by Rick Mofina
A Las Vegas Metro marked unit sat in front of the tow yard.
In keeping with procedure—should the RV become evidence—Metro Police Officer Silvia Lopez had observed and followed the on-call tow operator, Lee Solano, who’d loaded the RV on a flatbed, covered it and transported it from the crash scene to the yard.
“As you’d instructed, Mr. Solano secured it in the locked Quonset hut over there. Nobody’s been near it,” Lopez told McDowell and Elsen as she consulted her notes. “I logged one NHP trooper and two Clark County responders who’d gone inside the RV at the scene. I have the names for you.”
A dog was barking from somewhere.
“And the rental agency wants to have their guy look at the RV. The thing’s a write-off,” Lopez said.
“The rental guy can wait.” Elsen looked at the four-acre lot. It held damaged vehicles within ten-foot-high chain-link fencing, topped with strands of barbed wire. Visitors were alerted to several large No Trespassing signs clipped to the fencing. The locked hut was inside the yard, a teenage boy with a dog on a leash near it. The dog barked again. “Can we open things up so we can access the RV?” Elsen said.
Lopez turned, waved and a man wearing a Raiders ball cap, a Springsteen T-shirt and grease-stained jeans emerged from the office.
“Lee Solano,” he said, shaking hands with the detectives before entering the code on the keypad, opening the electronic gate and leading them into the yard to the hut were he began unlocking the chain.
“Who do we have here?” Elsen nodded to the boy and the dog.
“This is Craig Willing,” Solano said. “His dad started the business.”
“You two standing guard?” McDowell smiled.
“Yeah, I work here part-time after school and stuff. I hope to join the Marines or be a cop.”
Elsen looked at the dog with its beautiful fawn coat and black mask.
“Who’s your partner, son?” Elsen asked.
“Ranger.”
“That’s a good-looking animal. Is Ranger a Belgian?” Elsen asked.
“Malinois.”
Solano removed the lock and chain, rolled open the hut door, revealing the RV. Then he removed his ball cap and wiped his forearm across his brow. Ranger’s leash jingled as he pulled against it while barking.
“Ranger’s sure excited,” McDowell said. “Keep a good grip on him for us, okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After stepping inside Elsen and McDowell slipped on shoe covers and tugged on gloves. The hut was clean. The RV rested alone inside, upright, a crumpled hulk. Crouching, Elsen and McDowell entered through the front. Maneuvering along the passage where the windshield and dash had been removed to extricate the family, they were hit with the sewer smell of the ruptured black water tank.
“Very fragrant,” McDowell said. “Police work is so glamorous.”
The inside of the RV was a stew of webbed and tangled cables, cascading insulation, jutting spears of framework, molding and plastic. They stepped carefully around heaps of broken items and furniture.
The dog continued barking as they took photos and video for their own records.
“You go through the front,” Elsen said. “I’ll take the back.”
For the next twenty minutes they poked through spilled food, scattered debris and luggage for anything that might point to where Riley Jarrett went. The sound of the detectives shifting fragments and pieces of material was accompanied by Ranger’s barking.
Nothing in the way of a lead surfaced until McDowell noticed a patch of bright yellow near the front passenger seat. She took a photo, then reached down to retrieve a piece of lined notepaper. It bore handwriting in blue ink, some of it blurred because it appeared liquid had spilled on it. The note read: “Honey I didn’t want to wake you. We went inside to get some food. I’ll get tarts for you. Stay here. We’ll be right back. Love you, Mom.”
McDowell photographed the message thinking how the note, discovered in the wreck, supported some of Grace Jarrett’s account leading up to Riley’s disappearance.
The dog barked.
“Hey, Dan,” McDowell said. “I got something here, the mother’s note.”
Elsen didn’t respond. He was sifting through the rear, choosing his steps with care. They continued searching for several more minutes with the dog barking the whole time.
“All right, I think we’re just about done here,” McDowell said. “What do you think is up with Ranger?”
Elsen thought for a moment.
Then they worked their way out of the RV, and he went to Craig Willing.
“Son,” he said, “tell me about your dog.”
Fourteen
Nevada
Grace peered into a Ford Escape with Utah plates and an I Love USA decal in the rear window. It was empty.
Beside it was a Toyota Corolla with a Jesus fish symbol bumper sticker, also empty.
“Riley!” Grace called out while threading her way through the Silver Sagebrush parking lot, her face still burning from the questions McDowell and Elsen had asked and what had followed.
After the detectives had finished, Grace, John and Blake went with Aldrich to the Silverado to talk to the clerk who had seen Riley.
“Which way did Riley go?” Grace began. “Who was she with? Did she talk to you?” Grace’s demands quickly became desperate, evolving into accusations as she shrugged off John’s attempts to calm her. “Why didn’t you let her use your phone? Couldn’t you see she needed help? My God, you’re the last person to see my daughter!”
“I’m sorry, it wasn’t like that,” the clerk said, tears filling her eyes.
Grace froze. Realizing she’d lost it, she apologized.
