very sorry about your son, but I can assure you many excellent people will be helping in the search.”
She drew in a slow breath and when she met his gaze, he could see a layer of steel underneath the pain.
“I don’t need platitudes, Agent Davis. I need action. Why is everyone standing around and not out there looking for my son?”
He had to respect her grit. “It’s very important in cases like this not to go racing off in a hundred different directions and run the risk of trampling over your son’s trail. When the sun comes up in an hour or so, you’ll see everybody here jump into action.”
“I can’t stand that he’s out there in the dark somewhere. I need to be out looking for him.”
Despite his best efforts to remain impartial, the emotion in her voice seemed to slither through his defenses.
“I know it’s tough but the best thing you can do for Cameron right now is to help us narrow the direction of our search. Would you mind going over the timeline with me?”
After a moment, she nodded. “I put him to bed as usual at about 9:00 p.m. He was sleeping soundly at ten when I checked on him—I tucked the blanket up so I know for sure he was in bed at that time. I woke at two and went to check on him and he was gone.”
“What woke you?”
She paused slightly. “I had a nightmare.”
“Is that unusual for you?”
“Not really.”
“And do you usually check your children when you wake from a bad dream in the middle of the night?”
He hadn’t meant to make his questions sound like an interrogation, but her mouth tightened.
“Look, Agent Davis, I know the drill here. I’ve watched enough television to know you have to consider me a suspect. I have no problem with that. None whatsoever. Take my DNA, my fingerprints, whatever. I’ll take a lie detector test or anything else you want. But please hurry, so you can quickly rule me out and focus on finding my son.”
Chapter 2
6:32 a.m.
He was in serious trouble.
Cameron hit the glow on his watch and groaned at the time. His mom was going to have a total cow. Most mornings she got up early to work in her office before he and Hailey woke up. If she checked on him like she usually did, by now she had probably found the stupid wadded blankets he thought had been such a great idea.
It seemed like such a baby thing to do now, something even Hailey could come up with.
If she had checked on him like usual, she must have figured out he was gone. He felt sick to his stomach just thinking about how worried she must be. She totally freaked out if he even walked an aisle away from her at the grocery store.
Had she called the police? Gosh, he hoped so. He thought of that terrible scream and the thud of a body falling and shivered in the cool, damp air, wishing he had the new jacket he’d taken off inside the entrance.
He had been lost in the maze of tunnels for more than four hours, and he had to admit that he was starting to get a little nervous about finding his way out again.
Like an idiot, he had gone way too far into the mine after that gunshot. He had just wanted to escape that ugly scene. By now, he was so turned around he didn’t know which way he’d come.
None of this seemed familiar. These tunnels were more narrow, barely wide enough for him to get through in spots.
He had tried to backtrack but was now more confused than ever.
His night vision goggles were worthless in here with no light to draw on, so he had abandoned them a ways back and pulled his flashlight out of his bag.
He wasn’t completely unprepared. He might have made mistakes, but at least he hadn’t been that stupid. After he first found the mine entrance a few weeks earlier, he had checked out a book on spelunking from the library, slipping it between a book on soccer and a middle reader mystery so his mom wouldn’t see it and suspect anything.
The book said to always wear a helmet for head protection when exploring underground places. A caver could bump his head on a low ceiling if he wasn’t careful.
All he had was his bike helmet so he had used that. He was grateful for it now since he’d already bonked his head twice in the low tunnels.
The book also said to take along three sources of illumination. Besides the now-worthless night vision goggles, he had two flashlights with two extra sets of batteries for each.
They weren’t going to last long, he knew. Since he was taking a short break, he turned off the flashlight for now to conserve energy, grateful it hung on a lanyard around his neck so he couldn’t lose it. That was a trick his dad taught him when they used to go fishing and stuff, always to keep his light handy.
His dad would have been really mad at him for worrying his mom like this.
He sighed, taking a sip from one of two water bottles he’d stowed in his backpack earlier that evening. He also had a couple of granola bars, some hard candy and a banana.
Without his mom seeing, he had also managed to sneak a few other survival items out of his dad’s stuff stored in the garage, like a first aid kit, one of those shiny survival blankets and a lighter.
He didn’t dare use the lighter inside the mine, though. He knew enough from reading that spelunking book to know there could be bad air inside these places and he didn’t want to risk it.
He looked at his watch again: six forty-five. How long would it take the police to start looking for him? And how would they ever figure out he was inside here, trapped in miles of tunnels with a dead guy?
He shivered again, wishing with all his heart he was back in his bed complaining at his mom for coming in to wake him up so soon.
8:15 a.m.
The community had turned out in force.
Megan stood on her porch and looked out at the crowds of volunteer searchers waiting for assignments to begin combing the foothills above her house.
The sun had barely crested the mountains to the east, but already an empty field at the edge of her five acres had been turned into a staging area for the search.
A Moose Springs Search and Rescue trailer served as the mobile command center, and she could see horses and all-terrain vehicles being unloaded and dozens of strangers with water bottles and fanny packs milling around as the various agencies involved worked out all the necessary search details.
How could this all have happened so suddenly? The FBI agent had been right. Once the sun rose, the search effort had ramped up significantly. Now everything looked organized and efficient. For the first time since she found that horribly empty bed, hope began to flutter through her.
“Looks like word travels fast.”
She turned to find the FBI agent who had grilled
