“That’s not soon enough.” Laney turned and started hiking around the perimeter of the crime-scene tape, heading up the trail.
Doyle looked back at the crime scene and saw Ivy Hawkins looking at him, her brow furrowed. She gave a nod toward Laney, as if to say she and Parsons had the crime scene covered.
He was the chief of police now, not another investigator. While Bitterwood might be a small force, he didn’t need to micromanage his detectives. They’d already proved they could do a good job—he’d familiarized himself with their work before he took the job.
Meanwhile, he had a public-relations problem stalking up the mountain while he waffled about leaving a crime scene that was clearly under control.
He ducked under the crime-scene tape and headed up the mountain after Laney Hanvey.
* * *
“I’MNOTGOINGto be handled out of looking for my sister,” Laney growled as she heard footsteps catching up behind her on the hiking trail.
“I’m just here to help.”
She faltered to a stop, turning to look at Doyle Massey. He wasn’t exactly struggling to keep up with her—life on the beach had clearly kept him in pretty good shape. But he was out of his element.
She’d grown up in these mountains. Her mother had always joked she was half mountain goat. She knew these hills as well as she knew her own soul. “You’ll slow me down.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
She glared at him, her rising terror looking for a target. “My sister is out here somewhere and I’m going to find her.”
The look Doyle gave her was full of pity. The urge to slap that expression off his face was so strong she had to clench her hands. “You’re rushing off alone into the woods where a man with a gun has just committed a murder.”
“A gun?” She couldn’t stop her gaze from slanting toward the crime scene. “She was shot?”
“Two rounds to the back of the head.”
She closed her eyes, the remains of the cucumber sandwich she’d eaten at Sequoyah House rising in her throat. She stumbled a few feet away from Doyle Massey and gave up fighting the nausea.
After her stomach was empty, she crouched in the underbrush, battling dry heaves and giving in to the hot tears burning her eyes. The heat of Massey’s hand on her back was comforting, even though she was embarrassed by her display.
“I will help you search,” he said in a low, gentle tone. “But I want you to take a minute to just breathe and think. Okay? I want you to think about your sister and where you think she’d go. Do you know?”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tissue to wipe her mouth. Before she’d finished, Massey’s hand extended in front of her eyes, holding out a roll of breath mints.
“Thank you,” she said, taking one.
“I understand you don’t live here in Bitterwood.”
She looked up at him. “I live in Barrowville. It’s about ten minutes away. But I grew up here. I know this mountain.”
“But do you know where your sister and her friends would go up here?”
“I called my mother on the drive here. She said Jannie and the others were planning to keep to the trail so they could bunk down in the shelters. They’re sort of like the shelters you find on the Appalachian Trail—not as nice, but they serve the same basic purpose.” She waved her hand toward the trail shelter a half mile up the trail, frustrated by all the talking. “Has anyone looked up there?”
“Not yet.” He laid his hand on her back, the heat of his touch warming her through her clothes. She wanted to be annoyed by his presumptuousness, but the truth was, she found his touch comforting, to the point that she had to squelch the urge to throw herself into his arms and let her pent-up tears flow.
But she had to keep her head. Her mother was already a basket case with fear for her daughter. Someone in the family needed to stay in control.
“Ivy called in the missing-person report on Jannie.” She stepped away from his touch, straightening her slumping spine. “Has anyone contacted the Adderlys?”
The chief looked back at the crime scene. “No. I guess I should be the one to do it.”
“No,” she said firmly. “You’re new here. You’re a stranger. Let one of the others do it. Craig Bolen and Dave Adderly are old friends.”
Massey’s green eyes narrowed. “Bolen...”
“Your new captain of detectives,” she said.
“I knew that.” He looked a little sheepish. “I’ll call him, let him know what’s up.” He pulled out his cell phone.
“You probably can’t get a signal on that,” she warned. “Go tell Ivy to call it in on her radio.”
His lips quirked slightly as he put away his phone and walked back down the trail to the crime scene. He turned to look at her a couple of times, as if to make sure she wasn’t taking advantage of his distraction to hare off on her own.
The idea was tempting, since she could almost hear the minutes ticking away in her head. She hadn’t gotten a good look at Missy’s body, but she’d seen enough of the blood to know that the wounds were relatively fresh. Even taking the cold weather into account, the murder couldn’t have happened much earlier than the night before, and more likely that morning.
Which meant there might be time left, still, to find the other girls alive.
“Bolen’s going to go talk to the Adderlys.” Massey returned, looking grim. “He was pretty broken up about it when I gave him the news.”
“He’s seen the girls grow up. Everyone here did.” She glanced at the grim faces of the detectives and uniformed cops preserving the crime scene as they waited for the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation crime-scene unit to arrive. “This place isn’t like big cities. Nobody much has the stomach for whistling through the graveyard here. Not when you know all the bodies.”
“I’m not from a big city,” he said quietly. “Terrebonne’s not much more than a dot on the Gulf Coast map.”
“So this is a lateral move for you?” she asked as they started back up the trail, trying to distract herself from what she feared she’d find ahead.
“No, it’s upward. I was just a deputy investigator on the county sheriff’s squad down there. Here, I’m the top guy.” He didn’t sound as if he felt on top of anything. She slanted a look his way and found him frowning as he gazed up the wooded trail. She followed his gaze but saw nothing strange.
“What’s wrong?”
His eyes narrowed. “I don’t know. I thought—” He shook his head. “Probably a squirrel.”
She caught his arm when he started to move forward, shaking her head when he started to speak. Behind her, she could still hear the faint murmur of voices around the crime scene, but ahead, there was nothing but the cold breeze rattling the lingering dead leaves in the trees.
“No birdsong.” She let go of his arm.
“Should there be?”
She nodded. “Sparrows, wrens, crows, jays—they should be busy in the trees up here.”
“Something’s spooked them?”
She nodded, her chest aching with dread. All the old tales she’d heard all her life about haints and witches in the hills seemed childish and benign compared to the reality of what might lie ahead of them on the trail. But she couldn’t turn back.
If there was a chance Jannie