Page 60 of The Lovely and the Lost

When we arrived at the station, they separated us. I’d expected that. I hadn’t expected the room they put me in to be so small. The longer I sat there, waiting for the sheriff, the closer the walls on all sides seemed.

I can do this.I’d come with Gabriel because there was strength in numbers.Confined space. Stale air.Awareness of the lack of windows pulsated through me. I set my jaw and stared straight ahead. Free and Jude wouldn’t leave me—or Gabriel—here for long.

The door to the interrogation room opened. I tracked the sound of footsteps coming toward the table. The sheriff sat down across from me.

Confined space. Stale air. Predator.I thought of my encounter with the mountain lion the day before. If I could handle that, I could handle this.

“I’ll be straight with you, Kira.” The sheriff paused, waiting for a response—not a verbal one, but a shift in my position, a blink of my eyes. “We know that the person who took Bella has a high degree of familiarity with Sierra Glades National Park, particularly, though not exclusively, the mountains. Your foster mother and Mackinnon Wade were tracking Bella and her kidnapper when the trail brought them to that clearing—and those bodies. At a minimum, Bella and her kidnapper stopped there. The FBI’s profilers believe it’s more than that—they believe the person who took Bella is also the person responsible for the grave site. That person is almost certainly local, and yesterday’s discovery suggests that he or she may have been using the park as their own personal hunting grounds for four to five years.” The sheriff tilted his head to the right, his eyes sharp. “What has Gabriel told you about his brother?”

I hadn’t seen that question coming. I tried not to let that matter. “I know that Gabriel’s brother went missing four years ago.”

The sheriff laid his hands flat on the table between us. It was a casual gesture that didn’t feelcasualat all. “We’re still waiting on forensic analysis and full autopsies,” he said, his knuckles rising slightly off the table, “but I suspect they’ll date the oldest body to the summer of Andrés Cortez’s disappearance.”

My brain latched onto certain words.Bodyfirst, thenAndrés.

“Now, maybe one of those bodies belongs to Andrés Cortez,” the sheriff allowed, “but between you and me, I doubt it. More important,Gabrieldoubts it.”

I found the will and ability to reply. “What are you talking about?”

“Andrés Cortez was an incredible tracker.” The sheriff shifted his weight back in his chair, but somehow, the space between us seemed to shrink. “Gabriel’s brother was downright gifted at wilderness survival, and he worked as a guide on that mountain from the time he was a boy. Do you understand what I’m telling you?” He rapped the table, then spread his fingers flat again. “Somebody took Bella. Somebody killed the people we found yesterday, and I think that person has been living off the grid in the Sierra Glades foryears.”

The sheriff shifted his weight again—forward, this time. “When you first joined the search, did Gabriel ask you about your progress? Did he pump you for information? Do you have any reason to believe that he knew of the cave’s existence? Doeshethink Andrés is alive?”

Each question made it a little harder for me to breathe. The table separating my body from the sheriff’s wasn’t big enough. The room was getting smaller.

“Before Andrés disappeared, he purchased a great deal of wilderness equipment.” The intensity in the sheriff’s voice didn’t match the odd almost-smile on his face. “Enough to spend at least a year out there, trekking the glades.”

A year.I knew that at a certain point, a person stopped needing store-bought supplies to survive. If what Sheriff Rawlins was saying was true, Gabriel’s brother could still be out there, and if he had spent that long in the wilderness, alone, by choice—he might not be in his right mind.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m telling you this, Kira. You’re just a kid. You’re not even a local, but for some reason, you seem to want to protect Gabriel. That’s interesting to me. Gabriel doesn’t have many friends. He’s too volatile. You might even say he’s aggressive.”

The sheriff was a hypocrite. He wanted me to believe that Gabriel was the one who was out of control.

“Loyalty can be a wonderful trait, until it’s misplaced.” The sheriff stared at me. “Misplaced loyalty can be very dangerous.”

The emphasis he placed on the worddangeroustriggered something inside me. My adrenaline surged. I tried to tell myself that there was no real threat.Confined space. Stale air. Man wants to hurt Girl.I cut that thought off at the knees. It was all I could do not to lunge at him.

“All I need you to do is tell me what Gabriel has been up to for the past twenty-four hours.” The sheriff smiled, like he’d already won.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Gabriel hadn’t said anything about suspecting his brother. He’d gone back out to the caves, but he’d just been looking for the pathway through the mountain.

Hadn’t he?

Even if hehadbeen looking for his brother, that was because he’d spent years looking for Andrés. Not because he believed Andrés was the one who had taken Bella.

Right?I kept breathing.Inandout.

The sheriff lifted his hand. I almost flinched, almost lunged, but he wasn’t reaching for me. He pulled a photograph out of a thick manila envelope.

The stone formation, half-buried in front of the hash-marked tree.

“Why are you showing me this?” I asked.

The sheriff’s teeth flashed—almost, but not quite a smile. “I’m showing you what I need to show you to remind you that I am not the enemy here, Kira.” He paused. “Do you recognize this?” The sheriff tapped the photograph. He waited until he saw a spark of recognition in my eyes before continuing. “Gabriel did.” He pulled out a second picture—smaller stones, buried in a similar formation near some kind of fort. “The Circle for the Lost.”

The sheriff’s voice was soft now.He wants me to lean forward to hear him,I thought.He wants me to let my guard down.Maybe that was paranoia, and maybe I was right. Either way, I didn’t move.

“The Circle is an old Hunter’s Point tradition, dating back to the town’s founding when winters were long and some of the people who went off to explore the surrounding terrain were never seen or heard from again.” The sheriff let his index finger trail the two nearly identical stone circles. “Think of it as halfway between a grave marker and a prayer.”