Endangered (A Sam Westin Mystery Book 1)

by Pamela Beason

  “Look,” Sam urged, “Ranger—”

  “This is Ranger Gates, ma’am.”

  “Ranger Gates, did you really get what I told you? The toys, the animal crackers, the mud, the red baseball cap? I’m holding that cap right now; do you want me to bring it in?”

  “I’m sure later will be fine, Miss Westin. Please continue to search until your area is complete.”

  Sam gritted her teeth. “Can you forward me to Ranger Castillo?”

  “Ranger Castillo is in the field and can’t be reached at present, ma’am.”

  “You will treat this as important, right?” Sam asked, exasperated. “You will have a law enforcement ranger check out Wilson?”

  “You saw no trace of Zachary Fischer in Mr. Wilson’s camper?”

  “Well, not of him specifically. Just the cap.”

  “And Mr. Wilson stated he’d found that by the river this morning.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is there a name on the cap?”

  She pulled it out to check. “No.”

  “And Mr. Wilson said that he had not seen the child?”

  “That’s right, but Zack could be hidden in that camper.”

  “And no one in the vicinity has actually seen the child?”

  The phrase circumstantial evidence came to mind. “That’s correct,” Sam responded dismally.

  “I’ll pass your information along. A ranger will speak to Mr. Wilson as soon as possible. We will not allow him to leave the park before then. Please complete your search area.”

  Sam hung up, feeling as though she’d failed to impress a robot. She started to call Kent, then remembered that he was sleeping. Stuffing phone and baseball cap back into her knapsack, she cursed Ranger Gates and continued her search.

  The last parking lot on Sam’s map was at the base of a cliff called Red Wall. A dozen rock climbers rappelled down the sheer surface. The climbers were mostly teenage boys and girls in identical turquoise T-shirts and khaki shorts.

  A dark-skinned boy stood backward on the edge of the cliff above, glancing over his shoulder to the canyon floor a hundred feet below.

  “Sheeeyiiit,” he screeched, clutching the ropes fastened at the waist of his harness.

  From above, a male voice answered. “We’ve got you. This is all about trust, man.”

  Sam recognized the efforts of Outward Bound, an organization that used outdoor activities to turn around the lives of juvenile delinquents. They’d used the park for a decade or more.

  A handful of teens had reached the bottom and were removing their harnesses under the watchful eyes of adult supervisors. A week ago the kids had probably belonged to six different gangs hell-bent on shooting each other.

  The new climber stepped over the edge and braced his legs against the rock wall, testing the rope. He made the mistake of glancing down again. “Oh shit!”

  Even from the base of the cliff, Sam could see that the kid’s knees were shaking.

  The counselor’s voice from above was calm. “Keep going.”

  The boy pushed off from the wall and let out the rope. He swung back in a few feet lower. “Hey, it works!” He pushed off again, this time with more confidence. “Eeehaaa!”

  The yell reminded Sam of Max Garay and his rampaging sprites. She dug the camera out of her knapsack, switched it to video mode, and focused as a red-headed girl stepped over the edge.

  “Cowabunga!” the girl bellowed, pushing off without hesitation and sliding down the rope in one reckless motion.

  The dark-skinned boy reached the bottom of the cliff and landed on the hard-packed ground with a thud, only seconds before the fearless redhead. He high-fived her. “Yo, Cameron.”

  “Awesome, huh, DeWitt?” the girl answered.

  Sam smiled, remembering the first time she’d rappelled. It was fun, assuming you had faith in your teammates and your equipment. She stowed the camera and went back to work.

  A few minutes later, she waded into the last garbage bin in her sector, stirring the smelly refuse with a long stick, making sure a two-year-old wasn’t among the debris.

  What a horrible, sad way to spend a day. She scrambled down from the bin, staggering a little as she landed off balance. A horn blared behind her, and she jumped out of the way of a white van with a large folded antenna on the roof. kutv news 9 was painted in large letters on the vehicle’s side. As the van passed, she recognized the man sitting behind the driver. Silver hair, neatly clipped matching mustache. Buck Ferguson’s pale blue eyes were tracking her, too. If he had been carrying one of his state-of-the-art rifles, a tiny red laser dot would be centered on her forehead.

