Chapter Two

“You’re Vince Shepherd, right?”

Vince accepted the beer from the bartender at Mo’s Pub and turned to see who was addressing him. A young woman with a cascade of blond curls and a friendly smile eyed him through round wire-rimmed glasses. “I’m Vince,” he said, wary. “Who are you?”

“I’m Tammy Patterson. I’m a reporter for the Eagle Mountain Examiner .” She offered her hand, nails polished bright pink and a trio of rings on her fingers.

“Sure. I’ve read your stuff.” He shook her hand. What did a reporter want with him?

“Do you have a minute to talk?” she asked.

He sipped the beer. “Talk about what?”

“I’m working on a series of stories about Eagle Mountain Search and Rescue, to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary. I have a few questions for you.”

“Okay. Sure.” He could talk about search and rescue.

“There’s a spot over here where it’s a little quieter.” She led the way to a booth near the back of the crowded bar.

“I haven’t been with the group that long,” Vince said as he slid into the padded seat across from her.

“What group is that?” she asked. She was searching in an oversize black leather tote bag.

“Search and rescue. You said you were writing about them.”

“Oh. I didn’t know you were a member of SAR.” She pulled out a notepad, a pen and a small recorder and laid them on the table in front of her. “That’s even better.”

He sipped more beer and frowned. “If you didn’t know I was with SAR, why do you want to talk to me?”

“I want to talk to you about your sister. Valerie.”

Valerie again. It wasn’t that he never thought about his missing twin, but after fifteen years she wasn’t on his mind every day. But today she had taken up a disproportionate space in his head, what with the callout about the bones that morning. And now this reporter was asking about her. “Why do you want to talk about Valerie?” he asked.

“I want to write about the search for her fifteen years ago. It was the largest wilderness search in county history, and as a result of that search, Eagle Mountain Search and Rescue instituted a lot of new policies and adopted a more professional approach to their operations.”

“You know she was never found,” he said. “It’s not exactly a feel-good story.”

“No, but it’s an enduring mystery.”

He braced himself for her to say that people were always interested in mysteries. That was true, but when it was your own family tragedy at the center of the mystery, it was tough to think of it as entertaining. But she gave him a direct look, her blue eyes showing no sign of guile. “It doesn’t hurt to bring the case to the public’s attention again. You never know when someone might have seen the one thing that could help you find out what happened that day.”

“Do you really think there’s a person out there who knows something they’ve never talked about?” he asked. “I’m pretty sure the sheriff’s department—not to mention my parents—talked to everyone they could find.”

“There was another camper in the area that day. No one ever found and talked to him.”

“How do you know about him?”

“One of the news stories from the paper’s archives mentioned law enforcement was looking for the man.”

“He was backpacking, like us. It’s not like he could have smuggled my sister out in his pack or anything. The general consensus was that Valerie fell or had some other accident. It’s pretty rugged country, and there are a lot of places a little kid could get lost.”

She glanced at her notes. “I plan to meet with the sheriff, and search and rescue has agreed to let me review their logs and other information in the archives about the search. And I want to speak with your parents.”

“Let me call them first.”

“That would be great.” She smiled, and he felt the impact of the expression. How could someone put so much warmth into a smile? “I’ll wait until I hear from you before I contact them. But it would help a lot if you could tell me about that day. I’d like to know more about Valerie and what she was like, and what your family was like before that day.”

“I was only ten when it happened.”

“She was your twin. You must have memories of her.”

“I do.”

She leaned toward him, her voice gentle. “I’m not trying to cause you pain, opening up old wounds. But Valerie is at the center of the story. I want to try to show my readers how her loss affected not just her family but also this town. I have a quote from the newspaper stories at the time. One of the volunteer searchers said that before Valerie disappeared, everyone thought of the wilderness as safe—not without risk, but a haven from the kinds of crimes that happen in cities and towns. That sense of security was taken along with her.”

“We don’t know that her disappearance was a crime.”

“No. But because her body was never found—not a single trace—the possibility remains that someone took her. It’s every family’s worst nightmare, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” A nightmare. One from which they had never completely awakened.

Fifteen Years Ago

“C OME ON , V INCE . Race me to that big red rock up ahead.” Valerie turned around and walked backward along the trail, thumbs hooked in the straps of her blue backpack, her legs like two pale sticks between the frayed hem of her denim shorts and the folded cuffs of the striped knit socks she wore with her green leather hiking boots. She had had what their mom deemed a growth spurt that summer, and was now three inches taller than Vince and all angles. Except for the corkscrew curls that stuck out from the green bandanna she had tied around her head.

“I don’t want to race,” he said. He didn’t even want to be on this trip, lugging a heavy pack up into the middle of nowhere instead of hanging out with his friends at Trevor Richardson’s birthday party, which was going to be a pool party at the rec center in Junction. Some of the boys—including Vince—had been invited to spend the night, with sleeping bags in the Richardsons’ basement rec room, where they planned to stay up all night eating junk food and watching horror movies.

But Vince’s parents had put an end to that prospect, insisting Vince needed to come on this trip. “We’ve been planning it for weeks, and family comes first,” his mother said when Vince had protested.

So here he was, with the straps of his backpack digging into his shoulders and Valerie doing her best to be the kid who was soooo happy to be here. Instead of sympathizing with her twin, she was purposely making him look bad.

“How can anybody be such a grumpy-pants when we’re surrounded by all this gorgeousness?” Valerie turned to face forward again and raised her arms in the air like she was auditioning for The Sound of Music or something.

