Chapter 18

Candace stuffed a plastic-wrapped ham-and-cheese sandwich and two granola bars into her backpack. She filled a reusable water bottle from the tap and jammed it in the outside pocket and conducted a quick inventory of the items she’d already packed—first aid kit, waterproof matches, raincoat, hat, sunscreen, bug spray, a topographic map.

All packed. Set to go.

Soft, golden morning light streamed through the kitchen window. The sky was the clear, fragile blue of springtime in the Rockies. In the distance, the mountains gleamed with a dusting of fresh snow, but down in the valley, the leaves on the trees glowed with new life; the daffodils and crocuses in her garden bloomed, their yellow and purple heads opening to greet the new day. A robin hopped across the dewy lawn searching for breakfast.

It was a beautiful morning, but her heart didn’t sing like it normally did at the prospect of a day filled with warm sunshine and fresh spring breezes. Instead, her heart was heavy, weighted down with what she’d remembered the man who’d attacked her had whispered.

Candy Girl.

Even though the kitchen was warm, she shivered. The attack on her wasn’t a random act. She’d been targeted. Her attacker knew her name. That alone raised alarm bells. Had Isaiah, the man who kidnapped her sister, returned after all these years? Was he the one who’d assaulted her? Had he taken Amanda Jacobs and restarted his kidnapping spree? Her knees wobbled, and she grabbed onto the counter.

After the police raided the old farmhouse in the mountainous backcountry and discovered the four missing girls, the hunt for the man who’d abducted them and absconded with her sister intensified. All levels of police were involved—county sheriff’s departments, Highway Patrol, the state police, and even the FBI.

As the traumatized girls revealed details about their months of incarceration, the full horror of what they’d endured shocked even the most-hardened police officers. Isaiah had promised he’d return for the girls and punish them if they talked, and they were provided police protection, but when months went by with no sign of Isaiah, the bodyguards were recalled, and the girls allowed to go on with their lives, such as they could, considering the trauma they’d suffered.

But now, twenty-two years later, another young girl was missing, abducted from her bedroom in the middle of the night just like the earlier kidnapping victims. Candace had been attacked by someone who knew the secret pet name only Charlene knew. No question—as far as she was concerned, Isaiah was back. Unless someone was copying his crimes. A shudder rippled through her at the frightening possibility.

She had two choices—hide out in her townhouse and wait for the police to find her assailant—or take action and do something that might help find Amanda Jacobs. Candace hadn’t been able to help her sister, and she lived with that guilt every day. But if there was the slightest chance Isaiah had returned and taken Amanda, Candace couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t do everything in her power to find her. Even if that meant heading out into Creighton Springs State Park…alone.

The thought of encountering the bearded man in the forest almost brought her to her knees, and she stumbled across the kitchen and collapsed onto a chair. A sob hitched in her throat, and she buried her face in her hands as another flood of memories engulfed her.

The night Isaiah came for her sister, and left Candace sound asleep a few feet away, changed her life forever. Every detail of that night and the following morning was tattooed on her brain—the book she was reading about a boy with a lightning strike scar on his forehead and magical powers, the golden glow cast by the string of fairy lights hung on the purple walls, the tattered posters of teen idols, the familiar fuzzy softness of her purple-and-pink striped comforter, her innocence, her naïve belief that life was fair.

Charlene stomped into the room, slammed the door and ripped off Candace’s quilt and tossed it on the floor. “You little brat!” She held up a blue plastic bottle. “You used all my shampoo.” She tossed the empty bottle onto Candace’s bed. “I told you not to touch it. You know it’s my favorite.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to use all of it.” Candace sat up and grabbed the bottle and tossed it into the garbage bin. “I promise I won’t do it again.”

Charlene plopped onto her own bed and slipped under the covers. “Well, you’d better convince Mom to buy some more shampoo.” She was still frowning, but the anger had left her voice.

“Please don’t be mad at me.” Tears burned in Candace’s eyes. “I told you I was sorry.”