  Every ranger in the park had butted heads with Buck Ferguson at one time or another. They had voted him Most Likely to Have Shot Leto.

  The van parked in front of the signboard. A female reporter climbed out of the front passenger’s seat, followed by the driver, a youth in jeans and T-shirt who now shouldered a TV camera. Ferguson followed. The back of his windbreaker sported the logo of his company, Eagle Tours.

  Since she’d been dating Adam, Sam had longed to watch a television news crew in action. But she had a bad feeling about this one. The cameraman positioned the reporter and Ferguson on either side of a what to do if you see a cougar poster. The reporter spoke for a few seconds, then pushed the mike under Ferguson’s nose. Brows knitted into an earnest expression, he spoke at length to the camera.

  Damn. This couldn’t be happening. Not so soon. Sam joined the knot of onlookers that had gathered, arriving just as Ferguson delivered his punch line. “How many more kids like Zachary Fischer will have to die before the liberal elitists realize that it’s people who need protecting, not cougars?”

  The gray-haired woman standing next to Sam gasped. “Oh my God. A cougar!”

  Sam said loudly, “There’s no evidence that Zack has been killed by a cougar.”

  The cameraman turned, focused his lens on her. Staring straight at the glass eye, she said, “There’s no evidence that Zack is dead.”

  A look of disgust crossed the reporter’s perfectly made-up face. She thrust her hand in front of the lens. “Al, turn that thing off. We’re done here.” She stalked to the van, her high heels clicking on the asphalt.

  “Well, well. The little pretend ranger is back.” Ferguson touched a finger to his nose and sniffed loudly. “Pee-yew. Something around here really stinks. Or is it someone?”

  A bystander laughed nervously, and another moved farther away from Sam. Ferguson was right. After crawling through bushes and restrooms and garbage bins, she desperately needed a shower and clean clothes.

  She walked closer to the van. “We’re still searching for Zack Fischer! Report on the search!”

  Ferguson climbed in. The doors slammed shut. The reporter stared straight ahead as they drove away, but the gaze of the cameraman briefly connected with Sam’s. Buck Ferguson waggled fingers at her in jarring similarity to the mystery man at the end of the path. She felt like screaming.

  Three o’clock now. Zack had been missing since sundown yesterday. More than twenty hours had passed, and the local TV news was manufacturing answers where there were none. A red-hot wave of frustration washed over her. She walked to the nearest restroom and splashed her face with cold water.

  Her sector was finished. She called in her search results to park headquarters. Probably to head off another harangue, Ranger Gates wearily stated that although Wilson had not yet been interviewed, he was on the list.

  How many people were on this list? Were there any solid clues? Gates couldn’t or wouldn’t tell her. Sam hung up before she said something she’d regret. There had to be something, somewhere, that would point them toward Zack’s location. If only she could think. Food might help; she’d had nothing since dawn but Tanner’s sludge. Deciding to start again at the beginning, she returned to her car and moved it to Site 44, where the Fischers had stayed for two days.

  The campsite was abandoned: the coordination effort had moved to park h
eadquarters. She pulled off her search party bandanna and armband and sat on the picnic table, chewing stale crackers and cheese and studying the area.

  Along the gravel road, bright sunlight filtered through autumn leaves, spangling the area with golden light. Birds twittered in the trees. It seemed unfair that such a terrible thing could take place on such a beautiful day. But she knew all too well that fairness had nothing to do with it. On the morning her mother died, the summer air had smelled of wild roses and she’d seen her first golden eagle. She had been nine years old.

  She slid off the table, walked to the rock ledge where Jenny and Fred Fischer had been sitting this morning. This was where Zack was last seen by his mother. She crouched and tried to envision the world through a little boy’s eyes.

  Birds everywhere. A chipmunk in the bushes. And although she couldn’t see the river, she could hear its constant murmur across the road. Kids were attracted to water. That’s no doubt why Zack had shown up in the parking lot yesterday evening.

