Sara

by Tony Hayden

  Carol smiled. “He spent the summer with Jim’s parents in Phoenix. The doctors there have done a wonderful job reconstructing his ear and reducing the scars on his neck from the fire. Harry is flying into Phoenix today and he’s bringing Taylor home with him tomorrow.”

  Mike absentmindedly rubbed at the scar tissue on the palms of his hands. He had received second degree burns while saving the Iverson boy from a horrible death. “When you see Harry tomorrow, please ask him to call me as soon as possible. I think he might be my only hope for finding Sara.”

  Carol looked concerned. “Of course, Mike. I will try to reach him today if at all possible.” She stepped closer to Mike and touched his face. “I know exactly what you are going through. My heart hurts terribly for you and Jean.”

  She hugged him and Mike felt himself melt at her embrace. “One very important thing that I learned while I was searching for Taylor in Chiapas,” she said quietly, “is to never lose hope. If your heart is telling you that Sara is alive, then you have to believe that and do everything in your power to find her.”

  Mike’s eyes watered, but he kept from completely breaking down. “She is alive, Carol. I can feel her calling out to me.” He stepped back and looked into the eyes of the woman he had fallen in love with. “Thank you for helping me realize that.”

  The afternoon progressed and teams of volunteer searchers began gathering back at the community house to report their findings. Sheriff Barnes had set up a command center inside the building and was busy dispatching out his deputies to various locations identified by teams. He had pages of scribbled notes and empty paper coffee cups littered the table where he sat.

  Barnes looked up at Mike and grimaced as he entered the building. “I have Deputy Watts out on Cherokee Park Road investigating an abandoned structure. Some searchers said there was a foul odor coming from one of the outbuildings. It’s probably a dead sheep or coyote, but I’ve seen cases break wide open on much less.”

  Mike swallowed hard and nodded. “Did anything come of the pile of clothing the ROTC cadets found outside of Virginia Dale?”

  Barnes shook his head and shuffled through his notes. “Men’s clothing; pair of Levi’s and old tennis shoes. Your daughter was wearing a tan skirt and white cotton top, right?”

  Mike nodded again and remained quiet.

  Sheriff Barnes finished off another coffee and slid the empty cup to the side. “Listen,” he said. “I’m going to release your daughter’s car to you after this pony show is over, so you can get the hell out of my county. I’ve gone through it twice now and nothing catches my interest. There’s no evidence that suggests Sara did not leave on her own accord. No blood or signs of a struggle. No evidence whatsoever.”

  “Okay,” Mike said. “Maybe I can have one of the volunteers drive it home.”

  Sheriff Barnes looked away. “You’ll need to pay Duncan for the towing and impound fees, and that front tire still needs to be changed. I’ve instructed Duncan and Jordan not to touch it.”

  “That’s fine,” Mike said. “I’ll meet up with you before dark.”

  Barnes cleared his throat. “Well, you’ll have to talk to Deputy Watts. I’m heading up to the mountains for some peace and quiet for a couple of days.”

  Mike left the community hall and spotted Jean leaning against a rail fence near the small playground at the back of the building. She had avoided him all day and turned away when she noticed him looking at her. It was obvious to Mike that she had been crying.

  “Sweetheart,” he called as he walked up behind her. “Are you okay?”

  Jean shook her head incredulously and wiped at her eyes. “God damn I hate you, Mike.” She pushed off the fence and faced him. “You have never been concerned about me.”

  Mike looked shocked. “Jean, please,” he pleaded. “You are just upset right now.”

  Jean began crying again. “Upset?” she yelled. “I have been upset every day that I have been with you, you bastard. I thought, ‘Maybe a child will make things better between us.’ So, I got pregnant and we had Sara and you stole her away from me, Mike.” Jean slapped Mike furiously. “You stole her from me and you treated me like an outsider.”

  Mike grabbed Jean’s arm as she tried to strike him again. “Jean, please,” he pleaded again. The crowd of volunteers tried to turn away and act disinterested, but Jean was yelling loud enough for everyone to hear.

