Mountain Investigation

by Cindi Myers

  “That was Holliday’s fiancée who was in here just now,” Hud said. “She found a username and password that may get us into the cloud storage where Holliday backed up his computer files.”

  “Let’s hope his killer didn’t get there first,” Reynolds said.

  Hud nodded and went back to work. He typed in the password, pressed Enter and waited. A thrill shot through him as the screen filled with a file directory. “Did you get something?” Reynolds leaned in closer.

  “Yeah.” Hud began typing, sorting the files by date, most recent to oldest. “It looks like over a hundred files here. This could take a while.”

  “Then I’ll leave you to it.” Reynolds clapped him on the back.

  Hud didn’t hear him leave. He was already deep into the hunt for anything that might lead them to a killer.

  Chapter Ten

  Audra arrived at work the next morning, prepared to deal with Jana and Mia and the whole bullying situation. She’d decided to implement a school-wide anti-bullying curriculum, and had located some age-appropriate resources the teachers could use in the classroom. She would take the sad situation with April and turn it into a program everyone involved could be proud of—a model for other schools like hers to follow, even.

  But she forgot all of this when a pale and anxious Brenda met her at the front door. “Have you seen the papers this morning?” Brenda asked. “Or watched the news?”

  “No.” Audra didn’t like to start her day with strife and bad news, so she kept her television off and her radio tuned to her favorite music station on her drive in to work.

  Brenda clutched her wrist. “It’s bad,” she said. “I’m so sorry, but it is. I’ve already had calls from two parents, saying they’re going to withdraw their children from school. I put the phone back to the answering service after the first two. I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “What’s going on? Why do they want to withdraw their children?” Audra’s hands shook as she opened the door to her office.

  “I left a copy of the paper on your desk.” Brenda bit her lip. “I don’t even know if what it says is true, but people believe it’s true, and I guess that’s just as bad.” Then she turned and hurried from the room, as if determined to outrun a storm.

  Audra shut the door behind her and stared at the paper on the desk blotter. Even upside-down, she could read the headline: Dane Trask’s Daughter Defends Father, Despite Their Troubled Past.

  She frowned. She and her father didn’t have a troubled past. They’d always gotten along well. He had always been a part of her life, and he had always been the one person in the world she could count on. With growing dread, she moved around the desk and sank into the chair. Then, as if she were approaching a poisonous snake, she cautiously leaned forward and began to read.

  The beginning of the story wasn’t bad—a rehash of yesterday’s encounter with the press outside her house, and a somewhat garbled quote in which she said people calling her father a murderer was disgraceful. But the second paragraph sent a stabbing pain through her. “To some, Audra Trask’s defense of her father might come as a surprise, considering that in her late teens, her father had her forcibly committed in an attempt to deal with her out-of-control drug addiction. Since then, others close to Trask say Audra has drifted in and out of his life, Trask always stepping forward to bail her out of trouble when needed. Most recently, Trask may have played a role in his daughter being awarded the contract for a new preschool and day care facility on the campus of a new elementary school TDC Enterprises is constructing in the northeast part of the county. At the time of Trask’s disappearance, his daughter admitted she hadn’t spoken to her father for two weeks.”

  She struggled to breathe, to overcome the red mist of rage that clouded her vision. The paper made her sound like a junkie whose father had had to send her away in a straitjacket—a spoiled daughter who only turned to Dad when she needed money or help out of trouble. Yes, she had become addicted to prescription painkillers in her late teens and yes, her father had persuaded her to go to rehab, and had paid for the treatment, or at least the portion not covered by his health insurance policy. But there had been no force involved. Audra had been desperate for help, and so grateful her father had come to her rescue at a time when she felt so powerless.

  As for the rest, it was all lies. She had not been “in and out” of her father’s life. She hadn’t spoken to him in the two weeks before he disappeared because she had been visiting friends in France. And he had nothing to do with her getting the contract with the school district—Dane was an engineer with TDC, not someone with any kind of influence over the local school board.

  Steeling herself for more bad news, she continued reading the article. After a summary of Dane’s disappearance and the various accusations against him, her gaze landed on a quote attributed to Jana Keplar. “Since taking a position as a teacher at Canyon Critters Daycare, it’s become clear to me that Ms. Trask has some problems she needs to address. I think the school district will be reassessing whether she is really the person they want operating their new day care and preschool.”

  Audra made a strangled sound in her throat, then sucked in a deep breath. Think, she reminded herself. What was she going to do about this? There were so many things wrong with this article. She needed to address them all. There was Jana, of course. Should she fire the woman for speaking against her? No—she wanted to fire her, but that would only cause problems, not the least of which is she didn’t have anyone to take over Jana’s class. And the students and parents clearly loved her. If Audra fired Jana, she’d come off looking vindictive and immature. Not the sort of person anyone would want to trust. So she’d leave Jana be for now.

  What else? She probably needed to contact the school superintendent and persuade him that she was capable, stable and exactly the person he wanted for the new facility. But how could she do that when he was already upset about her father? This article wasn’t going to help her standing in his eyes. She needed to find someone who had more influence than she did to speak up on her behalf. She’d have to think about that one.

