Chapter Thirteen

Harper was back at search and rescue headquarters Thursday evening for regular training. Attendance at these sessions was mandatory for rookies like her, and most of the veterans attended as well, if they were able. "Jake isn't here tonight because everyone at the sheriff's department is putting in overtime to look for Charlotte Vernon," Hannah shared when they were all settled in an assortment of folding chairs and cast-off sofas in the concrete-floored main space of headquarters.

"Where are they searching?" Harper sat on the edge of her chair. "Has there been a new sighting?"

"I don't know," Hannah said. "But he asked us to all be ready to go out again if we're needed."

"We could help now." Anna rested one hand on the head of her search dog, Jacquie. The black standard poodle stood by her side, ears pricked at the word search .

"They're not ready for us yet," Danny said. "But they could need us later. So have your gear ready to go. For now, let's focus on reviewing best practices for transferring an injured person into a litter."

Harper tried to keep her mind on the instructions for moving a person from a vehicle to a litter, or from the ground to a litter. Depending on the patient's condition, they had to be stabilized, fitted with safety gear, and moved in a way that wouldn't worsen any injuries. She studied the slides Danny projected onto the wall, and made notes to review at home, but all the while her mind was on Charlotte and Ryker. Was he out with the search crews now, or had the sheriff insisted he remain home, waiting? Either way, how agonizing it must be for him. Charlotte had been gone a week with people who were strangers to her, even if one of them was her mother.

"Let's take a break, then we'll come back and practice some of these transfer techniques." Danny shut down the slideshow and people began to stand and stretch. Harper moved into a back hallway and called Ryker. The phone rang five times before going to voicemail. "Hey, I'm at a search and rescue meeting and heard the sheriff's department has everyone out searching for Charlotte. I hope this means they're close to finding her. Call me when you get a chance." She ended the call, then sent a text with the same message.

"Something wrong?" She looked up to find Hannah standing in front of the door to the ladies' room.

"I was just trying to call Ryker to see if he knew what was going on with the search for Charlotte." She slid her phone into the pocket of her jeans.

"Jake didn't tell me much," Hannah said. "I never know if that's because he doesn't know any more, or if he's keeping sheriff's department business confidential. Probably a little of both."

"Something must have happened, to send them back out on the search," Harper said.

"I think you're right," Hannah said. "I just don't know what that is." She put her arm around Harper. "Waiting and not knowing is awful. I was really glad for this meeting tonight to distract myself."

They returned to the meeting, where Hannah and Ryan assumed the roles of injured accident victims and the others worked in teams to assess, stabilize and transfer them. It took a lot of strength and teamwork to do the job right, without hurting either themselves or their patients. By the time the evening ended, Harper felt she had had a real workout.

She checked her phone on the way to her car. Ryker hadn't answered her message. She sat in the front seat of her car, torn between the desire to drive to his house and make sure he was all right and the knowledge that it was after nine o'clock and she wasn't sure their rekindled friendship was at the drop-by-any-time stage. She started the car and resigned herself to heading home when her phone dinged.

Just got your message. I'm heading out to search now.

Where are you going?

I'm starting near Jack's Peak.

She had to think a moment to place the site. It was rugged country she had visited only once, on a long-ago hike with friends. Are you okay? It's really late .

I'm going to spend the night at a trailhead and start at first light.

She had a million questions to ask him, but settled for the one that mattered most. Is there anything I can do to help?

She waited a long, agonizing minute for his reply. Her heart hurt when she read it, the words so weighted with hope and fear: Say a prayer we find her. Before it's too late .

R YKER STUDIED THE map of the mining district spread out on his bed. On it, he had circled the Ida B Mine, where Harper had found Charlotte's hair ribbon. Though Kim hadn't been sure of the name of the place, he believed this was the claim Mick had intended to squat on. He had also circled the place where he and Harper had found the abandoned camp. Finally, he had drawn a red X at the intersection where deputies had arrested Kim. The three sites were all within a five-mile radius in the Galloway Basin Mining District. Though it was possible Mick might have decided to move on after abandoning Kim, Ryker was betting that he had found a new hiding place within the district.

The sheriff had probably studied a similar map and come to the same conclusion, but Gage had checked in when they shut down the search due to darkness to report they had found nothing. They planned to resume their efforts in the morning and focus on the eastern half of the district, a network of narrow roads pockmarked with small mining claims.

Those were also the roads most frequented by tourists, who hiked among the mining ruins photographing the rusting equipment and falling-down shacks, or searched among the debris for iron spikes, hand-cast nails and other souvenirs of the past—even though signs pleaded with people to leave all artifacts in place.

Even though these sites were most likely to offer habitable buildings, Ryker reasoned that Mick would avoid crowds and head to more remote locations. That meant the west side of the district, with its steeper, less-used roads and fewer abandoned mines. He used a highlighter to trace a route into this area, then folded the map and tucked it into the side of his pack. He had food and water, rain gear and first aid supplies. He was prepared to spend the night out if he had to, but he had purposely packed light. If he found Charlotte, he would need to carry her as well as the pack.

