Hiking toward the sound of flowing water, she arrived at a small waterfall feeding into a stream. Maybe the same one she’d crossed earlier. Taking the bloody knife, Elena cleaned it off in the ice-cold water, her hands still shaking from the fear and adrenaline. The water flowed away from her. If she followed it, maybe she could find her way to Pinecone Junction or even the town they’d stopped in with the bank. That seemed like a million years ago.
Her survival instincts kicked in. Her feet were dry. For now. She had water and would ration it. Pulling out the map, she found what she thought was the stream where she currently was. This creek flowed into a bigger river and that river would lead her farther down the highway and away from Pinecone Junction, and eventually to the other town they’d stopped at called Bobcat Springs.
She would go there and find someone who would help her. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be someone waiting to kill her there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The next morning was cloudy with a light breeze. Maya watched the dogs play in the yard, although she didn’t want them burning too much energy. They might need to work again. She yawned and took another sip of coffee, tired from the previous night, but feeling a bit guilty thinking that.
Somewhere out in the woods there was a person missing, and if she was still alive, then the last thing she probably cared about was coffee.
Maya whistled to the dogs to come. She wanted to get them fed and eat herself so that they could get back out and help with the search. Both dogs started to come and then stopped, noses pointed up and hackles raised. They barked and lunged toward the fence. Maya didn’t worry about Finn jumping out, but Juniper could easily scale the enclosure. She trudged through the snow, peered over the fence to see what had the dogs so excited.
Reporters.
They were now camped across the street. Why were they here at their house? Did they know that Josh was a suspect? Although Lucas hadn’t officially questioned him yet. Or did they just see Maya’s and Josh’s vehicles and decide to see if they could get a statement from them? Now she was annoyed, but they weren’t on their property, so there was nothing she could do.
Maya and Josh had stayed at the SAR operation tent the previous night until Pops had kicked them out, telling them to go home and get rest. She had reminded Pops that he too needed rest because his trial started today.
Josh was still asleep, and she had decided to leave him be. When they’d finally left the crime scene, he had mentioned he wanted to go catch up with Bianca. Maya thought that was a good idea and took the dogs home. By the time he got home, she was sacked out asleep, barely waking up when he came to bed.
After getting the dogs their breakfast, Maya picked up her phone and dialed the number for the search-and-rescue team leader, Ryan. He answered quickly.
Maya identified herself and then asked, “What’s the status this morning?”
“I have my teams out searching,” Ryan answered. “I think we were close to finding her last night. One of my dog teams realized the track took them toward some recreational cabins near the falls. They went there and found a body.”
“What?” Maya said.
“Yes, we of course notified Lucas and the CBI team. They’ve been working all night long.”
“But the body wasn’t our missing person?”
“No, not unless the missing person is male and has gang tats all over his face and arms.”
Maya paused. This was getting weirder by the moment. “No. I don’t think so.”
“That’s all I know, because our teams do search and rescue, not murder scenes.”
“What made you think it was a homicide?” Maya asked.
“The giant slash, probably from a knife, across the guy’s throat. He most likely bled out in minutes. The medic on the team checked him, but there was no pulse and he was cold. So, they cleared away to try to preserve the scene and waited for more investigators to arrive.”
Maya rubbed her forehead with her free hand, trying to keep a headache from coming on. “Okay, thanks for the update.”
“You’re welcome.”
They hung up and Maya stared at the kitchen wall like it would give her answers. She was getting ready to call Lucas next when Josh came out.
“Sorry I overslept,” he said, pouring himself some coffee. “I’ll drink this, get showered and dressed, and we can get going.” Noticing that Maya wasn’t responding and was staring straight ahead, he asked her, “Are you okay?”
Maya turned and looked at him. “No. I just talked with the leader of the SAR team, Ryan, and he told me their team found a male, deceased, knife wound to the throat, and the guy had gang tats all over him.”
Josh almost spat out his coffee. “Another homicide? And how does Ryan know what gang tats look like?”
“I’m not certain. I think he was a deputy at some point. Maybe that’s how. But what I want to know is why is there a dead guy with gang tats at some recreational cabins?”
“Good point.”
