Chapter 2

“It’s a Daffodil troop overnight camping, Master Chief,” John spoke softly but clearly with his back to the adults clustered by a water-soaked fire pit. “They were earning several badges. The missing girl belongs to the leader. The other parents are volunteers who help—”

“What’s a Daffodil troop?”

John paused. A slight smile quivered on his lips. “It’s the younger version of Girl Scouts, Brady. All four through six-year-old girls.”

“Oh.” Brady lifted his gaze to the adults and girls. “Go on.”

“Okay. So, they arrived at thirteen hundred, yesterday. They bedded down at twenty-one hundred. The girls slept in the tents with their respective parent. They’re only four-, five-, and six. It’s understandable.” John pierced Brady with a look, checking for understanding.

Brady shrugged and shook his head. How did this relate to the missing girl?

John went on. “Our lost girl is four. Her name’s Mable. Her older sister, Marla is there with the mom.” He shoved a thumb toward the cluster.

Brady had no idea which child clinging to her mother was which, after all, there were two women holding a girl. One woman had two girls. They stood the same height and were dressed identically. Twins, maybe. A wimpy, philosophy-professor-looking man stood with them also clinging to what Brady could only assume was his daughter. He must be a single dad, or it was his weekend. Either way, none of the adults were together as a couple. Brady assessed how things stood.

He nodded. “Any chance this is a parental dispute?”

John shook his head. “No. Mom says Dad’s on his way here to help with the other girl.”

Brady nodded again. “Which tent was our vi— ... uh, the lost girl sleeping in?”

“Come here, I’ll show you.” John led the way to the adults. They looked up. Tear-filled, worried eyes perused him. Hope evident for a miracle. No pressure.

Brady swallowed. “Hello, folks.”

John introduced them, saving the mother for last. “And this is Mrs. Fields and her older daughter Marla.”

Brady shook Mrs. Fields’ hand, nodded to the girl, who clung to her mother’s hip and returned his attention to John. “How many men we got already out on foot?”

“All that we could spare— ten.”

“Okay. So, let me take a look around, and then I’ll head out.”

John nodded and turned to the adults, speaking in a calming voice, he explained what would happen next. Brady turned his back on Mrs. Fields. Something nagged at his brain, but he couldn’t isolate it right now. He honed his attention on the campsite, the tent, and the empty sleeping bags, and zeroed in with the monster’s acute sense of smell. He needed to identify which was Mable’s scent. “Excuse me.” He turned back to John.

John approached Brady. “Got anything of the girl’s?”

John didn’t even hesitate. He reached over to a log bench and handed Brady a pink stuffed cat with a tartan bow. “Here, she slept with this.”

“It’s her Hello Kitty doll.” Mrs. Fields added tears roughened her voice.

Brady took it and turned back to his investigation, all the while drawing Mable’s scent from the toy. Heat seared his skin with a prickly sensation, as the monster awakened inside him. A phosphorescent orange splattering of the scent speckled the ground as if a blacklight had been turned on, but only in Brady’s vision. He knew which way to go.