“I’ve called it. It just rings.”
“It does?” May said. That was encouraging. At least it was turned on. Perhaps it was still on her person and could be traced.
“Here’s a photo of her. I’ve printed copies,” Mrs. Harding sobbed.
Her son silently handed May an eight-by-ten printout of a beautiful young woman, with cascades of chestnut brown curls and smiling blue eyes.
Carefully, May scrutinized the photo, taking in the details. Age: eighteen. Height: five-seven. Weight: approx. 120 pounds. Wearing: Nike running shoes, white. Black running pants. Pink top. Pink baseball cap.
“Thank you for this detail,” she said gently to the clearly traumatized mother.
“I hope it helps. I hope something helps. I just can’t bear the thought she might—she might be next.”
“We will do everything in our power to find her,” May promised. “In the meantime, can you tell me if there was anything else happening in Shawna’s life?”
“Such as what?”
“Any conflicts, any problems. Any personal issues. Boyfriend issues? Was she having difficulties at school, had she experimented with drugs recently?” May gave as many suggestions as she could, hoping that one of them might lead somewhere.
“No. Nothing like that. She wasn’t dating at the moment. She was on good terms with everyone. She was a leader at school, you know. She knew how to stand up for herself. She didn’t take any disrespect,” Mrs. Harding explained.
“Thank you,” May said. “Please, if you do think of anything that could help us, let me know.”
“I will,” the other woman promised.
But as May set out along the trail, she couldn’t help but feel heavy-hearted.
The search parties were doing their best, but there was a chance that she had already become the killer’s latest victim. May didn’t want to think about that. She was determined to be positive, to hope for the best, even if it was against all the odds.
“Shawna,” she called, her voice echoing slightly in the stillness of the forest. “Shawna. Can you hear me?”
The silence was eerie. There was no sound to be heard but the rustle of leaves and her own breathing. She paused, listening for any sound that might indicate that Shawna was nearby. There was nothing.
The forest was deeply still.
Her flashlight lit the way among the dark trees. For a few minutes, she could hear the muted sounds of nearby searchers, but then the trails diverged enough that these faded away.
Through a gap in the trees, the moon cast a silvery glow on the trail she was on.
She looked up at the moon, shining high in the sky.
Show me something, she thought. Help me find this girl.
She kept her flashlight trained on the path, hoping that she could pick up footprints, but it had not rained in the past few days and the ground was hard. May saw only the faintest evidence of prints on the forest floor, mere indentations among the dry pine needles and baked soil.
She kept on calling, and so did Owen, but the only answers were the distant calls from other searchers farther along the trails.
“I think I see something here,” Owen, who was searching on the other side of the trail, said.
May veered in that direction.
“Look here. It’s faint, but visible. Shoe prints. Heavier ones, as if someone was running. You can see them here, where there’s some loose sand on the trail.”
“Are there two sets?” May crouched down, peering at the ground, wishing that these tracks were clearer, because between the hard ground and the thin sand, no actual tread was visible.
“Yes, I think so. Two sets.”
May took a look at the distance. The footprints indicated that people had been running, fast.