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CHAPTER 8
Feelings of nervousness make it difficult for Penny to stand still. She shifts her weight from foot to foot while she waits for Leonard to open the door to 4A.
"Are you sure that this is a good idea?" she asks.
Leonard looks up from where he's fitting the key into the lock and says, "I can't think of anyone else who has a complete emergency kit, can you? We're going to need the bright headlamps, if nothing else."
"What about Sheldon? Should we tell him?"
Leonard sighs. "I'm not sure. If we do, he will insist on coming with us. As is always the case, having him along would make everything more difficult. But the idea of keeping it from him seems wrong. I think he has a right to know, don't you?"
Penny nods. He'd never forgive them for not telling him, and he might even turn out to be helpful. There's also a bit of a meddling factor in wanting Sheldon to accompany them. As far as she is concerned, those two need to sit down, pretend to be adults for once, and have a freaking discussion.
When they swing the door open, she is surprised to find that all of the lights are off. She marches over to Sheldon's room, but the only eyes that look back at her belong to his various superhero paraphernalia. Her previous discussion with Leonard is moot because Sheldon isn't home.
"Didn't he get a ride back from work with you?"
"No, he told me at lunch that he had planned to take the afternoon off. I'm not sure where he could be at 8:00 at night."
In his absence, they scurry about, rummaging for their needed supplies. Penny stuffs her backpack with water, some granola bars, a few blankets, and Sheldon's well-stocked first aid kit. Leonard locates the headlamps and flashlights as well as some spare batteries, items that are all easy to find due to the apartment's extensive organizational system.
"What should we do about Sheldon?" he asks.
"That's one of life's never-ending questions. In this case, I'm not sure. I don't want to wait to check on Amy, though."
It's difficult to fit so many bulky things into her backpack, and Penny has to shove everything in hard to have any hope of getting it to close. She has finally managed to work the zipper around the overstuffed bag when Sheldon walks through the front door.
"Hello," he greets them both, tossing his keys into the bowl near the door.
"Hi, Sheldon," Penny says, trying to keep her voice sounding casual. Unfortunately, Leonard says 'hi' at the exact same time, and taken together, she thinks that they sound anything but casual.
Sheldon is as oblivious as ever, though. "Pasadena sure does have a lot of colorful characters out on the street in the evening. There was one very insistent fellow out there tonight who was trying to get me to buy pots. I've never seen anyone so gung-ho about gardening."
Penny pinches the bridge of her nose. She could explain that the guy was trying to sell him some marijuana, but it's not worth the aggravation. There is too much else to worry about.
"Why are you getting home so late?" Leonard asks.
Sheldon hangs his coat and messenger bag over the back of his desk chair. "I was out for a walk. I figured that in doing so I might be able to understand the appeal of Amy's little outdoor extravaganza."
He walks into the kitchen and fills a glass with water. The action doesn't stop him from continuing to talk. "Fresh air, the great outdoors, exercise—it's all supposed to be good for you, but I don't know. I don't think it will catch on."
"I'm not sure that walking on city sidewalks counts as getting fresh air and experiencing nature," Penny replies.
"Perhaps not. And as a mode of travel, walking is clearly inferior to taking a train." Sheldon steps back into the living room but stops when he sees the headlamps and flashlights laid out on the couch. "Playing a game? Shadow puppets?" he guesses.
Leonard looks at him with pity and shakes his head. They are going to have to tell him.
Sheldon takes another guess. "I'm not interrupting some kind of kinky, newlywed coitus thing, am I?"
His wrinkled nose indicates his distaste of the idea, and Penny frowns at him. "What? No. Jeez." She clears her throat. "Look, sweetie, I think you should sit down."
To her surprise, he obeys.
"We have a little situation," she begins, fidgeting with a loose thread on her backpack. It's easier than looking at him while she explains. "You see, Amy was supposed to check in with me this afternoon, and she never called. I tried calling her, but she didn't answer."
When Sheldon doesn't respond right away, she glances up to try to figure out what he's thinking. His forehead is wrinkled and his eyebrows are scrunched together, an expression that gives away his concern for Amy.
Leonard picks up the explanation. "Penny has Amy's GPS phone coordinates, so we're going to drive out there tonight and make sure that she's okay. As far as we can tell, she's right where she should be. There's no reason to worry too much, but we thought we should be cautious and check up on her just in case."
