by Cindi Myers
“Call her. She might hear you. Identify yourself and if she’s hiding, she might come out.”
Maya shook her head, the tears flowing freely now. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I could call all night and it wouldn’t make any difference. Casey wouldn’t hear me. She’s deaf.”
Chapter Three
Gage stared at Maya. “Your niece is deaf and you’re just now telling me?” he asked.
“I’m sorry! I was in shock. And it’s not like I think of Casey as my deaf niece. She’s just my niece. Being deaf is part of her, the way having brown hair is part of her.”
“This is a little more significant than her hair color.”
“I said I’m sorry.” She stared into the surrounding darkness, looking, he was sure, for the little girl. Gage stared, too, his stomach knotting as the difficulty of their task sank in. Simply getting within earshot of Casey Hood wasn’t going to be enough. They were going to have to get her in their sights, and then somehow persuade her that they were friendly and wanted to help her. All of that required light, which meant waiting until tomorrow to continue the search.
He touched Maya’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”
She stared at him, eyes wide, red rimmed from crying. She didn’t look quite as young as she had when she had first walked into his office. The blue-tipped hair and dangling earrings had him thinking she was a teenager then. He saw the maturity in her eyes now, and the desperate struggle to keep hope alive. “We can’t just leave her out there all night—alone,” she said.
“We’re going to have someone here all night,” he said. “I’ll have them build a fire and keep it going. Maybe Casey will see it.”
“I should be the one waiting,” she said.
“No. You should go back to your hotel room and try to get some sleep.” She started to argue, but he cut her off. “We’re going to need you in the morning. Once it’s light out here and we can see, we’re going to need you close in case someone spots Casey. She’ll recognize you and want to come to you.”
She looked out into the darkness again. “Do you really think she’s all right?”
“We haven’t found evidence to the contrary,” he said. “No signs of struggle, no other signs of blood at the scene. I think she got away from the killers.” Whoever shot Angela and Greg Hood might have taken the child with them, but that didn’t make sense to him. The parents’ deaths had been cold and efficient—for whatever reason, someone had wanted them eliminated. Why then burden yourself with a five-year-old child? “I think Casey saw what was happening, became frightened and ran away. Tomorrow, we’re going to find her.” He touched her shoulder again. “Come on. I’ll take you back to your hotel.”
“I don’t have a hotel room. I mean, I didn’t call and make a reservation. I didn’t even think of it.”
“Then we’ll find you one. Come on.”
She made one last glance into the darkness beyond the camp, then followed Gage to his SUV. “I’m going to speak to the sheriff,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
He found Travis with a group of search and rescue volunteers who were packing up to head back to town. “I got some more information about the little girl we’re looking for,” Gage told them. “Seems she’s deaf. So shouting her name isn’t going to do any good. We’ll need to make eye contact.”
“I know a little American Sign Language,” one of the SAR volunteers, a middle-aged woman, said.
“That might come in handy,” Gage said. “Can you come back to help with the search tomorrow?”
“I’ll be here.”
They said good-night. Travis waited until he and Gage were alone before he spoke. “Does the sister have any idea what the Hoods were doing up here that got them killed?” he asked.
Gage glanced back toward his SUV. He could see the shadowed figure of Maya as she sat in the passenger seat. “Greg Hood was an engineer who had developed some new equipment he thought could make these old mines profitable. He purchased these old claims to create a kind of demonstration project. He and his wife and the kid were camping up here, checking out their new acquisition.”
“Any enemies, threats, anything like that?” Travis asked.
“She says no, and she thinks she would know. Sounds like she and the sister were close.”
“All right. Maybe we’ll turn up something when we have a chance to go over the evidence from the scene. And I’m going to talk to Ed Roberts.”
Gage thought of the old man who was as close as Eagle Mountain came to a hermit. He lived in an apartment above the hardware store, but spent most of his time working an old gold mining claim in the area. “Is his claim around here?” he asked.
“Behind this property.” Travis gestured toward the north.
“You think he might have seen or heard something?”
Travis’s expression grew more grim. “And he’s a registered sex offender.”
Gage stared. He knew the department received regular updates from the sex offender registry, but he didn’t remember Roberts’s name being on there. Maybe it dated from before his time with the department. Now he felt a little sick to his stomach. “Did he molest some kid or something?”
“He was convicted of exposing himself to women—flashing them. It happened years ago, in another state, but still...”
“Yeah,” Gage said. “Still worth questioning him.”
“In the meantime,” Travis said, “we’ll have someone up here overnight and we’ll start the search again at first light.”
“That little kid must be scared to death, out there in the dark by herself,” Gage said.
“At least if she’s scared, it means she’s still alive,” Travis said. He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Go home. Try to get some rest. Pray that in the morning we get lucky.”
“I’m going to find a place for Maya to stay. I’ll probably pick her up in the morning and bring her up here with me. She’s the person the kid is most liable to run to on sight.”
“Good idea.”
