by M K Dymock
“We’re talking about Keen and bringing her home. If you found footsteps, could be she’s out there right now walking around.”
“Or it could be Gauge set it up.”
“Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out. We’ll track them down; this is something more than we had yesterday. Once Sol knows, he’ll be able …” Clint trailed off.
“Where is he?” Elizabeth asked, her voice brightening. “We need to get out there. With all this rain, I was lucky to see the few I did.”
Clint looked over his shoulder as if checking to see if they were overheard. “I don’t know if he can help.”
“Of course, he can; he loves Keen. He’d go camping with us and she would follow him everywhere. Even taught her how to track a little. This one time—”
“Elizabeth, Daisy’s dead.”
She didn’t say anything; there were no words that could form a response to that.
“We’re still trying to sort out how, but it was in the same area where Keen went missing.”
“I don’t understand. Do you think he …?” She couldn’t finish her thought at a betrayal that painful.
“We don’t know anything yet. Could’ve been an accident. We sent him home not long ago while we investigate.”
What Elizabeth didn’t know far outweighed what she did. What she did know, however, was her daughter was dead or in danger and the one man who could find her was Sol. And she refused to believe a man who had watched her grow up could hurt her. “I’m going to find him. We don’t have a choice.”
“Let me call the sheriff.”
She picked up enough of the conversation to know Blake would not allow a man, a person of interest in his own wife’s death, to help the department in another investigation. Words such as “no way in hell” and “cost us our jobs” came loud enough through the phone.
She’d find Sol herself. As she stalked out of the office, Clint chased after her, pulling the office door closed behind him. “I’ll take you.”
“What about Blake?”
“If we find Keen, then he can’t be mad.”
They made it out of town and were passing through the flats when they saw a man walking hunched over, almost blending into the ensuing darkness. He reminded Elizabeth of the homeless she hadn’t seen since her last trip back east. The man who once was Sol appeared oblivious to the cold temperatures and to Elizabeth and Clint as they pulled over. His face reminded her of Daniel’s grandfather, who’d had Alzheimer’s the last few years of his life—lost and confused.
His pain superseded hers momentarily, and she reached out to touch his arm. “Sol.”
He lifted his dark eyes to her and she saw her pain reflected in his. “I was just … I thought I should …”
She wrapped her arms around him as cars flew past on the highway. “I’m so sorry.”
He sobbed as if he were a child, awkwardly resting his head on her shorter shoulder. After a few moments, he raised his head and a bit of clarity had returned. “Is there any news about Keen?”
“We found a trail for you to track.”
Hope broke through the confusion. “Where?”
With the search done for the day and crime techs waiting for daylight to investigate Daisy’s body and the site, Blake went home with Keen’s computer. Once in the privacy of his bedroom, he opened the Excel file he found in her email.
William and Cliff were smart enough to use vague terms like “product,” and he suspected their figures were about three zeroes shorter than the truth. The first sheet he opened was a series of cash flows from different companies, the Dawsons’ store being one of the first. How had Keen opened the file without the password? She’d probably opened it on Cliff’s computer without requiring a password, or he’d stupidly left it open.
He would’ve expected William to be more careful than this. They’d promised to be more careful than this.
He flinched as Grace yelled from downstairs, “Dinner!” One set of little feet pounded down the stairs; that would be his son, Billy, who was in a growth spurt and always hungry. His daughter would need more coercing.
Their lives were so intertwined with Grace’s father—and worse than that, their money. Could she ever forgive him if he was the one who investigated her family? If he did, how could he protect his own? Grace would stand by William through a trial, through prison.
“Are you coming?” Grace said from the doorway. He closed the laptop, but not before Grace saw the desktop picture. “Is that Keenley’s laptop?”
“Yes.”
“Did you find the file?”
“Yes. Everything’s taken care of.” That was a partial truth, as there was still William, Cliff, and their carelessness to contend with.
“Good.” She retreated back down the stairs to the kitchen.
On the way down, Blake scooped up his daughter from her room. “I’m playing; I’m not hungry,” she protested, but he swung her around until she laughed.
Grace stood at the stove as they walked into the kitchen. Cece jumped out of his arms and ran to her mother, yanking on her long sleeve. Grace flinched at the tug of her daughter. “Cookie,” Cece pleaded. Grace ignored the request.
“Dad, you’re home.” Billy jumped from the table and ran into him, forcing Blake to back up a step.
He sat down with his family. He would not allow William to ruin their life.
40
Late Saturday Night
Elizabeth stood silent as Sol knelt on the ground, examining the footprints. Beside her, Clint shifted from one foot to the other. She could feel tenseness coming off him like heat, but still he’d agreed to bring Sol out there.
Sol moved forward in a crouch across the hardened mud. “Whose prints are the cowboy boots?”
“Gauge’s,” Elizabeth offered. “The hiking boots are mine.”
He made a few more steps before standing and walking to the edge of the clearing before it gave out to brush and weeds. “You screwed up the tracks with your own, not to mention what the cattle’s did,” he said to Elizabeth.
“I’m sorry.”