Maybe he was wasting his time. Mick could be two states away by now. Charlotte's Amber Alert was still active, and the sheriff would have updated the bulletin with the information that she was traveling with a lone male. If they got lucky, someone else would spot the pair and contact law enforcement.

But Ryker had to do something. He couldn't sit at home waiting any longer.

His headlights cut a narrow path up the rocky road leading to his first destination, a long-abandoned operation designated on the map as the Lucky Six Mine. Ryker drove as far as the trailhead for a popular hike up Jack's Peak and parked. From this point the road grew much rougher, with sharp, narrow turns and steep drop-offs. He would need better light to navigate it safely.

He rolled down the window and shut off the engine. Silence wrapped around him, the darkness so complete it was as if someone had thrown a blanket over him. Gradually, he was able to make out the shadowed outlines of rocks and scrubby trees beyond the parking area, and some of the tension in his chest released. He breathed in deeply, taking in the scent of dust and pi?on.

A high wail rose in the distance, jolting him to attention and standing the hairs along his arms on end. A series of yips descended the scale and he recognized the song of a group of coyotes. They sounded very close, though he knew sound carried far in the clear air, echoing off rocks, so that it was hard to tell from which direction the noise originated.

Could Charlotte hear these same noises? Was she frightened by them? He tried to remember if they had heard coyotes before. He wished now he had taken her camping so that the night sounds of the wilderness were more familiar to her, and not frightening.

When Charlotte had first disappeared, he had comforted himself with the thought that she would be all right with Kim. For all her faults, she had been a good mother in Charlotte's early years. Now he didn't even have that solace. Charlotte was alone with a man who had been a suspect in the disappearance of another little girl. Maybe he had nothing to do with that crime, but what if he had?

He pushed the thought away. He wouldn't be able to function if he started playing that awful what if game. He needed to stay focused on Charlotte—on finding her and getting her to safety. To do that, he needed to sleep, and be ready to hike hard at first light.

H ARPER SET HER alarm for 3:00 a.m. She slipped out of bed as quietly as possible, then dressed and collected the pack she had filled the night before with food, water, extra clothing and first aid supplies. She left a note for her parents. Gone to help search for Charlotte . Then she tiptoed outside to her car and set off toward the mountains. On the way, she called her office and left a voicemail explaining she needed to take a personal day.

She passed no other cars this time of night, and once out of town, the darkness was complete. Stars glittered between the peaks of distant mountains, which were little more than gray smudges against the sky. She watched carefully for her first turnoff. She had memorized the directions to the Jack's Peak trail, but there were no road signs out here and if she missed a turn or mistakenly took the wrong road, she would be lost within minutes. GPS was useless on these backroads, and within minutes of leaving the highway she had no cell signal anyway. She gripped the steering wheel more tightly and stared out the windshield, praying she was doing the right thing.

The roads grew progressively rougher as she climbed in elevation. Deep ruts and protruding rocks forced her to proceed at a crawl, gritting her teeth as she navigated tight turns. Her Subaru wasn't exactly designed for this kind of terrain. After one particularly nerve-racking passage she was debating parking the car and hiking the rest of the way when her headlights illuminated the back of a truck.

She pushed the car a little faster, and soon was able to verify it was Ryker's truck. Triumph surged through her and she tapped her horn, intending to alert him to her arrival.

But he didn't appear. By the time she parked, she realized the truck was empty. She shut off the engine of her car and realized the sky was lighter, the outlines of rocks and trees and mountain peaks more distinct against a sky that was fast transforming from gray to lavender to pink.

She looked around, wondering which direction he had traveled. The trail ahead was the one she had taken on that long-ago hike, up to the top of Jack's Peak. That didn't seem a likely destination for a couple fleeing with a little girl. That left the road past this parking area. She walked over to study it more closely and grimaced. Calling it a road would be overstating the situation. Twin rocky tracks led across more rocks, some the size of footstools. No way would her car get down that safely. Ryker's truck, on the other hand, probably could have navigated the route. So why hadn't he taken it?

She returned to her car and shouldered her pack and started down the road. She hadn't gone far before she discovered the reason Ryker had not driven this way. A rockslide cascaded from a cliff on the right, burying the track hip-deep in stones and making it impassable. She studied the pile of rocks, looking for footprints, or any indication that Ryker had come this way.

She didn't find anything. Maybe she was wasting her time. Then again, she didn't have anything better to do today. She tightened the straps of her pack and began climbing.

She hiked for an hour after scaling the rockslide. The sun rose, warming the air, and she settled into a comfortable rhythm. She told herself she would go for another hour before she turned back. This was good training for rescue, even if she didn't find Ryker.

They had gone hiking once together in high school. What was the trail they had taken? Up on Dakota Ridge, she thought, a wooded trail in the fall, through showers of red and gold aspen leaves. It looked like something out of a romance movie, or at least it had felt like that to her, so young and so in love. They had stopped for a picnic lunch in a sheltered spot off the trail and ended up making love on that carpet of leaves, Ryker's coat spread beneath them. That might even have been the day their child was conceived.

She was walking head-down, lost in these memories, when a movement ahead startled her. Ryker stepped out from behind a boulder. "I thought someone was following me," he said. "Harper, what are you doing here?"