Charlene heaved a heavy sigh. “I’m not mad at you, Candy Girl. I just wish I had my own room.” She picked up her CD player and set it on her lap and slipped in a CD. “I’m too old to be sharing a room with my baby sister.” Switching the machine on, she popped on a set of headphones, sat up against her pillow, and turned up the music. “Now go to sleep before Dad comes up and tells us to be quiet.” The tinny beats of rap music filled the small room.

Candace retrieved her quilt from the floor, turned out her bedside light, and curled on her side on her bed. Charlene had been agitating for her own room for months. Their parents were talking about renovating the attic and moving Charlene in there. Candace didn’t want her sister to move out. She liked sharing a room with her, liked knowing she wasn’t alone at night.

Charlene turned up the volume, singing along with the lyrics.

Candace groaned and stuffed a pillow over her head. Maybe Charlene was right, and it was time they had their own rooms. Maybe having her own space wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all.

The nightmare began the next morning. She woke to her mother’s loud, frantic cries. Charlene’s bed was empty. The blankets were tangled and tossed on the floor. Candace and her parents searched, but Charlene wasn’t in the bathroom down the hall, the kitchen, or anywhere else in the house. Her father looked in the garage and the yard, while her mother contacted Charlene’s closest friends.

The police were called, but the young rookie officer who attended, Officer Joe Breacher, assured the family that since there were no signs of forced entry, no witnesses, and no proof Charlene had been kidnapped, she’d probably left of her own accord. He suggested they post missing-person posters at the bus depot and in cafes along the highway, and he assured the family Charlene would probably return home soon. Most runaways did.

The next day, Candace’s mother noticed tiny spots of blood on Charlene’s pillow. She called the police again.

Another officer came to the house and took away the pillowcase. When tests showed the blood wasn’t Charlene’s, or anyone else’s in the Cooper family, an investigation into Charlene’s disappearance began.

Aside from the tangled sheets and blood spots, the investigators found a scattering of pet hairs on the bed.

The Coopers didn’t own a pet.

Further investigation revealed the hairs were from multiple domestic animals.

The lightbulb finally went on, and the police realized they were dealing with a serial kidnapper. Four other girls in the state, who’d been missing for months and labeled runaways, were now determined to be victims of abduction. In each case, pet hairs were found on their bedsheets.

When the police speculated that whoever abducted Charlene gained entrance to the house through the unlocked front door, Candace was distraught. The Coopers always locked their doors at night, but the night Charlene was kidnapped, after the family was asleep, Candace snuck outside.

Her teacher had talked to the class about something called a blood moon, and Candace wanted to see if the moon really looked red. Late that night, after everyone in the house was asleep, she stood on the front lawn, shivering in her pajamas, and peered up at the night sky. Heavy clouds covered the stars, and the moon was invisible. Disappointed, she went back inside the house, tiptoed up the stairs to her bedroom, and climbed into bed.

The guilt Candace endured at the knowledge that she’d left the front door unlocked kept her awake at night. Her pain and remorse were as sharp today as twenty-two years ago. Scrubbing her hands over her tearstained face, she inhaled a deep breath.

After the other Forgotten Five girls were rescued, the media hounded Candace’s family like jackals. They camped their news vans on the street in front of the house and followed the family whenever they left home, shouting questions they couldn’t answer. The phone rang day and night with requests for interviews and offers of book and movie deals. Everyone wanted a piece of their tragedy.

The spotlight was intense, and for months, Candace and her family hid inside their small house, the blinds closed, doors locked, living in gloom and guilt, their grief poisoning the air.

The police said there was nothing they could do, as long as the reporters stayed on the street and didn’t trespass on private property. They promised the furor would die down, but it was months before the street in front of the house cleared of strange vehicles and the phone stopped ringing, months before the family could attempt to heal their wounds.

Years of counseling, and a steady dose of antianxiety medication and sleeping pills, weren’t able to ease Candace’s burden of guilt, but on the advice of her therapist, she stopped being a victim and took action. She read every word the media wrote about The Forgotten Five and fought for, and won, access to the police files on the case. She was determined to do what the police, with all their resources, hadn’t been able to accomplish. She would find Charlene.

