Page 59 of Fallen Creed

“Or forced him inside their vehicle.” Maggie only said what Pakula was tiptoeing around. “And they would have made him throw out his cell phone.”

“We’re not going to see a thing from the road.” Spencer leaned forward as he turned up the defrost. The windshield wipers couldn’t keep up with the blowing snow that crystalized and fogged up the edges of the glass.

“Let’s go ahead and get as close as we can to what Agent Alonzo gave us,” Pakula insisted.

“Sheriff, how far away is your property?” Maggie asked. She wanted to calculate how many miles Ryder and Grace could have actually walked. “Are we close?”

“We’re clear on the other side of the river,” Spencer said, waving his arm at pastures that stretched far into the distance until a line of trees and shrubs met them.

“The river.” Maggie remembered Hannah mentioning that Ryder was looking to cross over the river. “It’s on the other side of the trees?”

“Yeah, it curves along here.”

“What is it?” Pakula was looking over his shoulder at her. He could sense she was on to something.

“When Hannah talked to Ryder, she said he was looking for an old bridge.”

“He went all the way over the river?” Spencer snorted and shook his head. “They got farther than I thought.”

“Grace might have led him to the river,” Pakula said.

She wondered if he was thinking what she was. Did Libby go looking to drown herself? Hide? Or did the killer dump her body in the river?

“It’ll be near impossible to find that rickety bridge under the snow. But there’s a pasture road or an irrigation path.” Spencer leaned over the steering wheel as if that would give him a clearer view. Then he said, “What am I talking about? It’ll be impossible to find those old two-tracks with the snow drifted over.”

From the road, Maggie could see the wind and heavy snow had ravaged the trees out here, too.

“We’re almost right on top of it,” Pakula pointed at the GPS device. “Let’s stop. Take a look on foot.”

Maggie zipped her coat and pulled up the collar. She tucked the bottoms of her jeans into the tops of her boots and yanked on her gloves. When she opened the door, she still wasn’t prepared for the frigid blast that hit her in the face.

Out in the open, the wind whipped at anything that wasn’t tacked down. Her hair flew around her face. Pakula lost his ball cap, catching it in mid-air. He threw it back inside the cab and lifted the hood of his coat over his shaved head.

She couldn’t imagine how they were going to look for a cell phone. It would literally be like searching for a needle in a haystack, unless it was attached to Ryder.

Pakula suggested they go in different directions. Maggie was already plowing knee-deep through the ditch and headed for the trees along the river. She didn’t look back to see which way the men went. The snow had drifted high enough that it made it easy to climb over the barbed-wire fence.

She hadn’t noticed the cattle until they were only twenty feet away. White faced and with their brown backs blanketed with snow, they blended into the landscape. They watched her, curious but more interested in huddling together against the wind.

At first, when she saw the black bag partially covered and down by their legs, Maggie dismissed it. She had seen salt blocks in pastures. Maybe they came wrapped. Farmers delivered hay. Was black paper involved in that process? She knew very little about agriculture and taking care of livestock.

Trudging passed, she concentrated instead on the effort of lifting each foot up out of the snow and placing it down. Then the realization hit her, and she jolted to a halt.

Black plastic bags.

How could she have forgotten? There were still pieces of Kristin Darrow to be found.

She spun around and looked for Pakula. He was too far away for her to wave to him. Her voice would get lost in the wind. She wrestled her phone out of her coat pocket and pulled off her glove to text a message.

FOUND A BLACK BAG.

She waited and watched. It took too long. Finally, he stopped. One glance at his phone, and he reeled around looking for her. She waved her arm clear above her head.

Spencer saw Pakula tromping through the ditch and followed.

By the time they joined her, Maggie had edged closer to the cattle. She kept her movements slow and natural. Did cattle spook easily?

“It’s practically on top of the snow,” Pakula said as he came up beside her.