Id guess about twelve miles between the house and the field. But if youre talking an entire area, covering all the ground between the two, I dont know. The back roads are pretty straight and all snake back around to the same points, but thats a lot of forest.

Agents, Officer Foster said, can I ask what the assumption is, based on the discovery of Mercy Fullers bloodstained windbreaker?

Well, as I told Agent DeMarco out at Jones Field, Kate said, this basically tells us that Mercy Fuller did not kill her parents and skip town. Shes now officially the epicenter of this case, and it needs to be quick, Not only because we have no idea who has her or where she is, but because shes apparently been wounded and is bleeding.

I hate to be the grim one here, Barnes said, but I feel like the discovery of blood on clothes means shes likely already dead.

Thats a reasonable assumption, Kate said. But it doesnt quite fit. She was abducted for some reasonwhether sexual, domination fantasy, some grief with the family, whatever it may be. If she was indeed dead, I feel like we would have also found her body with the windbreaker. A dead abductee doesnt serve much of a purpose.

So you think shes alive? Foster asked.

I have no idea. But I do think she was very much alive when that windbreaker was dropped. I also dare to think she might have dropped it on purpose. Mr. Halloway here says that the sleeves were crumpled in a way that indicates they might have been tied together around her waist. I think Mercy Fuller might have left it behind on purpose, without her abductor realizing, hoping to leave a useable clue behind.

So where do we go from here? Barnes asked.

I think we can likely limit the search to the area along that line you just drew. If the abductor went through Jones Field, they likely did it to avoid main roads. Hes a local. He knows the area.

Barnes nodded, but he didnt look so certain. He looked back to the map, his shoulders hunched and his eyes distant.

Sheriff, you can say whatever it is thats on your mind, Kate said.

The blood…and then the field and all of these damned woods. What if were using all of this manpower to look for a girl thats already dead?

Even if that is the case, DeMarco said, clearly a little irritated at the defeatist attitude, that mean theres a girls body out there somewhere and she would deserve to be found and properly taken care of.

And we cant afford to think like that, Kate said, getting to her feet. Unless we find a corpse, we work as if Mercy Fuller is still alive.