The People vs. Alex Cross (Alex Cross 25)

We asked her to point out the trail she believed Timmy had used to reach the forest clearing where the missing girls’ Toyota was found. As she went to the window to show us where to find the path, Lenore expressed bitterness about the investigation, saying that state and local detectives had been more interested in the lesbians than her son.

“Then again, they’re probably still alive, and my son’s dead, buried, and forgotten,” she said morosely as she led us to the door. “So thank you for thinking about him.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “We’ll let you know if we make any progress.”

“I believe you,” she said. “Even if no one else seems willing to help.”

Walking down the driveway, feeling Lenore Walker’s tortured gaze on my back, I was once again grateful for my many blessings and hyperaware of how the gifts of life can disappear in the blink of an eye.

“There but for the grace of God go I,” Sampson said in a soft voice.

“I hear you, brother,” I said. “Loud and clear.”

We found the path and went into the woods. The trail ran out across a shelf and then dropped steeply downhill to a logging road. When we came over the edge of the shelf, a black, whirling explosion went off down in the bottom.

I lurched back, ducked, and threw up my arms to protect my head.

CHAPTER

90

A BIG FLOCK of wild turkeys had been feeding in the logging road when we appeared above them. They erupted off the forest floor and roared right over our heads, causing us to duck and take cover until they were gone.

“You should have seen the look on your face when they came blowing out of there,” I said, grinning.

“I almost had a heart attack.” Sampson laughed. “You did too.”

“I’m a city boy, not used to getting attacked by wild critters.”

“Critters?”

“I’m trying to channel my inner country.”

“Yee-haw,” Sampson said and dropped down the bank onto the logging road. “Boy, those damn birds really tear up the place, don’t they?”

I saw what he meant. For a good fifty yards in every direction, the leaves were all fluffed and piled up where the turkeys had scratched and overturned them looking for food.

“There had to have been forty of them,” I said.

“At least,” Sampson said, heading down the trail to where it met a creek.

We paralleled the creek for almost a mile to a fork in the two-track road. We went left and found the creek crossing Lenore Walker had described and continued on up a short hill.

At the top of the rise, we could see through the bare trees some ninety yards across a wide flat to the clearing where Alison Dane’s Toyota Camry had been found, abandoned. The flock of turkeys had been there before us, tearing up the forest floor on both sides of the trail all the way to the clearing.

I had a picture on my phone of the Toyota Camry as it was found, and we were able to use it to figure out roughly where the car must have been. We crossed the clearing to the spot.

Looking back to where the logging road met the opening, I said, “So Timmy comes to the edge of the woods over there, and sees what?”

“The car, the girls,” Sampson said. “And maybe whoever grabbed them.”

“Sure, it’s not far. Sixty yards? Seventy?”

“Sounds right, but then what? Someone sees Timmy?”

I nodded. “Chases him down, crushes his throat.”

Sampson took a big breath and let it go. “Poor kid.”