Her fixation on finding her sister affected her life, and instead of dating, attending football and basketball games and parties like other young people, she spent her free time researching the Forgotten Five case and following up on leads, no matter how tenuous. She contacted the Briggston Police Department so often she became persona non grata. Whenever she showed up at the station house with what she was certain was a new lead to the case, she was met with closed doors, or worse—looks of pity.

Her efforts were for naught. Twenty-two years later, her sister was still missing, and Isaiah remained at large. She grabbed a handful of tissues from the box on the table and blew her nose.

The first years in college were rocky, but by her third year, she’d chosen a major and begun to enjoy the new normal of life after Charlene’s disappearance. She settled on the field of physical anthropology. The study of early humans fascinated her. She didn’t need a therapist to tell her that escaping into the prehistoric past was her way of avoiding the nightmare reality of the present.

She went to graduate school and earned her doctorate. All her hard work paid off when she secured her teaching position at Briggston College. Life settled into a routine of teaching classes, researching, and field studies. She hadn’t called the police demanding an update on the Forgotten Five case for months. What was the point? No one believed that Charlene was still alive. No one cared. Not really. There were too many other tragedies occurring on an almost daily basis, and the police had only so much manpower.

She thought she’d moved on, and she was finally dealing with the defining tragedy of her life. A bitter laugh burst out of her mouth. Yeah. She was over it, all right. She’d been living in a false bubble. The disturbing events of the past months brought back the angst of the old tragedy.

She couldn’t get Amanda Jacobs out of her mind. What if the footprints and the drops of blood she’d seen in the park that day so many months ago were Amanda’s? The poor girl could have been fleeing her captor. The tall, bearded man Candace saw watching from the dense trees could be Amanda’s kidnapper. Was she being held in some dark, cold place, waiting for rescue?

The disturbing thoughts kept Candace tossing and turning all night. Throw in a pounding headache and frightening, but vague, memories of the vicious attack in the faculty parking lot, and it was a wonder she wasn’t hanging from the ceiling screaming like a gibbering monkey. Somehow, she was holding it together, but just barely.

But today, she was going to change all that. She was going to make a difference and direct the energy she wasted on guilt, into action. Today, she was going to Creighton Springs State Park to retrace her steps of that cold November day along the Eggelston River.

Instead of stopping like she had when she went to the park with Aiden, where the footprints veered off the trail and headed into the forest, she’d follow the many narrow, twisting deer trails through the thick bush. Maybe somewhere deep in the woods she’d find a remnant of cloth, a deserted cabin, or evidence of a camp, some indication that would prove Amanda had been in the park.

The K9 dogs had searched the area. The chances of finding any clues after all this time were slim to none, but she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t at least try.

The phone rang.

She checked the caller ID and hit the Cancel button, just like she had the previous six times Aiden had called. If he knew her plans, he’d try and talk her out of the trip to the park.

Opening the cabinet under the sink, she hefted the large canister of bear spray she’d bought at the hardware store after she was attacked on campus. Mace was all well and good, but bear spray was intended to stop a charging bear. She could only imagine what the powerful pepper spray would do to an attacking human.

She slipped the can into its canvas holster and strapped the belt around her waist. Zipping up her backpack, she gulped a final swig of coffee from her ceramic mug. Hefting the backpack over her shoulder, she scooped her cell phone and sunglasses from the counter and grabbed her car keys from the bowl by the front door.

The doorbell pealed.

She jumped and pressed her hand to her chest to slow her racing heart.

Isaiah! He’d come for her.

Calm down. Isaiah wouldn’t ring the doorbell and announce his presence. He’d want the element of surprise on his side. Shaking, she peered through the door’s peephole. Her breath whooshed out.

Aiden stood on the stoop.

Another bout of shaky nerves flooded her body—this time, not caused by fear of personal harm, but the concern she was beginning to like him far, far too much.