Separate from the World by P. L. Gaus Page A

live.
    Branden punched in Ellie Troyer-Niell’s number down at the jail and waited for the call to go through, all the while scanning the area visible to him for signs of Albert Erb. When Ellie picked up, Branden said urgently, “Ellie! Send help! We need an ambulance, Ellie. Behind the Willa Banks property on Nisley Road.”
    Banks shouted out her address, and Branden asked, “Did you get that?”
    In answer to Ellie’s questions, the professor said:
    “Paramedics, Ellie. And a search team.”
    “Right. Search dogs, too.”
    “No, we need the whole crew. Ask Bruce to call in the night shift people.”
    “A girl, Ellie—Mattie Erb. She’s been tied up in the woods.”
    “She’s covered with blood. It’s her cousin Albert who’s missing. Maybe four years old. Taken off, I don’t know. He’s not here. Might be dead.”
    “No, I think someone took him and tied Mattie up.”
    “No.”
    “His hair’s been cut off.”
    “Clothes are off, too. No, Ellie. We’ve trampled the scene already.”
    “Speed is our ally here.”
    “No, just send me everything you’ve got. I’ll have Willa Banks out by the road to guide everybody back here.”
    “What? No, I can’t tell. She’s conscious. I don’t see any cuts or wounds. If all this blood were hers, she’d be dead.”

14
    Saturday, May 12 11:30 A.M.
    MATTIE ERB trembled, with her eyes closed, and buried her bloody forehead against the professor’s neck. He held her with both arms and cradled the back of her head with his hand, waiting where he had found her for the paramedics. When he tried to pass her to the first paramedic to arrive, she clung to him as if he were life itself—her last, best hope to breathe. Gently he pulled her arms loose, and she started crying. So Willa Banks took her into her arms again and let the paramedics look the girl over while she held her.
    Concerned for the parents, the professor took Mattie back from Willa, and said, “Can you get her parents, Willa?” and Banks started off through the woods, heading toward the back of Enos Erb’s house.
    While they tended to Mattie, Branden started pacing off wider and wider circles among the trees. Twenty-five yards farther down the trail, he found a shiny mass of bloody entrails heaped on the ground. His stomach lurched, and he cried out.
    One of the paramedics came up to him, saw the organs on the ground, and blurted out a curse. “I don’t think that’s human,” he said. “That can’t be human. It’s a dog or a pig, something like that. It’s got to be!”
    “OK, look,” Branden said. “We’ve got to hope that this is some animal. That the boy has been kidnapped. If we assume he’s dead and he’s not, we’ll have lost what chance we have to find him.”
    “Right,” the paramedic said and knelt beside the entrails.
    Branden ran back down the trail toward Banks’s property and met Ricky Niell, who was just coming up to the edge of the trees. They stepped aside to let two more paramedics head up the trail to Mattie.
    Off to the side, Branden explained, “I think someone has kidnapped Albert Erb, maybe killed him. He’s four. His clothes are back there on that trail. And his hair has been cut off. Something’s been gutted. There’s blood smeared over Mattie’s forehead. Somebody planned this.”
    Niell asked, “Why in the woods?”
    “These two kids have been sneaking into the woods here to play. They’re cousins.”
    “So somebody knew that,” Ricky said. “Somebody knew they’d be here.”
    Branden nodded. “I don’t think the families know that they’ve been coming here. It’s got to be a neighbor, maybe a relative. Nuts, Ricky, I can’t believe we’re thinking like this.”
    “They’re neighbor kids?” Ricky asked.
    “Right. Albert goes with the Israel Erbs on the other side of Nisley. Mattie is an Enos Erb kid, from right there on the other side of those trees.”
    Niell saw two deputies approaching and he called out, “Roadblocks, Pat. A mile