Chapter Eleven

Seven years ago.

Ryker hesitated when he stepped out of his house, a deputy on either side. He had known a crowd had gathered outside his parents' home, but he hadn't been prepared for the number of people who suddenly crowded around him, or their animosity. Some shouted his name as the deputies hurried him toward the black-and-white cruiser waiting at the curb, while others yelled accusations and questions. "What did you do to Aiden?"

"Where is Aiden?" Others carried homemade signs with words like Murderer! or Confess! The sight shook him.

His father and the lawyer, Mr. Shay, walked behind him. His mother had stayed behind, barely keeping it together.

"Don't look," Shay said when Ryker started to turn his head toward the crowd.

One deputy put a hand on top of Ryker's head and pushed down, guiding him into the back seat of the cop car. They hadn't cuffed him. "You're not under arrest," one deputy had said, but they hadn't said coming to the station and answering more questions was optional, either.

At the sheriff's department, more people had gathered. Reporters, too. They pushed forward with microphones, cameras flashing, and shouted more questions—at him, at his father and at the deputies. No one said anything, their expressions stony.

Except Ryker. Later, when the pictures ran in the paper and on television, everyone could see how frightened he was. He was eighteen, but he looked younger.

They led him to the same room where they had questioned him before. His lawyer sat beside him. Ryker retold the story of everything that had happened that night, just as he had before.

"Tell us what you did with Aiden," the sheriff demanded. "Tell us where he is."

"I don't know where he is," Ryker answered. "I didn't do anything to him."

The sheriff, a craggy-faced man with a gray buzz cut who smelled of cigarette smoke, stalked back and forth in front of Ryker. "We know you killed him," he growled. "When we find his body, we're going to find the evidence that you did this."

A knock on the door interrupted them. Urgent whispering, then the sheriff and the two deputies left. Ryker looked at Shay. "They don't believe me," he said. "I would never hurt Aiden. He's a great kid."

Shay squeezed his hand. "I know this is hard," he said. "Just hang in there. They're trying to frighten you. They don't have any evidence."

The door opened and the sheriff returned. "We found Aiden," he said.

Hope flared in Ryker's chest. "Is he alive?"

"You know he isn't. We found his body where you left him. You should make it easy on yourself and tell us what happened right now. We're going to get DNA evidence from the scene. It's going to be a match. Then it's going to be all over for you."

"My client doesn't have anything more to say," Shay said. "He's already told you everything he knows."

The sheriff's face grew redder. He shook his head and left the room. Shay stood. "Come on, Ryker. Let's get you home."

Ryker glanced at the deputies. One was looking at the wall, but the other glared at him. He really thinks I'm a murderer , he thought.

Shay put a hand on his arm and Ryker stood and followed him out of the room. No one tried to stop them.

Ryker's dad joined them. He hugged Ryker. "They found Aiden," Steve said.

"I know." Ryker tried to swallow tears, but the knot in his throat wouldn't go down. His voice broke. "They said he's dead."

Steve nodded. Tears streamed down his face and seeing that made Ryker cry, too. Shay led them outside to the car. Inside, away from the reporters and the shouting people, Ryker pulled himself together. "What's going to happen now?" he asked.

"We'll wait for the DNA to come back," Shay said. "That will point to Aiden's real killer."

"Who would want to hurt him?" Ryker asked. "He was a great kid. I thought that night—I just found out my girlfriend is pregnant. I thought how great it would be to have a little boy like Aiden as my son."

Steve put an arm around Ryker's shoulders and pulled him close. Neither of them spoke—they didn't have to.

It took three weeks for the DNA results to come back. Three weeks of crowds in front of the house, shouting and waving their signs. Someone at the sheriff's department had told a reporter that Ryker was the only suspect. His mom had to take a leave of absence from her job after someone called her boss and berated her for keeping a murderer's mother on staff. Someone keyed his father's truck and wrote an obscenity on the window.

Aiden's parents asked the family not to attend Aiden's funeral, as it would be too upsetting.

When the sheriff called a press conference to announce the DNA found on Aiden's body was not a match to any known person, most of the attention died down. But Harper didn't return to town, and people still stared and whispered when Ryker walked by. As soon as he graduated, his parents suggested he visit his cousins in Texas. Ryker left, though he felt like he was running away. He left because it would be easier on his parents. He thought he would stay away until they found Aiden's killer. Except they never did.

H ARPER HAD POURED her first cup of coffee Thursday morning when she received a text from search and rescue. All available volunteers report to Ruby Falls to search for missing child . Her breath caught as an eerie sensation of déjà vu swept over her. Another missing child? Or had Charlotte been spotted in the Ruby Falls area, triggering this new search?

