The Disappeared

by C. J. Box

  Sophie hesitated for a moment, and Bloodworth turned on Joe: “If these important officials are really trying to get to the bottom of this, why did they send a gamekeeper?”

  “Game warden, Billy,” Sophie said.

  “Whatever,” Bloodworth said. “The question still stands.”

  “And it’s a good question,” Joe said. He didn’t want to get into the backstory, because there were too many things about his circumstance that seemed hinky and he knew they would sound that way if he tried to explain them.

  “And why should we trust you?” Bloodworth asked. “Give us one good reason why.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” Joe said, pushing away from the table. “I’d rather earn your trust than beg you for it, so I’ll leave the two of you alone. I need to get some sleep so I can get to work early tomorrow trying to figure out what happened to Kate. If I learn something, I’ll let you know.”

  He stood and looked from Bloodworth to Sophie, then flipped his card down on the table. “But if you really do suspect somebody and that photo is real evidence, I hope you’ll involve law enforcement right away. You may even want to call me.”

  His eyes settled on Bloodworth. “I hope this isn’t all about a newspaper story, because people out here don’t read the Daily Dispatch. Whoever you suspect probably has eight guns, because that’s about average.”

  “Eight guns?” Sophie asked with alarm.

  “Maybe more,” Joe said.

  “I’ve never even seen one except in movies,” she said.

  “Ignore him, Sophie,” Bloodworth said. “He’s trying to scare you.”

  . . .

  JOE KNEW SOMETHING was wrong when he saw a band of light on the hallway floor emanating from the partially open door of room number nine. He knew he’d closed it tight and locked it when he left.

  He instinctively reached for the Glock that wasn’t there as he approached the door as quietly as he could. He paused to listen but could hear no stirring inside.

  Then Joe shoved the door open and stepped back. Nothing.

  The room had been tossed. Clothing was scattered across the floor and his duffel bag yawned open from on top of the bed. The chifforobe doors were open and his uniform shirts and civilian Cinch shirts were bunched on the floor where they’d been flung.

  He sighed in relief that his weapon had not been taken from where he’d placed it on the nightstand. But it had been moved to the other side.

  The Kate file was gone.

  *

  HIS BOOTS MADE A SOUND like thunder on the stairs and Kim Miller looked over at him from behind the check-in counter with her eyebrows arched in curiosity.

  “Someone’s been in my room,” he said. “Did you give the keys to anyone when I was talking to the British couple just now?”

  “Of course not,” she said with heat. “We don’t do things like that.” She was offended.

  He noted that from where he stood he could reach over the counter and access the board where spare keys hung. Anybody could have done the same.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you see anyone suspicious a few minutes ago?”

  She shook her head. “I was washing glasses and keeping my eye on Sophie trying to hide her cigarette from me,” Miller said. “I wasn’t looking over this direction, because I didn’t expect any guests this late.”

  Joe checked out the bar. Sophie and Bloodworth were gone. The four Buckbrush Project workers were still on their stools drinking beer.

  “I know I locked the door,” he said to Miller in frustration.

  “No one locks their doors around here,” she said with a shrug. “Maybe that was the problem.”

  *

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, after Joe had reorganized his clothing and gear and verified that the only thing missing from his room was the Kate file, he brushed his teeth, undressed, double-locked the door, and lay on his bed staring at the still ceiling fan. He doubted sleep would come quickly.

  It would have been easy, he thought, for someone to snatch the spare key from the board downstairs, mount the stairs and enter his room, toss it, and depart down the stairs and straight outside while Joe was engaged in conversation with Sophie and Bloodworth.

  Whoever had taken the file had been efficient and determined. They somehow knew who he was, why he was there, which room he was in, and what they were after. Random burglars would have left with his weapons and gear, after all. Those items had resale value. It was disconcerting.

  He thought about all the people he’d seen in the bar that night, all the strange and unfamiliar faces, except for Sheridan. Word was already out, apparently, why there was a new game warden in town. Someone who knew something about Kate’s disappearance had been down there in the scrum and overheard his talk with Sheridan. Whoever it was was familiar with the Wolf, knew about the board with the spare keys, and knew Joe wasn’t in his room for the fifteen or twenty minutes he’d been gone.

  Kim Miller, the quarterback of the Hotel Wolf bar, seemed to be the most obvious suspect. His head told him yes, but his gut told him no. She’d seemed surprised and embarrassed that someone had entered his room, and he thought her reaction was genuine. She likely knew the secrets and agendas of her customers—including him—and no doubt she’d put two and two together when she saw him huddling in the back room with Sophie and Bloodworth. But she’d been behind the bar the entire time and within Joe’s sight. Someone—probably not Miller—had been worried about what Joe was working on and curious how much he knew.

  Either that, he thought, or something else was going on in the valley that he didn’t yet grasp. Maybe the person who’d broken in wasn’t involved in Kate’s disappearance at all, but was involved in something else. Maybe the presence of a new game warden—for whatever reason—was a threat to them. Whoever it had been was now in possession of everything Joe knew about the case, including his notes.