He walked in circles around the area with Clint trailing him. Elizabeth stood in the center, keeping her eyes on him for any indication he’d found something helpful. He never looked up from the ground, his face a study in concentration. After much too long, he yelled out. “She came in from over there!” he said, pointing to a low hill to the east.
Elizabeth didn’t dare breathe. She held her body so still, her head quivered.
“She went that direction.” Sol pointed toward the faint four-wheel trail leading away from the one they came in on. “Too dark to follow it now; we run the risk of destroying the trail or missing it completely. The rain won’t have left much to find.”
Elizabeth plunked down on the ground, sitting with her legs crossed. She’d prepared herself for everything except the possibility of hope.
While she sat there, trying to pull herself together, the men returned to the deputy’s car. Clint called the sheriff and related the news while Sol grabbed tarps to protect the area around the trough.
Decisions were made about the morning—whether search parties should be sent out or if Sol should go it with just a few. Elizabeth ignored the debate. Whether it was Sol or an army mattered not to her; she’d be following along. Clint suggested she go home for a bit of sleep, but she ignored him.
Sol radioed out to Mina and the rest of the SAR unit, who had been enjoying their first full night home in a week. When the command van pulled in with a few SUVs and trucks following, the voices that yelled out greetings held joy, not the exhaustion of the week.
Sol had found the trail. It’s what the entire town had been waiting for.
Elizabeth hauled a camp chair someone had brought to the edge of the clearing, careful to stay away from where the tracks led. She faced her chair out to darkness, willing her eyes to see into the void for her daughter.
“Elizabeth.”
She didn’t turn at the fam
iliar voice.
Daniel knelt beside her, following her gaze. She’d sent out multiple messages, hoping one would find its way to him. “Mina tracked me down by the river. She told me what you found.”
“She’s out there, waiting for us,” Elizabeth whispered. To everyone else she would remain realistic, but with him she could hope.
“Then we’ll find her.”
“I lost her once, you know, when she was little.”
“No, you couldn’t have.” He took her hand. “You didn’t let her more than ten feet away until she was eight.”
“I was jogging up the road and she was following behind me on her bike. She rang that stupid bike bell every ten seconds, and then she didn’t. When I turned, her little bike, the one with the pink streamers and torn-up seat from the dog, lay on the ground. I screamed her name.” Elizabeth gripped the edges of the chair in memory. “She jumped out of a ditch and said, ‘What, Mommy?’”
“She was in a ditch?”
“Your daughter had crawled into a pipe under somebody’s driveway, following a chipmunk. Said he was talking to her.”
Daniel laughed, but it died out as he faced the darkness.
“I never forgot the sight of her bike lying on the pavement, one wheel still slowly turning. And when we found her bike …” It was Elizabeth’s turn to choke up. “She’s out there, and she’s waiting for us to come find her.” Saying it out loud terrified her as if it would somehow jinx them.
Daniel took her hand. “We will.”
By midnight, the area became a campsite, complete with a huge bonfire anyone could see for miles. Somebody put up a tent for the Dawsons, which they huddled in but didn’t sleep.
Blake had refused to let Clint’s phone call disrupt the only half hour he’d had with his children all week. However, the second call ruined it. He cursed out loud at his deputy and jumped from the table, startling his family. “They think they’ve found Keen’s tracks in the west desert.”
Grace gasped. “Where? Who?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve got to go figure out what’s going on.”
Grace slid Cece from her lap as she stood to follow him to the door, where he slipped on his boots. “I am going with you,” Grace said.
“No,” he said, loud enough Billy peered around the corner from the kitchen, his eyes wide. “No.” He softened his tone. “Sorry. I’m frustrated that Sol, who right now is our best suspect, is out there.”
“If Solo is out there, he will find her,” Grace said without a trace of doubt.
Blake took a deep breath before kissing his wife. “Everything will work out.”
He drove through the darkness, planning a multitude of punishments for his deputy for refusing to follow orders. The drive to the desert took a long time and he had a long list of them by the time he arrived.
Blake pulled up to a bunch of SUVs and trucks surrounding a bonfire. The flashing light flickered on Clint’s face. “Clint, a word?” he yelled out. Clint jerked up at his words and stood, leaving the circle of fire. Blake waited until they stood in the darkness, surrounded by sagebrush and out of earshot of the rest of the crowd. “Where is he?”
“He’s our best chance, Blake,” Clint argued.
“Tell me where he is or hand over your badge.”
Clint glanced toward the darkness opposite the fire. “He’s looking at the tracks Elizabeth found in case the rain hits again during the night. Daniel’s out there with him; they’ve got a spotlight.”
Blake had been dumped out of the frying pan and the flames licked him on all sides. There were so many ways tonight could go wrong. Whether the town liked it or not, Sol remained their best suspect. “You go stay with Sol until morning. Talk to as few people as possible and nobody mentions Daisy. You sleep together, you pee together.”
Large drops of rain ended the search and forced everyone into tents, and he crawled into the back seat of his Tahoe. Nobody slept.