  Through the trees, she could see the front of Wilson’s RV. Which meant he might have seen Zack playing here. Wilson, with his LEGOs and animal cookies.

  A small blur of orange at the base of a nearby bush caught her attention. Sam leaned over and grabbed it. The plastic truck that Jenny had been fingering. Would she want it back? It would be a good opportunity to speak to Zack’s parents again.

  The feeling of being observed suddenly prickled up her spine. She turned her head toward the woods. Leaning against a large ponderosa was a tall, lean man, his gray suit and burgundy tie distinctly out of place amid the trampled grass and gnarled trees. His arms were folded authoritatively across his chest. His dark eyes regarded her with suspicion.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  5

  Sam stood up. “You’re the one who scared me to death. I get to ask the questions. Who are you?”

  Something glinted in his eyes. Annoyance? Amusement? He reached into his breast pocket and extracted a leather wallet. Stepping toward her, he flicked it open. “FBI.”

  A gold-toned badge on top. Photo ID on the bottom. She grasped the wallet and compared the photograph with the man. Good-looking picture, although a trifle severe. Better-looking man. Raven hair, a square jaw with the blue-black sheen of whiskers lurking just under the bronze skin. Deep brown eyes, not the dense hue of chocolate, but a dark clear brown. Like a potent tea, or maybe an expensive brandy.

  “Special Agent Chase J. Perez,” she read aloud.

  He pulled the wallet from her grasp and snapped it closed. “Okay, now we both know who I am. Who are you?”

  “Summer Westin.”

  He returned the wallet to his breast pocket, traded it for a pen, and pulled a small notepad from a rear pants pocket. “How do you spell that?”

  “Summer?”

  His lips twitched, but he kept his gaze focused on the pen point he had pressed to the page. She had to give him credit for poise. “The whole thing.”

  She spelled it.

  “Middle name?”

  It took her a second to come up with it. “Alicia.”

  He looked up from the notepad.

  “I never use it,” she explained.

  His expression was skeptical. “ID?”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. But first”—he dug into a pocket inside his suit coat, brought out a plastic zipper-lock bag and held it open—“the toy.”

  Feeling like a shoplifter caught in the act, she dropped it into the bag.

  “Now,” he said, zipping the bag, “the ID.”

  Disgusted, she exhaled loudly. “It’s in the car.” She stomped the fifty yards across grass and gravel to the vehicle, slid into the front seat, dug through her knapsack for her billfold. Through the windshield she observed Perez watching her. His right hand had disappeared under his suit coat. Probably resting on a pistol in a belt holster, just in case she emerged with a weapon.

  She took him her Washington State driver’s license. He jotted down her license number and birth date, flipped the laminated card over and back again, then scrutinized the photo, compared it with her face.

  “You shaking down everyone in the park?” she asked.

  Again, the hint of a smile. He pressed his lips together briefly before responding. “Only women from Bellingham, Washington, who are making off with certain toy trucks.” He handed back the license.

  “I was not ‘making off’ with it. I was going to return it.”

  “This is a crime scene. You shouldn’t be touching anything.”

  “Really? You should have gotten here earlier to tell that to the other hundred people who tramped through here today, Special Agent Perez.”

  The scowl that darkened the FBI man’s face made her regret her sarcasm. Kent was right, she was a wiseass.

  The crunch of gravel distracted them both. A park-issue truck pulled up behind her car. A familiar lanky form emerged. Kent strode over, distinctly cleaner than earlier in the day. Shaking hands with Perez, he said, “Ranger Kent Bergstrom. Sorry it took me so long.” He scrunched up his nose and flapped a hand in her direction. “Whew, Sam, is that you?”

  Her face flushed at the reminder of her aroma. “Dumpster diving,” she explained. She glanced at Perez, whose expression remained impassive. Either the agent was naturally stoic or he lacked a sense of smell. Lest he think she routinely waded through garbage, she added, “I was looking for Zack.”

  Perez’s chin lifted a fraction of an inch. “That’s very . . . astute of you.”

