Page 112 of Stay With Me
Chris’s voice gets farther away.
“Check the trees. She used to climb them when she was a kid. She might have climbed up one and hoped she could hide until someone found her.”
The crunch of pine needles grows distant as they walk farther away.
I don’t hear Chris respond, and I release the air I’d trapped in my lungs. The hum of insects surrounds me as doubt fills me at my choice to run.
I don’t know how long I should wait before I try to leave my safe place to find somewhere I can call for help.
The branches rustle in the wind as I lie curled up, and I fight a shiver as the temperature starts to drop. After a few minutes, raindrops bounce off the tree trunk.
Thankfully, the trunk has no holes, so it should keep me dry.
FIFTY-ONE
Noah
Theconferenceroomhasbeen set up as a task force headquarters. Hunt and his team, along with some local FBI agents, arrived and are talking to other deputies from the tri-county area.
I look down at my watch and walk down the hall to my office, where the girls are hanging out with Jess. I peek around the partially open door and see that she’s coloring. Am meets my eyes and shakes her head, confirming that she hasn’t talked since they all came in here.
It’ll take time, but she’ll see that no one is mad at her.
Do I wish she would have told someone? Yes, but I would never blame her.
I walk back to the conference room, the map I made displayed on one wall. The other deputies are adding dots where they received reports that The Family, we’re pretty sure, stayed for a day or two, then left before they got caught.
Hunt walks up to me with Luke and Sam flanking him.
“How’s Jess?” Sam asks, a deep crease between his eyebrows.
“Still not talking, I’m thinking about calling her therapist to see if she can have an emergency session. I hate that she thinks we’re all going to hate her.”
“Calling the therapist might not be a bad idea. I can’t imagine the toll keeping all that in took on her. Her whole world was flipped upside down twice, and while you both did everything you could, breaking the cult mentality when she still had access to them is one of the hardest things to do,” Hunt says.
“I’ve never wanted to kill a whole group of people more than when she was talking about how they treated her. Like Luna leaving was her fault! She was an infant!” Sam says with so much venom in his voice.
I’ve never seen this side of him. He’s normally calm and collected.
I start to pace the hallway, fists clenched. “We need something. Anything. These assholes have been around three counties with barely a footprint other than leaving weird-ass clues as they tore the places apart. Time is ticking. They could be long gone with her by now.”
Luke steps into my line of sight and grabs my shoulders. “You need to take a breath. Luna needs you, and this is what you’re trained for. We can beat ourselves up all day. You know I did for what happened to Am. But she needs you to not lose your shit right now. Jess needs you to not lose your shit right now. Do you hear me?” he says, his voice soft but firm.
“How did you do it?” I whisper. Guilt settles in my chest.I should have never let her go out there alone.
He shakes his head. “My love for her and the need for her safety outweighed the anger and fear I felt, but I also knew when to step aside and not take point when it was needed.” He looks over at Sam. “We’re with you, brother. We might not be law enforcement, but we’ll be feet on the ground when the timecomes to do any sort of searching for her, because she’s smart, just like my Amelia. If she can get away, she will.”
I nod, but before I can say anything, an agent walks up to us. “Deputy Andrews, we have the video footage from the store along with some of the CCTV videos of the route they took until they reached the rural part of town, where there aren’t cameras.”
I walk over to the laptop set up in the corner and connected to a TV I had brought in so the screen could be shared. We wait as it loads. The grainy video loads, and everyone stops talking.
I see us pulling in and getting out of the truck. Everyone can’t see the smile on my face when I walk around the truck to meet the girls, but I know it’s there. I rub my chest as the scene plays out. I see Jess look back at the truck before closing the door all the way. I’m guessing debating if she should follow through or not.
We exit the view of that camera as we walk toward the store. Hunt fast-forwards the footage, and a few minutes later, a white van comes in and out of view as they drive around the parking lot before parking next to my truck.
“I wish there were more angles of the parking lot besides just the one,” I mumble.
“We have to be thankful for what we have. A lot of the stores here wouldn’t have even the one angle,” Luke says.
