by Cindi Myers
“I was doing my job,” Salazar said, louder this time.
“Why did you run when the patrol car showed up?” Burns asked.
“I was afraid. The way they were shouting and carrying on, I figured they were going to shoot me. That happens all the time these days.”
Burns looked wearier than ever. “Try again. Why did you run?”
“I told you, I was scared.”
“You were scared we’d find the baggie of heroin stuffed under the front seat of your vehicle,” Burns said.
Salazar drew back as if slapped. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Burns stood and leaned over the table, his face close to Salazar’s. “Who hired you to ‘investigate’ Ms. Trask?”
Salazar remained mute.
“I’ll be contacting the state licensing board as soon as I leave this room,” Burns said. “And recommending no bail on the drug charges.”
“I was hired by a guy named Lawrence,” Salazar said. “That’s all I know. He paid cash, and there’s an email I’m supposed to send my report to.”
“Is Lawrence his first name or last name?”
“I don’t know. He just said to call him Lawrence.”
“What did he look like?”
“I never saw him. He called me and sent the money via PayPal.”
“You didn’t think that was unusual? Maybe even illegal?” Burns asked.
“There was nothing illegal about it. And some people don’t want other people to know they hired me. Divorce cases, for example.” He shrugged. “He paid cash and didn’t argue about the price.”
“What did he want to know about Ms. Trask?” Burns asked.
“He just said he wanted me to find out everything I could about Audra Trask.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t tell me his reasons, and I didn’t ask.”
“What did you find out?”
“Enough.” Salazar sat back. “And that’s all I’m going to stay. You may think my standards aren’t very high, but I have some.”
Burns looked at him for a moment, then left the room. Another officer entered and escorted Salazar away. “Any ideas on who hired him?” Burns asked Hud when he rejoined him.
“TDC Enterprises has filed a bogus lawsuit against her and her father,” Hud said. “Maybe they wanted to do some anonymous snooping.”
“Her dad is Dane Trask, right? The guy loose in the national park?”
“Yeah. It’s a tough situation for her.”
“If we find out anything else, I’ll let you know,” Burns said. “Do you want to notify Ms. Trask, or should we?”
“Let me do it,” Hud said. He didn’t like being the bearer of bad news, but Audra had proved she wasn’t easily shaken.
* * *
SHAKEN WAS NOT the word Audra would have used to describe how she felt when Hud told her about Richard Salazar and the mysterious “Lawrence.” “Forget the kitchen knife,” she raged, pacing back and forth across her kitchen in agitation. “If that man shows up here again, I’ll brain him with my cast-iron frying pan. How dare he!”
“That man will be in prison for the next little while,” Hud said. “The Montrose cops found heroin in his car when they arrested him.”
Some of the anger leaked away, replaced by a pang of sympathy. “He probably bought it with whatever Lawrence paid him,” she said. “Maybe prison will be a good thing. Maybe it will help him kick the habit.”
“Maybe.” She felt Hud’s gaze on her, full of questions, so she changed the subject. “I haven’t heard anything from my lawyer yet. I called her office and left a message, but I haven’t heard back.”
“People talk about swift justice, but in my experience the process usually takes time,” he said. “You should tell your lawyer about Salazar and Lawrence, though. There might be a connection to TDC.”
“You mean ‘Lawrence’ might be someone with TDC, trying to dig up dirt on me?”
“I can’t imagine what kind of dirt he thinks he’ll get on a woman who runs a day care center.” Hud kissed her cheek. “I have to go. I just stopped by for a minute to give you the news.”
“Thanks.”
After Hud left, Audra continued to pace her office. Usually when she struggled with something like this, she called her father for advice. He had a knack for listening, asking questions and helping her plot the right course. Unlike her mother and various girlfriends she might have confided in, her father had no patience with avoiding confrontation or sitting around hoping things would resolve without her intervention. “Problems seldom get better if allowed to fester,” he said. “If you want a solution, you have to tackle the issue head-on. Fighting is better than fidgeting any day of the week.”
She took out her phone and called Cheryl Arnotte’s office again. A pleasant female voice invited her to leave a message. She ended the call without leaving a message, then stared at the photograph of her and her father that sat on the credenza behind her desk. “If you knew you were going to leave, you might have left something more useful behind,” she said. “A letter or a diary, or some explanation for all of this.”
She still loved her father, but right now, she had never felt more abandoned.
CHAPTER SIX
“The Park Service reports that Dane Trask sightings have dwindled to only three in the past two weeks.” Ranger Brigade commander Grant Sanderlin addressed his officers at Monday morning roll call. The FBI special agent had assumed command of the Rangers only a few weeks before Trask’s disappearance, and it seemed to Hud that the frustrations of the case had added a few more strands of silver to Sanderlin’s sandy hair.
“How many confirmed sightings?” second-in-command Lieutenant Michael Dance asked. A veteran with the Rangers, Dance had deep shadows beneath his dark eyes these days, a testimony to sleepless nights as father to a new baby girl.
“No confirmed sightings,” Sanderlin said.
