Chapter 14

The hopeful crowd of searchers was gathered at the bottom of the hill at dawn, being held back by the police until they determined there was enough daylight for it to be safe.

Collette and Dave's parents were there, as were Patty's parents, along with Scott and Teresa. Morton's parents arrived last.

They and Morton's sister Leticia had first gone to the hospital, as in the excitement Morton had forgotten to call them with directions to the crash site. At the hospital they found Dave watching over a sleeping Julie. Dave had the others' cell numbers, so they'd been able to learn where to find them.

Dave of course didn't mention Julie's close call at the window. But Leticia intuitively picked up on Dave's high stress level, and she offered to stay with him and keep an eye on her. He'd gratefully accepted her offer.

At the crash site, Detective Harris initially said that only police and fire department personnel would be allowed on the hill. He stood his ground, even when a mob of frantic friends and relatives of Bobby Taylor quickly surrounded him.

But when Sammy came to stand before him, with her near mystical assurance that Bobby was alive and that she could find him, he wavered and finally relented. The volunteers would all be assigned to a member of the fire department engine crew that had rolled to the scene. The firemen would ensure that none of the civilians got themselves into trouble.

When at last the sunrise clearly revealed the surface of the hill, the searchers began their ascent. Each group of searchers and their fireman leader had been assigned a vertical stripe of the hill, spread out on either side of the wreck of Van Daddock's car. Detective Harris would remain at the bottom at their makeshift command post, listening to the firemen talking back and forth as they climbed upwards.

But as the groups moved carefully up the hill, Sammy remained at the bottom, even as her group's leader climbed ever farther up their assigned hill section. She began slowly walking back and forth and staring upwards. Patty, Morton, and Collette remained with her, anxiously hovering at her shoulder.

They could tell that Sammy's confidence was beginning to falter, as she couldn't see the boulder that her mother had "shown" her. She finally decided to begin widening her walks back and forth, to extend ever further to the sides of the organized search area.

As she walked over twenty five yards to the left of the organized search, she saw it. The boulder was surrounded by a dense cluster of Pines and scrub trees, but she could make out its shape, and it was clearly the largest piece of rock she had seen on the hill.

"There," she said, pointing up at the rock. Detective Harris saw the girl stop and point. He quickly handed off the command post to the fire chief, and ran down to them. They began to climb up the slope, which if anything was even steeper than above Van's car.

Harris couldn't resist asking. "Miss, are you sure about this? I don't see any way he could have been thrown this far from the car... it's just not possible."

Sammy turned to look at the Detective, and he was startled at her expression. The serene confidence was gone, replace by an angry glare.

"Shut the fuck up and go get a paramedic! They're no good to Bobby over there!"

Harris was actually stopped in his tracks by her outburst. Shaking his head in wonder at what he was doing, he pulled out his radio, and asked the fire chief to free up one of the paramedics to follow this improvised search party.

The chief asked if they had found Bobby, and Harris had to reply, somewhat sheepishly, "Well, no. But... well... the girl says we're about to."

There was a long pause, before the chief replied, "Uh, 'about to?'''

Flustered, Harris responded, "Yes, goddamn it! Just send the medic!"