Royce crept slowly along the beaten dirt track that had once been a country lane. Broken branches and mangled foliage were the only evidence that anyone had traveled it recently. In the years prior, when Royce and his wife had frequented the area, the dirt road had been well-maintained by the couple who had lived here, but since the sale of the land the road had been used infrequently. It had become little more than what the old timers would call a "cow path." With no one on hand to thwart it, the surrounding forest had begun its inevitable advance.

Long thin branches clawed at the sides of Royce's police-issued SUV as the tires lurched and bounced over large roots and whip-thin saplings. As he rounded the last bend, a strip of yellow police tape became visible and past that a dilapidated wood farmhouse, the windows of which had long ago been boarded up. The metal roof of the home displayed patches of rust, and around the porch, long thin vines had begun to climb the railings.

In the clearing across from the house were three other department-issued Chevy Tahoes identical to Royce's. A souped-up Dodge Charger and two more modest unmarked sedans were parked beside them. Royce shook his head in disgust. The flashy vehicle now parked among the scrub brush and tall grass could only belong to the FBI's hotshot lead agent, Christopher Simmons. Royce and the agent mixed about as well as oil and water, but then Royce had never made bones about the fact that the man got under his skin.

Royce had been born and raised in Hart's Ridge. He had married here, raised his children here, and spent his career here. The thought of an outsider coming in and showing such disdain for the town and everything it stood for just didn't sit right with Royce. It felt like a personal attack on everything he held dear.

When Emily's disappearance had first been reported, Royce had known that he and his officers would need help. They were a tight-knit community, but because of their small size, their police department didn't have access to some of the same things that a larger department would. There was also the fact that Harts Ridge hadn't seen any major crime in decades. During the peak season, they would sometimes make the occasional drug bust or find themselves having to haul in a rowdy tourist to spend an evening sleeping it off in the town's drunk tank. Violent crime, however, was almost unheard of. Royce trusted the men that he worked with, but they were ill-equipped to deal with something of this nature. They needed someone with experience, so Royce had made the call. Agent Simmons had answered.

He had several agents with him, but it was obvious to everyone that Simmons was in charge. His help had been invaluable, but he showed little to no respect for the residents of Hart's Ridge, and he was oftentimes haughty and condescending with Royce's officers. Truth be told, Royce would have already sent him packing had they not been in such dire need of his assistance. A fact that did nothing to improve Royce's already sour mood.

He pulled in beside Bobby Nolan's vehicle and put the big SUV in park. From this vantage point, he could see officers milling around the front of the house. His men were easy to identify, their dark blue uniforms standing in stark contrast to the FBI agent's light khakis and crisp button-up shirts.

Sliding out of the car, Royce pulled his uniform hat down over what was left of his graying hair before crossing the yard to where Bobby stood deep in conversation with Sullivan Masters. The two men stood so close together that they were almost touching. Bobby's plump figure, thick salt and pepper hair, and short stature appeared almost comical in such close proximity to Sullivan who was clean-shaven from his face to the top of his head, muscular, and almost a head taller than Royce's old friend.

Sully, as the men on his team called him, was new to the Bureau. He had been a star in his previous department working his way up to investigator. He had several successful cases under his belt before applying for the Bureau, and word on the street was that his star continued to shine bright. He had an eye for detail that couldn't be taught. He was also the polar opposite of Agent Simmons. His friendly demeanor and sense of humor made him easier to work with than his by-the-book supervisor.

If Royce had been a betting man, he would have put his pension on Sully making special agent in the next few years. If Agent Simmons didn't watch his back, Sully might just replace him, and that thought made Royce a very happy man indeed.

As if he could hear his thoughts, Sully glanced up. Upon seeing the sheriff's approach, he raised a hand in greeting, his face breaking into a good-natured grin.

"Hey Royce. I wondered when you'd get here." He said, folding one of the sheriff's pale arthritic hands into his dark-skinned one and pumping it enthusiastically. "Bobby and I were just talking about you."

"All good, I hope," Royce said, smiling back. He couldn't help himself. The young man's enthusiasm was infectious.

"I would never talk about you behind your back but now Bobby here he's a little shady," Sully said wrinkling his nose in mock exasperation, his dark eyes full of mischief as he gestured in Bobby's direction. "Don't worry though, I didn't believe a word."

Royce chuckled. "Well, I appreciate that."

"If you two are done yakking," Bobby said, a note of frustration coloring his words, "I think we have a few things to discuss."

"Yeah, ok. You said on the phone that they had found a body. Do they have an ID on it yet?" Royce asked, turning to Bobby.

