Search and Rescue

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  SEARCH

  AND

  RESCUE

  SEARCH

  AND

  RESCUE

  Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  Copyright © 2014 Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced

  or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopying, recording or by any information storage

  and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission

  in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Anderson-Dargatz, Gail, 1963–, author

  Search and rescue / Gail Anderson-Dargatz.

  (Rapid Reads)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0576-7 (pbk.).--ISBN 978-1-4598-0577-4 (pdf ).--

  ISBN 978-1-4598-0578-1 (epub)

  I. Title. II. Series: Rapid reads

  PS8551.N3574S43 2014 C813'.54 C2014-901571-2

  C2014-01572-0

  First published in the United States, 2014

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014935366

  Summary: In this work of crime fiction, Claire Abbott, a small-town

  reporter, uses her sixth sense to find a missing girl. (RL 3.0)

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for

  its publishing programs provided by the following agencies:

  the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the

  Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia

  through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design by Jenn Playford

  Cover photography by Corbis

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 5626, Stn. B

  Victoria, BC Canada

  V8R 6S4 ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  PO BOX 468

  Custer, WA USA

  98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  17 16 15 14 • 4 3 2 1

  For Mitch, who remembers me when…

  CONTENTS

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  ONE

  I felt that familiar ache in my stomach as I drove to my date. I knew something was wrong. More than that, I knew I had to head down Pine Road.

  The restaurant where my date Trevor waited for me was in the other direction, on Lakeshore. Still, I followed my instincts and turned right. Like it or not, my mother had taught me to take that gut feeling seriously. I was glad I did. When I drove into that quiet suburb, I saw a car burning. The hood was up, and flames burst from the engine.

  A young guy stood several yards away, staring at the fire, scratching his head. His eyes were red, like he was about to cry. That beater on fire was likely his first car.

  I pulled over and opened my car door. “You okay?” I called across the road.

  “I guess,” he said. “My car is trashed though.”

  I got out of my Honda Civic, embarrassed that I showed too much leg. I was dressed for my date, not work. My red skirt was short, cut well above my knees. My high heels made my legs seem even longer.

  The kid paused to take me in as I stood. Then he recognized me. “Hey, you’re that reporter. You took pictures of my soccer team at the high school this fall.”

  “That’s me,” I said. I hunt down stories for our weekly newspaper, the Black Lake Times. Today was supposed to be my day off, but here was news.

  “Shit,” the guy said. “Just my luck. Bad enough this happens. Now everybody will know about it.”

  He was right. A photo of this car on fire would make the front page.

  I grabbed my camera and notepad. Then I slipped on my coat as I walked toward the burning car. We were well into November, and the evening air was cold.

  The kid didn’t wear a jacket, just jeans and a T-shirt. He shivered. I held out my hand to shake his. “I’m Claire Abbott.”

  “I know,” he said. He wouldn’t take my hand. “I see your name in the paper all the time.”

  I clicked my pen and got ready to jot down his name. “And you are?”

  “You can get my name from the cops.”

  I shrugged off his rude behavior. People often snubbed me. A person in an accident didn’t want his photo in the paper. I understood, but this was my job. I had to fill the newspaper every week. In a town as small as Black Lake, that was tough.

  I aimed my camera and took a shot of the guy’s burning car. “Have you phoned for a fire truck?” I asked him.

  “Of course I have,” he said. “You think I’m stupid?” He held up his cell phone. “They’re on the way.”

  “If you need anything—”

  The teen turned his back on me, not letting me finish.

  I waited for the fire truck by my car. I knew I’d get a better photo when the firefighters arrived. I didn’t have to wait long. Within minutes, the fire truck wailed down the street and stopped behind the burning car.

  The fire chief, Jim Wallis, jumped out. His team of volunteer firefighters followed, all of them wearing their gear. They hooked the truck hoses to the nearest hydrant. With that water, they quickly put out the fire. I got my front-page shot of the firefighters hosing down the flames.

  Once the men had the fire under control, the chief crossed the road to see me.

  “So Radar strikes again, eh?” Jim asked. “You always have to be the first at a fire, don’t you, Claire? You’re making the fire department look bad, you know.”

  Jim called me Radar after that character on the old TV show M*A*S*H. Radar was the kid with the teddy bear. He knew what was happening before anyone else did. Like Radar, I was often the first on the scene when someone was in trouble.

  Jim shook his head and chuckled. “You’re just like your mother.”

  I cringed. My mother was convinced she was a “remote viewer.” She thought she could see with her mind events that were happening far away. Mom often called up the police with “tips” to help them solve their cases.

  I knew the cops thought she was a crackpot. Jim was about the only emergency worker in town who took her seriously. Then again, I think he was still a little in love with her. He’d dated Mom after she divorced Dad.

  “Believe me,” I told him. “I’m nothing like my mother.”

  Jim gave me a look like he knew better. We both turned back to the young man’s blackened car. Smoke and steam still billowed from the engine.

