by Rick Mofina
Zander checked his watch. Time was running out.
SEVENTEEN
Immediately after Emily Baker’s first interview with the task force, Zander pulled Bowman aside in the few minutes they had alone.
“Emily’s demeanor at this stage is absolutely critical. She could bond, open up. She may need a little nudge.”
A female Ranger had taken Emily to find an unoccupied restroom. Zander’s attention darted between where she would emerge and Bowman.
“I want you to begin working on securing Emily’s trust before you fly back with her to the command post. Work on her woman to woman.” Zander’s blue eyes bored into hers. “It is vital you not fail. You will not get a second chance at this.”
The full weight of what was at stake began settling on Bowman. Through the command center windows she saw the news trucks. Inside, the TV monitors in the operations room played the muted chatter of live network reports. Bowman swallowed. A few hours ago, she would have been at her desk, quietly dealing with forms, her keyboard and her little frustrations. This was huge. Moving so fast. She could not afford to screw up.
“You understand, Bowman? Can you handle that? Or should I request someone else?”
Zander was an ass. He might be a legendary detective, able to pick up her twinge of self-doubt, but he was still an ass.
“Tell me, Zander, with you being an expert on the ‘woman-to-woman approach,’ what advice can you provide so that I don’t fail?”
“It’s evident she likes you, Bowman. Get her talking to you. Beat us up if you like. Win her confidence. Whatever it takes.” Zander checked his watch. “You’ll have an hour, maybe less, with her. Then we bring the dad in.”
“What do we want to know?”
“The truth.”
Emily returned, nodding her thanks to the ranger, giving a half-smile to Bowman, who escorted her through the chaos of the command center.
Emily’s face tightened, her eyes glistening as the impact of her daughter’s drama hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.
Paige staring back at her from the TV monitors from the early-morning news reports, still pictures of her and Doug. The entire country was watching.
“This way, Emily.”
Bowman took Emily outside through a back entrance to an empty FBI SUV with Utah plates, filled with manuals, maps, empty fast-food wrappers and newspapers. At least it would be private. They climbed in.
Emily was tearful, drained.
“How long before I can get back to the campsite? I want to be there in case they find her.”
“About an hour”, Bowman explained. Because the search was going full throttle it might take that long before a helicopter could ferry her back and fly Doug in. Emily stared at the mountains.
“Have they found anything?”
“I’m sorry. Nothing so far that we’re aware of.”
Emily was dabbing her eyes, sniffling. “Do you think I am a horrible mother?”
“Every mother thinks they are a horrible mother when something bad happens.”
“I think Zander and the others think I am a terrible mother.”
“Why?”
“For losing my child.”
“I think they just want to know everything that happened so they can find Paige.”
“I told Zander everything. I know he doesn’t believe me. I saw it in his face, heard it in his tone.”
Emily looked at Bowman, assessing her as a friend or an enemy.
“Do you have children, Tracy?”
“A son, Mark. He’s nine.”
“Have you ever had anything horrible happen in your life?”
Bowman rolled to Carl’s empty side of the bed that night he took the call. Then the pounding began on the front door. Barry Tully, highway patrolman, stood there, his hat in his hand. He couldn’t get the words out. He didn’t have to because she knew….
“Yes. I have,” Tracy said. “My husband died a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry. How, illness or…”
“Highway crash.”
Emily looked at nothing in the treetops. “Then you know what it is like to get pulled into a surreal whirlwind where nothing makes sense, where it is so painful you would give anything to stop it, to go back to better days.”
Bowman could feel Emily reaching out to her, subconsciously trying to bond. Woman to woman, mother to mother. Be careful, she told herself.
“Yes, Emily, I’ve known terrible things in my life, like most people.”
“I know Zander and the others are trying to find out if I had anything to do with Paige’s disappearance.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Is it?”
“We’re--”Bowman caught herself--“they’re just trying to learn truth surrounding the time Paige got lost, I mean--”
“The truth? That implies you think I’m lying--”
“No, Emily, I mean, I mean the facts, the details--I am sorry--”
“What about you, then? Do you think I had something to do with Paige’s vanishing? And I want you to tell me the truth and let me judge you.”
Bowman searched her heart. She found no evidence that convinced her Emily committed any crime other than having an argument that resulted in her ten-year-old daughter running off and getting lost in the Rocky Mountains. But somewhere in a dark corner, Bowman felt, Emily was hiding something disturbing.
“I do not think you committed any crime.”
Emily brought her fists to her mouth. “Thank you.”
Oh Jesus, was that a mistake, telling her that? Bowman thought quickly.
“But I do think you and Doug are, or were, in the midst of something very troubling that you fear is related to Paige running off.”
Emily said nothing for a moment, then, “Do you think we will find her?”
“I’m praying that we do.”
Bowman’s pulse was racing, not seeing the activity, the mountains. She was torn between her fear that Emily was so calculating and cunning she had just been played for a fool, or Emily was the innocent victim of tragic circumstances.
“I understand you used to live in Montana, grew up here?”