"Not yet the coroner is in there now. All they know is that he's not local."

"So our victim's a male?"

"Yep." Bobby said, "Cause of death is a gunshot wound to the head."

"And the shooter?" Royce asked.

"That's the million-dollar question, isn't it?" Sully said, running a hand over his smooth scalp. "We swept the house when we got here, but the place was empty except for the victim. He hadn't been dead long. We're still waiting for someone to make it official, but the last estimate I heard was that we probably arrived anywhere from a half hour to an hour after the time of death."

Royce gave a low whistle of surprise. "If your timeline's correct, then that's not long after the girl was found."

"That's what Sully and I were just discussing," Bobby replied. "If we're right, that means he was murdered maybe a half hour or a little longer after she was found."

"You think she's good for this?" Royce asked.

"She hasn't been ruled out, but I don't think so. We found something that points to another suspect. Come on, I'll show you," Sully replied. "You coming, Bobby?"

"Nah, I'll wait here. Those stairs are a death trap."

Sully gestured for Royce to follow, starting around the side of the house where they had parked their cars.

Trudging through knee-high grass and ancient flower beds, they rounded the corner into what had once been the home's spacious backyard. A set of rickety stairs protruded from the residence at an odd angle. The warped boards and broken spindles lent themselves to the overall feeling of sadness and neglect radiating from the structure walls.

"This is the only door not roped off, but be careful you don't fall through," Sully said, starting up to the back door. "These stairs have seen better days."

"Yeah, back when Eisenhower was in office," Royce grumbled suddenly, understanding Bobby's reluctance to return to the house.

Easing his way gingerly up to the landing, Royce stepped through the narrow doorway onto a linoleum floor once white but now yellowing and cracked with age. Jutting from the wall to his right were hot and cold water hookups that suggested they were standing in what had once been the home's laundry room. Handing him a set of disposable gloves and shoe covers, Sully quickly brought him up to speed as they prepared to enter the main crime scene.

"As far as we can tell, this part of the house hasn't been in use for a while. It seems as though they mainly occupied the front rooms. The girl was being held in the basement."

"If they were staying here, do you have any idea how she managed to escape?"

"We're still working on that, but I do know from where she escaped." He said, straightening and gesturing for Royce to follow.

They made their way down a long hall and into the kitchen. To Royce's right was a partial wall that separated the eat-in kitchen from the main living area. Over the top of the half wall, he could see that the room was void of decoration save for a large rock fireplace and dark green carpet that covered the entirety of the spacious floor. Agent Simmons was near the wall speaking in hushed tones with the county coroner Jason Marks. In the center of the room and just in front of the fireplace was a large blood-stained section of carpet. To the right of that was a sheet-cloaked body on a stretcher being wheeled toward the front door by two EMTs from East Memorial Hospital.

Sully gestured toward the living room, stopping just inside the door for a moment to give Royce a better look. "I guess I don't need to tell you that this is where they found the body."

"Yeah, I gathered that," Royce replied, giving the room a quick once over before following after Sully, who had already started across the kitchen. The ugly blue booties he wore muffled the sound of his boots as he strode across the dark hardwood floor in close pursuit.

He remembered when this floor had been kept polished to a bright sheen, a far cry from the deep scratches and fine film of dust and grime that he saw today. The coat of filth was only disturbed in the more high-traffic areas. Royce could make out the tracks of his officer's uniform boots and the tracks of the more casual shoes the agents wore even through the paper covers. These were located around the outside of the room. The dirt and dust were only disturbed in one other place that Royce could see.

In the center of the room sat a small square card table with two folding chairs. The chair closest to Royce sat askew as if its occupant had risen abruptly, leaving long, thin tracks in the grime as the legs of the chair slid backward. The second chair lay toppled on its side near an open door on the far side of the kitchen through which Royce could just see a set of stairs extending down into the darkness below.

There were larger tracks around the table and chairs, the prints resembling the ones Royce usually associated with some type of hiking boot. The tracks near the stairs were smaller. They extended out to the little alcove where Sully now knelt beside a door leading onto the porch. These tracks were more distinct than the others due to the difference in size and because they had been made by a bare human foot.

Royce crossed to where Sully was and knelt beside him. "We think she went out this way," Sully said, watching Royce intently as the older man studied the door.

"It was locked then?" Royce replied.

Sully nodded. "The locks had been replaced with a double-sided deadbolt. You would have to have a key to get in or out. The front and back doors, too."