  It sounded vaguely insulting. “Thanks,” she said. “I think.”

  “Most civilians would never . . .” he started, then abruptly switched tack. “Why did you think he might have crawled into a Dumpster?”

  “Two-year-olds can get into all kinds of places, can’t they? Besides, he might not have crawled in on his own.”

  Agent Perez, his eyes still fixed on her, nodded briefly.

  “My God.” Kent’s eyes were wide with horror. “I never thought of that.” He rubbed his eyes briefly as if to erase an ugly image that had formed there, then turned back to Perez. “Anyway, sorry. I had to finish a theft report, and then I had to give some illegal campers the boot.”

  Sam frowned. “Not the mother and the two little girls? Down in that flat spot by the river?”

  Kent nodded. “Yeah. Mexican migrants, I think. Barely understood English.”

  She sighed. “They probably don’t have money for the campground fee.”

  “I sent her to the national forest. At least I hope she understood; I showed it to her on the map.” He glanced at Perez. “We have a real problem with the homeless.”

  The FBI agent made an impatient gesture. “They’re everywhere.”

  “Got that right. We see too many illegal Mexicans here.” Apparently Kent had a sudden thought about Agent Perez’s probable ancestry, because he hastily added, “And other homeless, too. Sometimes we chase them around for weeks, even months. About three years ago—I was a summer hire then—we had this one guy, about my age, and his teenage girlfriend. They kept popping up all over the park. The girl had the most beautiful eyes, big and brown, like a whitetail deer. She was only about Sam’s size, but a lot younger.”

  Sam suddenly felt like an elderly dwarf. She corrected the slouch of her back and tried to relax the frown line etched into her forehead.

  Kent continued. “Sixteen, maybe seventeen years old. And she was out to here, at least eight months pregnant.” He held his hand out in front of his abdomen, measuring an imaginary belly.

  The gesture looked strange on a man. Evidently Perez thought so, too: his gaze remained fixed on the outstretched hand until Kent dropped it back to his side.

  Perez abruptly changed the topic. “So, you two know each other?”

  “Oh yeah,” Kent said. “I’ve known Sam for years.”

  Perez turned to her. “I thought your name was Summer.”

  “Sam’s my nickname,” she sa
id. “Better than Sum, don’t you think?” Then, hearing the double-entendre, she added, “S-U-M, I mean, not S-O-M-E.”

  “Got it the first time.” Perez’s gaze shifted to Kent. “What’s the connection between you two?”

  Kent explained her seasonal employment in the park a year ago, that they were fellow wildlife biologists, Sam’s follow-up article about the cougars. Perez took in the information without a change in expression. He looked back to Sam. “You’re a biologist, a writer, and a photographer?”

  “She’s Wonder Woman,” Kent said. “Odiferous Wonder Woman.”

  Sam jabbed him with an elbow.

  Perez touched the tip of the pen to the notepad again. “So you’re a journalist.” His tone made the word sound like an epithet.

  “I’m not the press,” she told the agent. Although it felt slightly disloyal to Adam to say it, the last thing she wanted was to be lumped in with the media team she’d just seen in action. “I’m a freelance writer and photographer. And I only do wildlife and outdoor stories.” She mentioned the Save the Wilderness Fund. Perez wrote it down.

  “And now she’s doing online stuff, you know, on the Internet?” Kent contributed.

  The FBI agent scribbled some more. “So you’re a blogger.” The way he said it made her think that he didn’t have a lot of respect for the medium.

  Oh, jeez. Just what she needed: to be categorized with all those unpaid bloggers out there sharing recipes or dog training tips. “I am paid to write online articles,” she stressed.

  “I see.” Perez lifted his gaze toward her. “What do you know about Zachary?”

  “Blond, two and a half years old. Disappeared last night from this campsite. Cute little guy, with scratches on his face.”

  The FBI agent was attentive now. “Where did you get this description?”

  “I saw him. Around five forty, five forty-five yesterday evening.” She described the encounter.

  “And you didn’t take him back to his parents?”