For eighteen long months, the highways of America had become the only home he recognized anymore. His old matte-black Harley Davidson Street Glide carried the scars of nearly fifty thousand miles, the leather saddlebags permanently dusted with dirt from countless roads stretching across Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and far beyond. Gas stations, truck stops, roadside diners, and motels had all become familiar landmarks in a journey that had no real destination, because Mason was not chasing a place — he was chasing hope.
Taped inside one of his saddlebags was a thick stack of flyers.
Each flyer carried the same photo: a bright-smiling nine-year-old girl with freckles across her nose and a messy ponytail that never seemed to stay tied. Her eyes were wide and curious, the kind of eyes that made strangers smile back without thinking.
Her name was Emily Carter.
And she had vanished from their backyard on a quiet summer afternoon eighteen months earlier while Mason had been fixing a fence only a few yards away.
The police searched the woods. Dogs combed through fields. Helicopters circled overhead for days.
Nothing.
