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, then 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.”
