Page 105 of Silent Bones

Noah didn’t break stride. “I’m not here to tell stories,” he muttered. “I’m here to stop one.”

The conference room had barely settled when McKenzie stepped forward, his voice filling the vacuum Noah left behind.

“What about phones?” Someone asked.

“We have recovered Avery Calder’s phone,” he said, without preamble.

Every head snapped up. Cameras clicked. Fingers froze over notepads. Even Whitaker blinked, caught off guard.

McKenzie continued, “A phone was found last night at Wallface. That’s the site of a landslide that occurred just under a year ago.”

Noah saw it ripple through the room, the sudden shift from noise to pin-drop tension. Now they were listening.

Sheriff Rivera nodded from the side, confirming it. Calder didn’t move.

McKenzie looked directly at the cameras. “We believe the phone was placed deliberately. On a cairn of six carefully stacked stones. It wasn’t dropped. It was staged.”

A murmur passed through the reporters like wind through trees.

“We believe this was a message,” McKenzie said.

Then came the inevitable shout: “Any video evidence?”

McKenzie’s mouth tightened. “Yes.”

A pause.

“It appears Avery turned her camera on. Her phone was recording, briefly, during the abduction. The footage confirms one suspect was involved.”

Gasps, cameras, chaos. Noah closed his eyes for a beat. He could feel it coming, the storm, but this part had to be said.

“Can you share what was on it?”

McKenzie raised a hand to hold the media in place. “I’m going to describe what’s in the video. We will not be releasing it publicly.”

He paused. Even Whitaker didn’t interrupt.

“The video is shaky. It’s dark. But it shows a struggle. A flashlight beam catches a man dragging who we believe to be, Avery Calder. She’s conscious but restrained. The man’s face is briefly illuminated. We are still confirming the identification of the suspect.”

He let the words land.

“Why wasn’t this made public earlier?” a reporter demanded.

“Because we reviewed the footage late last night,” McKenzie said. “And because we prioritized verifying its authenticity before making it part of the public record.”

Noah could already hear Whitaker preparing a rebuttal behind him, but he didn’t care. The truth wasn’t a soundbite. It was jagged and slow and often made people uncomfortable.

The question came again, softer this time: “Why place the phone at Wallface?”

Noah’s mind flashed back to the night before.

A cold wind slipped through the trees like breath through a graveyard. Noah stepped out of the cruiser with Callie, McKenzie a few paces ahead. Rishi had triangulated Avery’s last GPS ping to a ridge above the Wallface floodplain.

“What are we looking for?” McKenzie had asked, voice low.

“Something he wants us to find,” Noah replied.

Callie had her flashlight out first. “There.”