Chapter Two

"I just found out Ryker Vernon is back in town."

Harper was still nursing her first cup of coffee the next morning when her mother called to share the news. Harper frowned, even though her mother couldn't see her. Someone had told her people could tell when you were smiling into the phone, so maybe Valerie Stanick would sense that Harper wasn't pleased about starting her day with this conversation. "Yes, I knew Ryker is in town." She took a sip of coffee. "He's a sheriff's deputy."

Valerie sniffed. "They must be desperate for officers to hire him."

"Mom!"

"Don't mom me. After what happened with that little boy, I'm surprised Ryker would show his face around here."

Harper's stomach knotted at the memory. "Mom! Ryker had nothing to do with Aiden Phillips's disappearance and you know it. He was completely cleared of all wrongdoing."

"But Ryker was babysitting the boy when he went missing. And they never found who killed him."

"It wasn't Ryker." Her fresh anger over this old hurt surprised Harper—anger on Ryker's behalf, but also anger that her mother was still holding that old tragedy against him. Aiden, Ryker's six-year-old cousin, had been taken from his bedroom while Ryker watched TV in the next room. "I don't need you to lecture me about Ryker Vernon. If that's why you called, I'm going to hang up now."

"I only called to warn you. I didn't want you to be upset if you ran into him accidentally."

Too late , Harper thought. "I need to go, Mom. I'm going to be late for work." She had half an hour before she had to report for work at Taylor Geographic, a company that produced detailed maps of all kinds.

"I wanted to know if you've made another date with Stan Carmichael," Valerie said. "His mother told me that he told her the two of you had a terrific time the other night."

That makes one of us , Harper thought, though she was smart enough not to say the words out loud. Barbie Carmichael was president of the Woman's Club and she and Valerie had been trying to match Harper and Stan since high school. Dinner the other night was the third time in those years that Harper had allowed herself to be pressured into going out with Stan, and the results were no better than the previous two evenings. Stan was sweet and earnest and painfully besotted with her. She had felt like a bug under a microscope throughout the entire date. Not only did he stare at her and hang on her every word, but when he touched her, his hands were always clammy. She didn't hate him, but she wasn't the least bit attracted to him. "Stan is not the man for me, Mom," she said.

"He's not a macho jerk who's going to treat you badly like Frank or Ryker." Valerie's voice rose with indignation. "I don't understand why you wouldn't want to be with a nice man. And Stan is a doctor! He makes a very good living."

Stan was a proctologist. She didn't want to think about how he made his living. " Franco did not treat me badly," she said. If anything, she had been the one to blame for their brief, failed marriage. "I never should have married him, but that was my fault. And Ryker never mistreated me, either." Not really. He had been as much a victim of circumstances as she had.

"All I can say is you didn't get this self-destructive tendency from me," Valerie said. "One of these days you're going to wake up and realize I was right."

"I really do have to go now, Mom. Talk to you soon." She ended the call, then stared into her now-cold coffee and thought about Ryker. Why had she been so unfriendly to him yesterday? He probably thought she hated him, and that wasn't it at all. As often as she had thought about what it would be like to see him again, she hadn't counted on that heart-pounding, bone-melting sense of equal parts longing and panic that had swamped her.

There was simply too much history between them. Mistakes that could never be undone.

She glanced at the clock and a different kind of panic jolted her out of her chair. She had to leave now or she would be late. Considering how few jobs in this town allowed her to employ her graphic arts degree, she didn't want to screw up and lose this one. Not when she had only been hired two months ago.

Thank goodness for work, she thought an hour later as she focused on a new trail map for a ski resort on the other side of the state. She could lose herself in a project like this and think of nothing else for the next few hours. By the time everyone else starting filing out of the office at five, her neck and back ached and her fingers were cramped around her computer mouse, but she had completed a rough outline of the map that she was proud of. She would spend the rest of the week refining the details before turning it over to another artist on staff for the colorwork.

She was gathering her belongings when her phone pinged with a text from Hannah, in the group chat they were part of with Christine and Grace. She had known Hannah since high school, but the others she was just getting to know through search and rescue. Meet us at Mo's? Hannah had typed.

Harper smiled and hit the button to reply. On my way .