She finished dressing, then left a message for her boss that she had been called out on a search. As she headed for her car, she dialed Hannah Richards. "Who is the missing child?" she asked as soon as her friend answered the phone.

"I don't know any more than you do," Hannah said. "I guess we'll find out when we get there."

The summons had brought out the full contingent of SAR volunteers, veterans and trainees alike. Harper followed a line of familiar vehicles up Dixon Pass, toward a section of red rock cliffs that flanked the highway. The steep cliffs were prone to avalanches after heavy snows, but this time of year they were merely one more section of stunning scenery along the winding mountain road.

She parked behind Christine Mercer's blue RAV4 at a trailhead a few hundred feet from the falls, just behind a trio of yellow-and-black barriers that closed the road to traffic. Beyond the barriers, lights from several law enforcement SUVs, a wrecker, and an ambulance strobed off the cliff walls. A dark gray SUV was snugged up against the rocks, its front end smashed in, all four doors open. Paramedics were transferring someone to a litter as Harper joined the others around Captain Danny Irwin.

Danny hoisted his lanky frame atop a square of granite that had fallen from the cliffs years ago and now served to mark the edge of the narrow shoulder where some of the emergency vehicles were parked. He surveyed the gathered volunteers, who fell silent, waiting to learn the details of their mission.

"We're searching for a five-year-old boy, Noah," Danny said. "He and his parents were in that vehicle when someone ran them off the road and they crashed into the cliffs."

They all looked toward the smashed-up SUV. "His mother, the driver, sustained injuries in the crash and was trapped in the car. The father had some more minor injuries, but he says Noah was unhurt. Because the car was partially in the road, the father was concerned they might be hit from behind by another car, so he got Noah out and took him to about here and had him climb up in the rocks a little, where he'd be out of the way. Dad told Noah to stay put, then went to check on his injured wife. He called 911 and sheriff's deputies and paramedics responded. Deputy Ellis remembers seeing Noah waiting by the side of the road here when he arrived, but by the time firefighters began cutting up the SUV to allow access to his injured mom, he had disappeared."

A buzz of conversation rose from the volunteers, but died down again when Danny raised his hand. "Anna and her search dog, Jacquie, are on their way, but she was in Junction when the call went out, so we'll start without them. Noah is four feet tall, weighs forty-six pounds and has light brown hair and hazel eyes," he said. "He's wearing blue sweatpants and a green T-shirt and blue tennis shoes."

"He probably saw something that distracted him, he went to investigate, and he got lost," Carrie Stevens said. "That's the kind of thing my son would do."

Danny nodded. "I thought of that, too." Harper remembered that Carrie and Danny lived together, and she had two children from a previous relationship. "Pair up and spread out," he directed. "I want three teams on the three hiking trails that branch off from the trailhead where some of us parked. The rest of you, search both sides of the road. Climb up or down where you can, but be careful. Look for anything that's disturbed—rocks overturned, a child's footprint, anything he might have dropped. And be careful. Any questions?"

Caleb Garrison stuck up his hand. "You said someone ran them off the road? Do they know who?"

Deputy Shane Ellis had moved to stand beside Danny. "The dad described a white Jeep, traveling at a high rate of speed. It was northbound and came around the curve in the southbound lane. The mother had to swerve to avoid hitting it, skidded on the gravel and slammed into the cliff."

Harper winced. "I take it the Jeep didn't stop," Danny said.

Shane shook his head. "It didn't stop, and the dad doesn't remember any other cars passing by immediately after the accident. One man stopped after the dad called 911, but once he heard help was on the way, he continued on."

"Noah hasn't responded to his father's or the deputies' calls for him," Danny said. "He may have fallen, or he might simply be afraid of strangers. Keep those things in mind as you search. Good luck."

Harper teamed up with Christine and they began their search along the shoulder of the highway opposite the cliffs. The shoulder was only about a foot wide here, with no guardrails, and a steep drop-off into a deep canyon. Harper kept her eyes focused on the rough terrain below. "Would a little boy try to climb down those rocks?" she asked Christine. "It's so steep."

"Maybe," Christine said. "I mean, some kids are pretty fearless. Still..." Her voice trailed away as they looked down the long, steep slope. Harper didn't want to think about what could happen if Noah slipped on a loose rock, or lost his balance and went tumbling.

"I hope they find whoever was driving the car that ran them off the road and file charges," Christine said as they continued slowly along the shoulder. "The speed limit is twenty-five miles per hour in this section for a reason."

