stumps to trip over, holes to fall into, rocks to stumble on. And what about wild animals? Surely there were bears and mountain lions and no telling what else out here that might view a five-year-old girl as a tasty snack. She shuddered and pushed the thought aside. A child couldn’t just vanish this way. She had to be somewhere.
“Look here.”
Her heart jumped in her chest at Gage’s words, and she hurried to catch up to him. He stood alongside the fence, pointing to a depression in the ground. “This looks like a place some animal has been going under the wire,” he said.
Maya frowned at the muddy hole. “You think Casey went under there?”
“She might have. She would fit, wouldn’t she?”
“Yes, but why would she get down in the mud like that?”
“If she saw people or saw a building on the other side, she might risk it,” he said.
She turned to look through the fence. The rose hedge was less dense here, but she didn’t see anything but trees at first. Then she spotted what looked like the corner of a building. “If she did go in there, how are we going to follow?” she asked. “I can’t fit through that hole, and I know you can’t.”
“We should be getting to the public trail soon.”
Another ten minutes of walking took them to the end of the fence—and to a large iron gate blocking a well-worn trail. “That looks new,” Maya said, studying the fresh-looking concrete around the gateposts.
“It is new,” Gage said. “And it’s against the law to block a public trail.” He looked around, as if searching for something.
“What are you looking for?” Maya asked.
“Something to break that padlock.”
The padlock was large and heavy. “I don’t think a rock is going to do it,” she said.
“No.” He drew the gun from the holster at his hip. “Stand back.”
“You’re not going to sho—” But apparently, he was. The blast echoed through the woods and Maya covered her ears and closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the lock lay shattered on the ground.
Gage pushed open the gate. “Stay behind me, and if we meet anyone, I’ll do the talking.”
She resisted the urge to roll her eyes at him. She got that he was used to being in charge, but he ought to have figured out by now that she didn’t like being ordered around. She forgot her annoyance as she moved farther away from the gate into what looked like a long-abandoned ghost town. The remains of paved streets showed between patches of grass and even small trees that grew up through the asphalt. A few windowless concrete buildings crouched alongside crumbling concrete foundations or stakes topped with faded plastic ribbons that fluttered in the breeze.
Maya moved up alongside Gage. “What is this place?” she asked, keeping her voice low. “It’s creepy.”
“It was going to be an exclusive resort, with luxury homes, a country club and a golf course.”
“Why wasn’t it built?”
“Paige and a group of like-minded citizens got together and filed a lawsuit to stop the building. They convinced a judge that this was a fragile environmental zone that wouldn’t support that kind of development. The judge agreed.”
“Do you agree?” she asked.
He glanced at her. “I do. But I can’t say leaving it like this is much better. It’s an eyesore.” He led the way across one of the crumbling streets, toward a row of three curved ducts jutting up from the ground.
“What are those?” she asked.
“Probably air vents for underground storage, or possibly machinery—a power plant or something. They could even be venting gasses from an old mine.”
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