Maya sat hunched in the front seat, hugging herself. “I should have started the engine so you could get warm,” he said, turning the key in the ignition. “Even in summer, it can get chilly up here at night.”
“I keep thinking about Casey, cold and alone out there in the dark,” she said.
“Most of the time, with little kids like this, they get tired and lie down somewhere,” Gage said. “We’re hoping she’ll see the fire at camp and come back there. A husband-and-wife team with the search and rescue squad have volunteered to stay there. They’ve got kids of their own, so they shouldn’t be too scary to Casey.”
“If she comes to them, you’ll call me.” It wasn’t a question.
“Of course,” Gage said. “As soon as we hear anything.”
They drove back toward town in silence. Full darkness had descended like a cloak, the sky a sweep of black in the windshield. When he had a cell signal, Gage pulled out his phone and made a call. “Hello?” The woman on the other end of the line sounded cautious, and maybe a little annoyed.
“Paige, this is Gage Walker. Sorry to bother you so late, but I’ve got a lady here who needs a room for the night—probably several nights. She’s the aunt of the little girl we’re searching for.”
“I heard about that,” Paige said. “Poor thing. And I do have a room. It’s my smallest one, but I doubt she’ll care about that.”
“Great. I’m going to take her to get something to eat, then we’ll stop by.”
“Sure thing, Deputy.”
“When was the last time you ate?” he asked Maya as they neared town.
“I had a sandwich at lunch,” she said. “That seems like days ago.”
“And now it’s almost ten. I know you probably don’t feel like eating, but you should. And I’m starving. Let me buy you dinner, t
hen I’ll take you over to the Bear’s Den.”
“The Bear’s Den?”
“It’s a bed-and-breakfast. You should get along great with the woman who runs it.”
“Why do you say that?”
He glanced at her, but it was too dark for him to read her expression. “The hair, the VW bug, the English degree—trust me, the two of you will get along great.”
“Why do I get the feeling that’s not exactly a compliment?”
“It’s not an insult,” he said.
“Then what is it?”
He searched for the right words—words that weren’t going to offend her, that would convey what he really meant. “You stand out from the crowd around here,” he said. “That’s not a bad thing.”
“You mean the blue hair,” she said.
“The blue hair. The attitude.”
“You think I have an attitude?” Her voice rose and she leaned toward him.
Gage bit back a groan. Yes, she had an attitude—a “don’t mess with me” vibe that shone through the grief and fatigue. “I didn’t say it was a bad attitude,” he said. “And hey, maybe I’m full of it. Ignore everything I said.”
“You’re not the kind of man a woman ignores, Deputy.”
The words jolted him. Was she flirting with him? But when he glanced her way, she was facing forward again, what he could see of her expression betraying nothing.
Mo’s Pub was the only place open this late, so Gage drove there. When they walked in the waitress showed them to a booth. “Any word on that lost little girl?” she asked as she distributed menus.
“Not yet,” Gage said.
“Tony was up there all afternoon with the search and rescue crew, and we’re all praying y’all find her soon. Poor little baby. She must be scared to death up there on her own.”
“This is Casey’s aunt, Maya Renfro,” Gage said. “This is Sasha Simpson.”
“You poor thing.” Sasha patted Maya’s shoulder. “You must be worried sick. They’re gonna find her, I’m sure of it. They won’t stop looking until they do.”
“Thanks.” Maya looked a little dazed as Sasha hurried away to wait on another table. “She sounded really worried—and she doesn’t even know me or Casey.”
“She has two little girls of her own,” Gage said. “And that’s the way people are around here. Everybody knows everybody and while it’s not exactly family, it’s something like it.”
“I can see how that would be appealing,” she said. “But a little claustrophobic at times, too. Sometimes I like not knowing anything about my neighbors.”
Sasha returned and took their orders. Maya ordered a salad, which he expected she wouldn’t eat, but she was drinking her soft drink, so that was something. “So what do you do in Denver besides teach English?” he asked.
“I do poetry slams.”
Again, not what he would have expected. “That’s where people get up and perform poetry they’ve written, right?”
“Exactly.” She didn’t even try to hide her surprise.
“We may be a little out of the way here in Eagle Mountain, but we’re not completely backward,” he said.
“Have you ever been to a poetry slam?” she asked.
“No. But then, I can’t say I’ve ever cared much for poetry. Probably comes from having to memorize ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ when I was in fourth grade.”
“My poetry isn’t like that.”
“I kind of figured.”
She fell silent and Gage focused on his food as soon as Sasha had placed the dishes on the table. When he looked up again, Maya was staring at him. “I’d like to see Angela,” she said softly.
He should have seen that coming. “I can arrange that. Maybe late tomorrow.” He leaned toward her. “Is there someone else you should call to be here with you? Another sibling? Your parents?”
“I spoke to my parents after I talked to you,” she said. “They live in Arizona. My mom isn’t in good health and traveling is hard for her. And there’s nothing they can do. I told them they should stay put until we know more. And there aren’t any other siblings.”
