Page 35 of At Midnight Comes the Cry

“I agree.” Russ shoved his hands in his jeans pockets. “What was your plan for finding your missing officer? That’s a hell of a lot of square miles to cover.”

For the first time, Terrance looked frustrated. “I’m trying to find air search support, but it’s difficult. We’re short-staffed all the way around.”

“Short-staffed.” Knox frowned. “Is that why the DEC only sent one guy? I mean, you came on assignment, right? This is the missing officer’s patrol area, not yours?”

“No, my area is closer to Akwesasne. But I know Santanoni well.”

There was something in the young man’s expression that looked… Russ couldn’t define it. Shifty? Embarrassed? He mentally snappedhis fingers.Guilty. “You haven’t been assigned to search at all, have you?”

Terrance gritted his teeth. “Pierre has gone missing.”

“Do your supervisors believe that?”

The ranger sighed. “No. It’s only been four days, and two of them were the weekend. Pierre’s been known to enjoy his time off. But he’s not at his house. I checked.”

Knox gave Russ a look. “What makes you think he’s in trouble, then, instead of sleeping it off in, I don’t know, Lake Placid?”

The ranger crossed his arms over his chest. “I had a dream.”

Knox leaned back. “You had… adream?”

“Dreams are important. They’re the way our unconscious minds synthesize information we’re not even aware of.”

“Yeah, but they’re not usually used for law enforcement purposes.”

Russ broke in. “Officer Terrance, are you Iroquois?”

The ranger resumed his perfect, DS-approved posture. “I am. Mohawk, to be exact. But this isn’t some sort of woo-woo mystical Indian act. There’s scientific evidence behind—”

Russ raised his hand. “I trust you. I call it intuition, and it’s been right more than wrong in my experience.” He gestured to the kitchen island. “Why don’t we all sit down, share our intel, and see if we can make some headway on this?”

Knox took a seat. Terrance leaned against the island. Russ spread the hunting and hiking guide map he had brought across the slick white surface and grabbed a pen from a mason jar near the fridge. “Okay, we’re here.” He circled the intersection marking the inn. “Here’s the Newcomb Post Office.” Another circle. “We know when the militia comes to town, they drive. There’s no way you can just off-road in this area, so where are they stashing their vehicles?”

Terrance took the pen. “There’s trailhead parking here, here, and here.” He added three slashes to the map. “Moose Pond Road goes way up toward the High Peaks, and there are places you could pull off far enough to call it parking. The problem is, the first good snow and you’re stuck in place.”

“Is there any private land in the area?” Knox leaned onto the island to get a better view. “I know the Park is a mix of private and public; maybe they’ve got a sympathizer. Or they’re just squatting now the summer people are gone.”

“This,” Terrance traced a roughly rectangular shape marked out in lighter green than the rest of the map, “is the only parcel not managed by the state. But if you follow its road, you can see it’s a lot closer to Tupper Lake than here.”

“So it doesn’t make sense they’d be driving down to Newcomb.”

“Right.”

Russ put his finger on the closest trailhead. “You said hikers hadn’t seen Pierre. Did you happen to notice the cars and trucks parked when you were asking around?”

Terrance shook his head. “Nothing that stood out. I was looking for Pierre’s truck.”

“Would you be able to identify any vehicles that are still there if we go back?”

The ranger looked at him. “I would.”

“Then that’s where we start.”

Knox pinched her fingers together, framing the “five miles” distance on the map legend. “That’s an awful lot of miles to cover.”

“You’ve got that right.” Terrance made a noise in the back of his throat. “We could really use one of the DEC’s spotter planes.”

Russ smiled. “You’re in luck, Officer. I may have someone who can help with that.”