Anger is good, I think. It can be healing.

“Yes, I know. She was abducted.”

“Right. Some guy—some guy who’s still out there—took her.”

“I know,” I say.

His focus narrows. “Why aren’t you out there looking for him? He’s got to be around here. He didn’t take her far, did he?”

“It seems not,” I say, letting him unspool a little. He needs it. He’d never admit it, but Adam Warner is in shock right now. Within twenty-four hours, his life—and his little girl’s—has been turned upside down. I tell him I need to check in with my partner and provide instructions for the pathologist. Since it is a holiday the next day, I’m thinking that they’ll keep her body in the chiller until Tuesday.

I go look at the body and then find Montrose by the dock.

“A couple from Canada were kayaking, and they found what they thought was a blow-up doll,” he says, indicating a man and woman standing on the grass up from the shore. “Here on vacation.”

“Been a lousy vacation for a lot of people around here.”

Montrose ignores my remark. “Deputy took pictures of all the lookie-loos,” he says. “Smart kid. Says he read somewhere that the perpetrator often returns to the scene of the crime.”

“You think?” I say with sarcasm.

“I know,” he says. “I thanked him for the good police work. How’d he get here before us?” He indicates Adam, who’s now sitting on the grass with his face in his hands. “Nobody who responded notified him. I asked.”

“Deputy says it was on Facebook. Pretty much how everyone finds out everything these days, Montrose.”

“I hate the Internet,” he says, rattling a Tic Tac container. “No good’s come of it.”

“You can order things online.”

“I don’t need anything that I can’t get at the IGA or the mall in Olympia.”

I offer up a half smile. He plays up his disdain, but I know better. I’ve seen the Amazon boxes in the back of his car.

“Looks like bruising on her wrists and on her thighs,” I say.

“Sexual assault,” Montrose says. “Kind of fits with this kind of crazed abduction, I guess.”

“Well,” I say, “we know she didn’t run off with some other guy.”

“Yeah,” Montrose says. “She was dragged off.”

“I pulled all the sex offenders from the registry,” I say. “Local parolees too. After the scene is secure and cleared, let’s knock on a few doors. My money’s on someone who’s done something like this before.”

“Or someone who has worked themselves up to something like this.”

I go over to Adam.

“Deputy Cronin can take you back to the cabin,” I say.

“I can drive myself,” Adam says.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine to drive. I’ve got to get my things and go tell Sophie’s parents. I’ve got to find a way to tell Aubrey.”

“We can send a chaplain,” I say.

He gets up. “No. Sophie wasn’t religious. I’m not, either. I just need to wrap my brain around what’s happened here.” He stops and studies the group of spectators, the police cars, the ambulances. “What happened?” he asks.