“It’s cold out here,” Gina mumbled, jamming her mittened hands under her armpits. “This is stupid.”
Mei gave her a quelling look. “It’s thirty-four degrees with bright sunshine, and the snow cover is only a few inches deep here. We’ll be here just an hour, so I think you’ll survive.”
“My feet are cold!”
Mei looked down at the girl’s heavy snow boots. “If you feel you can’t handle it, you can go back and sit in the heated bus with the driver. I’ll call Mrs. Chermak on the bus to let her know you’re coming, and she’ll keep an eye on anyone who chooses to go back.”
Gina rolled her eyes. “Well, that would be fun. She treats us like we’re in first grade.”
With good cause, Mei thought to herself. “If you choose to go back, you have to check in with Mr. McCord or me. No exceptions. Now, does anyone have questions on how to record their data? Don’t forget—this was purposely scheduled for November so you’d have a chance to study the winter environment and also have a chance to see tracks. Mr. McCord and I will circulate through the group in case there are any questions.”
Notebooks held in the crooks of their arms and pens held in mittened grasps, the class fanned out, toeing at the snow to see the type of grasses underneath, looking for tracks and checking tree trunks for antler rubbings and claw marks that might identify threats or competitors for resources.
Gina appeared at Mei’s elbow again. “I’m leaving.”
“Have you recorded any data at all?”
She held up her scrawled notes. “Enough. I’m outta here.”
“Very well. Go straight to the bus and nowhere else. It should take you less than ten minutes. Straight path, no turns, and Mrs. Chermak will meet you halfway. Is anyone else going?”
“No.”
“Then I’ll walk with you until we see the bus driver,” Mei said.
“You don’t need to treat me like I’m a baby,” Gina protested. “I come up here all the time.”
“Let’s just say I don’t want to lose anyone up here. Okay?” Mei dialed Mrs. Chermak’s cell phone and gave her the message, then signaled to Jack and headed down the trail toward the bus. When she could see a hint of its orange paint through the winter-barren brush and saw Mrs. Chermak waving to them, she stopped and sent the girl on. “There’s the bus, Gina. Be sure to stay right there with the driver.”
She wasn’t very far up the trail again when she thought she heard a faint snicker.
“Time’s up,” Jack called out. He checked off the list of names on his clipboard against the students huddling at the mouth of the trail, while Mei did the same. “Everyone is accounted for.”
Mei looked up from her own clipboard and their eyes locked for an instant. Then she flashed a quick smile and started shepherding the students toward the bus while Jack took up the rear.
Jon, one of the boys who had completed an Eagle Scout project last year, fell in step with Jack. “This was way cool, being out here. I saw eight different kinds of birds, some bear tracks and a set of mountain lion tracks. I wish I’d seen moose, though. They are awesome.”
“So you saw bear and mountain lion tracks?”
“I completed a tracking badge last fall. I’m sure of it.”
“Good job then. There’s plenty of wildlife out here, though I’m sure it all headed for the high country when twenty-five noisy teenagers got off the bus.”
“What do you think the bear population is in—”
“Jack!” Mei came running up the trail, her hair flying. “I got everyone corralled on the bus, but we have big problems.”
“Is someone hurt?”
“I sure hope not.” She pulled to a stop and took a ragged breath. “Mrs. Chermak is behind the wheel of the bus in an awfully deep sleep, and I can’t rouse her at all. And Gina Meier is missing.”
Zach and his deputies arrived within forty-five minutes, followed by an emergency vehicle and two EMTs.
Twenty-five faces were plastered against the windows of the bus while the EMTs moved the silver-haired woman to a gurney, started an oxygen line and took her vitals.
“She acts like she was drugged,” Mei said anxiously, hovering over them as they worked. “Nothing I did would wake her. I can’t imagine she’s the type to take anything illicit, though. Could she have had a stroke?”