Sheldon looks from Leonard to Penny and then back again. She half expects him to start ranting at her about how she's known Amy's location the entire time and kept it from him. The look on his face, however, hasn't turned into anger. If anything, he looks more concerned than ever, even after Leonard's attempts to offer reassurance.
Reaching over to grab a flashlight, Sheldon practically leaps up to his feet. His voice sounds both shaky and determined as he insists, "We have to find her. I'm going with you."
—
Trying to hike an unfamiliar trail can be a challenge. Hiking one in the dark is an even greater challenge. Penny glances over to her two out-of-shape companions. It's slow going.
All three of them have been making their way quietly along the path, and at this point, she is beginning to miss Sheldon's usual babble. He isn't one to suffer through anything in silence, and it makes her wonder what is going through his mind right now. She wants to tell herself that everything is going to be fine, but it's hard to act like everything is normal when Sheldon is behaving so strangely.
He was even quiet when she was driving them out here. She'd tried to get him going by not using her turn signal, and even that golden opportunity for a lecture on traffic safety wasn't enough to jar him from his inner thoughts.
Walking through the outdoors at night, she imagines that Sheldon would typically be keeping up some kind of running commentary about the potential dangers of their expedition. She would've expected complaints about wildlife, insects, and maybe a mathematical calculation of the probability of tripping on a tree root or something. It doesn't happen now, of course, and his ongoing silence only adds to the overall eeriness of traipsing through the wilderness at night.
Amy's coordinates indicate that she is about a mile or so down the trail from Agua Dulce. It's not too far from where Penny met up with her last weekend. Having taken part of this path before, she has warned the others that it is important to stick to the trail. At her side, she can hear Leonard's labored breathing. He doesn't ask to stop, but in her peripheral vision, she can see him dig into his pocket for his inhaler. A few puffs later and he sounds much better.
She doesn't see or hear any other hikers as they move through the wilderness, and even though she is traveling with two other people, there is something about this dark, quiet place that makes her feel lonely. It seems like they have been walking for a long time, and she could really use the distraction, so she pulls out her phone to check their progress on her tracking app.
The small dot that represents their location is on top of the dot that indicates Amy's. She halts her forward motion. They should be able to see her from here. She turns around in a slow circle, looking into the distance with the aid of her headlamp.
"What is it?" Sheldon asks. His voice sounds unnatural in the quiet stillness.
"It's… well, she should be right near here," Penny replies, gesturing to the area around them. She zooms in on her map to get a more precise sense of their relative positions, and when she does so, she notices something peculiar. "Actually, it looks like she should be about forty yards that way. But, um…"
She points to the west, gesturing into the distance, not wanting to explain any further. The guys step up behind her and look at her screen from over her shoulder.
Sheldon's voice sounds unsteady. "She—she can't be over there."
Before Penny can stop him, he takes a step off the path.
"Sheldon!"
She lunges a few steps forward and grabs his elbow to yank him back. In the distance, their flashlights and headlamps reflect nothing at all. They have to tilt their light sources down at a steep angle to reveal the sloping topography of the land. There's no sign of anyone.
"She can't be down there," Sheldon whispers again. Then he raises his voice and shouts, "Amy! Amy! Amy!"
Apparently, it is important to call out for someone in a set of three, even in an emergency. His voice makes a faint echo in the distance, turning his call of three into several more. Penny listens for any kind of response, but she can't detect anything other than the nervous, rapid breathing of the three of them.
When she turns back around, the bright light of her headlamp bounces off of Leonard's unmoving form. She can only see his back, but he is staring down at the ground with his phone pressed to his ear.
He begins to speak to whomever he has called. "We'd like to report a missing person."
Penny steps around him, and she notices that his wide eyes are fixed to a spot on the ground. She follows the line of his vision and the beam of his flashlight. A grotesque puddle of blood sits in stark contrast to the arid earth around it. Amy, however, is nowhere to be seen.
She focuses her mind on the cadence of Leonard's voice while she tries not to panic. Please don't let that be from Amy.
"She's missing just off the Pacific Crest Trail. I can give you our coordinates. We can't find her anywhere, but…there's—there's blood. A lot of blood…"
—
For what must be the hundredth time in his career, Sheriff's Deputy Jack DiSalvo finds himself wishing that people could have their disasters during business hours. The call came in just after ten PM, and Jack's shift was due to end at eleven. A relaxing cup of tea and some Judge Judy before bed would've been such a nice way to end his day. Divorced and living alone at forty-nine years old, that's about as exciting as his free time gets.
