Chapter Twenty-Nine

CHELSEY SCREECHES TO A STOPin front of her father's house. She bursts through the front door and makes a beeline for the office, dumping the contents of her file onto the floor. Her hands shake as she pins the map of Washington back to the wall.

Find Ellie. Find Ellie. Find Ellie. The words beat inside of her. She considers the idea of Ellie on a mission. Ellie returned.

The landscape begins to reconfigure. Boulders shift, mountains melt away, lakes appear as Chelsey mentally readjusts the topography of the case. She'd assumed Ellie had escaped—and that she'd been on foot. But what if she hadn't escaped or been on foot? What if her abductor was complicit in her return? What if she'd been driven somewhere? Dropped off? Yes. The puzzle pieces seem to fit. Ellie was returned. Ellie was supposed to carry out a mission on her abductor's behalf. Ellie botched the bombing…

So, what does Ellie do next? Where does she go? She cannot go home.

But maybe… maybe she is. Maybe Ellie is not going to the home Chelsey knows, the one with Jimmy and Kat, but the one she lived in these last two years. Willa is there. Ellie indicated Willa was still alive. Could Ellie be going back for her? To be with her?

Chelsey stares at the map, backing up a step, a missing girl flyer crunching under her heel. She glances down and plucks it up. Ten minutes later, she has them all pinned to the map. On the desk is a red marker, and Chelsey takes it into her hand, popping the cap off with her mouth. Cops can pinpoint someone's location by pinging their cell phones. The signals bounce off towers, and through triangulation, they narrow down an approximate location. Chelsey uses the same concept now. Tracing lines from one girl to the next.

It's a spiderweb with a clear center—the Olympic National Forest. Every girl she believes to have been taken by Ellie's abductor was within a three-hour driving radius of that clear center.

Chelsey inhales so hard and fast that she grows dizzy. The woods. More than woods. A national park near a million acres, sprawling across coastline, mountains, and impenetrable forest. Noah's folks have a cabin near there. She used to hunt there with her father. They'd spent two weeks one October backcountry camping, tracking black bears. One moment her father had been in front of her, and another, gone. She did not know to stay put. Instead, she wandered. She'd been lost, afraid, and forgot about the whistle around her neck. She remembered after a few hours and blew it. His whistle answered a beat later. Her father had found her shaking and snot-nosed, afraid of the trees that rose around her, like soldiers ready to shoot. He knelt in front of her. Stop crying now. Nothing to be sad about. You did the right thing using the whistle, he told her, rifle over his shoulder. A man can get lost in here and never be found.

It makes sense. Ellie had been kept somewhere far away. Without electricity. She'd smelled of campfire and vomit that day. Someone had made their own space in the wild. A farmer. A survivalist. A keeper of girls.

It is heady when a case splits open, and Chelsey feels it now. The certainty is almost intoxicating, luring her in with the promise of a fresh catch. To solve and be absolved. But the thrill is quickly diluted by a figure in the doorway.

Noah.

He stands for a moment, taking everything in before him. The house that has not been packed. The desk overloaded with case files. The map filled with colorful flyers and red lines. "What the fuck?"

"Noah. What are you doing here?" is all she can think to say. All she can do is stay still. Frozen.

"Seriously?" His mouth twists downward. "I've been calling you. I saw the news. I left school to be with you. I went by the precinct. Suzette said Abbott sent you home. You're off the case. But you didn't go home, did you? You're here." His cheeks flush, awful slashes of angry red. "And why are you here? You're clearly not packing the house." He gestures wildly at the office, at the wall, at the madness there. "What is this?"

"I'm working," Chelsey states plainly, drawing herself fully upright.

His jaw locks. "I guess your meaning and mine of ‘off the case' is different."

"You don't understand. They're going to kill Ellie if they find her. I have to find her first."

Noah puts a hand to his brow, rubbing away what Chelsey presumes is a headache. Sometimes she fears she is too much for him. Her father used to hint at it, at women and girls being too complicated. Overly emotional.

"Whoever took Ellie has been doing this for years. Look at all these missing girls." Chelsey bolts into action. She begins unpinning their photographs, creating a pile that she thrusts at Noah. "I think Ellie was returned—and for a reason." She works hard to keep her voice even, but the mania seeps in. An edge of obsession. She will not rest until the last puzzle piece slips into place. "Look," she says again. She shakes the photographs. Her mind is filled with girls. Girls who wear University of Washington sweatshirts. Girls who listen to David Bowie. Girls who love Into the Wild. How the world let them down. How the world did not love them in the way it should have. "Look at them. They all fit a certain profile. Except for Willa Adams, but I think… I don't know what I think, why he took her, but I believe Ellie was forced to bomb the governor's mansion. That she may be going back for Willa—"

"Chelsey." The pity in Noah's eyes makes her flinch. "I could do that with any missing kid, anybody murdered. Put enough of them together, and you'll find commonalities. That's how statistics work. I sympathize with Ellie Black, with what she's been through, but this idea you've got that she was somehow turned? It's—"

"You going to call me crazy now?" Chelsey narrows her eyes at him. He closes his mouth. She feels herself folding up on the inside, away from Noah. She levels him with a fierce gaze. "You don't believe me."

