Chapter 2 - The Sound in the Brush
"—and he’s not answering, dispatch. He’s down by the old pump house. Send medical, fast."
The words sliced through the hum of the idling ambulance engine like a scalpel. I held Theo tighter, his small ribs rising and falling in rapid, shallow jerks against my chest. A paramedic gently touched my arm, trying to guide me toward the open back doors of the vehicle, but my feet felt rooted to the patchy lawn. My father was down. My mother was still missing. And my children had spent the afternoon trapped in a baking car while the people entrusted with their care unraveled into shadows.
"Mom," Maisy whimpered, her small fingers clutching the hem of my jacket. "Is he coming?"
"No, sweetie. No one is coming for you. You're with me," I whispered fiercely, pressing a kiss into her sweaty, dirt-streaked hair.
Two more cruisers pulled up, tires crunching violently over the gravel drive, their blue and red lights painting the darkening woods in an erratic, pulsing strobe. Officers fanned out, flashlights cutting sharp beams through the underbrush. I watched Deputy Miller—a man I’d known since high school, whose face was now tight and drained of color—jog back from the tree line.
"Elena," Miller panted, stopping a few feet away. He avoided looking directly at Maisy, which told me everything I needed to know about how my father looked right now. "The ambulance is clear for you and the kids. Go on to County General. We’ve got paramedics heading down to your dad now."
"Where is my mother, Miller?" My voice didn't sound like my own; it was flat, hollow, stripped of all emotion by pure survival instinct. "Joanne left them in the car. Where is she?"
Miller swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. "We’re sweeping the perimeter. The car—your mother’s Honda—is parked down near the old logging trail off County Road 9. The doors were wide open. We haven't found her yet."
Wide open. Joanne never left her car unlocked, let alone doors wide open in the middle of nowhere.
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"Go," Miller urged gently, placing a firm hand on my shoulder to guide me toward the ambulance. "Let the doctors check Theo's temperature and look at Maisy's feet. I'll call you the second we find anything."
I let them load us in. The doors slammed shut, sealing us in a sterile, fluorescent-lit cocoon that smelled of antiseptic wipes and oxygen tanks. As the vehicle lurched forward, bouncing down the drive, I looked out the small rear window. Maisy pressed her face against the glass, her big eyes reflecting the flashing emergency lights outside, watching the dark wall of trees swallow the house, the yard, and whatever monstrous secret my family had just become.