Emily nodded. “But it has been years.”
“Why did you come back?”
“To bury something from the past.”
Bowman felt gooseflesh surface on the back of her neck.
“Would you like to talk to me about it, Emily?”
Emily shook her head. “I can’t.” A curtain of sorrow fell over her. “I can’t tell anyone. I--I.” Emily began weeping softly, her voice dropping.
Bowman strained to listen, Emily almost whispering to herself, making Bowman unsure of what she was hearing.
“I need my daughter back. I cannot go through this again. I will not survive this,” Then Emily’s voice rose, her face lifting to the mountaintops.
“God, please, where is she?”
EIGHTEEN
Paige awoke, shivering and hungry.
It was cold and damp in her shelter. She should get into the sun. Try to find her way back. Was it safe? She was afraid.
Was the thing that chased her last night still out there?
So afraid. She had to stop shivering.
Where’s Kobee?
She inched her head out, began looking in every direction, her entire body aching, cuts and scrapes stinging. She was starving. Her throat was raw. She coughed. It hurt a little.
She threw small rocks in every direction, hoping to hear the thing stir if it was waiting for her.
Nothing. She continued tossing them, only farther.
She had to get back. Her parents were going to kill her. Maybe they would be so mad they would leave without her.
No. Don’t let that happen! Please! Somebody help me!
But why were they fighting so much? They were getting a divorce. That had to be it. They brought her on this trip to tell her they did not love each other anymore, that she would have to decide which of he
r parents she wanted to live with, then tell a judge or something.
Some of the divorced kids at school said that’s how it happens.
She prayed it would not happen to her.
Mom and Dad still love each other, don’t they?
Paige had to get back. Had to help them stay together.
Carefully, she stepped out of her shelter, shielded her eyes from the morning sun, scanning the slope, then decided on a direction. Walking warmed her, made her feel a little better. But she had no idea where she was going. She walked into a forest that looked inviting, easy to travel through.
She was so hungry.
She started thinking about a cheeseburger, fries, a milkshake, tacos, the fridge at home, a ham and cheese sandwich, yogurt, fruit, orange juice with shaved ice, her mom’s spaghetti with mushroom sauce and garlic bread, homemade apple pie.
She missed San Francisco, their house near Golden Gate Park, her room with her cool loft bed, her books, the computer, her poster of Leonardo DiCaprio. The big beautiful picture Mom took of her and Kobee at the beach.
Where was Kobee?
She called for him. “Kobeeee!” Stupid beagle.
Paige stopped to sit on a flat sun-warmed rock. She was so hungry.
The trees, the slopes and mountains that went on forever and ever. She hated this place. It was not beautiful; it was scary. Something had chased her last night. Something frightening that she did want to even think about.
Paige had overheard her mother telling someone on the phone once that her monster “dwelled in the mountains.” Paige now knew monsters were real. One almost got her last night. Would she ever get back home? She had no idea where she was going. Her feet were sore.
She was so hungry.
She swallowed and searched her pack.
Two granola bars, an apple and a bottle of water.
She was starving. Licking her lips, she forced herself to eat only the apple, to eat it as slowly as possible. Savoring every bit, sucking the juice, actually tasting the skin, nibbling down to the core, leaving no meat on the seed pockets or the stem, contemplating eating them too.
When she finished, she was still hungry. Gripping the two packaged granola bars. One blueberry. One strawberry. Sitting there craving, aching to eat them.
But then what?
What would she eat when they were gone?
She wept.
Mommy. Daddy. Come and get me. Please. Take me home. Please.
She sobbed, believing her parents, the entire world, had forgotten about her; fearing she would never see them or her friends again. At first, she didn’t hear the distant sound as it drew closer, familiar, pricking her ears. A jingling, then panting.
Paige blinked.
Kobee?
Suddenly, out of nowhere, he was in her lap.
“Kobee!”
Licking her face.
Squeezing him, hugging him, kissing him.
“You bad, bad wonderful mutt. I love you--don’t you ever leave me again!”
Paige placed her hand on either side of his head, staring at him eye to eye.
“Now you have to show me the way back! You!”
What was wrong? His eyes were not right. They held something bad. Terror. Body trembling. Her fingers. Wet. Something gooey on them pulling them away, stained red. Blood. Kobee was bleeding. Paige’s heart raced.
“What happened?”
She swallowed.
His side had been sliced. Like it been raked with sharp knives. Flesh torn.
What was that?
Huffing. Snorting.
Coming toward her, crashing through the forest. Branches snapping. Louder than the sound of the distant search helicopter.
“Oh God!”
Paige scooped Kobee in her arms and ran for her life.
NINETEEN
In the task force room, while the investigators awaited Doug Baker’s arrival, Inspector Walt Sydowski reviewed Frank Zander’s approach to go hard on Emily Baker, then have Tracy Bowman pick up the pieces.
“You are pushing the right buttons, but--”
“But what?”
“I think you need leverage before going any harder. We have nothing but disturbing circumstances. Things are not always what they seem. We need something physical, irrefutable. The father’s wound might be a start, or finding the ax.”
