by Rick Mofina
“And you know I won’t get anything if I do.”
“You drop the ball here, Agent Zander, and you have no case.”
“Ms. Lam, if I do not talk to her, we have no way of knowing if we have a case.”
“I’m just letting you know you’re on thin ice here.”
“All part of my job.”
They saw Bowman approaching with Emily, who had emerged with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She had scrubbed her face in an attempt to freshen up, but her reddened eyes and sniffles betrayed her anguish as she was directed to a chair at the table.
“Emily, you’ve met everyone here, except Walt Sydowski, with the San Francisco Police.”
“Hello, Mrs. Baker,” Sydowski extended his big hand. Emily took it and nodded. Zander sat across from her, Bowman to her left, with Sydowski sitting a non-threatening distance away at one end of the table and Thornton at the other. All had notebooks and file folders, the contents of which Emily could not see.
“We have juice, muffins, tea, coffee, fruit?” Bowman offered.
“No thanks.”
All of them wore dead serious faces. Sydowksi looked very familiar to her, but she could not place him. Why was someone here from the San Francisco Police Department? She was so confused, so tired.
“Emily, as you know, everything is being done to find Paige,” Zander said.
She nodded.
“And as we told you, we’re part of a team whose job is to make sure we’ve not only searched everywhere but looked at all the possibilities that could help us find her.”
Emily nodded.
“We’d just like to get a clear a picture of how she became lost, maybe we missed something. Will you help us with all you remember?”
“Of course.” Her voice was weak.
“Tell us what happened that morning.”
“We were going to stay at the campsite. I decided I would go off by myself to the ridge, ahead on the trail. Paige was picking flowers near the campsite. Doug was gathering firewood and was going to read, I think.”
“What were you going to do on the ridge?”
“Just meditate, take pictures.”
“So you went alone?”
“Yes.”
“Down the ridge, about one hundred yards from your camp?”
She nodded.
“Could you see or hear your campsite from there? See or hear Doug and Paige talking? Hear the dog if it barked?”
“No, it was too far and wooded.”
“How long were you gone?”
“A couple of hours. Three, maybe four.”
“In that time, did you see anyone, any other hikers, anyone?”
Emily shook her head.
“What was Paige’s state of mind when you left?”
Emily looked at her empty hands on the table in front of her. “She might have been scared,” Emily sniffed. “Oh God.”
Bowman put a hand on her should. “It’s OK.”
“Doug and I quarreled along the trail the day before. Just stupid husband-and-wife stuff about how long we should hike in the park. We were all tired and stressed from the flight and rushing from San Francisco to get here. But Emily thought the quarrel was serious. She thought we were getting a divorce.”
“Are you?”
“No.” Emily sniffed; Bowman passed her tissue.
Zander surveyed the others with glances.
“If Paige were upset, why would you leave her?”
Tears rolled down her face. “I was upset too. I wanted to be alone. I was upset with Doug.” Then weakly she added, “Myself.”
“Was there stress in your family before and during the trip?”
Emily nodded.
“Tell us about it.”
“Like I said, just normal suburban-living crap. Doug’s job, my job. We could not decide where to go on vacation. Doug wanted Paris. I wanted the mountains, you know, get away from everything, take pictures, recharge. Paige wanted Paris, too. She had never hiked before. I thought it would be good for her to get away from all cities, know that there is more to life than the mall and the Internet. We decided on the Mountains at the last minute. Sort of rushed out here. But the trip became a disaster with us arguing. Just stupid family arguing and we hurt Paige with it.”
“What do you mean?”
Emily put her crumpled fists to her mouth and closed her eyes tight.
“I think she got mad at us. Ran off on purpose to be alone too, not knowing the danger. Then got lost. Got really lost. Oh God. It’s my fault. It’s all my fault!” Emily covered her face with her hands.
“It’s OK.” Bowman comforted her as a helicopter rattled overhead.
Zander noticed Thornton and Sydowski touching up their notes. When the noise outside subsided, Zander continued.
“You work as a photographer?”
“Yes I have my own studio. I freelance. I’ve been busy.”
“And Doug, he’s a teacher?”
“Beecher Lowe High School. He teaches English and coaches football.”
“What was Doug’s state of mind when you left alone to meditate?”
“He was upset too, at me and everything.”
“Just arguing and stuff?”
Emily nodded.
“And you think it forced Paige to run away?”
“Yes.”
“Has she ever run away before?”
“No.”
“Would you say there was additional stress in your family prior to the trip?”
Emily thought for a long time. Zander repeated the question.
She shook her head.
“No career problems, money problems, marital problems?”
She shook her head.
“Are you or Doug under a doctor’s care, taking any medication?”
“No,” Emily’s tone signaled that she was becoming offended by some of Zander’s questions.
“No psychiatric care?”
“No, I usually talk to my friends about personal problems.”
“Emily, did you meet anyone in the park who seemed unusually friendly to Paige, or your family?”
“No.”