Mo's Pub was packed with the usual mix of after-work locals and tourists looking for a drink or a quick meal. Harper spotted Hannah and the others at a booth near the back and pushed her way through the crowd to join them. "It looks busier than usual tonight," Harper said as she scooted into the booth next to Grace.

"It's five-dollar burger night," Christine said. "That and two-dollar draft beer pulls in a crowd."

"If there's a rescue call, we can leave from here," Grace said. "Half the team is here." She waved across the room to where Ryan Welch, Caleb Garrison and Eldon Ramsey sat side by side at the bar.

"Where's Jake tonight?" Harper asked as she helped herself from the pitcher of beer on the table. Hannah's fiancé was a SAR volunteer, too.

"He's on duty," Hannah said.

"Him and Declan." Grace made a sad face.

"Declan Owen is with the sheriff's department, too," Hannah explained in answer to Harper's confused look.

"Are there a lot of SAR volunteers dating law enforcement?" Harper asked.

"Sheri's husband is with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation," Hannah said. "And Anne is seeing Lucas Malone, with the Mesa County Sheriff's Department." She laughed. "Don't look so horrified. We work with law enforcement at a lot of accident scenes. And if anyone is going to understand the need to drop everything and rush out to an emergency, it's another first responder."

Harper nodded. Did this mean she was going to have to get used to seeing Ryker more than she had planned? Eagle Mountain was a small town, but she had really hoped to avoid him as much as possible. Things were just too awkward between them.

The server arrived and they ordered the burger special, then she excused herself to visit the ladies' room. She was washing her hands and studying her face in the mirror, wondering if she should bother to touch up her makeup when she felt a tug on her trousers. She looked down to see an adorable little blonde girl looking up at her. "Can you lift me up so I can wash my hands?" the girl asked.

"Well, sure." Harper dried her own hands, then grasped the child around the waist and boosted her up until she could reach the sink. "Do you need help turning on the water?" she asked, though how she was going to manage while she was holding the child, she couldn't imagine.

"I can do it," the little girl said, and twisted the handle of the faucet. She pumped soap, then scrubbed vigorously, a look of deep concentration on her face.

"You're doing a great job," Harper said. Such tiny hands, though she was a sturdy child, heavier than Harper might have thought, dressed in a pink ruffled dress and jeans with a hole in one knee, a pink ribbon coming loose from her hair. She leaned closer and caught a whiff of strawberry shampoo. A rush of tenderness almost overwhelmed her.

"Okay, I'm ready to dry now."

Harper set the child on her feet and handed her a paper towel from the dispenser on the wall. The girl very carefully dried each finger, then crumpled the paper towel and deposited it in the trash.

"Is there anyone named Charlotte in here?" a woman called from the door.

"That's me!" The little girl stuck up her hand as if she'd been called on in class.

The woman smiled. "Your dad asked me to check on you," she said. "He's getting a little nervous out here."

"Okay." Charlotte turned to Harper. "You need to come meet my dad."

Who was Harper to argue with a command like this? Curious, she followed her new friend into the hallway outside the restrooms.

And stopped. Because of course, she should have known this was coming. If she had learned nothing else the past few years, it was that the universe had a definite sense of irony. "This lady helped me wash my hands," Charlotte was saying, holding up both hands as if for inspection.

"Hello again, Ryker," Harper said

"Hello, Harper." He had exchanged his uniform for jeans and a T-shirt that did a good job of showing off his chest and biceps. The Ryker she had known before had definitely not been this pumped. "Thanks for helping my girl."

My girl. The affection behind the words brought a lump to her throat. He rested one hand on Charlotte's shoulder as she leaned back against his legs, her gaze shifting between them, bright and expectant. "I was happy to help."

"This is Charlotte," he said. "In case she didn't introduce herself."

Harper forced her attention to the child. She could see a little of Ryker in the broad forehead and something about the eyes. But the rest of her must take after her mother. Christine had said Ryker was a single dad, so what had happened to Charlotte's mother? "It's nice to meet you," she said. "I'm Harper."

"I never knew anyone named Harper before," Charlotte said. She grabbed Ryker's hand and swung on it. "Can we eat pizza now?"

"Would you like to join us?" he asked.

Was that hope she saw in his eyes? Or was he merely being polite? "I'm with friends," she said. "And I already ordered."

