Page 5 of In Her Wake
“Unusual how?”
Jake hesitated.“You really need to see for yourself.How fast can you get here?”
Jenna glanced at her watch.“I’m out past Irvington.Give me an hour.”
“Drive safe,” Jake said, and hung up.
Jenna pocketed her phone and turned back to the Mortons, who were watching her with undisguised curiosity.She realized that she had no more questions to ask, and they knew nothing that she wanted to know.
“I’m sorry, but I need to get back to Trentville,” she said, retrieving Piper’s photo from Samuel.“Official business.”
Samuel nodded, though his expression remained skeptical.“Hope you find your sister, Sheriff.Twenty years is a long time to be missing someone.”
“Yes,” Jenna agreed softly.“It is.”
She thanked them for their time and returned to her cruiser.As she turned around in the driveway, she caught a last glimpse of the farmhouse in her rearview mirror.So close to her dream vision, yet not quite right.Another dead end.
The gravel crunched beneath her tires as she accelerated back toward the main road, frustration burning in her chest.Twenty years of searching, and she was still no closer to finding Piper.
But now there was something else to focus on—whatever awaited her at Harry Powell’s house.Jake wasn’t easily rattled.If he said it was unusual, it must be significant.
Jenna merged onto the highway toward Trentville, pushing her speed just above the limit.The scarecrow at the crossroads receded in her memory, another false sign on a journey filled with them.Yet Patricia’s words had been clear: “Find the scarecrow at the crossroads.”
Perhaps she’d been looking in the wrong place.Perhaps the true crossroads still lay somewhere ahead.
CHAPTER TWO
Jenna pulled her cruiser up to the curb in front of 1423 Maple Street.The ordinary two-story suburban home only looked different from others in that neighborhood because of the two patrol cars already parked in the driveway, one of them Jake’s.She cut the engine and sat for a moment, trying to shift her mind from the disappointment of another dead end in her search for Piper to whatever awaited inside the Powell residence.
Jake’s phone call had been oddly cryptic and urgent.“Something unusual,” he’d said.Considering the cases they’d recently dealt with, unusual seemed to be becoming the norm.
She stepped out of the car, straightened her uniform, and walked up the neat concrete path to the front door.Before she could knock, the door swung open.Jake stood in the threshold, his typical unruffled manner replaced by something Jenna rarely saw in him—uncertainty.
“Thanks for coming so quickly,” he said, voice low.He searched her face, no doubt noting the shadows beneath her eyes.“Any luck out at the farm?”
Jenna found it a comfort that Jake knew all about her ongoing search for Piper.She’d also told him about her lucid dreams back in June, making him one of three people—including Jenna herself—who knew the truth about her gift—if she could call it that.
“Another false lead,” she replied, the words sounding all too familiar in her own ears.“The house I found wasn’t quite right.And no one there recognized Piper’s photo.”
Jake nodded, knowing better than to offer empty reassurances.In the two years they’d worked together, he’d learned when her sister was a topic for conversation and when it wasn’t.This wasn’t the time.
“So what’s this situation that couldn’t wait?”Jenna asked, glancing past him into the house.
“It’s...”Jake hesitated, running a hand through his sandy hair.“Harry Powell’s wife seems to have gone missing, but … that’s not all.It’s not like anything we’ve dealt with before.Nothing I’ve ever seen, either here or even back when I was a cop in Kansas City.Better if you see it for yourself.”
He stepped aside to let her in.Jenna followed Jake through to the living room, where a man in his fifties sat on the edge of a beige sofa.His hands were clasped tightly, and his eyes darted up at their entrance with a desperate hope that quickly faded when he saw Jenna.
Officer Maria Delgado sat beside him, her notepad open but mostly empty.She gave Jenna a subtle nod, her expression conveying that this was no ordinary case.
“Mr.Powell, this is Sheriff Graves,” Jake said.
Harry Powell stood quickly, nearly stumbling in his haste.“Have you found her?Have you found Marjory?”
Jenna recognized him vaguely—a face she’d seen around town, perhaps at community events or the grocery store, but never someone she’d had reason to speak with directly.
“I’ve just arrived, Mr.Powell,” she said, keeping her voice level, professional.“I don’t have any updates for you yet.Are you saying your wife is missing?”
“Yes—no—I don’t know.”His words tumbled out, colliding with each other.“She’s not here, but there’s—there’s something else.Something I found.”
