She turned to Owen.
The first set were consistent with a jogger’s stride. The second set looked longer. The stride was several inches longer. Someone was running, and the stride was longer to accommodate them.
And then, from ahead, she heard a loud musical tune.
Owen and her stared at each other.
“What was that?” he asked incredulously.
“A phone?”
They rushed forward, sprinting along the track. May barely noticed the ache in her legs.
There it was. A bright screen, half-buried in the foliage near the edge of the trail. The tune was repeating over and over.
May peered down at the screen.
With a sinking of her heart, she saw it read “Mom.”
Mrs. Harding was calling her daughter’s phone again, and this time, May had found it, abandoned and fallen, close to a place where two sets of footprints indicated a pursuit.
This was telling a chillingly accurate account.
May had a strange feeling. It was as if she was being watched. She couldn’t see anybody, but a cold chill ran down her back.
“Let’s take a look around and see if we can find anything else that could help us,” she said.
Carefully, they worked their way through the undergrowth that had been allowed to grow long alongside the path. May didn’t know what she was looking for. Any other trace of evidence. Something discarded by the monster who had grabbed this young woman as she ran.
But even though she looked carefully, shining her flashlight into the shrubs and weeds, she saw nothing.
“Let’s take the phone back, at least,” she acknowledged, feeling defeated, even though they had found a very important piece of evidence.
Owen reached into his pocket, taking out a glove. Carefully, he picked up the phone.
“I guess we’d better take this back now?” he said.
“I guess we’d better,” May replied.
This was, without a doubt, a serial crime that was centered on kidnapping and abduction. And given this, she knew what her boss would decide to do.
It was time to go back and face up to her fears, and hear Sheriff Jack say the words she dreaded.
CHAPTER NINE
“We’re going to have to call in the FBI,” Jack said to May, who cringed inwardly, knowing she’d been right. At least she’d expected it.
He handed the phone to one of the officers, who took it back to the vehicle they were using. The scene was still busy, but people were wrapping up now. The floodlights were being switched off and the search parties returning. The phone being found meant that Shawna was nowhere nearby, and that she had been abducted. A sense of defeat hung in the air.
The problem, May knew, was that calling in the FBI meant they would send a local agent. And that meant her sister would arrive. Having her sister involved in a local case would be a hugely complicating factor. She knew this from experience. Not only did it add multiple levels of stress, but May found it emotionally hard when Kerry, who loved the limelight, commandeered a case involving May’s own local community. It brought all her demons to the surface, the demons that told her she was not good enough, inadequate, and a lesser investigator than Kerry was.
Giving herself a stern talking-to, she told herself that Kerry’s presence might help, and if it did May would be forever grateful.
But she knew that her sister’s interference might also complicate the case and create an extra element of tension that May surely could do without at this pressured time.
She really didn’t want this, but she also saw how her boss had no choice. There was no indication who the perpetrator was. This was summer, when there was an influx of people in the area. Undoubtedly, the first victim had been held for a while before she was killed and it was likely the same might happen to the second.
That abandoned phone. The ringing seemed to echo in May’s ears. Such a forlorn and terrible sound. Shawna’s mother had unlocked the phone, but there was nothing on it that had been helpful. No suspicious calls or messages. No photos taken by Shawna before her disappearance.