No one answered her. Instead, their dad said, “I think there’s a good spot to camp up ahead, off to the left in the shelter of that dike.” He pointed toward a gray rock wall that stood out from the rest of the more eroded mountainside. An amateur geologist, Dad liked to use these trips to talk about various rock formations and how they had come to be. Usually, Vince found this interesting, but how could that stuff—much of which he had heard before—compare to the lost prospect of swimming, pizza, and a sleepover with unlimited junk food and horror movies?

“Awesome!” Valerie raced toward the campsite, pack bouncing. Vince brought up the rear of the group. When he got there, Valerie had already scaled a flat-topped chunk of granite. “There’s another camper over there!” She pointed straight ahead. “Looks like a guy with a blue dome tent.”

“Come down and help set up camp,” their mother said. She was already pulling the rain fly and a bag of stakes from her pack while their father unpacked the folded tent. They each carried their own sleeping bags and pads, and the food for the weekend was divided among them.

“I’ll help with the tent,” Valerie said.

“Vince can help with that,” their father said. “Why don’t you see if you can find firewood? I thought I spotted some dead trees on the other side of the trail.”

Valerie raced off to gather wood while Vince reluctantly helped his dad assemble the tent. “There will be other parties,” his father said.

“Not like this one.” Vince pounded a tent stake into the hard ground. “And there will be lots of other camping trips.”

“Maybe. But you and your sister are growing up fast. In a few years you’ll have jobs, then you’ll be going away to college. It won’t be as easy for the four of us to get away. These trips are important, though you may not realize how important until you’re older.”

“Trevor’s party was important to me.”

His dad paused in the act of feeding one of the collapsible tent poles through the channel in the top of the tent. “I can understand that. And maybe insisting you come with us wasn’t the fairest decision, but it’s the one I made. It’s too late to go back, so you might as well try to make the best of it. Maybe we’ll do something for your birthday to make up for it. I can’t promise a pool party, but you could invite your friends to spend the night and watch movies.”

“Really?”

Dad smiled. “I don’t see why not.”

Vince grinned. Wait until the guys heard about this! Then his elation faded. “What about Valerie?” He and his twin always celebrated together, usually with a joint party, featuring games and cake and ice cream.

“The two of you are old enough for separate celebrations, I think. I’ll talk to your mom.”

“Thanks!” By the time they had finished with the tent, he was feeling better. He helped spread the pads and sleeping bags inside, then emerged to find the light already fading, the air cooling. He retrieved a fleece pullover from his pack. “Find your sister and tell her to come back to camp,” his mother said.

He crossed the road and hadn’t gone far before he met Valerie staggering toward him, arms full of dead tree branches. She was dropping more than she was transporting, and he hurried to take half the load from her.

“I met our neighbor,” she said when both loads were balanced.

“Who?”

“The man who’s camped over there.” She nodded up the road. “He was looking for firewood too, but he said I could have this and he would look somewhere else.”

“What’s his name?”

“He didn’t say. He just smiled and left. He had a nice smile.” Her dimple deepened at the recollection.

“You’re not supposed to talk to strangers,” Vince said.

“I didn’t say anything. He did all the talking.”

“That’s hard to believe. You never shut up.”

She hip-checked him. He did the same to her. “You are such a dork!” she said.

“You’re the champion dork.”

“I’m number one!” she shouted, and ran ahead of him.

They raced into camp. Mom smiled at them. “As soon as the fire is going, I’ll start supper,” she said.

“What are we having?” Valerie asked.

“Sausage spaghetti.”

“And s’mores for dessert?” Valerie asked.

“Yes.”

“Yay!” Valerie shouted.

“Yay!” Vince echoed.

They ate all the spaghetti and the s’mores, then lay back by the campfire and watched for shooting stars. Vince counted five of them streaking across the sky in the space of half an hour. Valerie nudged him. “Admit it, you’re glad you came,” she said.

“I wish I could have done both—the party and this.”

“Yeah. That would have been fun. But I’m glad you’re here.”

He fell asleep there on the ground, and his father woke him to go into the tent, where he burrowed into his sleeping bag beside Valerie. She lay curled on her side, the rhythm of her deep breathing lulling him to sleep.

He woke early the next morning when she crawled over him on her way to the door. “What are you doing?” he whispered, then glanced toward their parents, who slept side by side a few inches away.

“I’m going to get wood and start a fire.” Valerie pulled on one green boot, then the other, then ducked out the tent flap and zipped it up again.

He lay down again and must have fallen back asleep. Next thing he knew, his mother was shaking him. “Vince, have you seen your sister?”

“Huh?” He raised up on his elbows and looked around. Valerie and his dad were both gone from the tent, and his mother was dressed in tan hiking shorts and a blue fleece, her brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.

“Valerie isn’t here. Do you know where she went?” Mom asked.

“She got up early and said she was going to get firewood.” He sat up. Bright sunlight showed through the open tent flap. “What time is it?”

“It’s after eight. When did she get up?”

“I don’t know. Really early, I think.” He had that impression, anyway.

“Get up and get dressed. We need to look for her.”

When he crawled out of the tent, he noticed the firepit was empty and cold. “Valerie!” his mother called.

“Valerie!” His dad echoed from the other side of the dike.

Vince climbed onto the granite slab and shaded his eyes, searching for movement or a flash of color. His father joined him. “Do you see anything?” Dad asked.

“No. Yesterday, she said there was a man camped over here, but I don’t see anyone.”

“Come on. We need to spread out and look farther away.”

They searched for an hour. Vince peered into canyons and climbed atop rocks, but there was no sign of Valerie. “I’m going to hike back to the car and go for the sheriff,” his father said. “You stay with your mother and keep looking.”

His mother pulled him close. Her eyes were red and swollen from crying. “Where could she have gone?” she asked. “Did she say where she was going?”

“No. She just said she was going to get some wood.”

“How can she have just vanished?”

But she had. None of them would ever see her again.