Page 40 of The Whispering Girls

The dog backed away from the area. Kneeling down, she could see there were rocks lined up, as if someone had been attempting to make a decorative outline along a flowerbed.

“What is it?”

“I’m not sure, but…” Katie looked closer. “Rocks are missing.”

“Anything could have caused that and they might not have been there in the first place.”

“True…but there were rocks similar to these at both crime scenes.”

“Do we take one to compare?” McGaven frowned.

“Let’s get some photos,” she said. “You notice that the items taken are general items, making it difficult to identify if they belong here.” Katie sat back and thought about everything. Then she stood up and faced her partner.

“I can see the wheels turning again.”

“What does this represent?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“This. The property way out here. The missing tools… This whole area?”

“A place to look for clues?”

“Yes… But doesn’t it seem like we’re on a wild goose chase?”

“Who would do that?” he said.

“Besides the killer? I’m not sure.”

“What you’re saying is that someone doesn’t want us poking around.”

“They know we'll investigate, but once we can’t come up with a definite suspect or person of interest…eventually the leads will stop and then we’ll go home.”

“So who wants us to go home?” McGaven said.

“At least so far, I think it's possible we’re up against twopeople. A killer and someone who doesn’t want us to find the killer. It's a working theory.”

Katie took a few photos of the rock area before they headed back to the Jeep.

All of a sudden two shotgun blasts came from near the row of trees one hundred yards away.

Instinctively, Katie, McGaven, and Cisco jumped down into the ditch.

NINETEEN

Thursday 1750 hours

Katie’s heart pounded relentlessly in her chest as she sat in a crouched position in the dugout gully at the cabin. She didn’t immediately hear McGaven talking to her. Her memories of her time in the Army during maneuvers into enemy territories had taken over: hearing gunfire and bomb blasts, she would never forget the sounds, the heat, and the heavily grimy environment. Her vision became dark and the colors around her were almost in black and white. The constant stress and fear infused into her soul of being captured, tortured, and killed never left her mind.

As she took a few breaths, Katie’s pulse lowered and she felt the warmth and heartbeat of Cisco’s body pressed against her side. The shotgun blasts had brought back their time in unfriendly circumstances, but this time McGaven was with them. It helped to ease the anxiety.

“Katie, you okay?” said McGaven. His hand was on her arm as if he’d tried to shake her back into reality.

Katie turned her head and looked at her partner. With his strong face and his eyes emanating deep concern as hecontinued to speak more to her, she realized that the gunfire was farther away than she had first thought.

“It came from that large cluster of trees,” she managed to say, still feeling unsteady.

“I don’t think anyone was aiming at us.”