Page 100 of Little Girls Sleeping
His thoughts of spending time with Katie kept him company as he wondered if he would ever see her again. He also questioned whether they would work as a couple. She was so driven and determined, and it wasn’t written in stone that she was going to stay in her hometown. He knew that she could go anywhere she wanted.
His cell phone made a bell sound as he drifted in and out of signal range, but the GPS seemed to keep a connection and led him towards the area where he would begin his next search.
After fifteen minutes, the Jeep reached flat ground. Chad quickly parked and checked his backpack to make sure he had everything he needed.
The radio crackled into life and the familiar voice of the sheriff said, “Chad, anything yet? Over.”
He took a moment to reply. “Negative, over.”
“Everything okay? Over.”
“We’re fine. Last grid location before dark. Over.”
“Check back in an hour. Over and out.”
The radio returned to quiet mode.
Chad knew that the other search teams weren’t coming up with anything either.
He packed more supplies and another sweatshirt due to the falling temperature. Cisco barked and turned his nose in the direction they were headed.
“I hear ya, buddy,” Chad said.
The GPS clicked back on and showed the direction they needed to be heading.
“Well this is it,” he told the dog. “Put your extra-sharp canine senses to good use.”
This time was different; it felt more lonely and remote, but Chad continued to move forward. His quadriceps and hamstrings were put to the test as he trekked down the trail. He felt as if he had already lost ten pounds of body weight and gained twenty pounds of backpack weight.
The sun moved into its low, late-afternoon position, just waiting before hiding behind the trees and then slipping below the western horizon. The wind picked up velocity with a chilling howl. There were no more loud underground rumbles percolating through the landscape.
Cisco padded ahead in point position along the trail, only stopping once in a while to look back at Chad to make sure he was still following. Chad imagined him doing the same thing in Afghanistan. The danger now wasn’t imminent, but the situation was just as critical. The dog’s dark coat still shone even in the diminishing light as he trotted effortlessly along, fanning his nose for any familiar scent.
Chad didn’t want to think about what would happen when the sun actually set and ended the daylight.
Fifty-Eight
After Katie had weakly examined her surroundings, it was clear that the hole she had fallen into was different from the one that had swallowed Charles. It was narrower, more structured, and seemed likely to be man-made instead of a mass irregularity in the earth. It resembled something that might have been used for a mine, like an emergency ventilation shaft.
Her body was weary after her attempts to climb out of the previous hole. Her hands were raw and two of her fingernails had torn away to the quick. Her self-pity tears had run dry. She hadn’t eaten or had a drink in hours, as evidenced by the strained growling noises from her stomach and her parched lips. Fatigue and exhaustion had begun to set in. Soon she wouldn’t be able to move, but only shiver in the darkness underground until her body couldn’t function anymore. Her organs would slowly begin to shut down.
She leaned back against a wall of packed dirt and listened to her surroundings. The wind and trees were the only noises that kept her company.
Sleep overpowered her and tried to beat her into submission, but she didn’t want to give in to its powers—not just yet. Her eyelids grew heavy and her breathing was shallow and slow. The muscles in her legs cramped, especially in her calves. Excessive thirst almost overwhelmed her rational thinking. Her body wouldn’t stop shaking, and she knew it was a sign of hypothermia. She had rushes of hot and cold, dizziness, and an almost blinding headache was beginning to obscure her vision.
Chad regained some energy due to the flat terrain rather than the sharp inclines on his earlier searches. He marveled at the region he was combing. It was a place that he had never visited, at least not in memory, and under any other circumstances it would have been beautiful and tranquil. The landscape gently swelled and dipped, full of contrasting greens, browns, and golden yellows. It had been moved by centuries of earthquakes and natural weather conditions and had become a masterpiece. The view was an artist’s nirvana, worthy of oversized photographs and paintings.
He paid particular attention to the trails and narrow roads. He wasn’t completely sure, but it looked as if there were some tire tracks travelling in the same direction he was headed. But whether the impressions were recent, days old, or from three months ago was the question of the hour.
He knew that Katie would be able to deduce when the tracks were made. After she’d found the bodies of the two little girls, there’d been quite a bit of gossip. Some thought she was a genius, while others were locked into the idea that it was just pure luck. Either way, she was the one who had found the missing children, alone, and using the skills outlined in her field notebook.
Chad stopped. He gazed at the sky with its clouds rushing in, trying to pull himself together and make sense of what he was facing—and more importantly, what Katie was facing.
Cisco trotted on towards some seemingly enticing bushes, then suddenly dropped to the ground, crawling slowly on his belly, heading southeast. Chad was about to call to him, but decided to let him do what he knew how to do. He watched the dog with curiosity, his heart pounding in his chest. His breath wavered, leaving behind a lump of angst in his throat.
Cisco growled and the hackles stood up along his backbone, making him appear much larger than his eighty-five pounds. His yellowish-brown eyes were focused, targeted and unrelenting, and his ears pointed straight up.
Still Chad didn’t move an inch. His own instincts seemed to jump-start, with prickly feelings up his spine and the back of his neck. Something unnatural had caught his attention too, but he didn’t know exactly what it was—enemy or friend.