“He’s been quiet since that attack on Braxton,” Rand Knightbridge said. Knightbridge, along with his Belgian Malinois, Lotte, were an expert tracking team, though they had had no luck locating the elusive Dane Trask. “Maybe he’s moved on.”
“Maybe.” The commander sounded doubtful.
“Maybe he’s dead,” Ethan Reynolds said. A man who listened more than he spoke, Ethan studied psychology and talked of one day becoming a profiler. His talents had come in useful more than once for the Rangers.
Hud hoped for Audra’s sake her father was still alive, but death was a definite possibility. The wilderness where Trask had chosen to hole up was filled with hidden canyons, steep drop-offs and miles of roadless backcountry. A minor slip that resulted in a broken bone could be deadly for a man alone.
“If he’s still out there, I don’t think he’ll remain quiet for too much longer,” Sanderlin said. “All of his communications to this point have made some kind of accusation against TDC Enterprises, to little effect. He wants something, and I think he’ll keep agitating until he gets it.”
“TDC’s big reward hasn’t gotten any results yet,” Jason Beck observed. “They may make a new move soon, too.”
Hud thought of the lawsuit TDC had filed against Audra and her father. He had reported the lawsuit at an earlier meeting. If TDC had hoped to draw out Trask with the suit, they hadn’t succeeded. Hud wasn’t sure how Trask did it, but he seemed to keep up with the news. Did he have a volunteer on the outside who was funneling updates and supplies to him? Audra would be the most likely candidate, but Hud believed her assertion that she hadn’t been in touch with her father.
“Officer Hudson, did you hear me?”
Hud started, and his face heated. “Sorry, sir. I was thinking.”
“Stop, before you hurt yourself,” Beck quipped.
“The Forest Service has hired a contractor to clear the illegal construction
dump site in Curecanti Recreation Area,” Sanderlin said. “They’re going to start work tomorrow. I want someone on-site in case they turn up anything new. Beck will take the morning shift—you can relieve him at noon.”
“We’ve combed through all that like it was an archaeological dig,” Dance said. “We came up with nada.”
“We have a child’s drawing, a man’s work glove and a key to a standard padlock,” Reynolds corrected. These items had been dutifully tested, tagged, bagged and placed in the Rangers’ evidence lockers, but had yielded no information that pointed to who had dumped hundreds of yards of construction debris in the middle of the wilderness.
“The Forest Service is anxious to get it cleared out,” Sanderlin continued. “We’ll continue to run regular patrols out that way for the next few months, in case the original dumpers decide to try again.”
“It’s not like there aren’t miles of other places they can use as their free disposal site,” Redhorse said. “People do it all the time.”
“Yeah, but they dump a single refrigerator or a television set,” Knightbridge said. “Maybe a junked car. It took weeks, and truckload after truckload, to dump everything at that site.”
“And they did it right under our noses,” Hud said. That grated more than anything.
“The Forest Service has submitted a proposal for drone patrols to monitor wildlife populations,” Sanderlin said. “But they could also look for illegal dump sites like this one. If funding is approved, it has the potential to curtail problems like this one.”
“Maybe the drone can find Dane Trask,” Knightbridge said. “He can’t hide from the eye in the sky.”
Hud wasn’t so sure about that. Trask operated by his own rules, and Hud was beginning to believe the man wouldn’t be found until he was ready to reveal himself.
* * *
THE ARREST OF twelve people in a local burglary ring dominated the papers and television news, so for the next couple of days no stories about Dane Trask appeared. He didn’t leave any more mysterious messages or tangle with any hikers, and while Audra continued to worry about him, she was glad he wasn’t causing more trouble.
She began to relax a little, to focus on her job and her growing relationship with Mark Hudson. She thought her dad would probably like him. Dane invariably intimidated her dates—a former army ranger who could still run rings around men twenty years his junior could do that. But she thought Hud wasn’t the type to be easily intimidated. The idea pleased her.
But life wasn’t all romance and optimism. Monday morning brought an unwelcome phone call. “Ms. Trask, Superintendent Wells would like to see you in his office at ten thirty.” The woman on the other end of the line didn’t identify herself, but she didn’t have to. Audra recognized the voice of the woman who was the assistant to school superintendent Vernon Wells.
“Why does he want to see me?” Audra asked.
“I’m sure I don’t know, but it’s important. Can I tell him you’ll be here?”
Audra thought of several things the assistant could tell the superintendent, but thought better of all of them. “Of course I’ll be there.”
Audra had just enough time to finish her coffee, comb her hair, freshen her lipstick and drive to the school district offices. The assistant—Maeve or Mavis or Madge or something like that—wore her customary smirk, sweeping a judging look over Audra’s neat gray slacks and purple blouse, pausing in her survey to frown at the small stud in Audra’s nose.
Mr. Wells didn’t look happy to see her. A large man with abundant chins and thinning hair, he studied Audra from behind black-framed glasses. “What did you need to see me about?” Audra asked as she slid into the chair across from the superintendent’s desk. Maybe he had a report on the construction project at the new school, or he needed her input about some furnishings for the day care center.
