Page 4 of All the Missing Pieces

I nodded absently, searching the crowd as she led me through it. The music grated on my ears now, making my head pound. Lana clicked on her phone’s flashlight, illuminating our path. The same tree-lined trail that had seemed so innocent on my way in now cast ominous shadows.

We walked quickly up the hill and toward the road, but just as we were about to get out of the forest, something caught my eye. “Wait.” I grabbed Lana’s arm, my throat constricting as blood pounded in my ears.

It was the tiny silver lacrosse sticks formed in an X that had caught the light. My heart thudded, painfully slow and trippingly fast all at the same time.

I bent, grabbing the custom key ring I’d gotten Avs for Christmas two years ago. A sick feeling settled over me as I saw theAin the center of one of the lacrosse sticks.

When I turned it over, something else caught the light. A dark-red substance. Sticky almost.

“Oh God,” Lana whispered. “Is that blood?”

And my whole world crumbled.

1

RIDLEY

FIVE YEARS LATER

I leanedinto the curve of the road, my restored VW Kombi van hugging the bend perfectly. Bessie and I had been together for over three years, and I knew just the speed at which she could take turns like this one. I’d spent every cent of my savings to bring her back to life and customize her insides. From the kitchen and seating area to my office in the back to the pop-up bedroom in the roof. And who could forget the cat tower for Tater.

As if she could sense my thoughts drifting to her, she stretched in her bed on the dash, leaning over to lightly nip my fingers on the wheel.

“We’re almost there. No need for tooth hugs,” I chastised.

She meowed in answer. But it sounded more like a demand. And once she got started, there was no stopping her.

But Tater’stalkingonly made me smile as the road curved again. The two-lane highway was blanketed by a wall of massive trees on either side, but they didn’t make me feel claustrophobic. They made me feel free.

My work brought me to cities occasionally, but I did my best to pick locations off the beaten path. Ones where I had access to my drugs of choice: mountains, forests, deserts, or bodies of water of any kind. They were the only places I found comfort now. The only places I could find peace for a fleeting moment. In nature and in my work.

As if the thought summoned him, my phone rang out with theJawstheme song. It was a good thing my boss didn’t know this was his ringtone, because he wouldn’t have been pleased.

I tappedaccepton the screen, choosing speakerphone. “Hey, Baker.”

“Where are you?” he clipped.

Never any pleasantries with my producer. Always in a rush. In his book, time was money and he wasn’t going to waste a dime. “About five minutes out from Shady Cove.”

I heard a chair squeak over the line as Baker sighed, and I could picture my boss in his office on Sunset Boulevard, looking out over Los Angeles and wondering how he ended up with such an obstinate podcaster under his umbrella. “You could keep going another few hours north and take that case of the missing mom of three.”

My stomach twisted. That mother deserved her justice too. But I needed this case in Shady Cove. This woman. This set of circumstances. “I can look into that one next.”

I’d have to give Baker a win after back-to-back passion projects. But I’d gotten used to that cadence. Two for me, one for him.

He sighed again, as if disappointed in me. “I don’t get what’s so interesting to you about this one. Bungled abduction. The girl got away.”

That itch skated over my skin again, the need to move, to roll down my window and breathe the fresh mountain air. “Which means I’ll have a victim to interview. How often do we get that?”

Baker made a humming noise in the back of his throat as he mulled that over. I knew what called to him. Any angle that would push the numbers. Subscribers, downloads, listens. The hope of going viral on TikTok. Anything that would up what he could charge advertisers.

“You could have a point.”

I went in for the kill. “They never found the perp. Maybe we get lucky and nab him.”

I’d been doing this for over four years now. I’d covered over a dozen cases. I’d made headway in almost all of them, but I’d broken three wide-open. One had left a man doing twenty to life for murdering his wife, the other had a man on trial for the abduction and assault of eight women in Wyoming, and the final one had meant a life ended in a shootout when a man opened fire on the FBI instead of being brought in for questioning in the disappearance of a college student—they’d found her body in his basement.

“I want you to start posting tonight,” Baker ordered.

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