  She scanned the article once more. Who were these mysterious “others close to Trask” who had said she was “in and out of his life”? Not his former girlfriend, Eve Shea. She and Audra had always gotten along great. She didn’t know of any other women her father had dated recently. Was it someone from Welcome Home Warriors? The men and women who were part of the veterans’ group Dane had founded didn’t really know her. But she had attended events there when her dad invited her, so they would have seen her with him and realized how close they were.

  Coworkers? A sensation went through her as if a nerve had been touched. Ever since her father had disappeared, TDC Enterprises had done everything they could to discredit him. Was this simply one more way to get back at her father, by lying about his relationship with her?

  She folded the newspaper and tucked it away. In the background, the phone rang, falling silent after three rings as the answering service picked up. She’d have to deal with those calls from disgruntled parents soon, mustering every bit of confidence possible to persuade them that the article was filled with lies and exaggerations, and their children were in good hands with her.

  Her father had taught her to stand up for herself. When people went after you, you didn’t sit back and take it—you fought back. But how was she going to fight back against this onslaught, when she wasn’t even sure who her enemy was?

  HUD FELT SICK to his stomach as he listened to two newscasters discuss Audra Trask’s “sad history” of drug addiction and her stormy relationship with her father. “An old familiar story,” the male newscaster said. “One many parents have dealt with.”

  “But one that has captured the public’s interest, now that Dane Trask is the most wanted man in the county, if not the state,” his female counterpart concluded.

  Hud switched off the televi
sion and sank back in his chair. Audra had been an addict? It shouldn’t surprise him. Drug addiction cut across all socioeconomic levels. As a DEA agent, he dealt with the ugly side of addiction—people who stole from their parents, who prostituted themselves and broke ties with everyone who loved them, at the mercy of their addiction. Good for her getting past that—so many people didn’t. And he was pretty certain he’d know now if she was hiding any current addiction. The woman didn’t even drink!

  As for her relationship with Dane, she had always spoken of her father warmly. If they had had their difficulties in the past—and what parent and child hadn’t?—she didn’t consider them significant enough to share with him. That part of the news story had been more speculation than fact, the word “allegedly” liberally sprinkled in the reporting.

  He tried to call Audra’s cell, but his call went straight to voice mail. She was probably getting calls from the press and most of the people she knew. Fine. He’d go to her. He was supposed to continue working his way through Roy Holliday’s computer files, but so far that had turned up nothing. Whatever was in there to be discovered would have to wait a little longer. Things had been awkward between him and Audra when he’d left yesterday—all his fault. He’d find a way to make it up to her now. She didn’t need to be facing this alone.

  Everything at the school looked normal to him—no crowds of reporters or irate parents. The playground was empty, but kids didn’t have recess all day, did they? But inside, things were definitely more tense. The phone rang and rang, and when Hud entered the office, Audra’s assistant scarcely looked up from her computer. “Audra isn’t here right now. You’ll have to come back later,” she said, in the tone of voice of someone who had repeated the same phrase over and over all morning.

  “I’m Officer Mark Hudson,” he said in his sternest voice.

  The woman’s head snapped up. She stared at him, wide-eyed. “Is something wrong?” she asked. “Is Audra in more trouble?”

  “She’s not in trouble,” he said. “Where is she?”

  “Can I help you with something, Officer?” A tall woman with gray streaks in her short dark hair stepped out of Audra’s office. She looked familiar, but Hud couldn’t remember her name.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I’m Jana Keplar.” She moved toward him. “I’m helping Brenda since Audra isn’t in.”

  “Where is Audra?” he asked, annoyance giving a harder edge to his voice.

  Jana’s expression, which he would have labeled smug, didn’t change. “I think she went home. With a headache.”

  The constant ringing of the phone was enough to give anyone a headache. But things must have been very bad for Audra to leave the school. She didn’t strike him as one who would abandon her post. “I’m surprised she left,” he said.

  “Oh, she didn’t want to go.” The assistant spoke from behind him. “Jana and I had to talk her into it. With the news reports and everything, it’s been a little wild here. No one can get anything done. We decided if she wasn’t here, there would be no one for the parents and reporters to talk to, so they’d give up and leave us alone.” She looked toward the phone, which, after a brief respite, had started up again.

  “Is that working?” Hud asked.

  “It worked with the people who came in person,” Brenda said. “We’re letting the calls go to voice mail.”

  “We’ll be lucky if we don’t have to close the school after this,” Jana said. “But maybe it would be for the best, in the long run.”

  Hud didn’t wait to hear more. He left and drove to Audra’s house. The relief that washed over him when he spotted her car in the driveway surprised him. He hadn’t been able to admit to himself that he was half-afraid she might do something drastic, such as confronting reporters, or worse, that she might try to harm herself.

  He had to ring the bell twice before she answered. She looked pale and a little drawn, but if she had cried about this, she had done so earlier. “I didn’t answer right away because I thought you might be a reporter,” she said, leading the way into the living room.