“We’re taking her in, pronto. If it was drugs, she needs intervention meds ASAP.” The other EMT talked on the phone as they rechecked her vitals, then the two of them deftly slid the gurney into the back of the emergency vehicle.
Jack moved closer. “How is she?”
“We ran an EKG and have sent it in. The doctors have already ordered toxicology screenings and more tests at the hospital. She’s starting to wake up, but she’s really groggy, and she’s not oriented to time or place. Zach tried to question her, but she doesn’t remember a thing. We’re taking her to a hospital on the northeast side of Denver ASAP.”
Zach reappeared and quietly conferred with the EMTs again before they took off, sirens wailing. Then he turned to Jack and Mei.
“So what do you think happened?” Jack said.
“Just off the record, the EMTs think she acted as if someone had slipped her some rohypnol. It would account for her sedation and amnesia, if she didn’t have a stroke or seizure event of some kind. They’ve taken her coffee thermos back to the hospital to test it.”
“Have you found any trace of Gina?”
“Nothing. The deputies and I have fanned out to check this area, and there’s no sign of foul play in the immediate vicinity—no sign of her at all.” Zach turned to Mei. “You saw her get on the bus?”
“No. But I escorted her far enough so that we could see Mrs. Chermak and the bus, and then I sent Gina on. There wasn’t even a second when Gina wasn’t in sight of at least one of us.”
Jack cleared his throat. “Her parents?”
“We’ve called her mother, and she says Gina is never without her cell phone, but she hasn’t heard from her. When we dial that number, Gina doesn’t answer.”
“We have got to let the high school principal know and get these other kids back to school,” Mei murmured, her teeth chattering. “And we can’t just stand here—we need to look for Gina.”
“I already called the principal, and needless to say she sounds pretty upset. Another bus driver is being sent out to take the other kids back and should be here in twenty minutes.” Zach turned to Jack. “And I’ve alerted the search-and-rescue team and requested a dog. Do you have anything with her scent on it here?”
“No. I don’t think anything’s been left behind.”
“Okay, we’ll have to ask her mother to bring down some of Gina’s clothing to give our dog her scent.”
“This seems so strange.” Mei frowned. “She was sitting in the first row of seats when we came up here, and I know she had her notebook on the trail. What if the notebook’s in there, proving that she actually did get back here? Would someone kidnap her? Was somebody out here all this time, just waiting for a chance to grab one of the kids?”
She ran to the bus and disappeared inside. A hubbub of students’ voices arose, and above them, Mei’s asking them to settle down.
A moment later, she came back out, her face a grim mask of worry. “Here it is, the notebook she had—the scribbled notes she showed me. But why on earth did she get off that bus—and was it against her will?”
While Mei stayed with the other kids to keep them calm, Zach questioned each of them individually about seeing strangers or anything unusual during the field trip.
Jack went back to searching the area, then started detailing the situation to the search-and-rescue team members and community volunteers as they began showing up.
In the next twenty minutes, nine more volunteers had arrived, along with Gina’s mother and a T-shirt she’d grabbed out of Gina’s laundry basket.
With bleached blond hair showing dark at the roots and the husky voice of a smoker, she shouldered past
Zach and headed for Mei, her face red with anger.
“I’m Barbara Meier. How could you lose my daughter?” she demanded. “How could you bring her up into the wilds like this and then not take care of her? This is unbelievable.”
Zach came to stand next to Mei. “She was in view of an adult at all times, Mrs. Meier. She refused to stay with the group, but once she was back at the bus with the driver, we don’t know what happened. Her notebook was in the bus, yet when the group came back to the bus Gina was gone and the driver was unconscious.”
“I suppose he was some predator,” Barbara snarled. “Gina probably had to defend herself and run for her life with no one else around.”
Zach gave Mei’s shoulders a quick, comforting squeeze. “I’ve already talked to the principal about the driver’s background, ma’am. Mrs. Chermak is a sixty-two-year-old grandmother of eight, and she’s been a driver in the school district for over twenty years. And there were two other adults with the kids—Jack McCord, the county wildlife biologist, and Ms. Clayton, their teacher.”
