“Another girl vanished from her bus stop this morning,” he told me and finally glanced my way. “The Feds in charge of the case don’t have any leads. The girl’s mother came to me, hysterical. She just wants her daughter back home.”
I knew what he was going to ask. I’d even offered to help him before, but he’d told me the work was too dangerous.
He swallowed and, slowly, his right hand left the steering wheel. He pulled a small color photograph out of his pocket and handed it to me. A smiling blonde girl, my age, stared back at me. “This is Caitlin Crenshaw," he told me, voice rasping, "and she’s lost.”
***
The principal’s office door clicked shut behind me, and I jerked back to the present. Mr. Knoxley shuffled around the room and stood behind his desk.
My dad had taken a position blocking the closed door. I didn’t know what else to do, so I just sat in one of Knoxley’s stiff “bad student” chairs.
“Ms. Lambert,” the principal began, “let me first tell you how sorry I am to hear about your recent accident.”
“Thanks.” I was rather sorry to have been in the accident, but I managed to hold that comment back. I hoped dad appreciated my restraint.
Mr. Knoxley's head cocked to the left. “You were on your way to a party at Brent Peters’ that night, correct?”
Wasn’t that obvious?
“We have recently learned,” Mr. Knoxley continued in his slightly nasal voice, “that another one of our students, a freshman named Sissy Hamilton, attended that party.”
Uh, okay. “I don’t know her.”
He made what sounded like a faint hum, then revealed, “Sissy never came home.”
I swallowed and glanced back at my dad. His jaw was clenched tight, but as I watched, he took a deep breath and said, “Sissy’s mother and father were in Atlanta for the weekend. They didn’t even realize Sissy was missing, not until they returned late last night.”
The first twenty-four hours are crucial. Dad had told me that. That was why he’d gotten me to search for Caitlin so soon after her disappearance. But this girl Sissy…she’d been missing for so long now.
“Two of her friends confirmed she was at the party.” Now Mr. Knoxley was talking again. “We think she fled when the sheriff arrived. She’d promised her parents that she’d stay home all weekend.”
So she’d slipped away when the sirens started screaming because she hadn’t wanted to get busted.
“She actually doesn’t live very far the Peters’ house,” my dad said. “So she probably expected just a quick walk through the woods to her place.”
“But we think she became lost.” Mr. Knoxley leaned forward as he said this part.
Lost.
“I’ve got teams searching the woods for her now.” My dad nodded. “They’ve brought in the dogs, and they’re trying to catch her scent.”
“The weather has been mild,” Mr. Knoxley added nearly a second later, “so there is no reason to suspect that any sort of foul play has befallen Sissy.”
I wasn’t so sure. “There are wolves out there, Mr. Knoxley. A wolf tried to attack me the night of the accident.”
His skin paled a bit.
I glanced at my dad. “What do you want me to do?”
He spared a glance at the principal. “I need to talk to my daughter alone now, Justin.”
“But, I—”
“Alone.”
Mr. Knoxley’s spine snapped straight up, and he hurriedly shuffled for the exit.
As soon as he was gone, my dad reached into his pocket. He pulled out a picture.
I need your help, baby.
The past and the present blurred.
“I told Mr. Knoxley that I wanted to question you and some of the other kids who were at the party—to see if you might remember Sissy leaving Brent’s house.”
But he’d lied. Dad was a good liar.
He handed me the picture and said the magic words that he knew would unlock the key in my mind. “This is Sissy Hamilton, and she’s lost.”
It’s different for me every time. The things I see…they can scare me. No, terrify me. When I saw the pictures of those hikers, I’d immediately glimpsed their bones. With Caitlin, I’d seen the building she was being held inside, and the face of the man before her, the man with the bloody knife.
But with Sissy, I just saw tree tops. Big, green tree tops.
“Take me to the woods,” I told my dad. “And I’ll take you to her.” Because once I was out there, I’d be pulled to her like a magnet.
“Is she alive?” He asked me bluntly.
I wanted to give him hope. I couldn’t. “I don’t know.”