"There are a lot of white Jeeps around," Harper said. But even as she spoke, an image flashed into her mind of the white Jeep she and Ryker had followed on that mountain backroad—the one they were sure contained Kim, Mick and Charlotte. They had been driving much too fast, as well. Was it possible this was the same Jeep?

"Noah!" Christine cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted. The name echoed back at them, but they heard no reply.

They moved on to a rock outcrop that jutted from the shoulder, forming a small platform just big enough for a person to stand on. But currently, the platform was occupied by a yellow-bellied marmot. The furry rodent, as big as a house cat, was flattened on its belly in the sun. It sat up at their approach, but made no move to run away. "Seen a little boy around here?" Christine asked.

The marmot blinked, and let out a high-pitched squeak. Christine took a step toward it and it dove off the side of the platform and disappeared between the rocks below. Harper moved closer to see if she could spot where the marmot had gone, but another movement farther down the slope distracted her.

"Noah!" she shouted.

Christine hurried to her side. "What is it?" she asked. "Do you see something?"

"Down there, under that tree. Does it look like a person to you?" A small person, with blue sweatpants and tennis shoes, lying very still. "Noah!" she shouted again, unable to keep the frantic note from her voice.

Other volunteers gathered around them. Danny moved in, binoculars in hand. Harper held her breath, still staring at the figure far down the slope. Danny lowered the binoculars. "I think it's him," he said. "And I think I saw him move."

Everything happened very quickly after that. A team began rigging ropes to descend to the boy, while others gathered safety gear and first aid supplies. Tony and Danny consulted on the best way to bring up the boy, depending on his injuries. "I'll climb down to him," Ryan said.

"Let me go first," Sheri said. "He might be less afraid of a woman."

"You'll both go," Danny said. "It will take two of you to get him safely into the litter."

Sheri descended first, rappelling the last third of the way down what looked to Harper like a straight drop. Ryan followed and met her at the base of a small tree, which had apparently stopped Noah's fall.

"Let me through, please." A brown-haired man in his thirties, with a bandaged head and blood-splattered clothing, pushed between the volunteers. "I'm Noah's dad," he said. "Have you really found him?"

Danny put a hand on the man's arm, as if to hold him back. "Our volunteers are checking him out and figuring out how best to bring him up."

The man stared down at the scene below. Noah was hidden by Sheri and Ryan as they bent over his body. "Please tell me he's not dead," he whispered.

Danny's radio crackled. He turned to Harper, who was closest. "You stay with Mr. Ericson," he said. "Look after him." Which she took as code for Don't let him do anything stupid .

Danny walked away and Harper moved in next to Mr. Ericson and wondered if she should try to distract him. "You look like you were injured in the accident," she said. "Are you okay?"

"I'll be okay when my boy is safe." His eyes never wavered from the scene below.

Danny returned, looking less tense than before. "Sheri and Ryan say Noah is conscious and talking to them. He said he went over to look at a marmot and slipped and fell. They think he may have a broken arm, and he bumped his head, so that will have to be checked out. But he's lucid and his vital signs are good. They're going to stabilize the arm and get him into a helmet and secured in the litter and bring him up."

"Thank God." Mr. Ericson staggered and Danny and Harper steadied him on either side.

"Why don't you sit down," Danny said. "You can see Noah as soon as they bring him up." He helped lower the man to the ground. "Stay with him," he said again to Harper.

She sat beside Mr. Ericson. "Noah will have a great story to tell for the rest of his life," she said. "About the time he slid off a mountain and got hauled up by search and rescue."

"His mom used to joke about putting a leash on him. He's such a live wire. Just so interested and curious about everything."

"He's going to be okay." She hoped that was true. Children were resilient, right? "How is your wife?" she asked.

"Shattered kneecap, sprained wrist and some cuts on her face from broken glass. She'll be okay." He glanced over his shoulder, but from this vantage point, they couldn't see the wreck. "The car is totaled, of course. Not that that matters. As long as my family is safe."

"I understand another car ran you off the road?"

"A white Jeep. It came flying around the curve in our lane, going way too fast. My wife had to swerve to avoid it. Next thing I know, we slammed into that wall. We weren't going very fast, but still." He shook his head.

"Did you get a look at the driver?"

"It was a man, but I couldn't tell you more than that. And there was a passenger. A woman, I think."

"Anyone else? Any children?"

"I don't know. It happened so fast."

A cheer went up and Harper and Mr. Ericson both stood in time to see Noah, cocooned in the litter, an orange safety helmet almost obscuring his face, start up the slope. Less than five minutes later, the litter slid onto the shoulder of the road. Mr. Ericson hurried to see his son. "Daddy!" Noah said, and squirmed.

