Sophie’s phone alerted her to an incoming text as she reached the vehicle parked in Mandig’s driveway. She took the phone out of her pocket and checked it as she waited for Jake to unlock the Jeep.

The text was blunt and to the point. “This is Connor. I am hard at work on the Witness Protection leak. I expect to know more by next week. If you want to call me for information to share with the detectives, you can reach me at this number.”

Sophie’s stomach dropped.

The last thing she wanted to do was speak with Connor—but she did want to know who had killed that family. And it would be great to have something to share with Freitan that would lend her and Jake credibility.

But was it worth it to have to talk to him?

“No way.” Marcella’s voice said in her mind. “Don’t talk to him. Don’t give him a way in.”

Sophie quickly texted back. “I want the information. Send a file to me through DAVID so I can inform the detectives of anything that will be useful. I know everyone on the investigation will appreciate it.”

She wasn’t going to say she would appreciate it. She wasn’t going to say anything personal.

But a little part of her was glad that something would be done about that breach in security that was leading to so much loss of life and legal implications.

Jake arrived and unlocked the Jeep. “You didn’t have to be so hard on that woman. She was probably afraid to pick up someone acting crazy on the side of the road when she was all by herself in her car. Lotta meth heads around here.”

“I have a bad feeling about what happened to Julie Weathersby after Mandig saw her. Why is Julie still gone? Why hasn’t there been a ransom demand if someone has her? I think she’s dead.” Sophie got into the Jeep. Doggy smells surrounded her. Wagging tails thrashed the inside of the car.

“I’ve had a bad feeling ever since we found her backpack and boots. I thought we’d find her body after that.”

“We still might. And now we know where to look.” Sophie folded her hands on her lap. The last of the good feelings left over from being with Jake that morning had evaporated.

They drove in tense silence to the turn off they had last made in a pouring rainstorm. The area looked much prettier in sunshine; spears of light penetrated the jungle canopy overhead and trailing vines made decorative curtains from the trees. Sophie noticed ripe passionfruit growing wild, the yellow spheres as random and eye-catching as Christmas tree balls against the shades of green.

“There’s the mile marker.” He pulled the Jeep over onto the shoulder near the mile marker Mandig had named, being careful not to get too close to the drainage ditch beside the road. “She said it was on the right.”

“Let’s let the dogs out,” Sophie said. They were at least a mile from where they had found Julie’s backpack. This would have been rough terrain for Julie to traverse, barefoot and at night.

The stream gurgled beside the road, and the streetlights along the way were far apart. Sophie could imagine the young woman’s terrified flight after fighting off attackers, getting to the road, and trying to attract the attention of a passing car. “If I were her, I would want to stay off the main road in case my pursuers came after me. I would work my way along the edge of the road, hidden, and come out to try to flag down cars but stay hidden unless I was sure they were not the perps.” Ginger, on her leash, nosed in the long, tangled grass beside the road. She tugged toward the ditch hidden by the grass.

“Sounds reasonable.” Jake let Tank out, but kept him on his leash. The two of them walked slowly along the road, stopping to look around the area periodically.

Ginger gave a sudden, sharp bark, and yanked hard on Sophie’s arm, displaying the same intensity she had when she had discovered the body dump. Sophie’s stomach knotted around her breakfast as the dog dragged her down the road, several hundred yards from the mile marker. Ginger jumped off the pavement toward the overgrown ditch and thrust her face down into the trench, digging at the shielding growth with her paws.

The smell of decomp hit Sophie’s nose, and she recoiled, covering her mouth and nose with a hand.

She didn’t want to look.

She didn’t want this to be the outcome of their search for a vibrant young woman.

Jake arrived. He pushed her back. “Let me see.”

Sophie let him, giving in to cowardice. She hauled Ginger back and sat on the nearby pavement.

Jake parted the heavy plant growth, looked down into the ditch, and turned back. His eyes were the dark gray of storm clouds, and his mouth was tight. “It’s her.”

Ginger leaned against Sophie, panting, her jaws open in a happy grin, her tongue lolling. The dog had found what Sophie was looking for, and expected praise. Sophie stroked Ginger’s chest, her shoulder, her silky ears. “Good girl.” She couldn’t say that phrase without hearing it in her mother’s voice. “Good girl.”

Jake took his phone out, checking for signal, and called the detectives. Sophie could hear his voice but the words were jumbled, a distant thunder, meaningless.

She took a few more deep breaths of fresh air, braced herself mentally, and moved forward to look.

The body lay face down, an inch or two of water running over it. Good-sized rocks had been used to hold the corpse down beneath the flow. The nude, bloated body was dressed in a black bra and panties. Long brown hair streamed like water weeds. The water somewhat quenched the smell, but not entirely.

Guessing by the bloated level of decomposition, Julie had been dead a week or so. That fit with the timeline they’d established. “May her killer be broken on the wheel of karma, frying in hell for eternity,” she cursed softly.

Ginger, nosing around beside Sophie, lifted her head to sniff the air. She gave a loud bark and charged off again, yanking her leash so hard it tore the skin of Sophie’s palm. The dog galloped down the road, the leash bouncing off the pavement. Tank, excited by this new game, broke loose from Jake and ran after her.

Sophie stood up. “Ginger!”

Jake shook his head. “That dog is ridiculous.”

“Not if she is finding another body,” Sophie said. “She seems to have a nose for cadavers.”

Jake shot her a quick glance, and then squeezed her shoulder. “This happened long before we got here. We’re helping by finding them.”

“Too little, too late. A good American saying,” Sophie muttered.

“Go. Fetch those dogs. I will stay with the body until the detectives get here,” Jake said. “Call me if you find anything.”

Sophie nodded, and jogged down the road.

When she caught up with her dog, half a mile or so away, Ginger was down in the ditch, splashing, barking and digging at the grate of a culvert passing beneath the road as Tank looked on.

Sophie caught her collar, and Tank’s, and pulled both dogs back and away from the ditch. She tied the animals to a nearby tree.

She needed to see what was down there. There was a good chance something had washed down the ditch and come to rest against that grate, and the flowing water and overgrown bushes hid what it might be. She took off her shoes and socks, rolled up her yoga pants, and pushed down through the bushes toward the grate shielding the culvert.

The pile of submerged human bones pressed against the metal by a flow of water was anticlimactic after the intense emotion of finding Julie’s body.

Sophie got out her phone to try to call Jake or the detectives, but couldn’t get a signal.

She climbed back out of the ditch, smoothing her muddy clothing and rinsing her scratched hands, and sat down with the dogs.

Was the stream a dump site? It certainly seemed possible. Maybe they were about to solve some of the disappearances. But who was behind them? One serial killer, or some kind of crime ring?

Julie had been dumped off by the couple who robbed her. Then she’d been attacked and stripped of her clothing. She had escaped, and been captured again. Was it the same couple doing all of it, or multiple perpetrators?

No one had benefited from Julie’s death that Sophie could tell, at first glance at least. Her parents hadn’t paid a ransom; they’d never been contacted. Chernobiac had been fishing to extort but hadn’t implemented his scheme yet; and who were the people driving the black SUV that took Chernobiac’s cash?

The unmarked SUV that Freitan and Wong drove sped by, a light flashing on the dash. Sophie continued to wait as the medical examiner’s van and a squad car soon followed.

Finally, Jake jogged down the road toward her. Sophie rose and walked toward him, and he saw the answer on her face. He lifted a walkie-talkie they must’ve given him and said, “Sophie found something more.”