“I’m very concerned about the negative publicity surrounding you,” he said.
Audra blinked. “I’m not aware of any negative publicity about me.”
“There are wanted posters for your father all over town. He’s in the news constantly. I hear now he’s attacked a hiker in the park and almost killed the man.”
She couldn’t believe that just when she thought public interest in her father was dying down, this happened. “My father is not me,” she said. “You can’t blame me for things he may or may not be doing.”
“People see the name Trask and they associate it with bad things,” he said.
“I have no control over what people think,” she protested.
“Still, there are people who have suggested that we shouldn’t have the Trask name associated with our new preschool and day care.”
What people? she wanted to ask. But that was the kind of question people like Wells never answered. “My preschool and day care isn’t a school facility,” she said. “It’s an independent business that happens to lease space from the school. It’s an innovative model that will benefit parents, students, employees of nearby TDC Enterprises and teachers with children who will now have on-site day care.” That was a direct quote from the bid she had submitted when she had first learned of the plans for the new buildings. A bid that had persuaded the school board to vote unanimously to award her the contract. “We have a contract,” she added.
“The contract has a morals clause.”
She flushed. “I haven’t done anything immoral.”
He shuffled papers on his desk, avoiding her gaze. “I wanted to extend you the courtesy of letting you know where the board’s thinking is leading,” he said.
“What do you expect me to do about it?”
“I don’t know. But perhaps you could think of a way to separate yourself from your father. To demonstrate your fine character so that parents will feel comfortable trusting you with their children.”
“Parents already feel comfortable trusting me with their children,” she said. “My school is at full capacity.”
“Maybe some testimonials from those parents would help,” he said. “It’s worth considering.”
Audra had no memory of leaving the superintendent’s office, or of the drive back to her school. Rage blotted out everything else—rage at Superintendent Wells for blaming her for her father’s actions, closely followed by rage at her father for running away and acting like a wild man.
Maybe he really was ill, she thought. Maybe something in her dad had snapped, and that was why he was living in the wilderness doing inexplicable things. In that case, he needed to come home so she could help him. He definitely didn’t need to be there, ruining her life from a distance.
By the time she pulled into the parking lot she had calmed down a little. She had a job to do, and she needed to focus on that and worry about the rest later. Walking down the hall toward her office, she spotted Jana Keplar and her class of four-year-olds filing into the lunchroom and detoured toward them.
When Audra took her seat at the end of the lunch table, Jana frowned at her. “Hello, Ms. Keplar,” Audra said. “Hello, children.”
“Are you going to eat lunch with us again today?” a little boy with a shaved head asked.
“I’m going to eat lunch with Mia today.” Audra focused on Mia, a sturdy girl with long brown hair and hazel eyes.
Mia smiled back and bounced in her seat in excitement. “Do we get ice cream?” she asked.
“Yes, you do,” Audra agreed.
“Can I have chocolate?” Mia asked as she walked beside Audra to the table in the corner. The staff had placed a vase of fresh flowers on the table, and Mrs. Garibaldi soon arrived with their sparkling water and ice cream—chocolate for Mia.
Audra had to spend a little time getting some of the children to relax and talk to her, but she didn’t have to work at all with Mia. By the time Mia had eaten half of her turkey sandwich, she had told Audra about her baby brother; her dog, Sam, and her ca
t, Pumpkin; her ballet class; and her favorite subject—art. She smiled and laughed and was the picture of a sunny, friendly child.
Only when she stopped to eat her ice cream was Audra able to get a word in edgewise. “I especially wanted to have lunch with you today, Mia,” she said, “because I think you can help me with something.”
Mia’s eyes widened. “Of course I’ll help you, Ms. Trask.”
“It’s your classmate, April. I’m afraid she has a hard time making friends, and I’m hoping you’ll be her friend.”
Mia’s bright smile faded. “I don’t like April,” she said.
“Why don’t you like her?” Audra asked.
“She’s such a crybaby. My baby brother cries less than she does. I’m almost five and I never cry. At least, not about things that aren’t important. I mean, you can’t even look at her and she cries. Plus, she’s a tattletale. If I so much as bump into her in line, she runs to tattle to Mrs. Keplar.”
Audra listened to this outburst in dismay. From Mia’s point of view, April’s behavior did sound tiresome. She carefully considered her next words. “You’re very lucky, Mia,” she said. “You find it so easy to talk to people and to make friends. Not everyone is made that way. Some people are shyer. They don’t know what to say to other people, and being in new situations frightens them.”
“I am very lucky, Ms. Trask,” Mia said, her face serious.
“I think April is shy,” Audra said. “She doesn’t know what to say, and maybe she’s even afraid. It would help so much if you could be nice to her.”
“I’m not mean to her,” Mia protested. “She even called me a bully, and that wasn’t right. That’s calling names.”
“It’s calling names when you say she’s a crybaby,” Audra said gently.
Mia pressed her lips together. “Try to be April’s friend,” Audra said. “For me? I believe you could really help her.”
“She can’t be my best friend,” Mia said. “That’s Maddie Friar.”