Aldrich had intervened, suggesting that the family join the searchers.
Now, moving through the lot, Grace looked a few rows over to Jodi Hartell, a Sagebrush employee accompanying her. She was wearing a lime-yellow safety vest and carrying a two-way radio.
Grace, John and Blake had split up to join truck stop staff in the search. Grace and Jodi were in the southeast corner lot going from car to car, looking inside, checking and calling for Riley.
The lot seemed to go on forever.
And stretching beyond the complex was the desert.
Heat radiated from the pavement, parked cars and trucks. Grace wiped her brow with the back of her hand. To the drone of the interstate, she looked at the traffic coming and going at the Sagebrush. She saw security people, also in fluorescent vests, stationed at exits, waving down each vehicle, even the big rigs, showing drivers Riley’s picture and looking closely inside.
But we could be too late.
Now, with the sun slipping nearer to the mountains, Grace struggled to control her rising panic as police vehicles continued arriving, one of them a truck resembling a big white motor home with the words, “Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Mobile Command” on the side. Its emergency lights wigwagging, its diesel engine roaring, the truck moved across the lot before stopping and parking in the same area where, hours before, Grace and her family had parked their RV.
Staring at the truck and the other Metro Police vehicles nearby, at more officers gathering there, the bursts of radio transmissions, Grace was overcome with the gravity of what was unfolding.
I’m not dreaming—this is real. And it’s my fault...just like with Tim.
Grace looked at Riley’s smiling face on her phone, praying for a message from her, or even a friend, to say she’s safe, to say where she was. No messages came.
An idea flashed in her mind. She could contact Caleb to see if he’d heard from her.
Aware of the ill feelings arising from Caleb’s relationship with Riley, and her own dislike of him, Grace hesitated. She glanced at the police vehicles, the growing search. She had no choice.
She scrolled through her contac
ts coming to the number she had for Caleb and began typing a message.
Caleb this is Grace Jarrett, Riley’s mom. Please get back to me as soon as possible. It’s about Riley. It’s important.
After sending the text and waiting, Grace remembered that Caleb was on a plane to Africa with his father, or was already there.
Would he get my message? Would he respond if he did?
Several minutes passed without an answer. Grace felt utterly alone, at the edge of an abyss. Like the night Tim died.
She really needed Sherry Penmark now. Grace would never forget how they’d become friends after Tim’s death, how Sherry had helped her and Riley through the most horrible time in their lives. They wouldn’t have survived without their friends, especially Sherry.
Blinking back tears, Grace cued up Sherry’s number, was poised to send her a text but stopped. Sherry was in Salt Lake City now, to be with her aunt, who’d practically raised her, and was now terminal with a brain tumor.
I can’t call Sherry now, not with all she’s facing.
Grace then thought of Jazmin Reyna, her friend and fellow nurse at UCSD Medical Center, who’d recently separated from her husband. Grace thought of all they’d seen, all the heartbreak they’d been through while caring for patients in the pandemic. Then Jazmin had tested positive for COVID-19. But while recovering at home, Jazmin lost her mother to the virus. It was a horrible time, and Grace had helped her through it as they prayed for this pandemic to end. Jazmin had friends at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and was helping her get a job there.
What would she say to Jazmin? I lost Riley at a truck stop? I left her there because of an argument?
Shame, guilt and fear washed over Grace and she lowered her phone.
Riley was all Grace had in this world. Yes, John and Blake were in her life but... But Riley was her life.
Grace brushed at her tears.
Why didn’t I check on her? It’s not Blake’s fault. I’m her mother. I’m the one who should have checked on her. Why didn’t I do it?
Grace met the truth in a far corner of her heart.
It’s my fault, just like it was my fault Tim was on the road the night he was killed.
Because of what I was planning to do.
Fifteen
Nevada
Beeps and spurts of jangly celebratory music filled the air of the Silver Sagebrush’s darkened casino.
After leaving the Silverado convenience store, John and Carl Aldrich were searching the rows of digital slot machines and video card games.
“No one under the age of twenty-one is permitted in this area.” Aldrich nodded to the posted signs.
“It wouldn’t stop Riley,” John said, “especially if she was angry. She can be strong-willed.”
“Our staff has been through here.”
“But not her family. I have to look, Carl.”
Aldrich understood, and they moved deeper into the huge room.
John studied the people perched before the machines. All types: young, old, middle-aged, slender, average and overweight. Nicely dressed, poorly dressed, inappropriately dressed, bejeweled and tattooed. Smokers, gum chewers, nail biters, beer drinkers and soda sippers. He knew some gamblers could play for hours, that some developed relationships with their chosen machines as they followed betting strategies. Their faces were portraits of concentration. Occasionally there’d be the dinging of a jackpot.
Would any of them even notice if Riley was here? Could any of them be involved in her disappearance?
He began by approaching a woman at a slot machine, waiting until she was between plays.
“Excuse me?”
She was in her fifties, wearing heavy makeup. Her earrings, dangling musical notes, swayed when she faced John, who held out his phone. Riley’s picture glowed in the dim light.
