Garrett checks the map and puts down his shovel. He pulls out the tape measure and places the start of it at the base of the boulder, right under the plaque. Then he walks backward, letting the tape out as he moves through a tangle of brush at the edge of the clearing. The foliage closes around him and he’s out of sight.

“Garrett!”

A few seconds later, he calls out in a low voice, “Brea! Over here!”

For a second, I flash back to the video of Suzanne, that gorgeous young woman with her whole life ahead of her. And I realize that I might be standing on her grave.

After all these years, there’d be little left but bones. Though we knew that when we came here, I’m overcome with emotion. My cheeks are suddenly wet with tears. Suzanne, we’re going to find you.

Garrett extends the forty-foot tape until it’s at its limit, then grabs a stick and jabs it into the ground to mark the spot. He reels the tape back into its case.

“This is where we dig,” he says.

CHAPTER
46

Garrett shines his flashlight around the edge of the area. “Hold on,” he says. “The soil is loose, not hard-packed.”

He bends down under a bush and comes back up with a handful of soil. “This is recent.”

“Somebody was here, Garrett. Somebody got here first!”

Garrett wipes his brow. “Maybe we read the map wrong.”

I grab his arm. “Stop. We’re in the right spot. Somebody dug a hole. And recently, somebody dug it up again. If there was anything here, it’s gone. Somebody took it. Took her.”

Garrett blades his shovel through the loose soil. “There has to be something here.”

I shine my flashlight where he’s working. Then my foot slips and I fall. My nose is so close to the dirt, I can smell it.

Shit. What’s this? I rip the tape off the flashlight so I can actually see. I brush away the fresh dirt. A flash of red. It could be evidence! Or it could be trash left over from a picnic.

Garrett kneels next to me. “What is that?”

While he holds the flashlight, I use my shovel to comb through the dirt. A shape appears. A small clump of something. Not dirt. Not a rock. My chest is pounding. I reach down between my feet and pick it up.

I hold it in front of the flashlight beam and rub the dirt away, just enough to see what I’m holding.

A piece of jewelry.

Oh my God.

I’m looking at a tennis bracelet with red gems.

Like the one Suzanne was wearing at the children’s hospital.

“DeMarco was right, Garrett. She was here. Suzanne was here.”

But where the hell is she now?

CHAPTER
47

Portsmouth, New Hampshire