Chapter 5 - THE SECOND CAMP
The second property was located nearly forty miles east of Springfield in a wooded section of Webster County.
Police found it before sunset.
Two children were inside.
The third bed was empty.
The missing child was a nine-year-old girl named Hannah Price.
According to Boone, Hannah had been brought to the camp three days earlier because her parents believed she was “possessed by defiance.” She had escaped sometime during the night.
Nobody knew whether she had reached the road.
The temperature was expected to drop below freezing.
Luke was discharged from the hospital that afternoon, but we did not go home.
Our address appeared in Boone’s files, and police could not yet guarantee that every person involved had been identified. The county placed us in a protected family apartment attached to a child-advocacy center.
It contained two bedrooms, a small kitchen and locks on every exterior door.
Luke still checked them repeatedly.
He carried Dino under one arm despite the torn fabric and missing tracker. A nurse had placed the toy in a clear evidence bag, but Luke cried until Garrett persuaded the department to photograph it and release it back to us.
That night, I repaired the seam while Luke watched.
“Put the tracker back,” he said.
“The police have it.”
“Get another one.”
“I will.”
“Two.”
“Two?”
“One in Dino. One where nobody knows.”
The request broke something inside me.
Five-year-olds should ask for stickers, pancakes or an extra bedtime story.
My son wanted backup tracking devices.
“All right,” I said. “Two.”
He nodded and lay down without asking for a story.
I opened his favorite book anyway.
Halfway through, he interrupted.
“Is Hannah in the dark?”
I had not told him about Hannah.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“At camp.”
My hand tightened around the book.
“What camp?”
“The other one.”
Luke sat upright and lowered his voice.
“Pastor Silas talked about her. Grandma said Hannah was harder to fix because she bit someone.”
“Did Grandma take you to the second camp?”
He shook his head.
“She showed me pictures. She said children who ran away got lost in the forest.”
I contacted Detective Bell immediately.
She arrived twenty minutes later with a child interviewer, but Luke became frightened when they asked him to describe the photographs.
“They’ll know I told.”
“Who?” Bell asked gently.
“The lady with the silver tooth.”
Boone had not mentioned a woman with a silver tooth.
Neither had Darlene.
Luke described her as tall, with short gray hair and a green truck. She had visited Darlene’s house twice during supervised visits. I remembered one of those occasions.
Darlene had introduced the woman as a church volunteer named Miriam.
I had seen her only briefly from the porch.
She had carried boxes to the garage while I helped Luke wash paint from his hands.
Bell searched church records.
No Miriam appeared.
But traffic-camera footage near the second camp showed a dark green pickup leaving the area at 4:12 that morning.
The driver’s face was obscured.
The passenger was small.
Hannah had not escaped into the woods.
Someone had taken her.
By midnight, an Amber Alert covered southern Missouri.
Luke fell asleep beside me on the couch while Hannah’s photograph appeared on television. She had red hair, freckles and a gap between her front teeth.
Her school portrait showed a child trying not to smile.
At 2:07 a.m., my phone rang.
I expected Bell.
Instead, Darlene’s voice came through the speaker.
“Austin.”
I stood so quickly the blanket fell from my lap.
She was supposed to be in county custody.
“How are you calling me?”
“You need to listen carefully.”
Her tone was different.
No tears.
No performance.
Only control.
“If you cooperate, the girl goes home.”
I looked toward Luke.
He remained asleep.
“What do you want?”
“The trust documents.”
“You kidnapped Hannah?”
“I did not say that.”
“You’re calling from jail.”
“People underestimate what loyalty can accomplish.”
I moved into the bathroom and quietly locked the door.
“What does Hannah have to do with Luke’s trust?”
“Nothing. She is leverage.”
The casualness of the answer turned my stomach.
“Against me?”
“Against Boone. Against the police. Against anyone who believes they can destroy what my family built.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Tell the district attorney Luke invented the cellar story.”
“There are photographs.”
“Say you coached him. Say grief made you unstable.”
“And Hannah?”
“She will be released after I’m granted bond.”
I activated the recording function on the phone.
“How do I know she’s alive?”
A pause followed.
Then another voice came through.
“Please help me.”
A child.
Hannah.
Before I could speak, someone pulled the phone away.
Darlene returned.
“You have until noon.”
The call ended.
I unlocked the bathroom door.
Luke stood in the hallway holding Dino.
His face was pale.
“Grandma found us.”
I knelt in front of him.
“She doesn’t know where we are.”
“She always knows.”
This time, I did not tell him he was wrong.
Detective Bell traced the call to a contraband phone inside the detention center. Darlene had used it, but the device had connected through three redirected numbers, making Hannah’s location impossible to identify.
The jail went into lockdown.
A corrections officer named Pauline Webb was removed from duty after surveillance showed her entering Darlene’s unit twice without authorization.
Webb had attended Whitlock Church for nineteen years.
During questioning, she denied everything.
Then Bell showed her the recording of Hannah’s voice.
Webb asked for an attorney.
At ten the next morning, the district attorney arranged a controlled response. I recorded a video claiming Luke had confused a game with punishment and that I intended to withdraw my accusations.
It was the hardest lie I had ever spoken.
Darlene’s attorney received the video at 11:15.
At 11:27, Webb’s husband left their farmhouse in a green pickup.
Police drones followed him from a distance.
He drove north, then east, switching between gravel roads before stopping beside an abandoned feed mill.
Officers moved in.
The building was empty.
Inside, they found Hannah’s jacket, a sleeping bag and a photograph of Luke.
On the back, someone had written:
THE HEIR MUST RETURN TO HIS TRUE FAMILY.
Webb’s husband was arrested.
He insisted he had been instructed to retrieve supplies but claimed he had never seen Hannah.
Then Luke noticed something in the police photograph.
A faded painting on the feed mill wall.
A white dove above three blue waves.
“I know that bird,” he said.
“From where?”
“Grandma’s picture book.”
He ran to his backpack and removed a small religious booklet Darlene had given him.
On the final page was a photograph of children standing outside a lakeside retreat.
The same dove.
The same waves.
Below it were the words:
WHITLOCK FAMILY MINISTRY
TABLE ROCK LAKE, 1987
The property had been sold decades earlier.
But county records revealed something else.
The land had not gone to a stranger.
It belonged to Darlene’s older sister.
The sister who was supposed to supervise Luke’s visit.
The sister Darlene claimed had never arrived.
Police units raced south toward Table Rock Lake.
May you like
They reached the property shortly before dark.
The cabin was burning.