Royce thought of the young girl barely in her twenties lying in the hospital bed a half hour from here. He thought of the damage to the young girl's leg and the fractures the doctor said she had sustained. He was pretty sure he knew how it had happened.

Sully stood identifying several other points of interest, and as Royce viewed the destruction, his heart sank. There was an image forming in his mind, a movie of sorts, and as it came into focus, he felt a flame flicker to life somewhere deep inside him. A fire that had once burned bright but had flickered and died as Hart's Ridge had grown into the quaint little tourist destination that it was today.

The door in front of him was made of oak thick and brown with four indented sections. Two at the top and two at the bottom. It was the top and bottom sections just above and below the knob that Sully had pointed out. The upper portion of the door had what appeared to be fresh gouges in the wood. Royce could see streaks of crimson in the deeper grooves. The color of the blood that had been left behind as she clawed wildly at the door after finding it bolted against her. The bottom section of the door nearest the frame had been completely destroyed. It appeared that she had kicked this particular section of the door until the wood splintered outward. The door had become dry-rotted and warped with age. Otherwise, she never would have managed it, but Royce was fairly certain this explained her injured leg. The hole that was left was where she had escaped. There were small traces of blood and a paper-thin piece of fabric hanging from a splinter of jagged wood.

Royce couldn't imagine how painful this endeavor must have been for her, and one look at the grim look on Sully's face told him that he was thinking the same thing. He turned to take in the room behind him one last time. As he had suspected the metal folding chair lying on its side between the door and the basement was dented and scratched. The picture was very clear now.

"What are you thinking?" Sully asked.

Royce didn't answer for a moment as he stood and looked around the room for the most minuscule of details he might have missed. When he began to speak, it was slow at first, but he picked up speed as he gained confidence in what he knew to be true.

"She came up from there," he said, gesturing toward the open door on the far side of the room. "When she came to the door and found it locked, she clawed and kicked at the door in a state of sheer panic, at which point she put her foot through the door. Once she saw that there was a possibility of escaping this way, she used the chair to finish off the opening so she could climb out."

"Everything else I'm with you on, but what makes you think she kicked this out?" Sully said, gesturing to the mangled portion of the door.

"She's pretty busted up, but among the more noticeable of her injuries was her right leg. The doctor tells me it's fractured."

"I get it. So you're thinking she went a couple of rounds with an uncooperative door frame and lost."

"Something like that," Royce answered. "I just know that some of the injuries I observed were fresh. I'm thinking that door and a sprint through the woods on a messed up leg could account for a lot of that."

"That's the other thing," Sully said. "How did she manage to get as far as she did on that leg?"

"There's a good possibility, she had been drugged. Add that to an abundance of adrenaline and sheer desperation, and I think you have your answer."

"Drugged? You're sure?"

"The doc seems to think so. They're running the tests now to see what she has in her system. I didn't even get to question her. She was out cold when I left."

"You didn't even get to interview our star witness?" a loud gruff voice from behind Royce asked.

Royce bristled, gritting his teeth as he turned to look into the cool blue eyes of Agent Chris Simmons. His thick black hair was slicked back, making him look more like a cheap insurance salesman than a decorated FBI agent.

"It's so nice to see you, Chris. How have you been?" Royce said, his voice slipping into a sickly sweet tone dripping with sarcasm.

"Well, Royce, I'll tell you. I have a dead body on my hands and a possible witness that no one's interviewed. I'm assuming that means that you didn't talk to the suspect who brought her in either."

"Yes, I spoke with him. His story seems to check out. I plan on going out to his place later and talking to him one more time?"

"Why didn't you run him in? You can't be sure he'll talk to you later?" Agent Simmons asked, his voice rising an octave.

"He's staying with his grandfather right now. I've known him for years. He'll talk to me." Royce answered, his frustration becoming clear in his tone.

"See, that's the problem with these small towns. Everybody knows everybody. Too much favoritism."

"Look, son, I was doing this job while you were still waddling around in your wet diapers. I assure you no one here is showing favoritism." Royce never raised his voice, but the menace in his tone was clear.

"Yeah, well, the fact remains that no one has effectively interviewed our two prime suspects." Agent Simmons replied.

"First of all, I have spoken to Jake, and second of all, no one could possibly interview Emily at the moment because she's not exactly what you would call coherent." Royce retorted.

So angry was he at the man's accusations that it didn't immediately register just what Agent Simmons was saying. Royce was struck dumb for a moment by a sense of astonishment and horror.

"What do you mean by prime suspects? You can't possibly mean-"

"I do mean. Until we are presented with another option, Jake Merrill and Emily Lansing are my prime suspects."