Where Are The Children? (The Call - A Thriller Series Book 2)

A school bus is in the river. The children are gone. And somewhere in the canyon, someone is shooting at them.

Fishing guide Cal Hollister expects another ordinary day on Idaho’s Salmon River. Instead, he finds a yellow school bus partially submerged against the rocks. Its doors hang open. Broken glass and children’s belongings are scattered nearby. There is blood, but no driver, no teachers, and no children.

Then gunfire cracks through the canyon. A terrified fourteen-year-old boy bursts from the timber and dives toward Cal’s boat while bullets strike the water behind him. What he tells the 911 dispatcher turns a terrible accident into something far more dangerous.

Some of the children escaped.
Some were taken.
And one of the adults traveling with them may have helped the attackers.

Now sheriff’s deputies, search-and-rescue volunteers, paramedics, and dispatchers are racing against a nightmare with no clear boundaries. Twelve children and three adults were aboard the bus. They are scattered across steep canyon terrain where the river, heat, injuries, loose rock, and isolation can be as dangerous as the armed men searching for them.

But this was never a random attack. Someone knew the school bus route. Someone knew its schedule had changed. Someone knew exactly when it would leave. And most disturbing of all, someone knew exactly who would be aboard.

As investigators piece together fragments from terrified witnesses, abandoned belongings, vehicle evidence, school records, phone activity, and the children’s scattered observations, one question becomes impossible to ignore:

Why was this particular bus targeted?

The answer leads toward a betrayal that began before the first shot was fired, and toward the horrifying realization that the attackers were never after every child on the bus. They came for one.

WHY YOU’LL LOVE THIS BOOK

1. An immediate, high-stakes opening that begins with a 911 call and plunges straight into a missing-children emergency on the Salmon River.
2. Multiple suspense threads that steadily converge as deputies, rescuers, investigators, and frightened children each uncover a different piece of the same crime.
3. A rugged Idaho setting that matters to the story, where steep canyon walls, river access, rough roads, brush, rocks, heat, and distance shape every search and escape decision.
4. A mystery built from accumulating evidence, not convenient miracles, as investigators must separate frightened assumptions from facts they can actually prove.
5. Child characters who behave like children, making brave, frightened, imperfect decisions rather than suddenly becoming miniature survival experts.
6. A complete standalone crime thriller with escalating danger, emotional stakes, criminal accountability, and a central case that is fully resolved.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN? combines small-town crime, psychological suspense, wilderness danger, emergency response, and an investigation where no single person has the whole answer. The children don’t know who they can trust. The rescuers don’t know which direction to search next. The investigators know the clock is working against them.
And somewhere in the Salmon River canyon, the people responsible are realizing their carefully planned operation is coming apart.

WHERE ARE THE CHILDREN? is Book #2 in THE CALL - A THRILLER SERIES by TRUDY MYRLAND, a series of standalone thrillers where every novel begins with a 911 call and the promise that follows it:

Someone answers.