Page 30 of The Devoted Game

Worth held up his hands and moved them back and forth as if erasing the suggestion Grace had made and Ryan had approved. “We don’t even have a line on the victim yet. What she looks like, how old she is, nothing. We need to know who we’re looking for prior to launching a search.”

“But there is a victim,” Ryan argued. “We just don’t know the specifics beyond that she’s female.”

As valid as Worth’s point was, this wasn’t about him. It wasn’t even about the victim.

This was about Ryan’s ability to meet the challenge. And he had only twenty-four hours.

Ten

16hours, 30minutes remaining...

Vulcan Park, 5:30 p.m.

“The K-9s have been over every inch of this park.” Vivian mentally cringed as she reported her status to Worth. “There’s nothing here, sir.”

Six hours, ten acres. And nothing.Dammit.

Worth had been right.

McBride had sent her here to head the search while he focused on identifying and tracking down anything he could find on the victim. And she had gotten nowhere. She had wasted time and resources.

A reporter, Nadine Goodman, and a cameraman from WKRT had shown up and attempted to question Vivian. Park security had sent them on their way. Fortunately, that one news crew was all that had bothered. Leave it to Nadine Goodman to sniff out the scent of a story ahead of the pack.

The hoopla at the cemetery had been about Alyssa Byrne, the daughter of one of the city’s prominent families. If the media had gotten wind of McBride’s participation, there was no indication. Vivian hoped their luck held out. Still, it seemed odd that a high-profile reporter like Goodman would show up for a missing person search without a socially elite name attached. Goodman was the one to worry about. She wasruthless. If she got wind of McBride’s participation, this case would ignite in the media.

Worth ordered Vivian back to Eighteenth Street. That lone command proved more devastating than if he had raked her over the coals.

She shoved her phone back into its holster and considered the official vehicles scattered around the parking area. All of it a major waste of time.

McBride, Pratt, and Davis were still working on identifying the latest victim and narrowing down the list of fans that had followed McBride’s career. Finding the victim was like looking for that single four-leafed mutation in a field of clover. There were hundreds of Joneses in the Birmingham area; hundreds had first name initials that began with the letterA—if the letter was even intended as an initial.

Basically, they had nothing.

How did you look for a missing person when you didn’t even know who you were looking for? Coming to Vulcan Park had been a shot in the dark at best.

What Vivian needed was a Pepsi. She had barked so many orders and walked so many miles over the park grounds, she was exhausted. The high sugar content would do her good. Lunch had come and gone with no time to care. After giving Birmingham PD’s team leader the final word to head home, she made a stop in the gift shop.

“Two-fifty-nine,” the clerk said after ringing up her purchase.

Vivian handed her three one-dollar bills and reached for her soft drink. A long line of brochures advertising local attractions filled display racks on the counter next to the register. The first couple snagged her attention. Shelby Iron Works and Sloss Furnaces. Both historic landmarks, the latter was now a huge open-air museum. Vivian had visited the Sloss Furnaces on a sixth-grade field trip. She reached for the brochure, some distant memory vying for her attention. She definitely needed that sugar; her brain was going to sludge.

She and McBride had considered Sloss Furnaces and Tannehill Ironworks, as well as Shelby Iron Works, as secondary search locations, but none of those were located atop Red Mountain like Vulcan Park. That one factor had advanced the park to the top of the priority list.

But they had been wrong ...Shehad been wrong.

“Now there’s a neat place to visit,” the clerk said with a knowing nod. “I take my kids there every year for the haunted house they put on. Scares ’em to death.”

Maybe it was the low blood sugar level or the gut-wrenching frustration, but Vivian opened up the brochure for a look. Anything to take her mind away even for a second. “It’s been a while since I was there,” she remarked, more to herself than to the woman behind the counter.

“Oh, you definitely need to go back,” she urged. “Why, that old place is something to see. Towering smokestacks and furnaces.” She cackled. “Old pipes snaking around in every direction like steel ghosts peeking around corners.”

Vivian smiled, allowing the woman’s enthusiasm to put a chink in her tension. “Sounds like fun.” She twisted the top off the drink bottle and downed a long, much-needed swallow.

“Good educational experience too,” the clerk went on as she passed Vivian her change. “Been here over a hundred years. Those blast furnaces melted all that ore dug outta this very mountain and turned it into steel. That’s what made this city. Birmingham wouldn’t be nothing but a fuel stop between Huntsville’s Rocket City and the capital in Montgomery if it hadn’t been for places like Sloss.” She gave a resolute nod. “Don’t let those rusty old boilers and water tanks fool you, they’re an important part of our history.”

Vivian almost asked her if she got a commission for her sales pitch, but then that final remark the lady had made cut through all the fatigue and frustration and kindled a spark of relevancy—rusty old boilers and water tanks.

Water tanks.