  “You killed her, you son-of-a-bitch!” Jean yanked her arm from Mike’s grip. “I begged you, Mike. I pleaded with you to let me have one more year with our daughter, but you said, ‘No!’ You said that she needed to go to college. And when I begged you to please drive her to Wyoming, you said, ‘No!’ again. ‘She needs to gain some independence,’ you said.”

  Jean balled her fist and struck Mike in the face. “You murdering bastard! You fed our daughter to the man who did this to her. You gave her to him to use like some disgusting toy for his own perverted pleasures and then you stood by as he threw her in the gutter.”

  Mike wiped away blood that was pouring from his lip. “Jean, please, you’re not making any sense. Sara is still alive. Can’t you feel her?”

  No matter what he said, Jean seemed to become more distraught. “I could never ‘feel her’, Mike. You made sure of that. And now, my daughter is gone and I will never get a chance to tell her how much I loved her. I will never get a chance to hold her children in my arms and pray for a connection to them that you never allowed me to have with Sara.”

  Mike started crying openly. “I am so sorry if you truly feel this way, Jean.” He stepped forward and took her in his arms. “I never meant to hurt you. I never knew I was hurting you.”

  Jean struggled from his grip and slapped him again. “You are dead to me, mister. You need to go somewhere where they will never find your body and shoot yourself.”

  Mike felt weak and leaned hard against the rail fence. He finally looked up to see Jean storming through the crowd of volunteers toward her car.

  twenty-eight

  It didn’t take long for Sara to gather the items she needed for the next day’s hike out of these mountains. By noon she had cleaned the cabin and written a note to the owner, thanking him for providing her shelter and food. She had also detailed her plans for the following day, just in case something was to happen to prevent her from making it to safety.

  It had been a good day. She was adjusting to the pain in her left arm, and the knife wound under her right breast was bound tightly with fresh gauze and a bed sheet torn into strips. Sara’s homemade shoes weren’t comfortable, but they served their purpose well. Not that she had ever concerned herself with the comfort of her footwear. She smiled at the thought. Her dad would tease her incessantly about the number of buckles and straps on her sandals or boots.

  “I can be marvelous,” she would always say, “or I can be boring. I choose to be marvelous.”

  Memories of home lifted her spirit. Sara figured that one full day of hiking should deliver her from this nightmare. The first thing she would do, after calling her father, is stand under a steaming shower until the hot water ran cold. She visualized using up an entire bar of soap to remove the stench of the man who had raped her. And when that stench was finally gone, she would concentrate on removing the man himself.

  The sun was high and it was a cloudless day. The warmth felt good on her skin after a frigid night without a fire. Sara walked almost a mile west of the cabin and climbed to the crest of a weathered granite formation. On top, she found a comfortable spot on the smooth stone and sat to watch the sky. Small wisps of clouds glided eastward, gathering strength then evaporating before her eyes. Sara laid back and closed her eyes, enjoying the golden warmth that enveloped her, and she slept.

  Jordan stood at the side of the empty grave and shook his head repeatedly.

  “Maybe the coyotes drug her off…or a cougar, or a bear---”

  “Yes, Jordan, and the bear piled the dirt neatly for us there at the head of the grave.” Pop scan
ned the tree line looking for clues. “Tell me everything you did to the girl.”

  “I told you already. I tried to cut her throat, just like you said, but your knife was not sharp enough. She started crying and begging me to let her live so I sat on her and stabbed her in the chest, right between her tits, just like you told me to do.”

  “And why do you think she was dead?” Pop ignored Jordan’s derogatory reference to the girl’s breasts.

  “Well, she stopped screaming, and I saw her eyes roll back in her head just like they do on the girls you kill. I watched her exhale and not take in another breath. She was dead, Pop. I killed her. I’m sure of it.”

  Pop shook his head and walked around the grave. “I don’t see it, Jordan. There is not much blood in the hole. If you had stabbed her in the heart, there would be more blood. If she was dead and an animal found her, there would be bits and pieces of her lying all over the place. Do you see bits and pieces, Jordan?”

