Chapter 4

I rented a car and drove north for about forty minutes.

The road ended at a patch of empty, scrubby land.

The mountains rose up, steep and raw. Loose rocks. Dry brush. The wind was strong enough to push you sideways.

This wasn't a hiking trail. There were no signs, no paths. Just a dirt track that led nowhere.

I stood at the edge and looked down.

Boulders. Dead grass. A ravine carved out by flash floods.

If someone fell from here.

I didn't let myself finish the thought.

I started walking to the nearest houses. A tiny cluster of trailers and old cabins, a few families living scattered among the juniper trees.

I showed Sarah's photo to everyone I saw.

No one remembered her.

Door after door. Head shake after head shake.

I was ready to give up when I saw her.

A little girl. Maybe six or seven years old. Sitting under a juniper tree in a faded pink T-shirt, barefoot, playing with stones in the dirt.

She was holding something.

A phone.

A pink case. With a cartoon rabbit on the back.

My brain went blank.

That case. I gave Sarah that case for her birthday. Pink. Rabbit. Because Sarah loved rabbits.

I walked over slowly and crouched down, trying to keep my voice soft.

"Hey, sweetheart. Where did you get that phone?"

The girl looked up at me and pulled the phone behind her back.

"Is it yours?"

"No," she whispered. Her eyes darted away.

"I'm not going to hurt you." I stayed low. "That phone belongs to my best friend. She's lost. I'm trying to find her. Can you tell me where you found it?"

The girl pressed her lips together.

Her eyes had something I rarely see in children.

Fear. Not of me. Something older.

"Did you see something scary?" I asked quietly.

The girl's lip trembled.

She didn't answer.

I pulled out some cash and held it out to her. "If you tell me, I'll give you this. You can buy anything you want."

The girl looked at the money. Then at me.

Then she pointed toward the mountain. "Down there."

"Down where?"

She pointed again. Toward the ravine.

My heart dropped.

"Did you find anything else?"

The girl hesitated. Then slowly pulled something from behind her back.

A crossbody bag. Fabric with little flowers. A small tassel hanging off the strap.

Sarah's bag.

I knew this bag. She saw it at a mall in Chicago two years ago. Said it was too expensive. I bought it for her for Christmas. She cried.

Now it was stained with mud and water. The fabric was starting to rot.

I took it. My fingers were shaking.

I opened it.

Her lip balm. Her portable charger. A photo strip from a photo booth, the two of us, making stupid faces.

Everything was still inside.

If the bag was down there.

If the phone was down there.

Then where was Sarah?

"Can you show me where you found these?" I asked.

The girl shook her head hard.

"I'll give you more money."

She shook her head again.

"Please." My voice broke. "Please."

The girl looked at my face for a long time.

Then she stood up, dusted off her shorts, and said, "Okay. I'll show you."

She walked ahead. I followed.

The path got narrower. The brush got thicker. The air started to smell wrong.

My stomach turned.

I kept repeating the same prayer in my head.

I would rather she had slept with my husband.

I would rather she had betrayed me.

I would rather she had run off with him.

Anything but this.

The girl stopped.

She turned around. Her face was pale.

"What is it?" I asked.

"That place." She swallowed. "It smells bad."

I didn't go any farther.

I knew that if I kept going, if I found something, I wouldn't be able to handle it alone. I needed professionals. I needed evidence.

I took the girl's hand, walked her back to the cabins, and called 911.

It took two tries to get through. I explained everything. The missing person. The phone. The bag. The smell.

The dispatcher said someone would come. But it would take time.

I hung up and called a search and rescue team I'd looked up before I left Chicago. They worked with the county sheriff on mountain recoveries.

They got there faster than the police.

They said they'd be there by afternoon.

Waiting was the worst part.

I sat on a rock at the edge of the cabins, holding Sarah's bag in my lap, not moving.

I opened it and pulled out the photo strip.

We were standing in front of our dorm, wearing our graduation gowns, arms around each other, laughing. Sarah was making a heart with her hands.

We were twenty-two years old.

Sarah was my college roommate. Four years. She had the bed on the left. I had the bed on the right. Every night we'd stay up talking across the gap until two or three in the morning.

About the future. About boys. About everything.

The night we graduated, we sat on the roof of our dorm with two beers and looked at the stars.

That was the night she came up with the code.

"Claire, we need a signal."

"If something ever happens to one of us, the other one hears that name and knows what to do."

I told her she was crazy.

But I remembered.

I never thought I'd actually use it.

Now I was sitting in a patch of dirt in Arizona, holding her rotting bag, waiting for a search team to find her body.