Amber Alert

At ten in the morning, Hancock finally arrived at the detectives' bullpen. The moment he walked in, he saw Nick sitting in exactly the same position he had been in when Hancock left the night before, and was startled.

"Damn, don't tell me you worked all night!"

"No, I just got here a little earlier than you." Keeping his eyes on the computer screen, Nick pushed a food container toward him.

"Your favorite soup dumplings. I made them this morning. They should still be warm."

Hancock hooked a nearby chair over with his foot and sat down in front of Nick. Unable to wait, he dug in with his hands and asked between bites, "How did last night go?"

"Almost nothing." Nick let go of the mouse and rubbed his temples with a pained expression.

He had worked until after eleven last night before leaving the station for home. It wasn't as though he had accomplished nothing-at least he had ruled out most of the wrong possibilities-but he hadn't found the answer he had hoped for.

Although the crime scene had been exceptionally gruesome, judging by the victim's sex, age, and appearance, Nick had initially believed a romantic entanglement or a sex crime was the motive, and that killing and dismembering her had merely been a means of concealing evidence.

The victim, Selvi, had been a regular morning runner, so naturally, she had been in decent shape. Her driver's license listed her height as five feet five inches (169 centimeters) and her weight as 135 pounds (122 jin).

She couldn't be called a stunning beauty, but a girl in the prime of her youth had a natural youthful vitality. Her social media profile had plenty of photos, and no shortage of fawning admirers liking them.

At this point, those damned beauty-filter apps hadn't yet spread from China to Europe and America, so recognizing someone in person from their online photos wasn't particularly difficult. Nick's approach had been to look for potential suspects by investigating her digital footprint.

But the facts had proved his guess wrong. Although Selvi had an ex-boyfriend, they had broken up after high school graduation, and he was currently serving overseas.

Nick had also gone through all the chat histories on her social media apps and found no suspicious romantic prospects or possible stalkers.

After arriving at the station early that morning, he had contacted Selvi's roommate again.

She had clearly already heard the terrible news through other channels and cried bitterly over the phone, but she said Selvi currently had no boyfriend or anyone she was romantically involved with, and couldn't think of any suspect who might have a motive.

"So there's a good chance it was random?" After hearing Nick's analysis, Hancock felt a headache coming on too.

If it really was a random crime, there was a very high probability the case would go cold, at least until the killer struck again, and that would mean more victims.

That was setting aside the possibility that the case might turn into a series of murders and draw the FBI's involvement.

Judging solely by the surroundings of the dump site, if the killer had been a little more cautious and gone a few dozen meters deeper into the woods, it was hard to say whether the crime scene could even have been discovered in time.

Portland Forest Park covered more than 2,000 hectares and was the largest urban forest reserve in the United States, with a trail system over 100 kilometers long.

The forest park itself also retained a small amount of old-growth forest. Even in its secondary forests, many trees were more than forty or even fifty years old.

In an environment like that, never mind dismembered remains-even an intact body could go undiscovered for decades if buried in the right spot.

Nick couldn't even help wondering whether Portland's current low crime rate was merely an illusion. After all, "no body, no crime," and in a city where you could reach a forest within ten minutes of leaving home, the cost of disposing of a body and destroying the evidence was simply too low.

Hancock pulled a picture from his coat's inside pocket and handed it to Nick. "These boots are our only lead now. This is the match the lab found for the tread pattern at the scene. A pair of eight-eye suede Dr. Martens."

Nick took the picture and glanced at it. It was a very common style of work boot, available in five colors ranging from tan and olive brown to reddish brown. The European size, 42, indicated that the suspect wouldn't be very tall.

But he didn't have much experience interpreting footprints, so he could only commit the sole pattern to memory once more.

The two continued digging into Selvi's relationships in the office, calling her teachers and classmates one by one to question them, and kept at it until the afternoon.

In fact, most criminal investigations were filled with tedious, boring investigative work like this. Running into dead ends was the norm; suspenseful twists and dramatic conflicts only appeared in exaggerated works of fiction.

Just as they were at a loss, the detectives' office suddenly grew noisy as everyone's phones sounded the same alarm at once.

Nick looked at his phone's automatically illuminated screen and froze. "An Amber Alert?"

"It should be right here." Hancock stopped the car and pointed to a white house across the street. Several police cars were already parked around it.

As soon as Nick got out, he spotted Andrew Wu, his former patrol partner, and raised a hand in greeting. "Wu, what exactly happened?"

"An hour ago, a six-year-old girl, Robin Howell, went missing while walking alone from school to her grandparents' house."

As Wu spoke, he pointed irritably at the elderly white couple by the front door. "They're the ones who called it in."

Nick knew the man became expressionless when he was in a bad mood, just as he was now. It was very clear that he was deeply annoyed by the child's guardians' irresponsible behavior.

"No problems on either side of the family?" Hancock's first thought was the most likely possibility: a family dispute.

Wu pursed his lips, his words carrying an implication. "We don't know yet. We're waiting for further investigation. For now, all I can rule out is a custody dispute.

"Neither the child's parents nor her grandparents have divorced, and they probably weren't planning to before this. As for the future, though, who knows."

Then he took out a photograph and showed it to them. "This is the clearest recent photo."

The picture showed a cute little blonde girl with a sweet smile, which only made it harder not to feel a pang of distress.

With a click, the slide projector came on, and the photograph of the sweetly smiling little girl appeared on the projection screen.

Captain Renard looked gravely at the detectives and patrol officers in the room. "Time is short, so I'll just give you a brief overview of the current situation.

"The nature of this case is still unclear. It could be an abduction by a relative, a kidnapping for ransom, or the work of a pedophile. We can't rule anything out at this point.

"The FBI is already involved. They'll set up listening and tracking equipment at both Robin's parents' and grandparents' homes. Our job is to split into teams, start at the school, and search every path she might have taken along the way."

As the slide changed from the missing girl's photograph to a map, the middle-aged captain traced a winding line across it with his finger.

"It's a total of 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) from the school to her grandparents' house, with seven intersections along the way. Check every surveillance camera along the route and expand outward. Robin was wearing purple pants and a red coat when she disappeared. Don't overlook anything..."

At the words "red coat," Nick's heart tightened. He instinctively exchanged a glance with Hancock, then both their gazes fell on the small green rectangle in the middle of the map.

It was a small urban forest called Berkeley Park, only about three to four square kilometers in area, situated directly between the school and Robin's grandparents' house.