“Paige was familiar with the Internet?”
“Yes. She chatted with friends about clothes, movies, music.”
“Is it conceivable Paige could have arranged a secret meeting here with a friend she met on the Internet?”
“I don’t know, we monitor her fairly closely. We have filters.”
“Since arriving, do you recall any incidents along the way, any altercations, or anyone that may have followed you here to settle a score?”
She shook her head.
“Is there anyone in San Francisco who might want to harm your family or hurt Paige, anyone who has upset her?”
“No. Nothing like that. Not that we know I--you think it is possible she was abducted from us? Do you know something? Oh God--” Emily sniffed.
“We don’t know anything like that. We have no evidence of anything, nothing to indicate that anyone has harmed Paige. Emily, we’re just trying to learn everything, every aspect of the circumstances before she got lost.”
“I am so scared. I am so confused. It is all my fault, don’t you see?”
Zander was silent.
“What kind of mother let’s her child run off into the mountains?” Emily asked.
Zander let her self-recrimination sit in the air for a moment.
“Emily what did Doug tell you about Paige’s state of mind before she got lost?”
She stared at the table, collecting her thoughts.
“He thought she had gone down the trail to be with me, to join me.”
“Why did he think that?”
“Because she was upset.”
“Upset? How?”
“From our argument; then he hurt his hand chopping wood.”
“Did you see him hurt his hand?”
“No. When I left Paige was picking flowers or playing with Kobee in her tent. I am not
sure. I was upset.”
“Did Doug have a hurt hand while you were there? Did you see him injure himself?”
She shook her head. “I told you, no.”
“Do you think other hikers could have come by your campsite after you left?”
“I did not hear or see anyone.”
“Tell me what happened after you returned to the campsite, how you discovered she was gone, and what Doug told you and what you did.”
“I remember at the halfway point back getting this strange feeling that something was wrong.”
“What kind of feeling?”
“Just a chill or shudder and I stopped. I did not see or hear anything. It was just a feeling. Mother’s instinct.” She sniffed. “When I returned, Doug was reading. I asked about Paige. He said he thought she was with me, then ran down the trail where I had come, looking for her.”
“Did he say what happened?”
“Only what I just told you.”
“Was his hand hurt then?”
“Yes, after I got back.”
“Did he tell you how he hurt his hand?”
“He said from chopping wood, I keep telling you.”
“Then, as far as you know, he was the last person to see Paige?”
It was as if all sound stopped and the room held its breath.
Her fists went to her mouth, her eyes glistening, staring down at nothing. She nodded.
“Emily why did you rush to Montana. Why did you have to come here?”
She covered her face with her hands and wept.
“Guess what I am going to do.”
Zander leaned forward.
“If there is something you think we should know,” he said, “it might help if you shared it with us now.”
Emily raised her eyes to Zander’s.
He saw a woman drowning in something dark as the distant thundering of another helicopter grew louder. Emily sat there, a portrait of pain, a suspect in her daughter’s disappearance. The helicopter grew more intense as the four investigators regarded her.
Zander checked his watch. Time was running out.
SEVENTEEN
Immediately after Emily Baker’s first interview with the task force, Zander pulled Bowman aside in the few minutes they had alone.
“Emily’s demeanor at this stage is absolutely critical. She could bond, open up. She may need a little nudge.”
A female Ranger had taken Emily to find an unoccupied restroom. Zander’s attention darted between where she would emerge and Bowman.
“I want you to begin working on securing Emily’s trust before you fly back with her to the command post. Work on her woman to woman.” Zander’s blue eyes bored into hers. “It is vital you not fail. You will not get a second chance at this.”
The full weight of what was at stake began settling on Bowman. Through the command center windows she saw the news trucks. Inside, the TV monitors in the operations room played the muted chatter of live network reports. Bowman swallowed. A few hours ago, she would have been at her desk, quietly dealing with forms, her keyboard and her little frustrations. This was huge. Moving so fast. She could not afford to screw up.
“You understand, Bowman? Can you handle that? Or should I request someone else?”
Zander was an ass. He might be a legendary detective, able to pick up her twinge of self-doubt, but he was still an ass.
“Tell me, Zander, with you being an expert on the ‘woman-to-woman approach,’ what advice can you provide so that I don’t fail?”
“It’s evident she likes you, Bowman. Get her talking to you. Beat us up if you like. Win her confidence. Whatever it takes.” Zander checked his watch. “You’ll have an hour, maybe less, with her. Then we bring the dad in.”
“What do we want to know?”
“The truth.”
Emily returned, nodding her thanks to the ranger, giving a half-smile to Bowman, who escorted her through the chaos of the command center.
Emily’s face tightened, her eyes glistening as the impact of her daughter’s drama hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.
Paige staring back at her from the TV monitors from the early-morning news reports, still pictures of her and Doug. The entire country was watching.
“This way, Emily.”
Bowman took Emily outside through a back entrance to an empty FBI SUV with Utah plates, filled with manuals, maps empty fast-food wrappers and newspapers. At least it would be private. They climbed in.