  “No, Pop. I don’t see any bits and pieces.”

  “What do you see, Jordan?”

  Jordan looked into the grave. “Just one of her shoes, Pop.”

  Pop began walking east, toward the tree line. “Let’s look in the trees. Maybe she crawled over there and died. Are you sure you stabbed her, Jordan?”

  Jordan jogged to catch up. “Yes, I’m positive. You saw the blood on your knife, Pop. You even said, ‘Good job,’ after you wiped it off.”

  Pop entered the tree line and began searching the ground for clues. They walked slowly, looking for traces of blood, or drag marks, or ‘bits and pieces’. Finally stopping, Pop kneeled next to a game trail that led east up the mountain.

  Pointing at the ground, he said, “Look here.”

  A small dip in the trail had collected enough water from the rain to create mud. The water had since evaporated and left the perfect outline of a bare footprint. Pop stood and looked east up the mountain, then back at Jordan.

  “Let’s go find her and do the job right this time.”

  twenty-nine

  Mike stood next to his car and shook hands with the last few remaining volunteers.

  “Thank you,” he said solemnly. “At least we know where she’s not.” He thought of the young kidnapped girl in Utah who later recalled listening to searchers calling her name as they walked past the hole she was being kept in. His world was collapsing around him and he wasn’t sure he could stop it from happening.

  Finally, Carol Iverson stepped up when the last car was pulling from the parking lot at the community center.

  “Are you okay, Mike?” she asked.

  Mike brought his hand to his cheek absent mindedly to cover his puffy lower lip. “I’ll be alright,” he said.

  Carol leaned close and gently took Mike’s hand away from his face, then kissed him lightly on the lips. She held the kiss for a moment then stepped back and looked into his eyes. “You are a good man, Mike Haller. You are a good father and you didn’t deserve what you got today.”

  Mike’s heart was pounding from the kiss. He finally looked away. “Jean is just afraid, that’s all.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  Mike stood for a long moment and stared at the mountains. “I’m not sure she’s completely wrong. I should have done things differently, I guess.”

  Carol smiled. “We should all have done things differently,” she said. “That seems to be the moral to the human story.”

  She stepped closer and kissed Mike again. Her lips were soft and warm and her mouth tasted like strawberry pie, and Mike’s bones turned to liquid. Carol’s hands strayed up his back and stopped at his neck. She cupped his face in her hands and broke the kiss. Mike could feel his body shaking, like he had never been kissed before.

  “You are a good man, Mike,” she whispered. “You need to find Sara and bring her home. You are the only person who can do it. I believe in you, and I can guarantee that right now, your daughter believes in you.”

  Mike stood a little straighter now. “You’re right,” he said, then cleared his throat to break the trance he was in. “I need to speak to Harry. Were you able to reach him?”

  Carol smiled and stepped back. Retrieving her cell phone from a pocket, she checked for service and the time. “He landed in Phoenix about a half-hour ago. Let’s give him a call.”

  Carol spoke with Harry a moment and explained what was happening before handing the phone to Mike.

  “Mike, dammit,” Harry said. “I can’t leave the country for a minute before you go out and get into trouble.” His tone turned serious. “Tell me everything you’ve got and what I can do to help.”

  Mike recapped the story of Sara’s disappearance and his suspicion about the tow truck driver’s involvement. He briefly shared the sticky situation involving Sheriff Barnes, then finally got to the point.

  “I don’t know, Harry. I was thinking that a man in your line of work might be able to get access to the GPS records for the tow truck.”

  Harry grunted. “I am in the mining industry, Mr. Haller. I mine for precious metals in Central and South America. That’s it!”

  Mike deflated.

  “Now,” Harry continued, “with that said, give me the information you have and I’ll get what you need by tomorrow morning.”

  Mike read off all the information he had about Jordan’s truck and the GPS service that handled the DW Towing account. He was interrupted several times by cheers and laughter at Harry’s end of the connection.

  Mike finally asked, “It sounds like people are happy to see you, Harry. Is that Taylor I hear in the background?”