R YKER COULDN ' T SAY he wasn't happy to see Harper, though acknowledging that felt selfish. Mick Davis was a convicted felon who might be dangerous. Having Harper here meant she might be at risk. So he didn't tell her how good it was to have her here. "You shouldn't be here," he said.

"Why not?" She met his gaze, unruffled. Stubborn. He remembered that same expression on her face when she had told him she was pregnant. Young as she was, she had been so certain she was making the right decision, so confident in her ability to see a tough thing through to the end. "I want to help, and two sets of eyes are better than one. Not to mention, it's safer to hike with a partner. And when we find Kim and her boyfriend, it will be the two of us against the two of them—better odds."

The sheriff must have done a good job of keeping the news about Kim quiet. "Kim isn't with Mick anymore," he said. "She was arrested and brought in yesterday afternoon. Charlotte is alone with Mick."

She looked exactly the way he had felt when he had heard the news—as if someone had punched her in the gut. She hugged her arms across her stomach and stared at him. "You don't think he'll hurt her, do you?"

"I don't know. All I know about the man is his criminal record, and that's more than enough to make me worried."

She straightened, visibly pulling herself together. "Where do you think they are?"

He looked up the road they were on. "I plotted all the points where they have been seen on a map. There's a mine at the end of this road that looked like a good place for him to hole up. Kim said they were looking for old mining claims with structures on them where they could live."

"How far is the mine from here?" she asked.

"A couple more miles, I think."

"It's a long way to walk with a little kid. And I didn't see any sign of the white Jeep, or any other vehicle, back at the trailhead."

"I'm wondering if he didn't drive up here before that slide blocked the road." He kicked at a rock in one of the ruts. "Even before the slide, the road was almost impassible, but the lack of traffic might have appealed to him. And he's shown a penchant for reckless driving." One more way he was endangering Charlotte.

"Then let's go." Harper set out walking. He caught up with her. "Where is Kim now?" she asked.

"I don't know. Probably on her way to jail in Junction."

"How did they manage to arrest her? Or are you allowed to say?"

"She said Mick kicked her out of the car and abandoned her on the side of the road. She flagged down a car and the driver called 911. She said it wasn't the first time Mick had left her somewhere like that, but he had always come back before."

"She must have been frantic, being separated from her daughter like that," Harper said.

"She seemed more upset about being arrested than worried about Charlotte." He tamped down his anger against Kim. He needed to focus on Charlotte, not his ex-wife. "She said Mick wouldn't hurt Charlotte, but I'm not so sure."

Harper moved over to link her arm with his. "You must be worried sick, but you're doing everything you can. And you're not the only one looking. Hannah said the sheriff has called in every available deputy to search for Charlotte, and search and rescue volunteers are on standby."

"I know. The sheriff sent me home to wait, but I couldn't sit idle and do nothing."

"Neither could I. That's why I came looking for you."

He looked down into her eyes and it was as if he was eighteen again. She had been the one person he had felt had truly understood him back then. Maybe things hadn't changed that much. "It helps, having you here," he said.

"Then I'm glad to be here." She squeezed his arm, then moved away again, picking up the pace.

They climbed a steeper section of the road and emerged on a flat bench of land. A three-foot section of iron track jutted from a pile of rocks to their right, and the rusted shell of an ancient boiler crowned another pile of crumbling rocks, the bright ocher color identifying this as the waste rock left over from mining. Fifty feet beyond, the remains of a small shack leaned drunkenly to the left, its roof caved in, windows and door vacant holes in the weathered gray logs that remained. "Is this where Mick thought they could live?" Harper asked.

"I'm pretty sure this is the Lucky Six Mine," Ryker said. "This is the place I picked out on my map, though Kim swore she didn't know where Mick intended to go." He turned a slow circle, surveying the area. A few scrubby pi?ons dotted the mostly barren landscape. "The road ends here, so he would have had to park and walk if he wanted to go any farther."

Harper moved toward the shack. "I don't think anyone is living in here," she said as she peered into the open doorway. "It's full of broken boards and rusty metal roofing."

Ryker picked up a chunk of the mine waste and weighed it in his hand. "There are a couple of other places we can look, if you're up for it."

"Sure. Let me duck over behind those rocks and pee, then we can head back." She pointed to a pile of boulders at the edge of the bench.

"Okay." He turned his back on the boulders and looked up the hill, past the shack. He could just make out a narrow footpath that led up the hill and around another outcrop. Should they go a little farther and check out whatever was up there? But it didn't make sense that Mick would have come all this way on foot, especially with Charlotte in tow.

Then again, the man had been quick to ditch Kim, who had lived with him for three years. How long would it take before he decided a four-year-old was too much trouble? The thought of Charlotte left alone in the wilderness blurred his vision for a moment.

A shout from Harper brought him back to himself. He spun around in time to see her run out from behind the boulders. "Come look at this!" she shouted, and motioned for him to join her.

He jogged over to her. She grabbed his hand and pulled him behind the boulders. There, wedged between the rocks and a stout pi?on, was a dirty white Jeep.