Mr. Ericson knelt beside the litter. "Just be still," he said. "You're going to get to ride in the ambulance. We'll go see your mom."

"Is Mama okay?"

"She's going to be just fine. She'll meet us at the hospital."

Paramedics moved in to take over and Harper turned away. She walked back down the road, toward the wreck site. A wrecker was hooking onto the SUV, leaving a trail of broken glass and metal behind. She looked down the road, trying to picture the scene Mr. Ericson had described, the white Jeep barreling toward them.

"He's lucky she steered toward the cliff and not the canyon."

Gage Walker joined Harper in watching the wrecker. "He said it was a white Jeep, with a man and a woman in the front seat," Harper said. "He didn't know if there was anyone else in the car."

"There are a lot of white Jeeps in the country," Gage said. "And there's nothing unusual about a couple in a car."

"Ryker and I saw Kim and Mick in a white Jeep with Charlotte," she said. "They were driving very fast for the roads we were on."

"We're looking for them," Gage said. "And we'll look for this vehicle too, but we don't have much to go on."

She looked up at him. "Do you believe that I saw Kim and Mick and Charlotte?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure the FBI did."

"They're practiced at not revealing anything they're thinking," he said. "That doesn't mean they don't believe you. But it's a good idea to remain skeptical. Some people do lie."

"I know it was Kim and Charlotte I saw. I didn't get a good look at the driver, but I think it was a man, and we know Kim has been traveling with Mick."

"No one is giving up on finding them," Gage said. "A lot of people—law enforcement and regular citizens like you—are still looking."

"The FBI think they're in Utah."

"They're looking in Utah, but I think they're looking here, too. They talked to Ryker for a long time yesterday afternoon."

"He's a fellow law enforcement officer. Did they tell him anything? Do they have any leads?"

"I don't think so."

She looked around at Deputy Ellis and Jake Gwynn talking with Hannah and a couple of other search and rescue volunteers. "Where is Ryker now?" she asked.

"He went home. I think being at the sheriff's department, knowing we weren't getting anywhere with our search, was getting to be too hard on him."

"He's not going to feel any better sitting at home, missing her."

"No. But he can be with his parents. I think they need him now."

"This must be so horrible for them all."

"You should stop by and see them. They would probably appreciate it."

"You mean, like, take a casserole?" That was what people did in a crisis, wasn't it—take food?

"I doubt Ryker is interested in casseroles, but he might appreciate a friend to talk to."

Right. But nothing she said was going to make him feel better. Only getting Charlotte back would do that.

A RESERVE DEPUTY arrived at Ryker's house midmorning on Thursday with a box Ryker was required to sign for. Ryker took the box upstairs to the room he used as a home office and lifted the lid. Stacks of folders and envelopes, each labeled with a seven-digit case number, half-filled the space. This was supposedly everything related to Aiden Phillips's disappearance.

Ryker removed the contents and began flipping through them. Some photos of the open window and the ground beneath it, as well as Aiden's room, and his empty bed. Transcriptions of the interviews with Ryker, which he didn't bother to read. He also set aside the envelope labeled Body Photos.

He came to a sheaf of papers identified as an interview with Margery Kenner, and settled in to read. With the precision of the school teacher she had been for so many years, Mrs. Kenner described her interaction with Ryker immediately after he discovered Aiden was missing. "He was really upset. Frantic," she said.

"He didn't do anything to harm Aiden, I'm sure of it," she added. "I saw them playing ball earlier that evening. Ryker was good with him. Patient. He never left the house that night."

When pressed, she explained that Ryker's motorcycle was loud and he parked it in front of Aiden's house, directly across from her bedroom window. She hadn't slept well and had the window open. "I would have heard him if that motorcycle had moved an inch. And how is he going to carry a little boy on a motorcycle anyway? It's ridiculous."

He smiled, picturing Mrs. Kenner berating the deputy. When asked if she had seen anyone else near the Phillipses' house that night, she said, "Only one vehicle went down the street, a red Ford pickup." She said she thought the truck might belong to a local handyman, Gary Langley. He had repaired her porch the week before, so she remembered the truck, but she couldn't be sure it was his. He lived on the other side of town.

A chill shuddered through Ryker. Langley was the old man who had approached him outside the sheriff's department the night Charlotte was kidnapped. Even in a small town, it was an eerie coincidence.

He searched through the file to see if the sheriff's department had ever interviewed Langley. He found a brief mention of the man in a report: "Mr. Langley said he was not in the Phillipses' neighborhood that night, and in any case, he sold the truck a week prior, to a man in Texas."