  Harry laughed. “Yes, that is Taylor Paul Iverson, and he is a very happy boy right now.”

  Mike couldn’t help but laugh at the cheer that was coming through the cell phone.

  Harry finally broke away to a quieter place. “Mike, I will call you first thing in the morning with the information you need. I will be in Denver tomorrow afternoon. If you find yourself in need of a man with my talents, all you have to do is ask.”

  The noise on Harry’s end picked up again. “Now, hang up the phone so Carol won’t hear this ruckus and become suspicious.”

  Mike folded Carol’s phone shut and handed it back to her. Thoughts of a life with this woman fluttered through his mind. A life where Sara was home and healthy, and Taylor was growing into as fine a young man as his father could ever have hoped for, and he and Carol…

  “For the first time in six months I have no obligations,” Carol said. “Would you like to have dinner?”

  Mike’s heart hesitated as adrenalin flooded through his veins. He stepped forward, held Carol by the shoulders, and kissed her. He felt like a teenager, in-love for the first time.

  Finally, he looked into her eyes. “I’m afraid my company would be somewhat depressing,” he said. “But, if I can take a rain check until this is all over, I would love nothing more than to have dinner with you.”

  Carol smiled. “Right answer, Mike,” she said.

  thirty

  A cool breeze drifted across Sara’s face and stirred her from a troubled dream. Dark images of a half-filled grave fluttered away on the wind as she sat up and shook off the chill of a late afternoon. She held her hand out toward the sky and counted three fingers between the sun and the horizon it was seeking. That meant she had forty-five minutes until the sun would set; just enough time for her to hike back to the cabin and get settled in before nightfall.

  She stood and stretched and peered off to the north where she suspected the highway to be. A long, treacherous looking draw stretched out in that direction and Sara spotted what she thought might be a river, several miles off. If she could make it to that river, she knew that she would be home free. Fishermen, backpackers, kayakers, summer cabins; there was a plethora of opportunity to find help along any waterway. Sara looked back in the direction of the cabin and quickly plotted a route through the forest that would get her to the draw and eventually to the river that would deliver her from thi
s nightmare. Confidence swelled in her chest as she climbed from the rock formation and set out for her last night in the cabin.

  Mike met with Deputy Watts at the impound yard to retrieve Sara’s Honda. Sara’s best friend, Rachel, had graciously stayed behind to drive the car back to Eagle.

  Duncan Winter stood at the gate holding a check that Mike had handed to him for payment. “I don’t feel right taking your money after all that has happened, Mr. Haller.”

  Mike opened the trunk and started handing suitcases to Deputy Watts. “Do you think Jordan could use his truck to lift the front of this car so we can get the tire changed, Mr. Winter?”

  Duncan Winter straightened at the mention of his employee. “No sir,” he said. “Jordan took the weekend off and went camping. My other driver is busy over in Virginia Dale. Sorry about that.”

  Ryan Watts took a CD player from Mike’s hands and carefully balanced it on the luggage he had stacked. “He must have gone up with Sheriff Barnes. They have a hunting cabin near Pingree Park. Real remote. Can only get to it on foot or horseback.”

  Mike removed a screw jack and small spare tire from the trunk. Holding both up, he looked to Duncan, “Thanks Mr. Winter, we will handle it from here.”

  Duncan Winter nodded uncomfortably and walked back to his trailer.

  Mike watched Mr. Winter disappear through the office door before turning to Watts. “What’s your opinion of Duncan Winter?”

  Watts leaned against the ice cream truck and looked toward the trailer. “Duncan’s a straight shooter,” he said. “Couldn’t find a nicer guy on the planet.”

  Mike shook his head. “I don’t know. He seems…uncomfortable.”

  Deputy Watts laughed and pushed himself off the truck, “Hell’s bells, Mike. How many times has that man had to pull you off his nephew?” Watts walked around the car and pulled the screw jack from Mike’s grasp. “Uncomfortable? The man wants to feel sorry for you, but you scare the living daylights out of him.”