  “You hear about the Miller girl?” Jim asked me.

  “Helen Miller? The woman who owns the bakery on Lakeshore Road?”

  “No, her daughter, Amber.” Jim took off his helmet and ran a hand through his hair. “She’s missing. She went for a jog on the wilderness trail and got lost. She never came home.”

  I felt a chill run through me. I knew something about that story wasn’t quite right. “She’s seventeen,” I said, trying to shake off the feeling. “Girls that age forget to phone home. She’s likely just hanging out with her boyfriend.”

  “You mean Doug Conner?” Jim shook his head. “My granddaughter told me they aren’t dating anymore. Amber broke up with him a couple of weeks ago. She had a basketball game scheduled for this afternoon. Her mom and her teammates said she’d never miss it.”

  I hugged myself. “She shouldn’t be out in this weather. We’re getting snow this evening.”

  “Exactly,” said Jim. “Amber won’t last the night in that forest.
Search and Rescue is trying to find her now. They’ve got a camp set up at the foot of Little Mountain.”

  I felt that familiar tug in my stomach again. “I’ve got to get over there,” I said. I turned away from Jim and opened my car door.

  “Hey, what about Trevor?” Jim asked. “He took the day off for your date. I had to scramble to get a replacement.”

  Trevor was a firefighter, a member of Jim’s team. We’d met at a house fire a couple of months earlier. I was first to arrive that time too.

  “I’ll phone him,” I said. When Jim gave me that look, I said, “I will. I promise.”

  Jim knew I’d forgotten to call Trevor when I missed our last date. That time, my gut feeling led me to a car that had just smashed into a power pole. I waited with the driver until the ambulance arrived, then went to the hospital with her. I couldn’t leave her alone in that emergency room. She didn’t have family.

  “There’s no point in going to the search-and-rescue camp now,” Jim told me. “You’ll be one of the first to hear what’s happened.”

  Jim was right. Matt Holden was the search manager for the area. He would send me a press release in the morning. I would use that to write up the story for the paper. Even so, I knew I had to get to that search-and-rescue base. I got in my car.

  “Matt won’t want you there,” Jim called through my closed window. “He hates reporters snooping around when they’re searching.”

  I knew that too, but the feeling I had now was stronger than I’d ever had before. I rolled down my window. “I’ve got to get over there,” I told Jim. “If I don’t, that girl won’t leave that forest alive.”

  TWO

  As I drove to the camp I grew even more certain I had to help find Amber. If I didn’t, I knew she would die. I had no idea how I knew. I just did. I had never been surer of anything in my life.

  The search-and-rescue base camp was set up at the foot of Little Mountain. The mobile command unit was an old school bus painted white. From that bus, Matt Holden planned the search and told volunteers what to do.

  I knocked lightly on the bus door, and Matt opened it. He seemed even taller than usual, staring down at me from the top of those stairs. He wore work boots and his orange search-and-rescue gear. I felt ridiculous coming to this camp in my miniskirt and heels.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” Matt demanded.

  Hello to you too, I thought as I climbed into the bus. When we’d first met, I had hoped Matt would ask me out. I liked his honest, frank manner, not to mention his rugged good looks. He was fair-haired and muscular. My mother called him “the Viking.”

  However, I’d quickly realized he didn’t much like me. More to the point, he didn’t like reporters.

  “I saw the chief at a car fire just now,” I said. “He told me Amber Miller is missing.”

  “Ambulance chasing again, were you?” Matt asked.

  “Actually, I was on my way to dinner,” I said. “I just happened on the accident.”

  That wasn’t quite true, of course. I had followed my intuition—my gut feeling—to that burning car. Matt didn’t need to know that. He would think I was as crazy as my mom.

  “Out on a date, huh?” he said. He glanced down at my miniskirt. “That explains the getup.” He turned away as he continued talking, as if he was uncomfortable. “You’re seeing that firefighter now, right? Trevor Bragg.”

  His question surprised me. Matt rarely asked about my personal life. Then again, before Trevor I didn’t have much of a life outside work. I hadn’t dated anyone in over a year.

  I pulled my notepad from my camera bag. “I take it you haven’t found Amber yet?” I asked. “What time did she go missing?”

  I was a reporter, just doing my job. I was also trying to figure out why I was here. I knew I had to help save Amber. But how was I supposed to do that?

  Matt sighed, impatient with me. “I’ll email you a press release in the morning.”

  “I’m here now,” I said. “Can’t you take a few minutes to fill me in?”

  Matt scratched behind his ear. “Fine. Amber went jogging on these trails after lunch. She didn’t return. That’s her car over there. She was only wearing a light jacket, and we found that along the trail. Before she left, she told her mother she wouldn’t be out long.”

  “Is her mother here?” I asked. “Can I talk to her?”

