Free Finding Hannah by John R. Kess Page A

grocery store so we could load up on dried food to go with our MREs. He then drove to our drop-off point, where he pulled his pickup to the side of the highway and helped us get our packs out of the back.
    “Call me if you have any trouble,” Dad said. “Good luck.”
    “Thanks,” Molly and I said in unison. We waved goodbye and set off into the woods.
    Molly and I hiked until noon and found a spot for our camp overlooking a valley stretching for miles. According to our map, a large river wound through the bottom of the valley, which made Molly happy. The weather was calling for more hot sun, so again she made me promise we’d stop for a swim. We had searched to the east of the river from our last campsite. Now we were on the west side of it.
    After a quick lunch of sandwiches Mom had made, we marked our campsite with the GPS, then set off for our first loop. I carried the satellite phone in my day pack along with some granola bars.
    We headed north to higher ground through a mix of pine and birch trees. Without a cloud in the sky, the sun burned the backs of our necks but, thankfully, it wasn’t humid. We looped back in the afternoon through the lower ground, where we fought through thick growths of poplar, ash, and maple trees.
    “What is that?” Molly said, pointing at the ground in the distance.
    I looked where she pointed and saw a large bush surrounded by a blanket of dead pine needles. “I don’t see anything.”
    Molly walked toward the bush and I followed. She bent down to look under it.
    “Right there,” Molly pointed. “There’s something yellow under there. It looks like fabric.”
    I instantly pictured Hannah standing at the bottom of the stairs. “Hannah was wearing a yellow T-shirt.”
    I grabbed a stick and poked at the yellow spot. I dragged it out from under the bush.
    “It’s a T-shirt,” Molly said.
    She was right. The faded yellow shirt tore easily as I pulled it off the stick. I held it up and it was big enough that both Molly and I could have fit into it at the same time. “There’s no way this was Hannah’s.”
    “Shoot,” Molly said. “I was hoping we’d found a clue.”
    “Me, too.”
    The sound of a passing car seemed out of place as we walked through the forest, and a gravel road soon came into view. We decided to walk down it for awhile. When we came upon a long driveway, we ducked back into the woods and walked in the cover of the trees along it until we saw a house with a small backyard. So many of the homes in the country were like this, as people moved here to be spread out far from other people. It was very likely Hannah’s kidnapper lived in a house just like this one.
    The place was ideal for housing a kidnap victim. The nearest house was at least a half mile away, plus it was set back far enough from the road that only the driveway gave any indication that a house was buried in the trees.
    Molly pointed. “Look, it has a basement.”
    The house also had a one-stall garage. There was no movement in the house that we could see through several open windows. I looked at the GPS and guessed we were about an hour from our campsite.
    “Let’s come back tonight and have a look,” I said.
    “I hope they don’t have a dog,” Molly replied.
    We returned to our campsite and rested. We both drank water from our packs, as the bottles we carried had run dry a few hours earlier.
    “Will you show me how to build a fire?” Molly asked.
    “Sure.”
    I had her pile small pieces of dry kindling into a tepee shape. I watched her excitement as the flame from her match transferred nicely to the kindling.
    “Look at that!” she said, staring at the growing fire while still holding the lit match.
    “Molly,” I pointed at her hand, “the match!”
    She looked at her hand and saw the flame was right next to her finger. She squealed as she snapped her hand away, dropping the match.
    “Are you okay?”
    She looked at her finger. “I’m good.”
    I smiled at her and we both