CHAPTER FIVE

Sheila's fingers danced across the screen of her phone as she and Finn left Vincent's house, the cool night air of Utah biting at their skin. She tapped into the search engine, typing "Brett Hawthorne" with a fervor that matched her rising unease.

"Anything?" Finn asked, watching her from the corner of his eye as they approached their car.

"Plenty," Sheila replied, scrolling through the results. The articles that popped up were not the innocuous writings of a casual astrology enthusiast. Instead, what she found were excerpts from Hawthorne's blog, where he delved into the arcane and esoteric. There was talk of harnessing energy from celestial alignments, of rituals that predated modern religion, and of communing with forces beyond the veil.

One post in particular sent a shiver down Sheila's spine—a detailed account of an ancient ceremony involving the use of specific herbs to summon protection from the constellations. As Sheila read on, her suspicions about Hawthorne grew sharper, as did the fear that they might be dealing with something far darker than they had anticipated.

"Well, there's no question our Mr. Hawthorne has a penchant for the occult," Sheila said, locking her phone and pocketing it. "The herbs, the symbols—the killer may have been using Vanessa as a means to an end."

"What kind of end?"

"Protection? Enlightenment? Who knows?"

"Well, let's go ask Hawthorne and see," Finn said, opening the car door for her.

As they settled into the vehicle, Finn pulled out his own phone and began typing away. Sheila stared at the house in front of her, thinking about the children sleeping upstairs and what it would be like for Vincent or Jen to tell them they would never see their aunt again.

"Got an address," Finn said. "Less than ten minutes from here."

"Nice work," Sheila said, buckling her seatbelt. "It's late, but we might as well head over and see if—"

A crackle over the police radio cut her off, and both officers instinctively tuned into the dispatcher's voice. "...missing woman, Emily Greenwald, last seen three days ago. Her car found abandoned just off Feather Highway, some type of strange drawings on the windows..."

Sheila felt her pulse quicken. "Symbols," she murmured. "Could they be astrological?"

"You thinking this Emily Greenwald is a second victim?"

"I'm thinking we can't afford to ignore the possibility."

They stared at one another.

"Hawthorne is a solid lead," Finn said. "We shouldn't put off interviewing him."

"Emily could still be alive. Which is more important to you, punishing the guilty or saving the innocent?"

"Both," Finn said, clenching his jaw. "But you're right. We go for the missing girl first."

The engine roared to life beneath Finn's hands as he spun the car back onto the main road, directing it toward Feather Highway. Sheila pulled out her phone again, hastily dialing Emily Greenwald's details into the search engine. Every second could mean the difference between life and death.

"She's twenty-seven, works as a barista at Cuppa Joe's downtown," Sheila read aloud from Emily's public profile. "Aspiring actress, taking night classes at Felder University... Hasn't shown up for work in three days."

Finn's knuckles were white against the steering wheel. "Vanessa was an activist. Emily is an artist. There doesn't seem to be a connection. Why target these women?"

"I don't know," Sheila admitted, her gaze scanning the darkness outside. "But we need to find out before anyone else goes missing."

The glow of the dashboard illuminated their faces in sharp relief as the car sped down the desolate highway. The night was silent but for the hum of the engine and the occasional crackle from the police radio. Their breath fogged up the windows, blurring the empty vastness of the Utah landscape into an indistinguishable smear of shadow.

Sheila's hand hovered over her phone, her finger tapping at Emily's picture. The girl had a bright smile and wavy brunette hair that was almost the same shade as Sheila's. There was a youthfulness in her eyes, a hunger for life that seemed cruelly unfair to snuff out. The more Sheila looked at Emily's photo, the more she saw herself in the young woman, and the harder her resolve hardened .

"We're not going to let what happened to Vanessa happen to Emily," Finn said, echoing Sheila's thoughts. His voice was gruff, his grip on the wheel tight enough to make the veins in his hands pop out.

The words stirred something in Sheila, a grim determination that pushed aside fear and unease. She nodded, turning her attention back to the road. "The first thing we need to do is find that car," she said. "If those drawings on the windows look similar to the symbols we found around Vanessa's body—"

"Then we'll know there's a connection," Finn said.

Sheila nodded. "Exactly."

"Do me a favor? Get on the horn and ask exactly where the car was found. Feather Highway is long, and we can't afford to waste time driving up and down it."

"Right," Sheila answered, picking up the radio. "Dispatch, this is Deputy Stone. Could you give us the exact location of the car you mentioned before? Over."

As she waited, she looked back at Emily's social media profile on her phone, studying a picture of Emily posing in front of a sweeping desert panorama, a bright yellow scarf trailing from her neck. As Sheila stared at it, she was struck by the reality that Emily Greenwald was more than just a picture on a screen; she was a living, breathing person who might be in danger right now. Sheila couldn't help but think about Star and how she might feel if the fourteen-year-old girl she mentored ever ended up like this.

The dispatcher's voice crackled over the radio, breaking Sheila out of her thoughts. "Copy, Stone. The vehicle was found at mile marker seventy-one on Feather Highway. Do you require additional assistance? Over."

"No, Dispatch. We're heading there now. Stone out." Sheila set down the radio, her eyes meeting Finn's. "Mile marker seventy-one."

He nodded, his foot pressing harder on the gas pedal. The car shot forward, its high beams cutting through the darkness like a dull blade through dense fog. A sense of urgency hung in the air, thick enough to touch.

Seventy-one came up faster than Sheila had expected, her heart pounding in her chest as Finn pulled over. The abandoned car was a beat-up old sedan, out of place in the quiet desolation of the highway.

Sheila was out of the car before it came to a full stop, her hand instinctively dropping to her holster. As she approached the vehicle, she switched on her flashlight, its beam cutting through the darkness and illuminating the strange symbols scrawled across the car windows in a chalky white substance. They matched the symbols they'd found drawn around Vanessa's body.

"Same markings," she called back to Finn, who was still by their car, radioing in their location and the status of their search.

As she circled the car, she noticed something strange. "Finn!" she shouted, crouching down to inspect the front right tire. It was flat, punctured by what looked like several nails.

"Guess that explains why she pulled over here," Finn said as he joined her.

"Coincidence?" Sheila asked. "Was our killer just driving along, saw a stranded driver, and decided to kidnap her? Or was this all planned out?" She moved her flashlight over to the tire again, this time spotting a thin metal strip with spikes fixed to it. "No, wait a minute. It's a spike strip. This was no chance encounter."

Finn's face hardened as he followed her gaze to the nasty contraption. "Someone planned this."

Sheila rose, brushing off the knees of her jeans. "Maybe he knows she's on her way, sets the spike strip out. He follows her, and when she pulls over here…" She trailed off.

"Vanessa appears to have been bludgeoned from behind," Finn said. "If Emily suffered a similar fate, I don't see any blood around here."

Sheila turned her flashlight toward a narrow path that led down through the weeds, directly into the salt flats. "There's a simple explanation: She ran."

Finn took a deep breath and let it out slowly as if preparing himself for what was to come. "I'm going to call the boss," he said. "We need to round up the locals, organize search parties."

"You make your call," Sheila said. "I'm going to get started looking."

Finn looked puzzled. "She went missing three days ago. There's no way she's been leading her would-be murderer on a wild goose chase all that time."

"I'm not saying she's still running, Finn," she replied, her gaze fixed on the mysterious path. "But maybe there's a chance she's hiding."

"Sheila, it's not safe—"

"I know." Her voice was steady. "But we can't afford to wait any longer. If...if Emily is still out there, she doesn't have much time left. "

With that, she plunged into the darkness, her flashlight creating a narrow corridor of visibility as she made her way down the path.