Zander hated being second-guessed. He glared at Sydowski, on the verge of snapping at him, but chose to hold his words.
“Well, I for one do not approve of this approach,” Elsie Temple, the park’s superintendent, peered at Zander over her glasses. “Why put the Bakers through this? It serves nothing. I think you should wait until you have evidence of a crime.”
“And your opinion is based on how many criminal investigations, Ms. Temple?” Zander shot at her, causing her face to redden. “We’ve seen what happened in Yellowstone when people waited until they tripped over the evidence.”
“Agent Zander, it just appears--”
“Ms. Temple, a liar tells a tale a thousand ways. The more distance you get from the crime, the more opportunity for the suspects to fortify themselves. From what we know of the San Francisco information, it appears Emily has already lied about stress in her family and receiving counseling before the trip. There is the domestic call, Doug Baker’s wound, the absence of his ax. You rarely get the truth the first time around. If you collect statements while aggressively searching for physical evidence that contradicts the family’s account of things, then your case strengthens.”
“And if you are wrong?” Temple said.
“Then it’s a price I’ll gladly pay, considering the alternative,” Zander said. “If we are wrong, then hopefully the Bakers get their daughter back alive and well. But if Paige Baker has been harmed and we have bungled so badly that no one answers for it, consider the legacy. Not something you will feature with pictures on the lovely brochures for your pretty park, is it?”
Temple jaw dropped. “How do you live with yourself?”
Zander did not answer her. Instead, he took a call advising the task force that Mr. Ropa had arrived.
Bobby Ropa was wearing a New York Giants T-shirt and faded Levis. Looked to be in his early thirties and in good shape. First thing he did after introducing himself to the investigators was produce his NYPD blue-crested shield.
Zander seated Ropa, professionally reminding him about confidentiality; then got down to business.
“You looking at the dad?” Ropa said, eager to help.
“We’re talking to everybody, looking at everything.”
“You should look hard at the dad.”
“Tell us about your information,” Zander said.
Ropa recounted how his family was coming out of Grizzly Tooth, along a twisting part of the trail, when they heard voices carrying loud and clear.
“This family, the Bakers from the news pictures, it was them. They had stopped for lunch in a clearing but were arguing.”
Ropa explained how quiet it can get up there and how they heard much of the argument before they came up on the Bakers.
“First thing I picked up was the girl, Paige, upset, says she thinks she knows why her parents brought her to the mountains. Then her old man says, tell us. The girl figures her parents are divorcing because of her mother’s problems, that she’s got to choose a parent to live with.
“The mother denies it, and the kid is crying. The mother says it is complicated. We kind of round a bend and come up on them, in time to see the old man explode. Big time. It all goes down fast.
“He demands the mother tell them ‘exactly what the hell is going on with you!’ She starts wailing and he screams at her that he is sick and tired ‘of this veneer. This pretense of a happy family’. He blames it all on the mother.
“We’re just stunned, like we’re watching a play. Street theater.
“She gets hysterical, accusing him of thinking she’s ‘wigged out,’ dragging them all to the mountains for some inexplicable re
ason. The kid gets into it, threatens to run off a mountain because of the parents. The mother answers her with something like, ‘Don’t ever say that.’
“That’s when I step in with, you know, ‘Everything okay there?’ The old man gets cool fast, switching it off as I eyeball him. He makes a joke, a little first-day stress, or something. I see he’s got an ax, a small hatchet, hanging from his pack. I ask them if they have bear spray, because we spotted a Grizzly sow with cubs in a meadow by a river a day or so earlier.
“Then I see they got a dog concealed in one of the packs, against park regs. Part of the family, the father says, could not leave home without him.
About then I marshal my family out of there. It was a weird scene. We see nothing more until the news hits that the father reports the daughter lost.
“The way I figure it, we saw their fireworks display the day before she vanished. I don’t know what to make of it. Don’t know what else you got, but this thing--she smells to me.”
None of the task force members spoke for the longest time as they ingested the new disturbing information from Robert L. Ropa, detective first grade with the NYPD’s 67th Precinct in Brooklyn.
TWENTY
Worry gnawed at the pit of Doug Baker’s empty stomach as he scanned the forests from their campsite command post.
Radios broadcasted reports and instructions between the planes and helicopters overhead, the search teams scouring the high country and the scores of rangers and now FBI agents ferried in to help.
So far, they found no trace of Paige.
Doug’s fear for her was like a leaden cloak enshrouding him, weighing him down, exhausting him. How long could she survive? Now, Emily was with the FBI. It all seemed out of control since police arrived. The way they never let them help search, the way they always watched them, kept from being alone.
“…We’ll take you in separately….”
The tone of that remark implied so much. The FBI knew something. Doug felt it in his gut. They suspected a crime. Something. There was that other family. Or maybe strangers on the trail. What did they know? He had to do something. Anything. He was supposed to wait here until Emily returned and they sent for him. But Doug was tired of waiting. It was time to do something.