“Well, they are obviously incompetent, careless people because my daughter is missing. She’s in high school, not some toddler who would foolishly walk away. I want her found.”
“We’re doing everything we can,” Zach promised.
The woman turned and thrust a forefinger toward Mei’s face, her face mottled and voice rising with every word. “Someone like you shouldn’t even have a teaching license if you can’t do your job. Don’t think this is going to end here, whether they find my daughter or—” She broke off into violent sobs.
One of the women on the search-and-rescue team nodded to Jack, then approached Barbara and gently took her hand to lead her a few yards away.
Zach joined them after a moment. “I’m sorry, but I need to ask you some questions, Mrs. Meier. It’s important. If you want to have a better chance of finding your daughter. My patrol car will be a warm place, if you’ll come with me.”
“O-of course.”
Shivers reverberated through Mei’s body as she watched them go. “This is just horrible. That poor mother. And Gina—how could this happen, Jack?”
“The whole thing is strange. Zach says that not one student saw anything suspicious. There’s no sign of struggle. Each of the other kids brought backpacks, so they could bring back small samples of dried grasses and brush for their displays. But Gina only brought her purse and she insisted on leaving soon after we got here.”
Mei closed her eyes. “After I left her, I thought I heard her snicker. I thought she was just laughing because she’d managed to get out of the field trip. What if she planned to run away?”
“I’m wondering, and Zach is, too. But it could be abduction. Random…or some creep on the internet could’ve romanced her and convinced her to meet him someplace away from town so he wouldn’t be seen when he took her for a ‘romantic rendezvous.’ No matter what happened, we’ve got to find her and bring her home.”
“I’m so frightened for her.” Mei’s knees felt wobbly and she wanted to fall into his arms, to rest her head against his chest and feel the beat of his heart, just to draw on his strength. But this was hardly the time or the place. “I’m so glad your team has a search-and-rescue dog.”
“She’s a great dog and her owner is an excellent handler, but I just hope she can pick up the scent. There was a big scout outing here over the weekend—a good seventy boys and their dads. There are tire tracks everywhere in this parking lot, and people were tramping all over the trails.” He looked up at the sky and frowned. “We only have another hour and a half of good daylight, and three or four inches of snow are on the way. I think all of us had better start praying.”
Chapter Fourteen
By nine in the evening, Gina’s mother had become nearly hysterical, screaming curses and promising that Mei Clayton and Jack McCord were going to face criminal charges if it took every last cent of her savings to make that happen. She finally allowed relatives to take her home and sit with her to wait for news.
By midnight, fifteen members of search-and-rescue teams from the neighboring counties had arrived to help blanket the park, all carrying high-powered flashlights.
They’d found no sign of the missing girl. The dog had followed Gina’s scent up the trail to where the students had all been collecting their data and then followed her trail back to the bus, but from there it hit on no other scent trail in any direction.
Bone cold and numb with horror over her thoughts about Gina’s possible fate, Mei huddled in the front seat of Zach’s patrol car. Even the warmth of its heater couldn’t reach the icy fingers that had closed around her heart.
At the sound of footsteps, she looked up and found Zach and Jack approaching the vehicle and behind them followed a number of flashlights bobbing and swaying.
The search was over. And Gina wasn’t with them.
Dread twisted her stomach into a tight knot at the grim expressions on the faces as each came into view.
Zach wearily slid into the driver’s seat and rested his wrists on the top of the steering wheel. Jack climbed in the driver’s side of the backseat. Neither of them spoke, and her fear ratcheted up a notch.
“D-did you find her?” Time seemed to stop as she waited for an answer. “Tell me.”
His face lined with exhaustion, Zach turned to Mei. “She’s been found at a girlfriend’s house. They were planning to leave town during the night for Colorado Springs.”
“What?” Mei stared at him, stunned. “Why would she run away from a school field trip and not just meet her friend later?”
