Chapter 1
Steam rose from the empty highway, the asphalt warmed by the bright rays of sunlight breaking through the thick canopy of trees that swept down the steep hillside toward the road. It was early. An avid camper, Caleb liked to get on the road before dawn, but Lacey had pushed back.
She was on-duty in less than an hour. Between rousing the kids from their beds, ensuring they had something at least semi-nutritious in their stomachs, and getting ready for her shift with the Sweet Home police, the morning had already been chaotic.
“Mama, why won’t you come camping with us?”
Lacey’s gaze flicked to the rearview mirror. With a stab of guilt, she took in her son’s miserable expression. A month ago, Caleb had moved out of the house. The change had been hard on them all, and the kids were still too young to understand the kinds of grown-up problems that plagued their parents’ marriage. All they knew was that something terrible had happened to their family.
Though tempted to lay the blame squarely at Caleb’s feet, Lacey knew the split wasn’t entirely his fault. Could she have done more to keep her marriage together? Had she put her career ahead of her family? These were a few of the questions that plagued her as she lay in bed alone, listening to the hum of the refrigerator, wide awake at 3 am.
“Sorry, sweetie, I’ve got to work but you’ll have fun with your dad. Fishing. Hiking. S’mores…”
“Will she be there?” Harper interrupted.
Avoiding her daughter’s eyes in the rearview mirror, Lacey dropped her gaze to the road ahead.
The she in question was Caleb’s new girlfriend, Danica.
It would be easy to blame the break-up on Danica as her family had, but in the moments when Lacey could see past her own pain, she knew they had both made decisions that had hurt their relationship. There was plenty of blame to go around for why they had grown apart, but introducing the kids to his new girlfriend so soon…
Lacey called it selfish.
Caleb called it honest.
They were both right.
“Mommy?” Harper asked.
“I don’t know.”
She hoped for the kids’ sake that Caleb would spend the weekend alone with them, but she had no idea what to expect. She should have asked. Insisted. But she couldn’t control the choices Caleb made anymore, not that she ever could. And they’d both committed to keeping things as civil as possible.
Still, the prospect of spending the Memorial Day weekend without either of her kiddos left her with a heavy heart.
The house would seem so empty without them.
Which is probably why her cousin Amber had been quick to schedule a girls’ weekend away at the Oregon coast, hoping the change of scenery might lift Lacey’s sagging spirits. They’d walk on the beach. Eat dinners out. Spend an afternoon unwinding at the spa. An early birthday present for them both, Amber had said, and while Lacey felt ambivalent at the prospect, she’d agreed.
It sure as hell beat moping.
No, it would be better than that. They would have fun, Lacey promised herself as she peered through the long shadows that stretched across the highway. When her phone rang, she didn’t need to check the heads-up display to know who was calling.
“Crap.”
Lacey’s stomach clenched with dread. Her thumb hovered over the call button and for one dizzying and blissful moment, she contemplated how good it would feel to refuse the call, but ignoring Caleb would be juvenile, and it would make an already tense situation worse.
From the backseat, Flynn muttered, “Uh-oh. Mama said a bad word.”
“What’s wrong?” Harper asked.
“Nothing, baby. We’re just running a little late.”
They were forty-three minutes late to be exact. Lacey sighed in resignation and picked up the call.
“Hello.”
“Where are you? We’ve been waiting for an hour.”
We.
Lacey swallowed hard. She felt the weight of the world descend in that two-letter word.
“We’re fifteen minutes out,” she responded in a flat, matter-of-fact tone.
A frustrated beat of silence pulsed through the speakers, underscoring Caleb’s anger.
There was nothing more she could do. She was already speeding, trying to make up time. The road ahead bent into a tight curve. Though Lacey handled it expertly, thanks to the many hours she’d spent practicing high-speed maneuvers on the track, the SUV didn’t handle the wet roads nearly as well as her police cruiser. The tires slid a little on the wet pavement as she exited the curve.
And that’s when she saw a shape emerge from the spiky shadows of the treetops falling across the road.
A shot of adrenaline jolted into her bloodstream.
“Shit.”
Lacey hit the brakes. The tires squealed. The kids screamed as she brought the SUV to an abrupt stop.
Caleb was all but forgotten as she craned her head around to check on the kids.
“Harper. Flynn. Are you okay?”
Though their faces were pale, they both nodded.
Satisfied by their response, Lacey turned her attention back toward the road. She squinted into the slanting sunlight half expecting to see a deer, but it wasn’t an animal that had emerged out into the center of the lane.
Oh god.
It was a child. A small child. Younger than Flynn. Half a second later and she wouldn’t have been able to stop in time. As if sensing her peril, panic flashed in the girl’s eyes, and she darted off the highway and into the woods.
Lacey pulled the SUV onto the shoulder and flicked the hazards on. She exited the car and stepped out onto the highway.
“Wait,” Lacey called, but she was too late. The girl was already gone.
She hurried across the road giving chase, coming to a stop at the base of a rise, but the girl had disappeared from view.
“Hey,” she called again, louder this time, but no answer came.
Lacey scanned the shadowy woods, searching for any sign of movement. From personal experience she knew how easy it was to get turned around, lost among the trees. And this girl, panicked, running blind…
Dammit, where was she?
Lacey berated herself for having lost sight of the child. She called again, her voice echoing through the forest, scaring some birds into flight, but it was no use. The girl wasn’t responding.
She didn’t have time for this. Caleb was already mad as a hornet because she was late dropping the kids off, and if she didn’t head back into town soon, she wouldn’t start her shift on time either.
But none of that mattered. There was no way Lacey could just leave the girl out here on her own.
Every year, thousands of children went missing in National and State Parks all over the country, and while most were returned safely to their parents, some were never found.
Lacey jogged back to the SUV. Yanking the door open, she retrieved her cell phone and called the station to request help. Then she glanced into the backseat where both the kids sat, looking worried.
“So what do we do now? Harper asked.
“There’s a little girl in the woods. Let’s go find her.”
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