  If Billy Bloodworth had excused himself to use the restroom earlier, Joe would know where to look for his file. But Bloodworth was so worried that Sophie would divulge his scoop that he hadn’t dared move an inch from the table during their introduction to each other.

  Was the blurry photo he’d see on Sophie’s phone legitimate? Could that blond head actually belong to a still-alive Kate? He wished he could have studied it. No doubt Bloodworth had other shots in his camera that might be more clear.

  Then there were the missing keys to Pollock’s game warden house. Keys that were requested by someone in the governor’s office, according to Casey Scales.

  And the question Bloodworth had asked that Joe couldn’t answer with confidence: If these important officials are really trying to get to the bottom of this, why did they send a gamekeeper?

  Joe dreaded the conversation he’d have to have at some point updating Connor Hanlon or Governor Allen on the progress of his investigation thus far. Explaining that the case file had been pilfered before his investigation really began would be... painful.

  That’s when he heard footfalls outside in the hall.

  He turned his head when the footfalls stopped outside his door. There were four shadows of boots, meaning two people.

  Then a sharp knock.

  His first thought was that two men had trashed his room and stolen the file and they’d come back. The security lock prevented them from entering this time.

  He reached across his body and grasped the handgrip of his weapon and pulled it free from the holster. There was no need to rack the receiver because there was a round in the chamber of his .40 Glock, and of course no safety to thumb off.

  Joe rose and padded to the door and squinted into the peephole. He held his weapon muzzle-down alongside his thigh.

  When he saw who it was, he grunted, unlocked the door, opened it, and stepped aside.

  Nate Romanowski chuckled as he came inside, followed by a thin man with gaunt eyes whom Joe thought looked familiar from somewhere. They both carried daypacks.

  Nate was tall and broad-shouldered with a b
lond ponytail and blue eyes the color of lake ice. There was a sense of calmness about him that was disarming. He flicked his eyes around the room like a raptor.

  “What were you going to do with that gun of yours?” Nate said. “I know you can’t hit the broad side of a warehouse with it.”

  Before Joe could respond, Nate said, “The hotels in this town are already closed for the night, so we figured we’d bunk with you.”

  “Nate...”

  Nate gently pried the weapon out of Joe’s hand and tossed it on the bed. Then he grasped Joe’s hand inside both of his. As he did, Nate’s heavy canvas Yarak, Inc. coat gaped open and Joe noted the grip of his friend’s heavy .454 Casull in a shoulder holster inside.

  “It’s been a while, my friend,” Nate said. “It’s good to see you even in your underwear.”

  “Nate...”

  “This is Jeff Wasson,” Nate said, gesturing toward the gaunt man. “He’s a master falconer from Riverton and I’ve known him for years, so you can trust him. He’s the guy I told you about.”

  “Nate, why are you here?” Joe asked. The room seemed suddenly very crowded. Wasson didn’t make eye contact with Joe and he seemed to find the walls and fan very interesting.

  “We’ve got a problem and I told Jeff you were the man who could fix it,” Nate said. “I don’t need to remind you that you owe me a couple of favors.”

  “I do, but I’ve got problems of my own.”

  Nate snorted. “You always do.”

  Joe said, “Maybe we can help each other.”

  11

  AS JOE AND NATE CAUGHT UP, CAROL SCHMIDT WAS WRINGING OUT her mop in aisle seven of Valley Foods and she thought she heard someone else inside the grocery store. That was odd because the store closed at ten and it was nearly eleven-thirty.

  Schmidt often traded with other employees for the last shift of the night when they’d been assigned to it. She didn’t like that last shift any more than they did, of course, but she figured most of the others were young with families at home and all she had to worry about these days was Bridger, her dog. She’d fed him and let him out before she left Encampment to drive the eighteen miles north to Saratoga to start her shift. He’d be fine. All he did was sleep, anyway.

  After the store closed and the lights above the doors were turned off, she dimmed the lights inside and locked up. It was the responsibility of the last employee to clean the place up before they left. In the winter it was an especially onerous responsibility, because every customer who came in tracked snow and mud on the floors. It was an easier job in the summer when all she had to do was sweep.

  Because it took so long to mop the aisles, she tried to get a jump on it by starting early, like she had tonight. The only customers in the last hour the store was open on Friday night were single men buying frozen pizzas to take home or teenagers reeking of weed loading up on pastries and candy. She’d pause her cleaning, check them out, and go back to it when they left. The good thing about the teenagers was there was no need to bag up multiple sacks of groceries and take them out to waiting cars in the freezing night. The bad thing about them was they were obviously high on drugs. It bothered her that she recognized a couple of basketball and football players from her attendance at high school games.

  She’d considered dialing 911 and reporting them, but she knew from recent experience that the dispatcher refused to take her complaints seriously. Carol Schmidt was getting sick and tired of not being taken seriously.

  Seven aisles were clean. Only one more to go in the meat department.

  Then she heard the scuffle of feet in heavy boots two or three aisles away.

  *

  VALLEY LIQUOR STAYED OPEN until midnight and it was directly adjacent to the grocery store. It was possible, she thought, that the liquor store manager had simply neglected to close and lock the steel accordion door between the two at ten o’clock when he was supposed to do it. He might have forgotten, and perhaps a liquor customer had wandered down the steps into the grocery.

