His radio crackled with static and a sharp tone, making her realize he had more communication equipment on him than just the phone.
“Sheriff, we have a reported sighting of Patience Wilkerson on Partridge Hill Road, near your house.” The voice belonged to Linda.
“No word about an infant accompanying her?” Sam asked, his voice sharp.
“No, sir.”
“Then send a car over there with whoever you can spare, but keep the bulk of the resources focused on the woods.” Sam’s gray eyes met Amy’s over the black handheld device as he released the button. To her alone, he asked, “What in the hell do you think she’s doing on the street where we live?”
“Maybe when she didn’t find Aiden, she started to doubt Aiden was at Lorelei’s?” Amy couldn’t make sense of any of it, still not believing Faith Wilkerson’s sister could be so evil. “She might still be searching for Aiden if Bailey has him.”
“Either that or she already has Aiden and she’s looking for you.”
“Me? No one else knows what happened to me that night,” she reminded him, unwilling to consider the idea that Patience Wilkerson might have Aiden.
Or worse.
“No one but your attacker. Jeremy Covington.” Sam walked with slower deliberation, his gaze sweeping the terrain with methodical care. “He could have told his new girlfriend to silence anyone who might speak out against him. Jeremy wouldn’t know you aren’t planning to testify. He might have simply heard you were back in town and assumed that you would come forward.”
Anger simmered. At herself for letting shame and fear keep her silent for so long. At Sam for reminding her of it now, when she needed all her strength focused on the search for Aiden.
But at least that was better than the icy grip of fear.
“Right. Because he doesn’t know that I’m too weak willed to help you with a case that means everything to you,” she fumed, her emotions getting the best of her as she bit out the ugly words.
“You know that’s not what I meant.” He kept his own emotions in check, but she could see the tension in his body. Focused. Immovable.
Lifting his hands to his mouth, he shouted Bailey’s name into the dim forest ahead.
“It’s been five minutes,” she informed him, because it was past time he notify Aiden’s mother. “Cynthia should learn about this from you before she hears it on the news.”
He paused, his body going still for the first time since her car had backfired and she’d seen him across the Hastings’ frontyard.
“I didn’t want to call until I found him.” The tortured look in his eyes was obvious to her even in the growing darkness. Or maybe she heard it in his voice.
She could feel his hurt and regret. She understood it, even as she had to wonder what it meant.
Cynthia was still the mother of his son. They shared something Amy could never fully be a part of, no matter how much she loved Aiden. The pang in her chest now was different from her fears for Aiden. It was smaller, because it was her own hurt. But she knew it would ache long afterward since it was the dawning of a new realization that would affect her future. Her forever.
She needed to give Sam and Cynthia a chance to heal. To be a family. Cynthia shouldn’t have to suffer and miss Sam for ten years before she had the chance to patch things up with him, the way Amy had. Maybe if Amy was out of the way, the two of them could put their rocky start behind them.
“You should call her.” She pushed the statement past dry lips. “I’ll...keep looking.”
Turning, she stalked deeper into the forest, giving Sam a moment of privacy while her heart broke. Only now, with everything else stripped away from her—the attack, the fight with her mother, her own miscarriage—could she truly make sense of what she’d been feeling these past few days with Sam.
What a horrible time to fully appreciate how much she loved him. But that truth was as clear to her as what she’d realized she felt for his son earlier. Love like that made a person strong.
Love like that could make a person better. Help them do the right, noble thing.
Even, she feared, walk away.
“Aiden, where are you?” she said quietly into the fast-darkening woods, shivering at the wind, which was growing colder by the minute. “Please be safe.”
A rustling sound nearby made her pause. She looked back, seeing only the glow of Sam’s cell phone by his ear now that the sun had set.
“Bailey?” She said it tentatively, hoping it wasn’t just another chipmunk or squirrel. “Are you out there?”
Holding her breath at another rustle of leaves, she spotted movement near a pile of logs. A glint of blond hair reflecting a patch of moonlight.
