard the vehicles coming up the main drive, he would have taken them out the back.”
Austin joined him. Beyond the streaked glass, an overgrown yard sloped toward the barn and a thick wall of trees. The rain had tapered to a fine mist, and water dripped steadily from the eaves.
“He may have known before the vehicles reached the driveway,” Austin said. “Someone else was here with the boys. That person could have been watching the roads.”
Cross had worked in law enforcement long enough to anticipate how quickly officers would surround the house. And the person waiting to transport the boys would have known when the operation was in danger.
“This place was never meant to hold them permanently,” Austin continued. “It was a transfer point.”
Preston had been missing since Friday. With search teams, checkpoints and volunteers covering the area, moving a frightened child might have been riskier than keeping him here until the search shifted elsewhere.
Temporary didn’t necessarily mean brief.
Prine raised her radio. “All perimeter units, maintain coverage on every road leaving the property. K-9 is beginning a track from the house.”
Harris’s voice answered from the rear approach. “I’ve located a gray SUV concealed near the creek. Nora Loveless is secured in my vehicle.”
At least Austin knew where she was.
The handler led the shepherd through the rear door and onto a sagging porch. Prine went behind him with her weapon drawn. Nash followed, and Austin brought up the rear.
The dog picked up the trail near the bottom step.
Mud preserved a confusion of shoe prints across the yard. Several belonged to the tactical officers who had cleared the outbuildings. Near the tree line, however, three sets separated from the others.
One came from an adult-sized boot.
A second appeared to belong to a teenager.
The smallest set could only have come from a child.
Austin crouched as the handler illuminated the tracks. The smallest prints sank deeply at the toes and fell at uneven intervals, as if the child had stumbled or been pulled forward.
Preston. It had to be.
The teenager’s prints stayed close beside his while the adult boot marks followed behind them.
“One adult, one teenager and one child,” Nash said. “They left together.”
Christian could have used the confusion to run.
Instead, he had stayed beside Preston.
The shepherd surged toward the trees, pulling hard against the lead.
Prine tightened her grip on her weapon. “Follow the dog. You two, stay behind the handler.”
She entered the woods first. Nash followed her, and Austin went after them as the tracks softened beneath the misting rain.
Through the trees came the low, relentless rush of moving water.
The trail led toward the creek—and the rear approach where Harris had reported leaving Nora.
Nora’s relief vanished as Preston jerked backward.
Cross stepped from the brush, dragging the boy against his chest. One arm locked across Preston’s body while his other hand held a gun pressed against the boy’s side.
His deputy’s uniform was streaked with mud, and rain had plastered his hair to his forehead. Nothing about him resembled the calm deputy who had stood beside Nora during the search, offering measured observations while Preston’s jacket waited beneath a fallen branch.
He had known exactly where Preston was the whole time.
The boy who had called himself Christian emerged behind him.
Imposter Christian.
The name came to Nora now, as painful as it was necessary. Because this boy wasn’t her brother. The real Christian was still missing somewhere.
Yet relief cut through her anger at the sight of him.
He looked exhausted, with dark circles beneath his eyes and a bruise along one side of his face. His clothes were wet, and mud coated his shoes almost to the ankles.
But he was standing.
He was alive.
Nora didn’t know what to call him anymore. Christian belonged to her brother. Imposter felt too cruel for a boy who appeared as frightened and battered as Preston.
His gaze found hers.
For an instant, something moved across his expression—relief, fear or maybe shame. She wasn’t sure.
Then his features emptied.
The same way they had when she’d caught him outside sleepwalking.
Nora straightened beside the open SUV door.
Cross tightened his arm around Preston. The gun remained pressed to the boy’s ribs. “Stay where you are.”
Deputy Harris appeared several yards to Cross’s left, weapon raised. “Drop the gun and let the boy go.”
Cross turned just enough to see him. He repositioned Preston between himself and Harris, leaving the deputy without a clear shot.
Harris shifted behind a tree. “Drop the weapon, Cross.”
Cross’s mouth twisted. “That isn’t my name.”
Nora couldn’t look away from him.
Twelve years separated this man from the seventeen-year-old boy in the Dalton photograph. Time had sharpened his face and erased its boyish softness. But now that she knew what to look for, the resemblance was unmistakable.
The same narrow features.
The same deep-set eyes.
The same slight tilt of his head as he studied the person in front of him.
“Zander,” she said.
Cross’s attention snapped back to her.
The name struck something inside him. His jaw tightened, and something raw flashed across his face before his expression hardened again.