By 6 the next morning, I was already showered, caffeinated and out my door. There was no time to waste. A plan seemed to have formed in my head overnight. When I got to the office, it was to find the entire staff assembled early. Meryl called me over, shoving a coffee into my grip. “Senel, glad to see you’re up early. We’ve just been discussing the next move.”

I nodded. “Yes sir.”

“We’re a small team, more’s the pity when faced with something like this. I think we’ll need to divide and conquer for today. I’ll go with Oak to speak to our list of people that know or had contact with Luna. I need you to pick up where the Sherrif’s team left off searching the woods. Oak tells me you have good instincts in there. Does that work for you? Ashley will hold down the fort here and keep us informed if someone calls in with any information.”

It was the exact plan I had already formed in my head so I merely nodded and grabbed the keys to the spare car, heading out. I stopped at a bakery to grab a couple of bagels, not knowing how long I would be out there and then headed towards Wiggins. I needed some on the ground mapping, so I popped by the local Forest Ranger Station and thankfully there was someone there early. I explained my needs and them man shoved map after map into my hand, letting me know he had more if I needed them. I then set off back to the road where Luna had walked to get to Ronnie’s house and parked off the side of the road in a clump of trees.

I ate my first bagel half while examining a map of the National Forest and land use in the area. It was a patchwork of public, private and county sections, but the area around Ronnie’s house was largely public land. I consulted a more detailed topographical map for landmarks and features in the area and then folded it to the relevant section. I would keep this on me. I grabbed my small pack and loaded what I thought I would need, then headed out. It was a cool dewy September morning, autumn already but with the promise of warm days ahead still.

I headed first to what we were thinking of as the kidnapping point. I sat on the rock for a while where we had found the dandelions, trying to picture the scene when it happened. Not knowing who the perpetrator could have been made this difficult. There were three scenarios as far as I could tell. An unknown person had opportunistically kidnapped Luna for unknown reasons. Or someone had been watching this trail specifically for the purpose of kidnapping Luna. Or Luna had accidentally walked in on the scene of something and had been taken as a failsafe to keep her from revealing a truth as a witness. There were other possibilities, but these seemed the most likely and I was leaning towards the former two. So they had either lured her off the trail or scared her off and had grabbed her thereafter. Then what? At 10 years old she was small, but still a burden. A vehicle of some sort to remove her from the area would have been most ideal, either that or she had been taken to a nearby location where a vehicle waited.

It was mostly large houses and farm land out here, as Oak and I had observed. A few of the closest neighbors were on the list to question purely due to proximity, but I wasn’t feeling hopeful. The people we had observed in this area were either well-off middle-class folks or blue-collar farm types, both with families or in some cases elderly. There were always discrepancies, but I didn’t imagine any of them would want to kidnap a young girl. So someone else. There were dirt roads marked on the map not too far from this spot. That could have been an easy vector to access the area and take Luna. I decided to start there. I headed out slightly west towards a road in the direction that Ronnie had pointed out yesterday, where the Nomad camp had been. I wanted to see for myself what the area looked like. It was only half a mile walk before I picked up the dirt track and not far after that I came on what was unmistakably the remnants of a camp. There were signs of old cook fires, debris and left behind articles everywhere. I was difficult to say how many people had been camped here, but I guessed at least a dozen by the size of the area. Nothing looked recently disturbed, there weren’t any fresh tire or other tracks as far as I could see. There were human footprints, but I was pretty sure they belonged to the search party that had been here last night. Ok.

I continued along the dirt track until it intersected with a more prominent one just up the way. This looked more recently traveled, but it was the start of hunting season so there was no way to distinguish any marks. I moved along this road, carefully watching for side tracks or trails. There were a few that I figured as game tracks, which I would wander up and down until they faded out. Then I spotted a side track. It certainly would have been wide enough to drive on. And it was leading more or less parallel to the large vacated nomad camp, close enough to Ronnie’s house that I figured I’d have a look. The track wound around a good deal and then began to descend into a shallow little ravine, where it turned out of sight. It was hard to tell, but I though the tire tracks along here looked more or less fresh. I moved along the track, turning the bend in the ravine and stopped abruptly.

