The rain felt like needles against Officer Natalie’s face as she sprinted away from the mangled wreckage of Andrew’s blue pickup truck. Her flashlight beam sliced through the torrential downpour, illuminating the two sets of footprints stamped deep into the Ohio mud. One set belonged to a man wearing heavy work boots—Andrew. The other set was smaller, sharper, the stride longer and more aggressive. Someone had chased him.
“Unit Twelve, I’m approaching the farmhouse,” Natalie barked into her radio, her voice barely audible over the roaring thunder. “Send EMS to my location immediately. We might have a critical casualty.”