Emily was tearful, drained.
“How long before I can get back to the campsite? I want to be there in case the find her.”
About an hour, Bowman explained. Because the search was going full throttle it might take that long before a helicopter could ferry her back and fly Doug in. Emily stared at the mountains.
“Have they found anything?”
“I’m sorry. Nothing so far that we’re aware of.”
Emily was dabbing her eyes, sniffling. “Do you think I am a horrible mother?”
“Every mother thinks they are a horrible mother when something bad happens.”
“I think Zander and the others think I am a terrible mother.”
“Why?”
“For losing my child.”
“I think they just want to know everything that happened so they can find Paige.”
“I told Zander everything. I know he doesn’t believe me. I saw it in his face, heard it in his tone.”
Emily looked at Bowman, assessing her as a friend or an enemy.
“Do you have children, Tracy?”
“A son, Mark. He’s nine.”
“Have you ever had anything horrible happen in your life?”
Bowman rolled to Carl’s empty side of the bed that night he took the call. Then the pounding began on the front door. Barry Tully, highway patrolman, stood there, his hat in his hand. He couldn’t get the words out. He didn’t have to because she knew….
“Yes. I have,” Tracy said. “My husband died a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry. How, illness or…”
“Highway crash.”
Emily looked at nothing in the treetops. “Then you know what it is like to get pulled into a surreal whirlwind where nothing makes sense, where it so painful you would give anything to stop it, to go back to better days.”
Bowman could feel Emily reaching out to her, subconsciously trying to bond. Woman to woman, mother to mother. Be careful, she told herself.
“Yes, Emily, I’ve known terrible things in my life, like most people.”
“I know Zander and the others are trying to find out if I had anything to do with Paige’s disappearance.”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“Is it?”
“We’re--”Bowman caught herself--“they’re just trying to learn truth surrounding the time Paige got lost, I mean--”
“The truth? That implies you think I’m lying--”
“No, Emily, I mean, I mean the facts, the details--I am sorry--”
“What about you, then? Do you think I had something to do with Paige’s vanishing? And I want you to tell me the truth and let me judge you.”
Bowman searched her heart. She found no evidence that convinced her Emily committed any crime other than having an argument that resulted in her ten-year-old daughter running off and getting lost in the Rocky Mountains. But somewhere in a dark corner, Bowman felt, Emily was hiding something disturbing.
“I do not think you committed any crime.”
Emily brought her fists to her mouth. “Thank you.”
Oh Jesus, was that a mistake, telling her that? Bowman thought quickly.
“But I do think you and Doug are, or were, in the midst of something very troubling that you fear is related to Paige running off.”
Emily said nothing for a moment, then, “Do you think we will find her?”
“I’m praying that we do.”
Bowman’s pulse was racing, not seeing the activity, the mountains. She was to
rn between her fear that Emily was so calculating and cunning she had just been played for a fool, or Emily was the innocent victim of tragic circumstances.
“I understand you used to live in Montana, grew up here?”
Emily nodded. “But it has been years.”
“Why did you come back?”
“To bury something from the past.”
Bowman felt gooseflesh surface on the back of her neck.
“Would you like to talk to me about it, Emily?”
Emily shook her head. “I can’t.” A curtain of sorrow fell over her. “I can’t tell anyone. I--I.” Emily began weeping softly, her voice dropping.
Bowman strained to listen, Emily almost whispering to herself, making Bowman unsure of what she was hearing.
“I need my daughter back. I cannot go through this again. I will not survive this,” Then Emily’s voice rose, her face lifting to the mountaintops.
“God, please, where is she?”
EIGHTEEN
Paige awoke, shivering and hungry.
It was cold and damp in her shelter. She should get into the sun. Try to find her way back. Was it safe? She was afraid.
Was the thing that chased her last night still out there?
So afraid. She had to stop shivering.
Where’s Kobee?
She inched her head out, began looking in every direction, her entire body aching, cuts and scrapes stinging. She was starving. Her throat was raw. She coughed. It hurt a little.
She threw small rocks in every direction, hoping to hear the thing stir if it was waiting for her.
Nothing. She continued tossing them, only farther.
She had to get back. Her parents were going to kill her. Maybe they would be so mad they would leave without her.
No. Don’t let that happen! Please! Somebody help me!
But why were they fighting so much? They were getting a divorce. That had to be it. They brought her on this trip to tell her they did not love each other anymore, that she would have to decide which of her parents she wanted to live with, then tell a judge or something.
Some of the divorced kids at school said that’s how it happens.
She prayed it would not happen her.
Mom and Dad still love each other, don’t they?
Paige had to get back. Had to help them stay together.
Carefully, she stepped out of her shelter, shielded her eyes from the morning sun, scanning the slope, then decided on a direction. Walking warmed her, made her feel a little better. But she had no idea where she was going. She walked into a forest that looked inviting, easy to travel through.