Ryker frowned. He could find nothing in the files to show that anyone had followed up to verify the date of the sale of the vehicle, or any explanation of why it had been sold to someone out of state.

There was nothing else of interest, so he turned to his laptop and did a search for Gary Langley. He found a dozen references, none of which seemed related to the handyman.

The doorbell rang and Ryker tensed, and listened as his dad answered the door. "Harper! Come in! It's good to see you."

Ryker made it to the top of the stairs in time to see his father embrace Harper. His mother entered the picture and she too hugged Harper. "Come in and have some coffee. Or a soft drink or tea?" His mother took Harper's hand and pulled her toward the kitchen.

"Hello, Harper."

She stopped and looked up, and he felt the impact of her gaze like a physical touch. "Hello Ryker. I hope you don't mind me stopping by."

"Of course not." He hurried down the stairs to meet her.

"I can't stay long," Harper was telling his parents when he joined them in the kitchen. "I just wanted to see how you were all doing. And talk to Ryker for a minute."

"We're all pretty miserable, as you can imagine." Wanda released Harper's hand. Steve moved to put his arm around her. "Ryker told us you saw Charlotte in that Jeep when you two were in the mountains. Did she look okay?"

"She looked fine. I mean, I only caught a glimpse of a girl with long blond hair in the back seat of the vehicle."

"Was she in a car seat?" Wanda asked. "We always make sure she's in her booster seat whenever we're in the car."

"I... I don't know." Harper sent Ryker a desperate look.

"Come on upstairs," Ryker said, and turned to lead the way.

Harper followed him. Behind them, he could hear his father softly talking to his mother, probably telling her to leave the two of them alone. He understood she was desperate for any positive news about Charlotte, but her obvious pain was tough to deal with, especially for someone as empathetic as Harper.

"You're not working today?" he asked when they reached the landing at the top of the stairs.

"I'm supposed to be. I got called out for search and rescue early this morning, so I'm late getting to the office. I just stopped by for a few minutes to tell you about the call."

He tensed. She hadn't stopped by just to shoot the breeze about a traffic accident or a lost hiker. "What was the call?"

"A missing little boy."

She must have read the horror on his face, because she rushed to add, "It's okay. He had just wandered away from his parents and slipped and fell. A tree stopped his fall and he probably broke his arm, but he's going to be fine."

"That's good." He never wanted to see his daughter hurt, but if she came away from this ordeal with nothing more than a scare and an arm that would soon mend, he would be relieved. "So what did you want to tell me?"

She glanced over her shoulder toward the bottom of the stairs. They could still hear the murmur of his parents' conversation. "Is there some place more private we can talk?" she asked.

"Come in here." He led her to the room he had set up as a home office, with a desk and computer. Her gaze immediately fixed on the smaller desk adjacent to his. "Charlotte likes to color or pretend to do schoolwork while I'm busy on the computer," he said. He had to force the words past a knot in his throat.

Harper faced him, her back to the desk. "The little boy belonged to a couple who were injured in a car accident. They were southbound near the Ruby Falls section of Highway 60 when a white Jeep came around the curve and crossed in their lane. The woman, who was driving, swerved to avoid a head-on collision and ended up slamming her SUV into the cliffs. Fortunately, they all should recover from their injuries."

"A white Jeep. Did they see who was driving?"

"They said a man was driving, with a woman passenger. They couldn't see into the back seat. It all happened very quickly. But I remembered how fast the Jeep we saw was going, despite the rough road."

He rubbed the back of his neck. "There are a lot of white Jeeps. It could be a coincidence."

"Or it could be Kim and Mick." She rested her hand on his shoulder. "Anyway, I thought you'd want to know. I wish I could do more to help."

He wanted to lean into her touch, to let someone else take part of the weight he was carrying. "You are helping," he said. He covered her hand with his own, holding her there, close to him. "I'm glad we're friends again. I've missed you."

"I've missed you, too."

"Do you think about her? Our daughter?" The little girl they might have had together had been on his mind lately, another lost child of his.

"I do," she said. "I wonder what she would look like. What she would be like."

"Yeah. Sometimes I wish things had worked out differently."

"Then you wouldn't have Charlotte."

"No." But he might have had two daughters. Who knew?

She moved away, breaking the tie between them. The physical one, anyway. Their past connected them, no matter what happened in the future. "I have to get back to work," she said.

"Thanks for stopping by."

"You know you can call me anytime. I mean it."

"I know." But was that the right thing to do—make her share in this sorrow, when she had already endured plenty of her own?

"I'll see myself out."

He stood there until he heard the front door close softly behind her. His phone rang and he answered it. "You need to get down here," Gage said, his voice clipped. Grim. "There's been a development."