Huffing and puffing at the exertion of navigating the terrain, Jack regrets having eaten that chili-cheese dog for dinner. He's getting too old for this shit.
In the distance, he can see the spooky appearance of roving flashlights, so he knows he must be getting close. The only way to get to this location is to hike on down the trail. It's going to be a pain in the ass to put together a rescue team out here. Back at the station, he had called for a K9 unit. It's unlikely that they'll be able to find many clues in the pitch blackness of night, but maybe a dog will be able to pick up a scent trail.
Several bright lights turn in his direction, and he finds himself face to face with the three folks who must have called in the missing person. He introduces himself and asks, "So, who are you three, and what can you all tell me about the situation here?"
The short, curly-haired fellow with glasses responds first, "I'm Leonard Hofstadter, and this is my wife Penny and my roommate Sheldon Cooper. Our friend has been out here hiking, and when she didn't check in with us today, we came out here to look for her."
Jack raises an eyebrow. "You came out here in the dark, just hoping to stumble upon her? Did you have some reason to suspect that she's in danger?"
The pretty blonde woman responds, "Amy never misses checking in with me. She came out here on her own, but before she left, she installed an app on my phone that shows me her location, so we know exactly where she should be. But we followed that to here, and…"
Her voice trails off, and he sees her swipe at her eyes while she gestures to the ground with her other hand. Jack squats down close to the earth to examine a red splotch of congealing liquid. If this is from the woman in question, then she can't have gotten too far from here under her own power.
He sighs and rubs his chin. "The GPS from her phone led you here, so have you retrieved that device?"
Penny closes her eyes, and he sees two more tears squeeze out. "No. The, um, the exact coordinates show that her phone should be a little bit west of here, but…"
Silent until now, the third member of the group, Sheldon, stands up from his perch on a nearby boulder. He finishes his friend's sentence. "Google satellite images show that to the west is a severe slope that ends with an even deeper descent into a canyon." His voice sounds matter-of-fact, but it starts to break when he adds, "But she can't be down there."
Jack walks over to the edge of the trail and peeks over the ridge. It's pretty steep, and he can see the area even farther out where the land seems to vanish altogether. He shines his flashlight along the surface of the land, but he sees no sign of a person on the rocky upper slope.
"We're going to need to get down there, but I'm afraid it can't be tonight."
Sheldon objects, "But she's in trouble now!"
Jack tries to juggle his flashlight, notebook, and pen. It's not easy to take notes under these conditions. He looks up when he hears Sheldon's plea.
"We're going to do everything that we can, sir. I assure you of that."
Not sounding reassured, the tall man continues, "Someone needs to get down there right now."
"Look, I understand your sense of urgency, but it's a difficult area to access, and it's all but impossible in the dark. Our best hope of finding her alive is to check the areas near here on the trail." At the word 'alive', Jack can see the tall man's eyes widen. Perhaps it was a harsh thing to say, but it is the truth. If the woman has fallen to the bottom of that canyon, then it doesn't matter if they can't find her right away because she won't be alive.
He continues to address the distressed group, "I called in a K9 unit and a few backup officers. With any luck, the dog will pick up her scent and lead us to her. If she's hurt and disoriented, then she may have simply wandered off. If that's the case, we'll find her soon."
It's the most optimistic scenario that Jack can come up with right now, even if he doesn't quite believe it himself. The three friends seem a bit comforted by the idea, so he takes advantage of their momentary calm to warn them, "When my support arrives, I'm going to have to ask you all to come with me to the station."
"But we want to help search," the blonde woman insists.
"Ma'am, the best way for you three to help is to come with me and answer some questions. Finding a missing person is like solving a puzzle. We need you guys to help us gather the pieces."
They don't look convinced, and Jack can't blame them for wanting to take a more hands-on approach. He decides to be even more blunt. "Having untrained people out here in the dark is a hazard. We want to spend our time focused on finding this woman and securing the scene to look for clues. But we can't do that if we have to watch out for you three."
Penny and Leonard both nod, even if it does look begrudging.
Sheldon, however, just stares at him.
"Amy," he says.
Jack looks right back at him and waits for further explanation.
"Not 'this woman', not 'missing person'. She has a name. She's Amy."
—