There was a small trailer parked just out of sight around the bend. It was hauled by a dusty VW van type situation and it looked like it had been there for a while. The area looked lived in. But not in a messy way like the large camp. There was a well established fire pit with what looked like a metal drying rack arrayed above it. Meat of some sort was laid out in neat strips on this. What appeared to be a solar shower was strung up in a nearby tree. Two twenty-gallon water tanks stood full on either side of the trailer. There was also a garden after a fashion, a series of pots, tubs and metal pans that held anything from tomato plants to squash and herbs. I stared at the scene for several moments, dumbfounded. Then I noticed a tiny tendril of smoke curling from the fire pit. Someone had been here quite recently.

I moved forwards, making sure I had quick access to my glock and found what could have been the front entrance of the van. I knocked. No response. I glanced around the other side. No one seemed to be there. Hmm. Maybe the residents were out. I considered calling the van in for a moment but decided against it. Perhaps I would just wait here a little while to see who…WHAP!

Something flew through the air about three feet to the left of me and plunged into the nearest tree. I had only a glimpse of the item, a wooden arrow before I had turned, taking shelter at the front of the van opposite the direction the arrow had come from drawing my glock. Adrenaline flooded me so hard I felt momentarily woozy.

“Police!” I called, trying to keep the quiver from the near heart attack I had just had out of my voice. “Put down your weapon!”

I chanced a glanced around the side of the van. A man was standing off to the side of a couple of oak trees holding a bow with an arrow notched and ready. I held up my gun around the side of the van so that he could see it. “Put down the bow!” I called to him as loudly as possible. For a moment, nothing happened and I considered the ridiculous option of having to shoot a man threatening me with archery. But then the man lowered the bow and loosened the arrow. I waited until he had dropped the arrow on the ground before I emerged fully around the side of the van.

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“Hands up!” I called.

The man obeyed slowly, setting his bow down and lifting his wrist incrementally. I moved closer. Now that I could see him properly, I noticed he was a tall bloke, thin but leanly muscular, heavily bearded, thick dark matted hair and dark eyes. He wore heavy overalls and a flannel jacket. I took a prolonged breath, my heartrate slowing down and lowered my gun fractionally. He could certainly have a gun hidden on him but it seemed unlikely since his assault on me had been practically medieval. I glanced around to ensure we were alone and then lowered my gun another few inches. Neither of us spoke.

“Are you armed?” I inquired finally.

The man cocked his head slightly, his eyes on my gun. Then he pointed to his leg, where I noticed a small sheath, which probably held a knife.

“Set it down slowly,” I instructed. He did so, so carefully and obviously that I wondered if this sort of thing happened to him often. His slow and deliberate actions put me incrementally more at ease.

“I’m going to search you. Turn around and put your hands behind your head.”

He complied calmly and I patted him down. When I was satisfied, I grabbed his bow, arrow and the knife and I stepped out of range of him and lowered my gun all the way. He turned around and looked at me almost expectantly, his hands still behind his head. I stared at him for a moment. “At ease,” I said finally, surprised that those words had come out of my mouth. Normally to a civilian I would have just said, you can relax or something like that.

He dropped his hands and glanced at his weapons in my hands. “I’ll give them back,” I assured him. “I just don’t fancy being skewered on an arrow right now.”

I thought I saw his beard move in what was possible a small twitch of a smile. Ok, we were developing a repour if you could call it that. “My name is DI Senel, I’m with the county police. I’m sorry to have walked into your camp without your permission but I’ve been investigating a case and I need to assess everything I can find.”

“What sort of case?” the man asked, speaking for the first time. His voice was strangely accented, something I hadn’t heard before and couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was slow and soft, where I had expected him to sound deep and intimidating.

I considered my reply. If this guy was the kidnapper, I didn’t want to alarm him. Clearly he was armed and could be dangerous. “A local matter. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

The man shrugged. “Can I sit?” he asked, gesturing to a chair next to his fire pit.

I nodded slowly and escorted him over the pit. He carefully added a few pieces of wood, exaggerating every movement so that I could see exactly what he was doing and then took a seat. He motioned to the other chair, but I declined.

