it an accident?” There was dreadful hope in Laney’s voice. Doyle felt sick about having to dash it.
“No.”
She released a long sigh, her breath swirling through the cold air in a wispy cloud of condensation. “Then you may have three victims, not just one.”
He nodded, hating the fear in her eyes but knowing he would be doing her no favors to give her false hope. “We’ve already called in local trackers to start looking around for the other girls.”
“I called her cell phone. Back at the diner. Someone answered but didn’t speak.” Laney hugged herself more tightly.
Doyle felt the unexpected urge to wrap his own arms around her, to help her hold herself together. “Could it have been your sister on the other end?”
“I want to believe it could,” she admitted, once again dragging her straying gaze away from the body and back to him. “But I don’t think it was.”
“Did you hear anything at all?”
“Breathing, I think. The sound of rustling, like the wind through dead leaves. Nothing else. Then the call cut off.”
“Anything that might give us an idea of a location?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think.”
“It’s okay.” He put his hand on her shoulder, felt the nervous ripple of her body beneath his touch. She was like a skittish colt, all fear and nerves.
He knew exactly what that kind of terror felt like.
“No, it’s not.” She shook off his hand and visibly straightened her spine, her chin coming up to stab the cold air. “I know the clock is ticking.”
Tough lady, he thought. “You said you heard rustling. What about birds? Did you hear any birds?”
Her eyes narrowed, her focus shifting inward. “No, I didn’t hear any birds.”
“What about the breathing? Could you tell whether it was a man or a woman?”
“Man,” she answered, her gaze focusing on his face again. “He didn’t vocalize, exactly, but there was a masculine quality to his breathing. I don’t know how to explain it—”
“Was he breathing regularly? Slow? Fast?”
“Fast,” she answered. “I think that’s what was so creepy about it. He was almost panting.”
Panting could mean a lot of things, Doyle reminded himself as a cold draft slid beneath the collar of his jacket, sending chill bumps down his back. It could have been a hiker who wasn’t in good shape. Might not have been anyone connected to this murder or the girls’ disappearance, for that matter. Maybe someone had found the phone, answered the ring but was too out of breath to speak.
Or maybe he was breathing hard because he’d just chased down three teenage girls like the predator he was.
He tried not to telegraph his grim thoughts to Laney Hanvey, but she was no fool. She didn’t need his help imagining the worst.
“She’s not alive, is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“But the odds are—”
“I’m not a gambler,” he said firmly. “I don’t deal with odds. I deal with facts. And the facts are, we have only one body so far.”
“Who’s out looking for the other girls?”
At the moment, he had to admit, no one was. It took time to form a search party. “We’ve put out the call to nearby agencies. The county boys, the park patrol, Blount and Sevier County agencies. They’re going to lend us officers for a search.”
“That’s not soon enough.” Laney turned and started hiking around the perimeter of the crime-scene tape, heading up the trail.
Doyle looked back at the crime scene and saw Ivy Hawkins looking at him, her brow furrowed. She gave a nod toward Laney, as if to say she and Parsons had the crime scene covered.
He was the chief of police now, not another investigator. While Bitterwood might be a small force, he didn’t need to micromanage his detectives. They’d already proved they could do a good job—he’d familiarized himself with their work before he took the job.
Meanwhile, he had a public-relations problem stalking up the mountain while he waffled about leaving a crime scene that was clearly under control.
He ducked under the crime-scene tape and headed up the mountain after Laney Hanvey.
* * *
“I’MNOTGOINGto be handled out of looking for my sister,” Laney growled as she heard footsteps catching up behind her on the hiking trail.
“I’m just here to help.”
She faltered to a stop, turning to look at Doyle Massey. He wasn’t exactly struggling to keep up with her—life on the beach had clearly kept him in pretty good shape. But he was out of his element.
She’d grown up in these mountains. Her mother had always joked she was half mountain goat. She knew these hills as well as she knew her own soul. “You’ll slow me down.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
She glared at him, her rising terror looking for a target. “My sister is out here somewhere and I’m going to find her.”
The look Doyle gave her was full of pity. The urge to slap that expression off his face was so strong she had to clench her hands. “You’re rushing off alone into the woods where a man with a gun has just committed a murder.”
“A gun?” She couldn’t stop her gaze from slanting toward the crime scene. “She was shot?”
“Two rounds to the back of the head.”
She closed her eyes, the remains of the cucumber sandwich she’d eaten at Sequoyah House rising in her throat. She stumbled a few feet away from Doyle Massey and gave up fighting the nausea.
After her stomach was empty, she crouched in the underbrush, battling dry heaves and giving in to the hot tears burning her eyes. The heat of Massey’s hand on her back was comforting, even though she was embarrassed by her display.
“I will help you search,” he said in a low, gentle tone. “But I want you to take a minute to just breathe and think. Okay? I want you to think about your sister and where you think she’d go. Do you know?”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tissue to wipe her mouth. Before she’d finished, Massey’s hand extended in front of her eyes, holding out a roll of breath mints.
“Thank you,” she said, taking one.
“I understand you don’t live here in Bitterwood.”
She looked up at him. “I live in Barrowville. It’s about ten minutes away. But