  “I sent Helen home to get some rest.” Matt glanced at me sideways, like he knew what I was thinking. “Don’t call her on your cell. She’s scared out of her wits. The last thing she needs is some newspaper reporter asking a bunch of questions.”

  “No, of course not,” I said. Although that was what I’d planned to do. “Do you think Amber is simply lost? Or was she kidnapped?”

  “Kidnapped?”

  I wrote on my notepad as I talked. “Is there any reason to believe someone took her?”

  Matt eyed me. “Do you have any reason to believe that?”

  “Well, no.” I stopped writing, wondering why I had asked. The question had just popped out of my mouth.

  Matt leaned over a map of the wilderness trails. “Look, can we do this in the morning? As you can imagine, I’m a little busy at the moment.”

  “May I at least take a picture of the jacket Amber was wearing? If she isn’t found tonight, we could run the photo in the paper. Maybe someone saw her in it.”

  Matt thought a moment. “That may be useful,” he said. He pulled the jacket from a box and laid it on the table. “But I will find her tonight.” He sounded determined, but I also heard the worry in his voice. Amber had been missing for several hours, and the sun had just set.

  “You can run her photo too,” he said. He handed me her high-school picture. Amber was a pretty girl, with long blond hair. Her skin was fair and her eyes were blue. She was taller than most girls her age. Her height made her a natural for basketball.

  I tucked the photo into my camera bag. Then I turned to Amber’s jacket. The high-school basketball team crest was on the back. “Her team jacket,” I said, reaching for it.

  “She plays center,” he said.

  As soon as I held the jacket in my hands, I got the oddest sensation. I felt like I was going down a waterslide, inside one of those tubes. I was excited, but scared too. The feeling only lasted a moment.

  Then, weirdly, I saw Amber. Her image was in the bus window in front of me, like she was on TV. I had a vision of her.

  She was lying on the ground. Her hair was over her face. I saw bruises on her arm. She was several feet from the edge of a cliff.

  As suddenly as the vision started, it was gone. Instead of Amber’s image, I saw my own face reflected in the bus window. My curly brown hair, my heart-shaped face, my brown eyes.

  Mom had told me about her visions. What had just happened to me was like what she described. I never really believed her though. I thought she imagined things, or worse. I thought she might be losing her mind.

  But I knew my vision was real. Amber was out there, lying injured on the cold ground. I had to find her.

  For the first time in my adult life, I believed my mother was a remote viewer. She could reach out to distance places with her mind. Evidently, I could too.

  The thought terrified me. I felt so woozy that I dropped Amber’s jacket and almost fell down myself.

  “Whoa,” said Matt. He grabbed me. “Are you all right? Here, sit down.” He offered me a folding lawn chair.

  “I’m fine,” I said. I sat down anyway. “I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I guess I’m hungrier than I thought.” I didn’t want to tell him what had really happened. He would think I was seeing things and going crazy.

  “You better go meet Trevor for that dinner date then,” he said.

  “Trevor!” I cried. “He’s been waiting in that restaurant all this time. Shit. I forgot all about him.”

  Matt grinned and shook his head. “I won’t tell him you said that.”

  “No, please don’t.”

  �
�You better phone him,” said Matt. “I’ll grab a coffee and leave you to it.” He turned to get off the bus.

  “Matt, wait,” I said. I paused. I knew I was about to embarrass myself in front of Matt and likely the whole town. Word got around quickly in this small community. Everyone would think I was as nutty as my mom.

  I was also convinced that if I said nothing about my vision, Amber would be dead by morning.

  I stood to face Matt, my hands shaking. He crossed his arms as he waited for me to say something. How could I explain? I didn’t really understand what was happening myself. Even so, I knew I had to try.

  I took a deep breath and spit it out. “I think I know where Amber is,” I said.

  THREE

  “If you knew where Amber is, why didn’t you tell me?” Matt’s face reddened with anger. He was intimidating when he was pissed. He tried to stand to his full height and bumped his head on the bus ceiling.

  “I didn’t know until just now,” I said. “I mean, I had this feeling—”

  Matt glared down at me. He was head-and-shoulders taller than me. “You had a feeling?” He paused. “You mean like one of your mother’s crazy hunches?”

  Here we go, I thought. This was exactly the reaction I had feared. I realized then that I had to be sure of Amber’s location before I tried to explain further. I also needed some proof to convince Matt that what I’d seen was real. Otherwise, he wouldn’t believe me.

  “Can I just hold Amber’s jacket again?” I asked.

  “Why?”

  “Humor me,” I said.

  Matt handed me the jacket. As soon as I touched it, I felt like I was traveling through a tunnel. Then I saw Amber in the bus window again, as clearly as if I were watching TV.

  She still lay on the ground. Her hand was near her face, and she wore a charm bracelet. The red bruises on her arm were shaped like fingerprints. Someone had held her too tight. Past her, I saw the cliff beyond. The town lights twinkled below in the evening light.