man who moved into the room past Addie was tall and rangy, his khaki uniform streaked with dirt, his face creased with exhaustion. “Gage Walker,” he said, extending his hand to Maya. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to meet you.”
“I told her you were out looking for her niece,” Adelaide said.
“We’ve got everybody in the county with any kind of experience in the woods out there looking for her,” Gage said. The chair behind the desk creaked under his weight as he settled into it, and the office seemed more claustrophobic than ever with his oversized, very masculine presence. Adelaide returned to the front office, leaving them alone.
Gage didn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes fixed on Maya, his expression unreadable. “Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked, setting the teacup on the desk.
He shook his head, as if coming out of a daze. “You said you’re a teacher?”
“Yes. I teach high school English at Centennial High School.”
Gage shook his head again. “None of my teachers ever looked like you.”
She stiffened. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, for one thing, none of them had blue hair.”
She touched the ends of her hair, which she had dip-dyed blue only two weeks before. “I made a deal with my students. If they brought up their achievement test scores, I would dye my hair blue.”
“Just not what I expected.”
He wasn’t what she had expected, either. He wasn’t slow and dumb, but he definitely looked right at home in this rugged country.
“What happened to my sister?” she asked.
“We’re still trying to get a complete picture, but it looks like your sister and her husband were in their camp when someone—probably more than one person—came up, tied their hands behind their backs and shot them.”
The picture his words created in her mind was almost too horrible to bear. She forced the image away and bit the inside of her cheek to stave off tears. She couldn’t break down now. She had to be strong. “They just shot them?”
“I’m sorry, yes.”
“Why? And what happened to Casey?”
“We’re trying to find the answers to both those questions. It’s possible whoever shot your sister and brother-in-law took Casey with them. But it’s also possible she ran away.” He leaned toward her. “Tell me about your niece. Is she a shy child—the type who would hide from strangers?”
“Casey isn’t really shy, no. But if she saw someone hurt her mother and father, of course she’d be afraid. And having a bunch of people she didn’t know stomping around the woods looking for her would probably frighten her even more.” She had a clear picture of the little girl, hiding behind a big rock or tree, watching all the commotion around her and too afraid to come out. “I want to go look for her. She knows me. She won’t hide from me.”
He nodded. “That makes sense. I’ll take you up to the camp, but I can’t allow you to go wandering around in the woods on your own. The terrain is rough and it’s getting dark. Even the trained searchers will have to pack it in soon and wait until morning.”
“Maybe she’s close to the camp and she’ll see me and come to me.” Maya stood. “Let’s go now. I don’t want to waste another minute.”
Gage rose also and motioned toward the door. “After you. My cruiser is parked out front.”
The black-and-white SUV sported the requisite light bar on top and the legend, Rayford County Sheriff’s Department, on the door. Gage walked around and opened the passenger door, then leaned in and scooped an armful of papers, file folders, gloves, a flashlight and who knew what else off the front seat. “Welcome to my mobile office,” he said, holding the door wide for her.
She climbed in, studying the tablet computer mounted to face the driver, the radio and the shotgun in a holder beside her seat. Gage buckled his seat belt and started the engine. “You said your sister and her husband had just bought the property they were camping on?” he asked as he pulled out into the street.
“Yes. They closed on the purchase last week and wanted to spend some time up there, enjoying the scenery.” She choked on the last word. Angela wouldn’t be enjoying anything anymore.
“So they bought the property to have a place to camp? Or did they plan to build a house up there?”
“Not a house, no. They bought up a bunch of old mining claims, with plans to reopen the mines.”
“Interesting choice.” He turned onto the highway, leaving the town behind. “Most of those old mines haven’t been worked in fifty or sixty years or more. Even then, most of them never earned much. Though I guess some people do still dig around in them as a hobby.”
“This wasn’t a hobby. Greg is—was—an engineer. He’s developed new techniques he thinks will make those old mines profitable again. He wanted to do a demonstration project here, and use that to sell his equipment to others.”
“That sounds like it could end up being pretty lucrative,” Gage said. “Did he have competitors? Anyone who might have killed him to get his ideas or to stop him from implementing them?”
“No! That’s crazy. He doesn’t know people like that. And he had patents on all the equipment he had designed. People don’t kill other people over things like that. If they wanted his ideas, they could have bought him out—or tried to.”
“So he never mentioned having been threatened by anyone?” Gage asked.
“No. And Angela would have told me if he had. She wasn’t one to hide her emotions from me. And if either one of them had thought they were in any danger at all, they never would have brought Casey up here.”
“Can you think of any reason someone would have killed them?” Gage asked. “Something in their pasts, maybe?”
“No.” She shook her head, fresh tears flowing in spite of her efforts to hold them back. “They were quiet, ordinary people.” She blotted the tears with her fingers and angled toward him. “Maybe they stumbled on drug activity—a meth lab or something like that—and were murdered because of it.”
“It’s possible,” Gage said. “And we’ll look into it. But most of the meth labs have moved to Mexico these days.” He slowed as they approached a bank of lights—headlights, work lights, even flashlights bobbed about in the woods on either side of the road.
“This is where they were killed?” Maya asked, staring at the confusion of lights and people—and lots and lots of trees and rocks and dirt. This was the place Angela had gushed about as being so beautiful?
“Yes.” Gage shut off the engine. “Stay with me,” he said. “If you go wandering off around here, you could end up falling down an abandoned mine shaft or stepping off a cliff.”
“Those things could have happened to Casey,” she said, climbing out of the SUV and following him down the side of the road.
“Hey,
