“No, he didn’t.”
“Then what?” she asked in a subdued voice. “Darwin and I weren’t wrong about the trail. Scout brought us here, too.”
“No, you weren’t wrong.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Watch the dogs. Remember, search-and-rescue dogs can follow scents even if those scents are in a vehicle. See the way they’re behaving?”
Shannon nodded.
“My bet is Dylan got into a vehicle here...or was put in one. Hold on a minute,” Logan said, pulling his cell phone out of its holster.
Shannon squatted down by the road, trying to make sense of the various tire tracks in the gravel. How would a small boy who’d wandered away from his family’s campsite end up in a vehicle? She couldn’t see anything that enlightened her. Then she noticed a small pool of engine oil. It looked fresh. She glanced up at Logan. He was still talking on his phone.
Thinking optimistically, she supposed that someone working in the park could have come across Dylan. But if that was the case, Dylan would’ve been taken to the rangers’ station and would have been reunited with his family by now.
Since they hadn’t heard anything yet, that scenario was unlikely.
The alternatives unnerved her.
Could someone have happened upon Dylan and simply taken him? If not...was it possible that Dylan hadn’t walked away from his campsite at all?
“You’re thinking that Dylan didn’t wander away from the campsite?” she asked as soon as Logan was off the phone. “That he was abducted?”
“Yeah. That’s what I think. No one has contacted the rangers’ station or the division about finding a boy.” He looked around. “This is where one trail ends and another—in a vehicle—begins.”
“There’s fresh engine oil on the gravel.” Shannon gestured toward the spot. “If the dogs have the scent, should we follow it?”
Logan frowned. “No. The ranger I spoke with said the service road is at least four or five miles and it connects to a main arterial. If we’re correct that Dylan was put in a vehicle here, that vehicle had no place to go except down this road. At the arterial, the scent will be much too faint for the dogs to determine which direction it took, let alone follow it from there.”
As they made their way back to the campsite, Logan called the division to get additional resources. The Special Response Team would lead the search, and the FBI would be brought in to assist, which was normal procedure for suspected abductions. All Shannon could think of was how shattered Sawyer had looked and the small glimmer of hope that had flickered in his eyes when she’d said they weren’t giving up.
How could she explain that they thought his son had been abducted?
And why?
“What sort of salary would a professor of law earn?” she asked Logan.
“If you’re thinking of money as a motive, I’d bet he has enough. We ran him. He was an assistant DA before he switched to teaching.”
Shannon mulled that over. She checked her watch. It must’ve been at least five hours since Dylan had disappeared. “If it is kidnapping, shouldn’t there have been contact by now? A call or a ransom demand?”
Logan shrugged. “Odds are, but not necessarily. And money isn’t always the goal. As an assistant DA, he impacted a lot of people’s lives. Those he sent to jail. Their loved ones.”
When they reached the campsite, Shannon immediately noticed that Sawyer wasn’t at the table with his family. Again, he was alone. This time, he was sitting in the sand on the shore of the lake. His knees were bent, arms wrapped around them.
“Do you want me to tell him?” Logan asked.
Shannon wasn’t going to shirk her responsibilities, regardless of how difficult it would be for her. She knew Logan had more calls to make to coordinate the next steps. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll do it.”
She handed Darwin’s leash to Logan, drew a deep breath and walked slowly to where Sawyer was.
“Mr. Evans... Sawyer?” she said softly as she approached him.
He gazed up at her as if he’d just come out of a trance and scrambled to his feet. His eyes were wild as he glanced about.
“We didn’t find him,” she said.
He seemed to close in on himself and collapsed back onto the ground, elbows on his knees and his forehead in his hands. “What now?” he asked in a barely audible voice.
She lowered herself to the sand beside him. “We need to ask you some questions.”
He didn’t move. Didn’t look at her. “You and the others have already asked me all the questions imaginable.”
Shannon understood his frustration, but the questions so far had focused on the possibility of a child wandering away. She had to tell him what their hypothesis was and that it required a whole new set of questions to be explored—including those that would probe whether he or another member of his family could’ve had anything to do with it. “No, we haven’t,” she responded. “We suspect that Dylan didn’t wander away.”
Sawyer lifted his head and stared at her as if she’d suddenly grown horns. “What? If he didn’t wander away, then where is he? One of us has been here at the camp since I discovered he was gone.”
As painful as it had been when she’d learned that Charlie was missing—and all because he’d wanted to be with her—it would be far worse for Sawyer once she explained the situation to him. She wished there was something she could say or do to soften the blow, but the cold, hard truth had to be said.
* * *
WHEN THE POLICE officer didn’t answer his question right away, Sawyer scrabbled around to face her and grasped her upper arms. “What do you mean Dylan didn’t wander away?”
Her eyebrows furrowed and she glanced down to where he was gripping her.
Only then did he realize he was holding her and not gently. He immediately released her. Seeing the distinct marks left by his fingers below the short sleeves of her uniform shirt, he was dismayed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry... Officer,” he mumbled.
She rubbed a hand over the spot on her arm. “It’s okay. And it’s Clemens. Shannon Clemens. We followed a trail to a service road. We think he was put in a vehicle there.”
Sawyer slumped back on his heels. “Someone found him? Have you checked to see if anyone’s reported finding him? To the rangers or the police?”
“Yes. Neither the park rangers nor the SDPD have received any report of a young boy being found.”
“But you think someone put him in a vehicle and...took him?” Sawyer couldn’t believe what he was hearing. If someone had found Dylan, lost and alone, surely that person would have taken him to the rangers’ office or the police by now. And if not? As he realized what she was saying, the horror of it threatened to overwhelm him. “You think he’s been...kidnapped?” he asked, his voice raw.
“We think someone took Dylan. The distance he would’ve had to travel to the service road, especially in bare feet, is too far. He was probably carried, if not all the way, then part of it.” Shannon nodded to her captain, who’d just joined them, before continuing. “Based on the behavior of the dogs, we suspect a person or persons put him in a vehicle at that location.”
Sawyer staggered to his feet. Turning his back on the cops, he dragged the fingers of both hands through his hair.
He was fairly certain this was what losing one’s mind felt like. His son was missing—might have been abducted—and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it. After Jeannette had