At the gray dawn, the search went mobile.
41
Sunday Early Morning
A helicopter buzzed the makeshift campsite at dawn. Sol debated calling it in all week, but the trees were so thick at the Pines it wouldn’t have done much good. Now that Sol had a trail and an open area, he’d called in the cavalry.
Elizabeth waited as Sol pulled out a topographical map. The rest of SAR stood by, waiting. He didn’t speak for several minutes as he ran his finger along the lines marking elevation. “There,” he said, pointing. “Send the helicopter there.”
Elizabeth didn’t understand why, but nobody argued.
The ground search began with Sol. He would go first, and if the trail disappeared, the rest of the team would flood the hills, searching in half-mile squares. Others would canvass the dirt roads in four-wheelers and on horseback to look for other signs of Keen.
Sol lost the tracks about nine; the rain had done a number on anything Keen might’ve left behind. More searchers than anyone knew what to do with showed up through the morning. Elizabeth and Daniel, along with about twenty other people, spread out with fifteen feet between each of them. They advanced in a line, scouring the ground for any sign.
Elizabeth kept her eyes on the ground, praying for any sign of her daughter. They moved north in increasingly rougher country, farther away from roads and trails. More than anyone, Keen would know what to do if stranded in the wilderness. That’s why the path away from water and the road made no sense. But Keen’s presence in this place made no sense.
Blake, Clint, and Sol all led separate groups. Gauge, who’d shown up with a few horses during the night, disappeared by himself. Elizabeth squeezed the small CB radio she carried, waiting for a signal. “We’re coming, love; just hold on,” she whispered.
Blake volunteered to jump on the helicopter as a spotter along with the two pilots and an EMT.
They buzzed the ridgeline Sol recommended. Everyone on board pressed themselves against the windows, desperate to see Keen. The browns of the rock and sagebrush smeared the scenery together. The speed of the helicopter blurred it even more. The radio crackled partway through the morning.
Sol had picked up the trail and narrowed the search down. The pilot adjusted accordingly, and they moved lower to the ground.
Despite the smaller territory, they still searched an area measured in miles. Blake knew it would take a miracle to spot Keen.
42
A thumping drummed into the tiny slice of awareness Keen still clung to. To make a choice to ignore it would mean the sound broke through her deep unconsciousness; instead, it only registered as background to a dream. The dream held no visions nor words, simply a sense of warmth and comfort.
“Keenley.” Her mother’s voice tone cut through the serenity. “You have to get up.”
Keen’s foggy brain tried to form a reason why she had to get up: school, work, hiking? No reason seemed good enough to come out of the cocoon.
“Now, you have go get up now.” Her mother’s stern tone allowed for no argument.
Keen forced her eyes open. Above her, a helicopter flew past. Now fully awake, she attempted to disentangle herself from the sleeping bag, which pinned her to the ground. The helicopter flew farther away. She managed to stand and waved her arms, screaming her lungs out. The machine banked and turned its way back to her.
She tried to jump up and down, but her body had far exhausted that ability. It banked, turning toward her. It had seen her. No, it kept turning, leaving her behind.
The yellow tent! She still carried a piece of its bright yellow fabric. She reached into her back pocket. It wasn’t there. Had she dropped it? She grabbed the sleeping bag and pulled it apart. It had to be here. There, buried in the corner of the bag, it lay in a crumpled heap.
She unfurled her makeshift flag, but the sound of the rotors had disappeared. “Come back,” she pleaded. The empty sky mocked her as she pleaded with the helicopter to return.
“Do I keep moving or do I stay still?” That depended on whether the h
elicopter would fly back or not, which she had no knowledge of. Her wobbly legs warned she couldn’t walk far. “For now, I wait, but not here.” She’d fallen unconscious surrounded by high juniper and cedar trees. A person could be twenty feet away and still not see her.
A scan of the surrounding area showed a barren rock face at the top of a steep hill. Her legs quaked at the sight of it. “Climb to the top of that and we can sleep for a week.” Her legs be damned.
The top of the rock face proved steeper than she’d anticipated. A third of the way up, she ditched everything she’d carried except the tent flag. She pulled herself up hand over hand, her body screaming in protest. Each forgotten injury manifested itself in new waves of pain. Thunder rolled across the horizon. Keen climbed upward.
Blake kept his eyes peeled on the ground along with the pilots and the EMT. “I don’t know,” he said after another fruitless brush-over. “Maybe we should expand the area.” Each person wore headphones to communicate over the whirl of the blades.
“This is where Sol said to search,” the pilot said without hesitation. Blake swallowed his irritation. He wondered how much longer their fuel would last as the morning stretched on.
Though the growth in this dry country wasn’t as thick as the mountains, it still contained a million places a body could disappear in for only the coyotes to discover. Blake knew their chances were thin. Keen was still a needle in haystack, even if they’d finally found the right haystack to search in.
With his eyes pressed to the window, a movement caught his eye. Something waved in the barren landscape.
“There!” one of the pilots shouted. Blake jumped at the loud voice in his ear, and he zeroed in on the movement.