He sighs, sitting with her words. "It's not a matter of believing you."

Disagree, Chelsey thinks. Belief is all that matters.

Noah places his hands on his hips and hangs his head. "Let's just go home, Chelsey." He draws his keys out, ready to walk, expecting Chelsey to follow.

"No," she says softly, firmly.

"No?" He turns back to her and arches a brow. "You're going to stay here?"

"I'm not going to stay here." She keeps her gaze steady on Noah. "I'm going after Ellie Black."

"No, you're not." He grits his teeth. There is a weird light in his eyes that Chelsey doesn't like. A fury she has not seen before.

"I am." She crosses her arms.

"Chelsey. Stop this. Come home." He swings out a hand to grab her, and Chelsey jerks away.

His face rearranges into a softer mask. "This case is over. You need to let it go. Let all of it go." He speaks quietly. "You have something going on beyond work. Something inside of you, Chelsey," he says. "Things with your dad—"

"This has nothing to do with my father."

"This has everything to do with your dad." He half laughs. "You really can't see it, can you?" He steps forward and addresses Chelsey directly, and it makes her want to recoil. The naked disappointment. "Your dad was a self-aggrandizing asshole who took you hunting instead of letting you grieve."

Chelsey's stomach lurches. Unforgivable tears rise in her eyes. She gazes at the plaid wallpaper, then shifts down to an outlet, a bare patch above it. Lydia had stuck a Lisa Frank sticker there, a neon tiger, when she was five. Their father had been so angry… She whips the memory away. "That's not true."

"It is. You're too scared to feel anything. You're too terrified to move on. You need to choose—Ellie Black, this case, this house, or me. Tell me now, Chelsey."

She hangs her head; her whole body burns with conviction. "I have to see this through."

"Fine. Maybe you should stay here for a while. I'm not sure I can be married to someone who is not as committed as I am."

She falters as she absorbs his statement. She shouldn't be surprised. Noah wants to be a priority in her life. A singularity. But Chelsey cannot revolve around him. It's like living on another planet, she remembers her mother saying after Lydia died. It's true. "Okay."

"Okay?" He blinks, stunned, lashes fluttering, and Chelsey fights a grimace. The urge to recant. But it is too late. She is far from Noah now. Has been far from him for a very long time. Drifting in open space. "That's it. Give me a call if you change your mind. But I'm not going to stand around and watch you self-destruct any longer."

He leaves, but she does not watch him go. She does not think about her marriage ending, how close she came to having it all.

Chelsey's chin trembles, but she refuses to cry. She hears a car door slam outside. An engine starting. Noah driving away. She walks back and forth in the office. Pacing instead of going after him. When her mother left, her father had holed up in his office. Let her go, he'd told Chelsey. And Chelsey had sat on his couch. Both of them tense and silent as her mother packed her bags. When she was gone, her father had placed both hands on his desk and stood. Dinnertime. We'll go out.

Her phone rings; the sound is like a lifeline, something she can grab on to. She wipes her nose and breathes deep, stale air filling her lungs. She doesn't recognize the number, but it says Coldwell. "Detective Calhoun," she croaks.

"Ellie didn't do this," Danny's voice explodes over the line.

Chelsey stares at the wall. At the photographs. "I agree," she says. She moves to the map, letting the green expanse of the Olympic National Forest blur her vision. "I believe Ellie was being watched—controlled." She traces the red lines she's made. "I'm going to find her before Homeland Security does. It's a long shot. I think she's headed to where she was kept, but the area… it's big."

"I'll come with you," he says.

"No," Chelsey says on reflex. It is too risky. Far too dangerous.

"I am coming with you," he insists. "The other night, she asked me to drive her to the trail where she was discovered. It was weird. I knew something was off. I turned on the Find My Friends app on her phone when I checked if she had service. I know exactly where she is."

At this, Chelsey jolts. Homeland Security will be able to track Ellie's phone, but before doing so, they'll need a warrant from a judge. Danny knowing exactly where Ellie is puts Chelsey and him a few hours ahead of them.

"She's outside of Olympia, heading north on I-5."