  If so, she’d need to find whoever it was inside and shoo him out. And, in all likelihood, mop up wet boot prints after he left.

  “Hello,” she called. “Whoever is in here—the store closed at ten.”

  Probably more teenagers, she thought.

  She shoved her mop into the bucket and walked to the front of the store near the registers. There was a lone pickup in the lot. It was parked about twenty feet from her ancient Toyota 4Runner. She could tell the pickup had been left running because she could see exhaust rising from the tailpipe.

  In the ambient light from inside, she could barely make out the front license plate.

  It ended with six-zero-zero. Schmidt gasped and raised her tiny closed fist to her mouth.

  She took a long breath and summoned her courage before calling out, “This is the night manager and you shouldn’t be in the grocery store after hours. You need to come up to the front and I’ll let you out.”

  Technically, Schmidt wasn’t the night manager. But she thought using the title might give a more authoritative impression.

  “On my way.” The grating male voice came from halfway down aisle two. She recognized it immediately from the night the dog was run over on the road next to her house. It was the same voice that had said, Forget it. Leave the goddamn dog. It shouldn’t be out running around anyway.

  She quickly took her place behind the counter at the middle checkout stand where she’d worked earlier in the evening. She felt safer there than if she sought out the man in the aisle.

  He came from aisle two, around the endcap, with an armful of items. He was big with white hair, a square jaw, thick lips, and pale blue eyes. She was surprised that his face was familiar to her, but it wasn’t from that night she’d encountered him. She recognized his face from a photo in the Saratoga Sun newspaper.

  He walked up to her register and opened his arms and the items he’d gathered up spilled onto the counter. Bags of pork rinds, individual energy drinks, jerky, a package of extra-large rubber gloves.

  “We’re closed,” she said, thinking about the .38 in her purse that was tucked away in a cubby near her feet. There was also an alarm button under the counter near the cash register, but she’d heard from another checker that the day manager had turned it off because it was too easy to accidentally lean into.

  “Yeah,” the man said. “I didn’t know you were closed. I’ll just pay for these few little things and be on my way.”

  His eyes stayed on her face while he spoke in a way that made the hairs on the back of her neck prick up.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  She squared her shoulders and said, “Everybody does.” She said it even though she couldn’t think of his name or who he was with, just that he’d been in the Sun. God, she resented not being able to instantly recall things anymore.

  He chuckled.

  She said, “I also know you’re the man who ran over that dog in Encampment. I saw you do it that night. What kind of person runs over a dog and just leaves it there to suffer?”

  He arched his eyebrows and tilted his head a little to the side, as if he was amused by her. Although she was frightened by him, the hot resentment of not being taken seriously took over.

  “I told the neighbor who owned the dog,” she said. “Then I called the cops on you.”

  “I’m aware of that, Mrs. Schmidt. I wish you hadn’t done that.”

  “I’ll do it again if I have to.” She thought, Especially if you have something to do with the smell that’s been coming out of the mill burner.

  And it suddenly all came back to her: the incident she hadn’t been able to recall earlier. She looked down so he couldn’t read her face.

  “Do we have a problem, Mrs. Schmidt?”

  His words chilled her to her soul, but she didn’t dare look up at him.

  He was big and he looked fit. There was no way she could run away from him. If she bent down to dig out her purse, he could reach over the coun
ter and pick her up like a twig and snap her in half.

  “The groceries, I mean,” he said. “We have a problem that I’ve picked them out and you haven’t rung them up.”

  Then he grinned.

  She realized she was trembling. She gestured to the items. “You can get all those things down at the Kum-N-Go. You don’t need to buy them here. Except for the rubber gloves. I don’t know if the Kum-N-Go has them.”

  “No, I’d rather pay for them now and be on my way.”

  She shook her head quickly. “The register’s turned off. I don’t have a key to open it up after hours.”

  “So now you want to lie to me?” he asked, arching his eyebrows again. “Why would you do that, Mrs. Schmidt?”

  “Because I want you to go away. It’s after hours and you’re not supposed to be here.”

  “But I am.”

  “I guess I’m scared of you,” she said.

  He reached out and grasped her hand with both of his. When she tried to pull back, he tightened his grip. His hands were rough and enormous.

  “You don’t need to be scared of me, Mrs. Schmidt,” he said in a near whisper. “You just need to learn to mind your own business. You need to just enjoy your little home there across from the mill and you need to not be so quick to grab the phone and call 911 anytime you feel like it. You need to be a little more trusting and not always assume the worst about people—even if they’re newcomers to the valley. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Mrs. Schmidt?”

  She nodded, barely. She could no longer meet his eyes.

  “Was that a yes?” he asked. His voice was gentle.

  “Yes.”

  “Then I guess we’re done here,” he said. “So can you ring me up or do you want me to put these things back on the shelves?”

  “Just take them,” she said.

  “That wouldn’t be right, would it?”

  “Just take them and get out.”

  He stood there, hulking above her. He still had her hand.

  “I’m not going to let you talk me into stealing, Mrs. Schmidt. Then you really would have something to tell the police, wouldn’t you?