  “I heard the news reports,” he said. “How are you doing?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “You should have called me right away. You shouldn’t have to deal with this alone.”

  She shrugged. “I thought maybe you wouldn’t want to see me again.”

  The words hurt, but he couldn’t say he didn’t deserve them. “I know I was a jerk last time we spoke,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  She faced him at last. “You’re sorry? I’m the one who should be apologizing, for not being honest with you about my past. I did struggle with drug addiction—but it was nothing like the papers made it out to be. And everything they said about my relationship with my father was a lie.” She dropped onto the sofa, elbows on her knees, face in her hands.

  Hud sat beside her, close, but not touching. “Your past is your past,” he said. “Where you’ve been tells me a lot about you, but it’s not as important as where you are now—who you are now.”

  She sat up straighter but didn’t look at him. “What does my past tell you about me? That I was a low-life addict? Someone with no self-control who used drugs as an escape?”

  The harshness in her voice was like a barb under his skin. “It tells me you had real pain in your life,” he said. “Pain you tried to overcome, maybe the only way you knew how. But you got past that. You found the strength to overcome an addiction that a lot of people struggle with. I think that probably made you wiser and more empathetic than a lot of people.”

  The tears came then, sliding down her cheeks, though she didn’t make a sound. He took her hand in his, and she leaned over until her head rested on his shoulder. He fished a handkerchief from his pocket, and she took it. Neither of them said anything, but he felt some of the tension ease from her body. After a while, she began to talk. “I was nineteen. I tore my knee up skiing and had to have surgery. The doctor gave me Vicodin for the pain in my knee, but it made me feel better in other ways, too. I’d just broken up with my first serious boyfriend. My mom had married again, and that put some distance between us. But the pills made me feel like I could cope.” She shrugged. “I guess that’s how a lot of people get hooked. I thought I could handle it. It wasn’t like I was out on the street trying to score heroin or something. But I wasn’t handling it. I wasn’t handling anything.”

  “But you got help,” he said. “You overcame the addiction.”

  “Dad is the one who saved me. He knew a lot about addiction—he worked with a lot of veterans who struggled through the group he founded here—Welcome Home Warriors? Anyway, he got me the professional help I needed and paid for rehab, but mostly, he just listened.” She sat up and angled toward him. “You know how in AA, people have sponsors—someone they can call, night or day, when they’re feeling tempted? Dad was that for me.”

  “That’s why you don’t drink alcohol, isn’t it?” he asked.

  She nodded. “In rehab I learned that people with drug addiction problems also have a greater likelihood of becoming alcohol-dependent. I don’t want to take a chance.” She dabbed at her eyes, then returned the damp handkerchief. “So now you know my dark secret.”

  He looked down at the handkerchief, a smudge of her pink lipstick on one corner. “You’re not the only one with secrets, you know,” he said.

  She stared at him. “Don’t tell me you did drugs, too.”

  “No. I think maybe what I did was worse.”

  It was her turn to take his hand, her fingers soft and cool, twining with his. “No judgments,” she said.

  “Yeah, well, the reason I left the way I did yesterday was because you said you hated bullies, and I was a bully.”

  Confusion clouded her eyes. “You? But you’re one of the nicest, most patient—”

  “I was a bully,” he repeated. “In high
school. There was a kid in one of my classes—one of those awkward kids who doesn’t fit in. He tried to be friends with me, and I lashed out. And I didn’t just do it once. I made him a target. I teased him and humiliated him.” He swallowed hard. Even after all this time, it was hard to talk about. To think he had had that kind of darkness in him. “I don’t know why I did it. I think—I think I was afraid of being like him. Of being the weak kid no one else liked. So I lashed out. It made me feel stronger. Safer.” He bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut, telling himself he wasn’t going to break down. Not after all this time.

  Her fingers traced gentle circles across the back of his hand. “What happened to change you?” she asked, her voice just above a whisper.

  “The boy—his name was Cameron—tried to kill himself. His father found him. He’d...he’d tried to hang himself.”

  “Oh, Hud.” She leaned her head on his shoulder once more.

  But the worst was out. He felt stronger now. “Cameron told his parents what was going on. They told the school. I was expelled, and my parents put me in counseling, and the counselor referred me to a program for bullies. There were a couple of cops who volunteered with the program, and they got me interested in police work. I was lucky, really.”

  “You changed. I can’t tell you how hopeful that makes me.” She sounded as if she meant it.

  “I was thinking about that little girl at your school. Mia,” he said.

  Audra nodded. “She’s not a bad child. I know that. And I tried talking to her parents, but they refused to see that there was any problem. Her teacher is convinced that the whole problem was with April. Now that she is no longer enrolled, there won’t be a problem. But I’d like to do what I can to address situations like this from both sides. In fact, I spent half the night looking up resources and planning a curriculum that would address bullying for all ages. It was going to be a model program. And then the news about my past addiction came out. I had parents calling all morning, wanting to withdraw their children, or at least demanding to know if what they had read was true.”