“Oh, they had a good reason.”
The low, vehement tone in Zach’s voice scared her. “Wh-why?”
“Try a thousand-dollar Visa gift card for each of the girls just to get lost for a little while. Gina was supposed to disappear for a week or so, then come back and claim that she’d been abducted—saying that you and I hadn’t answered her calls for help.”
Mei stared at him. “That’s…that’s unbelievable.”
Zach nodded. “There was no other scent trail to follow because a car came after her and probably parked next to the bus. Because Gina had already slipped a roofie into that poor bus driver’s coffee mug, no one saw it happen. Gina is in custody down at the sheriff’s office now, and she’s with her mother. Apparently they have magically come up with a lawyer who is there, too.”
“Mrs. Meier didn’t strike me as the sort of woman who would have one.”
“I’m sure this guy was already on call, just in case something went wrong,” Jack interjected. “And I’m even more sure that Mrs. Meier isn’t paying him. She doesn’t look like she would have that kind of money.”
“I don’t get it.” Mei shook her head.
“And I can’t believe I didn’t see it sooner. It was a scheme to get you out of the picture, Mei. If they got you fired, ruined your reputation, filed high-dollar lawsuits against you and even helped you lose your teaching license, you might just turn tail and leave town.” Zach hit the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “Great-uncle Samuel would love to get his hands on Grandpa George’s estate. Three thousand acres of Colorado land and a million and a half dollars must be almost as tempting as the joy he’d feel at seeing us all fail. If he runs off just one of us cousins, he has it made. Big victory for his side.”
“B-but he’s an old man. He came clear out here?”
“Gina said Vincent did,” Jack said quietly. “Though I’m sure they planned all of this together.”
“Unfortunately, Gina broke down immediately and spilled everything before her lawyer arrived. I’m not sure we could ever use a word of it in court because she was a minor with no representation. Her mother hadn’t even arrived yet. And there’s probably no concrete evidence.” Zach sighed. “I’m not sure we can prove anything. But knowing Vincent, even the way Gina precipitously blurted out her confession was probably part of the big plan.”
Jack pulled off his gloves and dropped th
em on the seat. “When I look back to when my mom married Charley and the time when I once looked up to Vincent, it makes me sick. I never realized what kind of guy he was.”
“You were just a boy then.” Mei wearily leaned her head against the seat.
“But even as an adult I failed to see him for what he was. I knew he was crafty and self-serving, but I never dreamed he’d sink to this. When I think about how many times I loyally defended him to other people, I want to kick myself into the next county.” His voice dripped with anger. “I’ll bet he was behind those anonymous notes to you, too. No wonder some people around here have painted me with the same brush.”
“It all makes me wish I’d never moved back here.”
Zach reached across the seat and squeezed her hand. “But again, that would let Samuel win. If nothing else, we all have to stick together for Arabella so she doesn’t lose Grandpa George’s house. She deserves it after caring for him all those years. I wouldn’t have been able to do it, believe me. He was the most cantankerous, scheming guy on the planet.”
“I won’t leave. I know the others need their inheritance, and I wouldn’t jeopardize what they should receive.” She mustered up a sad smile. “It’s ironic, really…as a kid I wanted to imagine that I was part of a happy sitcom family, like on TV. Like what I imagined the rest of our family was like. But it was never even close, was it?”
“Not at all, I’m afraid. Though I think our parents tried to shield us from most of what was going on.”
“As adults, all of that should be behind us—yet things just keep getting worse,” Mei lamented. “When will it ever end?”
“I heard the reports on the television last night about the Meier girl. So they found her safe and sound?”
“Yes.” Mei poured her mother another cup of coffee, and topped off her own cup, her nerves still feeling raw and exposed from the night before.
After getting home, it had taken hours to finally fall asleep, then Moose had wanted to go outside at six and her mother had knocked on the door by seven.
The Loner's Thanksgiving Wish (Love Inspired) Page 13