“I’m looking for my daughter. Have you seen her?”
She took his phone, blew out cigarette smoke from the side of her mouth.
“What a sweetheart. Sorry, no, hon, I haven’t.”
John thanked her and moved to a man in his fifties with a ball cap with a US flag. He was unshaven, had a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. His checkered shirt was straining the buttons. He barely looked at John’s phone when he asked him about Riley before shaking his head.
“I ain’t seen nothin’ but bad luck, buddy.”
Next, he approached a man who looked to be in his thirties but had slicked-back white hair and blinding white teeth. He was dancing in his seat to music only he heard as he took gulps of an energy drink in a can.
“Let me look,” he said without interrupting his dancing. “No, sorry, man. But good luck.”
John continued approaching player after player, not giving up, like these gamblers.
Life is a risk. It boils down to calculation and chance.
Again, he glanced at Riley on his phone.
I’m not going to lose another person in my life. Not like this.
He took stock of the players at their machines, the reels spinning, landing on bars, on cherries, diamonds, sevens or lemons. Players at the video poker games were dealt and discarded cards.
Everyone had a strategy.
John swallowed. He had a strategy, too, a big plan. It was how he landed his new position in Pittsburgh, working his way toward a better life. He took a calculated risk. If anyone found out why he left his job in San Diego, it would destroy him.
We can get through this if I just hold on.
If we just find Riley.
Sixteen
Nevada
“Everybody, listen up for your assignments.”
Metro Police Lieutenant Shanice Jackson stood outside the mobile command center, next to its exterior forty-inch LED TV displaying Riley Jarrett’s face. More than a dozen officers had gathered around it in the shade of the vehicle’s extended awning.
Jackson turned, ensuring she had their attention.
“We’re looking for a missing juvenile, female. Riley Jarrett, age fourteen, from San Diego, California, last seen here inside the Silver Sagebrush.”
In briefing the group, she confirmed they all had been sent photos, the security video clip of Riley, a detailed description and key information from the detectives’ interviews with her family and statements from Sagebrush personnel.
“Your job is to get whatever intel, surveillance videos, any potential lead you can for the detectives. Now before you get your assignments, are there questions?”
“Did we grab her phone?” one officer asked.
“The family volunteered it,” Jackson said.
“Are we searching the family’s RV?”
“The detectives are doing that as we speak.”
“Are we bringing in SAR people to check the area?”
“Yes. Anyone else?” After a brief silence, Jackson said, “All right, let’s get rolling.”
Lining up for their tasks, which were logged in the system, officers were dispatched to Primm, to check places like Whiskey Pete’s, Buffalo Bill’s, the Primm Valley Resort, gas stations, retail and fast-food outlets. Others were sent to Jean, to check the Ramada, the Cholla Sun Trail Hotel and Terrible’s locations, along with gas stations and fast-food outlets there.
Jackson also sent officers to check with the Nevada Department of Corrections at the minimum-security women’s prison at Jean’s eastern edge. And she tasked some officers to stay at the Silver Sagebrush to enhance search efforts at the complex.
Marked and unmarked units headed out in an ever-widening search.
Jackson went inside the mobile unit.
Two other officers were at workstations using laptops, cataloging tasks and creating a spreadsheet to track all leads and tips. In supporting the investigation, they ensured details of the Jarrett case were submitted to local, county, s
tate and national police databases, like the National Crime Information Center, giving every law enforcement agency in the country access to it.
Calls were made to the California Highway Patrol in Barstow, the sheriff’s department in San Bernardino and Riverside counties. A specific request was made to the PD in Fontana, California, to obtain any security video and to interview staff on duty at the Chevron station when the family had stopped there.
Jackson checked her phone for the latest texts from Officer Rogan and Carl Aldrich. They had Silver Sagebrush staff with the family who were helping search the complex. She then turned to the notes bulleted on the dry-erase board.
They’d alerted security at McCarran, the bus station; all transportation, taxi, shared ride and shuttle services. They’d alerted the FBI-led Child Exploitation Task Force to Metro’s new missing juvenile case, which alerted casinos in Las Vegas and throughout the state that were part of the task force security program. They’d also advised other county and state agencies with eyes on and off the road, like the Nevada Department of Wildlife.
She was studying her tablet when her phone rang.
“Lieutenant Jackson.”
“Les Perrins, Department of Transportation, getting back to you on our traffic cameras.”
“Go ahead, Les.”
“We’re only responsible for cameras on highways and interstates.”
“Right.”
“So at this time, along Interstate 15, starting from St. Rose Parkway south, we’ve got five cameras, but there are gaps.”
“Did you pick up anything linked to the RV crash for us?”
“No. I double-checked with our road operations command center. Our cameras are live. They don’t record.”
“I thought so but we needed to confirm.”
“We don’t have the capacity and resources to hold recordings.”
“So definitely nothing from DOT?”
“Correct. Nothing from us. Maybe you’ll get lucky with some business or citizen footage?”
“Maybe. Thanks, Les.”