“What’s your name?”

“Bract,” he said, reaching out and examining the contents of a tall ceramic mug before taking a sip of whatever was inside it.

“Full legal name please.”

He just looked at me and shook his head. “Bract,” he repeated. “Nothing else.”

“Ok. Mr. Bract. Do you live out here?”

It was a pretty redundant question. Bract seemed to think so as well. He half smiled and waved around. “Yes obviously.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“For how long have you been here?”

Bract tilted his head back in thought. “Since a month ago at least.”

“You move around a lot?”

He nodded. “When I need to, yes.”

“Are you a nomad, Mr. Bract?”

Bract frowned but nodded. “I am.”

I took out my notepad and jotted a few things down, keeping a careful eye on Bract as I did so. “And were you here at your camp two nights ago?”

Bract nodded. “I’m always here at night.”

“Did you see anyone in this area two days ago from the time of 3 PM onwards?”

Bract squinted. “No. No one comes out here much. Sometimes a hunter, but none that day.”

“Can I see inside your van, Mr. Bract?”

Bract narrowed his eyes. “What are you accusing me of?” he asked.

“Absolutely nothing at this time. I just need to eliminate possibilities.”

“Possibilities of what?”

I wasn’t well inclined to say just yet. The news of Luna’s kidnapping would be made public in 48 hours by the end of the day, but as of this point, it was still under wraps.

“Foul play,” I said finally.

Bract glanced at his van, then at me and then slowly stood. He opened the door of the van and gestured for me to look.

“Please, would you enter?” I requested and he did so while I observed the interior and him at the same time. It was surprising clean and tidy, a simple sleeping area, a book shelf, some neatly ordered tools and items and several crates of canned and dry food. There was only one other compartment within.

“Can you open that?” I asked, indicating the small door.

He obediently pulled it open and I saw it was full of folded clothes. I nodded. “Thank you, Mr. Bract. That will be all.”

If he was hiding Luna in there it would have been an impressive feat. Though I had seen a few in my day. We headed back over to the fire pit and I holstered my glock. I wasn’t getting any weird vibes here, apart from the obvious weird vibes.

Bract was looking quizzical. “You think I stole something?” he asked.

I shook my head. “It’s more serious than that. I don’t think you did anything. But we’ve got a missing person’s case going. A missing child,” I clarified.

It was a risk telling him. But I was a trained interrogator and I wanted to see his response. His eyebrows shot up and he looked at me with what was undoubtedly concern. “That’s bad.” He said unnecessarily.

“It is. We think she was in this general area when she vanished. You can understand maybe why I would be suspicious of anyone out here.”

Bract nodded. He seemed to suddenly be doing so pretty fast thinking. “Townie kid gone missing?” he asked.

“Townie?”

“One of your people?” he clarified. I took it he meant not a nomad by that.

“Yeah.”

Something passed over his face and it aroused my suspicion. “You know anything about it?”

He shook his head very slowly but I felt that he was holding something back.

“This is a child we are talking about Mr. Bract. Townie or not she is a kidnapped scared little girl. If there is anything at all you can give me, it could be the difference between saving her and failing to do so before something terrible happens.”

But Bract just stood there shaking his head.

I glanced around the camp again in frustration. I could cuff this man and bring him in, but what was the point? He might not have anything remotely useful to tell us and arresting him for no reason would just be harassment of an innocent, which I was against on principal. I tried to think of anything else I could get here but if he wasn’t talking, there was no point. I needed to move on.

“Will you be camped here for a while?” I asked.

“For a few more days.”

“I may return if I have any more questions. And this is my card, if you think of anything.” I slowly handed over a card with my contact info and he frowned down at it. “I’ll take my leave now. These I will leave here,” I added, indicating the bow, arrows and knife.

Bract nodded. He was looking grave. I couldn’t tell if whatever he was holding back was useful or not but unless he was willing to tell me, it was most certainly useless. I backed out of the camp a reasonable distance until I was more comfortable turning my back to him. Until I was out of sight, the man just stood by his fire staring after me unmoving.