"Sure." He took a step back, his expression unreadable. "I'll let you get to it."

Maybe some other time, she should have said. Or even I'd love to catch up with you.

Oh, what was the point? She and Ryker were over and done with and had been for years. The sooner she accepted that, the better.

She headed back toward her booth but hadn't gone far before someone grabbed her arm. Startled, she found herself face-to-face with a petite woman with a halo of messy blond hair. The woman's long nails dug into the skin of Harper's forearm. "What were you doing with that little girl?" the woman demanded. She had very blue eyes, fringed with long false lashes, and her gaze bored into Harper.

Harper wrenched away from her. "Who are you?" she asked.

"I saw you in the ladies' room with that little girl. What were you doing with her?"

"I was taking her to her father. Her father, the sheriff's deputy."

Harper had hoped the mention of a cop would make the woman back off, but she only laughed. "I know all about Ryker," she said. "He should keep a better eye on his kid." She turned and walked away, leaving by the fire door at the end of the hallway.

Harper stared after her. Should she say something to Ryker about the strange woman? But what would she say? Some nosy woman thinks you shouldn't let your little girl go to the bathroom by herself? He had stood outside the door waiting for Charlotte, and even sent someone in to check on her. What else could a dad do?

She moved to the fire door and pushed it open enough to look out. No sign of the woman. She was probably just a local busybody. Better to leave it.

"I was beginning to think we were going to have to send out a search party," Christine said when Harper returned to their booth. "Your burger is getting cold."

"I ran into someone who wanted to talk." She popped a french fry into her mouth, hoping to forestall conversation.

"Is that a bruise on your arm?"

Harper followed Grace's gaze to the four round dark spots forming on her arm. She could still feel that woman's fingers digging into her, her gaze searing. But she didn't want to talk about that. Because talking about the woman would mean talking about Ryker, and she wasn't ready for that. Not yet. "I wonder how that happened," she said, and went back to eating her burger.

T HE NEXT MORNING , Ryker reported to the sheriff's department for a mandatory meeting of all personnel. He filled his coffee cup from the carafe at the back of the conference room and greeted some of his fellow officers, then took a seat along one side of the long table. It had felt strange at first, being in this place that held no good memories for him. He had had pretty much zero interactions with law enforcement until Aiden had been kidnapped. Then they had questioned him repeatedly, making it clear he was their chief suspect. Even though they had eventually cleared him, his life hadn't been the same since. Back then he never would have dreamed he would end up on this side of the law.

A lot had changed in the seven years since his arrest. Sheriff Travis Walker, only in his early thirties but recently reelected—having run unopposed—sat at the head of the table, flanked by his brother Sergeant Gage Walker on one side, and Deputy Dwight Prentice on the other.

Ryker looked around the table at his fellow officers, some he knew better than others. They were a fairly young lot, typical of a small department. Many of them, like him, had young children. Travis had nine-month-old twins—a boy and a girl—while Gage had a six-month-old baby girl as well as a seven-year-old daughter. Jamie Douglas, the only female deputy, had a three-month-old daughter. Dwight Prentice and his wife had no children. Declan Owen had been the newest recruit until Ryker was hired, though he had more experience than most of them, having worked for the US Marshals Service. Shane Ellis, Chris DelRay and Wes Landry rounded out the force, along with a few reserve officers who filled in during vacations, illnesses or emergencies.

"Let's get started," Travis said, and the hum of conversation died down. "We've had a string of vandalism incidents in the high country. Someone stole some metal roofing the Historical Society had purchased to stabilize the old mine boarding house up at the Mary Simmons Mine. Maybe the same person or persons took a dozen two-by-fours the owners of a mining claim off Iron Springs Road had purchased to build a storage shed on the property."

"Dale Perkins stopped me last week to complain about people camping illegally at his place," Dwight said. "I told them if he caught them in the act we could charge them with trespassing, but he said since he doesn't live up there, that's hard to do. He was most upset about all the trash they leave behind."

"Illegal camping increases the danger of a campfire getting out of hand," Jamie said. "People who ignore private property signs won't necessarily comply with fire regulations, either."

"It might be transients," Gage said.