“Okay.” So she had to bear this all by herself. He would do what he could to ease the burden for her.
“What about you?” she asked. “I know you have a brother—the sheriff. Any other brothers and sisters?”
“I have a sister. She’s a graduate student at CSU. Our parents have a ranch just outside of town.”
She speared a cherry tomato on her fork. “A ranch as in cows?”
“And horses. The Walking W Ranch has been in operation since 1942. My great-grandparents started it.”
“So do you, like, ride and rope and all that stuff?” she asked.
He suppressed a grin. “All that stuff.”
“That explains the belt buckle.”
He glanced down at the large silver-and-gold buckle, which he had won as State Junior Champion Bronc Rider in high school. “I was riding horses years before I learned to ride a bicycle,” he said. “And I still help out with fall roundup.”
She shook her head. “Our lives are so different we could be from two different countries.”
“We’re probably not that different,” he said. “I’ve found that people behave pretty much the same wherever they’re from.”
“Well, I’m from the city and I have no desire to ride a horse. And I hope you won’t take this wrong, but I thought my sister was crazy when she said she and Greg were thinking about moving here.”
“You told me they bought the mining claims for a demonstration project, not to live on.”
“That’s right. But they were talking about finding a place here in town. They had fallen in love with Eagle Mountain. I don’t know why.”
“You might be surprised,” Gage said. “I’ve heard from other people that the place has a way of growing on you.”
“I just want to find my niece and go home.” She looked all in, her eyes still red and puffy from crying, her shoulders slumped.
Gage pushed aside his plate. “You must be exhausted,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take you to your car at the sheriff’s office and you can follow me to the B and B.”
Fifteen minutes later, they parked at the curb in front of the Victorian home Paige Riddell had converted into a bed-and-breakfast. The light over the front door came on and Paige stepped out. “I’m Paige,” she said, coming forward to take Maya’s bag. “You’ve had a pretty miserable day, I imagine, so I won’t prolong it, but I will say how sorry I am for your loss.”
“Thank you.” Maya gave Paige a long look. “Gage said I would like you—that he thought we’d have a lot in common.”
“That depends,” Paige said. “Some folks around here think of me as the local tree-hugging rabble-rouser, but I don’t take that as an insult.”
“Then yeah, I think we’ll get along fine,” Maya said.
“Let me show you to your room.” Paige put an arm around Maya and ushered her into the house. In the doorway, she stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Gage. “Don’t leave yet,” she mouthed, then went into the house with Maya.
Gage moved to the porch swing to the right of the door and sat, letting the calm of the night seep into him. Only one or two lights shone in the houses that lined the street, not enough to dim the stars overhead. He thought of the little girl in the woods and hoped she was where she could see those stars, and that maybe, seeing them, she wouldn’t feel so alone.
The door opened and Paige stepped out. “I got her settled in,” she said. “Grief can be so exhausting. I hope she’s able to get some sleep.”
“I’ll come by and pick her up in the morning and take her up to the campsite,” he said. “We’re hoping her niece will see her and come to her. I found out tonight that the little girl is deaf, so she wouldn’t hear us calling
for her.”
Paige sat in a wicker armchair adjacent to the swing. “I can’t even imagine how worried Maya is. I don’t even know this kid and it upsets me to think of her out there.”
Gage stifled a yawn. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked.
“Yes. I wanted to tell you I saw that couple—Maya’s sister and her husband—the day before yesterday. And the little girl. She was with them. Adorable child.”
Gage sat up straight, fatigue receding. “Where was this?”
“Some of us from Eagle Mountain Conservation went up to Eagle Mountain Resort—you know, those mining claims Henry Hake wanted to develop?”
Gage nodded. Eagle Mountain Conservation had succeeded in getting an injunction to stop the development three years ago. “You saw the Hood family up there?”
“They were unloading camping gear from a white SUV parked on the side of the road. I guess they were camping on one of the claims near Hake’s property.”
“They bought the claim and I guess a few others in the area,” Gage said. “But what were you doing on Henry Hake’s land? It’s private property.”
Paige frowned at him, a scowl that had intimidated more than one overzealous logger, trash-throwing tourist or anyone else who attracted the wrath of the EMC. “We weren’t on his land. There’s a public easement along the edge of the property. It’s a historic trail that’s been in use since the 1920s. We established that in court, and Hake and his partners had to take down a fence they had erected blocking access. It was part of the injunction order that stopped the development.”
“So you went up there to hike the trail?”
“We had heard complaints that the fence was back up, so we went to check,” she said.
“And was it up?”
“Yes. With a big iron gate across it. Our lawyers have already filed a complaint with the county commissioners. We tried getting in touch with Hake, but didn’t have any luck.”
“He’s been missing for almost a month now,” Gage said. “No one has heard anything from him, and every trail we’ve followed up on has gone cold.”
“A man like that probably has plenty of enemies,” Paige said. “And he hung around with some nasty people. Maybe that former bodyguard of his did him in.”
