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said aloud. “Who thinks up these street names?” Using a dry-erase marker and working her way out from the compound, she drew out search segments to which teams would be assigned, numbering them in order of priority.
    She was aware of her heart pounding, feeling the pressure of multiple people standing around chomping at the bit, waiting for assignments, eager to be out in the field. The responsibility for the life of a child weighed heavily on her. A miscalculation in search segments or any other mistake might affect the outcome of the search—whether or not they found the boy alive.
    Once everyone was in the field, then, maybe, she could catch up on filling out the myriad Incident Command System forms.
    The trailer door opened and Warren stuck his head inside. “What do you need, Gracie?”
    â€œA list of who’s already here with what vehicles and what equipment and ETA of who’s still on their way.”
    â€œOn it.” He ducked back out of the trailer.
    â€œAnd ICP coordinates,” she yelled after him.
    â€œOn it,” Warren yelled back from outside.
    Gracie dug into her black plastic file box, pulled out a stack of 204 forms, and began filling in the boxes with Case Number, Incident Name, Date, Time, Operational Period. Then following the search segments she had drawn, she began making search assignments.
    The door flew open again and Warren climbed inside, tipping the little trailer with his weight. “On-scene personnel,” he said, laying a list on the table next to Gracie. He pressed a yellow sticky note on top. “And coordinates.”
    â€œThank you!”
    Using the information Warren had just provided and the search segments she had drawn on the map, Gracie began making team assignments.
    Four hours later, there was still no sign of the missing boy.

CHAPTER
    5
    A NXIETY had tightened the knot in Gracie’s stomach. In another couple of hours, Baxter Edwards would have been missing for thirty-six hours. She would give it until then to call in help from neighboring teams—more ground pounders, a dog team or two, aviation.
    Two hours into the search, Carrie and Jon had returned from interviewing the boy’s grandmother, Sharon Edwards, and turned in a completed Missing Person Questionnaire, or MPQ. Immediately they had received another assignment, joining another team of ground pounders going door-to-door, street-to-street.
    The MPQ had both brought new information and confirmed information already known. For only eleven years old, Baxter Edwards was impressively self-sufficient, never going anywhere without a backpack containing homemade snacks and water, but, it had been noted with a circled star, only water from the family compound, all other water believed to be tainted or poisoned by “the government.” The boy was homeschooled, well-trained in survival, and very familiar with thearea. Fights with the father were frequent, often physical, according to the grandmother, mostly because the father hated his son’s preference of books to guns. The family was reclusive and, as had been already discussed, demonstrably hostile to law enforcement with prior run-ins with County Code Enforcement officials and inspectors. “Terrific,” Gracie muttered.
    Setting the MPQ aside, Gracie leaned over the map again, second-guessing the segments she had drawn, the assignments she had made, wondering whether she had missed anything, what she wasn’t seeing.
    The Command Post door was yanked open and Ralph climbed up the metal steps and inside.
    Gracie straightened. “Ralphie!”
    Ralph set the HT in his hand and two file boxes he was carrying on the table. He slid his black backpack off one shoulder onto the floor next to the chair.
    When he straightened, Gracie’s flooding sense of relief was replaced by alarm.
    Ralph looked ten years older since the last time she had seen him. His face was gaunt, the color of dried clay. The