"Whoever this is doesn't seem to be moving on," Travis said. "Keep your eyes and ears open around town, and if you get a chance to patrol some of the roads leading into the high country, do so."

The meeting moved on to cover the need for traffic control during a Jeep rally in the town park the upcoming weekend, preparations for Independence Day celebrations the next month, a firearms training session in two weeks and a reminder to turn in reports on time. "Adelaide says if she gets any incomplete reports, she will come looking for you," Travis said.

Nervous laughter circled the table. Ryker had already learned that Office Manager Adelaide Kinkaid was not someone he wanted to cross. She didn't have to raise her voice to make him feel like an errant schoolboy.

The meeting broke up and Ryker gathered his belongings. He had a few free hours until he reported for his shift at three. "How's it going, Ryker?" Gage asked.

Travis's younger brother was more outgoing than his sibling and served as a de facto training officer for the new recruits. Even though Ryker wasn't a true rookie, having worked four and a half years with the police department in Longmont, Colorado, he was still settling into the routine here in Eagle Mountain. "It's going well," Ryker said. When he had interviewed for the job here, he had been upfront about his past experiences with the department. Having grown up in Eagle Mountain, Travis and Gage knew Aiden's case, and made it clear they considered it irrelevant to Ryker's hiring. Which it was. He tossed his coffee cup into the trash.

"How's Charlotte doing at Robin's Nest Day Care?" Gage asked.

"She's doing well. She likes her teacher and is making friends." Not that Charlotte ever had problems making friends.

Gage leaned back against the counter beside the coffee machine. "Maya and I are thinking about enrolling our youngest there in a few months when Maya goes back to teaching school," he said.

"If we all keep having more babies, we could open a department day care." Jamie squeezed past Ryker to refill her travel mug with coffee.

"Who's watching your little one?" Gage asked.

"My neighbor. She's helped with Donna for years, and she seemed thrilled to add a baby to the mix." She glanced at Ryker. "Donna is my sister. She has Down's and is pretty independent, but it's good to have someone around she can call on when Nate or I are working."

"Nate's a ranger with the forest service," Gage said, filling in yet another detail to help Ryker form a complete picture of his coworkers.

"Thank goodness he works a set schedule," Jamie said. "That makes it a lot easier to manage care."

"My mom and dad are a big help with Charlotte," Ryker said. "It's the main reason I moved back to Eagle Mountain. I don't know how I'd look after her without them."

"This is a great place to raise a family," Gage said.

"Says the man who's never lived anywhere else," Jamie said.

"Doesn't make it any less true." Gage turned back to Ryker. "If you need anything, let one of us know. On or off the job. That's what we're here for."

"Thanks." But Ryker was unlikely to ask. It had been hard enough turning to his parents for help after Kim left.

He was halfway across the parking lot to his car when his phone rang. "Hey, Mom," he answered, as he hit the key fob to unlock the door.

"Ryker, is Charlotte with you?"

The panic in his mother's voice stopped Ryker cold. "Charlotte is at day care. I dropped her off this morning before my meeting."

"She was there, but she isn't now. The director just called to ask if one of us had checked her out without telling anyone. I told her we would never do that."

"What do they mean, she isn't there? She couldn't have disappeared." His heart beat painfully and he fought a wave of nausea.

"She went out with the other kids in her class for morning playtime. The teachers were with them—two of them." His mother sounded more in control. She had always been good in a crisis. "A little boy fell and they thought he had broken his arm. They were tending to him and when they called everyone to come back inside, Charlotte wasn't there. Sheila Lindstrom said she looked everywhere. They even checked the houses near the day care, thinking Charlotte might have gone to visit someone there. You know how friendly she is. But she wasn't there. Ryker, what are we going to do?"

His first instinct was to go to the day care center—to tear the place apart if he had to, looking for his daughter. Maybe she was hiding, and she had fallen asleep. Or they had overlooked her somehow.

But the cold black knot in the center of his chest told him that hadn't happened. Sheila and the others would have thought of those things. "Just sit tight, Mom," he said. "I'll take care of it." He pocketed his phone and hurried back into the sheriff's department. This couldn't be happening again. Not his little girl.

A group of deputies were gathered around Gage and Travis outside the conference room. They looked up as he burst inside. "My daughter is missing," he announced. "Someone's taken Charlotte."