Chapter Thirty-Seven
Linx jumped backin her Durango and did an illegal move. She pulled onto the road and swerved across the grassy divider, zooming back the way shecame.
This couldn’t be happening. Jessie. How could she be missing? Where had she gone? Who could have takenher?
More importantly, where would they hide her? Was there an evil person living in the campground they didn’t knowabout?
What if it were hermother?
Where would shehide?
Certainly not at a campground—that was for sure. It was too public and she would encounter too many people. She hated people. After all, that was why she left her huge family, wasn’tit?
Think. Think.Think.
A while later, Linx tore up the backroads, taking a shortcut to her father’s large spread of land. The wilderness had reclaimed portions of the former farm, and there was plenty of pastures and fields lyingfallow.
She pulled open a rusty gate and bounced over the old rutted roads, passing storage sheds, broken down barns, and the ramshackle cabins where farm and ranch hands had lived in centuriespast.
The road ended in an overgrown paddock, so Linx hiked the rest of the way with Cedar trotting at her side. She swung a steady arc with her flashlight, looking for acampsite.
Cedar bounded ahead and stopped in front of a fence post, sniffing it with interest. Had another dog been by to mark histerritory?
Linx arced the light from the fence post to the rocky area in front of an abandoned shed. Her flashlight flickered. A damp wind whistled, wrapping around her while the sounds of the night, chirping and croaking, added to heruneasiness.
She stumbled on a rock and landed on her rump. When she brought up her hand, she smelled soot andashes.
A campfire, and one that had been recentlyused.
Linx shone the dimming flashlight around and spotted tireruts.
Someone, whether it was her mother or another vagrant, had been camping on the backlot of her father’sranch.
She crept toward an abandoned storage shed and tripped over something round and metallic. In the dying light of her flashlight, she saw an acetylene tank—the type used forwelding.
The flashlight went dark, and Cedar emitted a low growl. Linx froze, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dark. Someone or something could be hidden in the storageshed.
An owl hooted and a soft flutter of wings whooshed by her as she pried open the rusted hasp. Beside her, Cedar was tense, her head down in a guardedposition.
Linx pulled back the creaky door, hoping against hope she wasn’t too late and at the same time afraid of what she mightfind.
She woke up the phone and flashed its light inside the shed. Gasping and jumping out of her skin, she clapped a hand over hermouth.
Bones. White, bleached bones hung from the rafters, some were tangled up with wires, and other pieces stuck through twisted pieces of metal. A large welded cross stood against the wall, ornamented with dry bones held in place with barbedwire.
Linx’s first instinct was to turn tail and run, but she had to be brave. If Jessie were somehow hidden here, she would never be able to forgive herself if she didn’t findher.
Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the shed, forcing herself to look at each hideoussculpture.
* * *
“There’san artist’s cabin on the property,” Grady said to Pastor Mark as they got into his truck with Sam. “Linx’s sister said she went there to hide when she waslittle.”
“But we’re looking for Jessie, not Linx,” Mark said. He glanced at his cell phone. “We’re coming up empty everywhere welook.”
“Tell me more about Jessie. Is she always disappearing like Linx used to?” Gradyasked.
“I wouldn’t call it disappearing,” the pastor said. “She likes to wander around the town. We know everyone and didn’t believe we needed to keep her confined the way parents in the city do. Everyone knows everyone, and Jessie likes visiting people sheknows.”
