Page 28 of Serving my Dragon
“Maybe they didn’t bother logging my inquiries because there was no crime.”
“You know they’re supposed to keep a record of everything,” he chided. “Seems to me someone greased a palm or two.”
“Why would anyone pay to have them wipe my attempts to report a missing tourist?”
“That is a good question. Why indeed? And who? Because I’ll wager the same person ensured the embassy didn’t return your call.”
The dropped tidbit had me stiffening and turning my gaze from the hotel entrance. “Wait, what? How do you know that?”
“Someone from the embassy should have contacted you or Kayleigh. When I heard you hadn’t heard from them, I called a friend of mine who works there. She says while they’ve received several requests to help with lost passports, Kayleigh isn’t among them.”
“Someone’s trying to ensure she’s not found,” I murmured.
“And that she can’t go home,” Juan added.
“Why, though?”
“She is very pretty, and you know trafficking is at an all-time high.”
“Agreed, but she’s also older than those usually taken by the gangs.” They preferred younger and more malleable victims.
“Perhaps she’s an heiress and they want to ransom her location to her family.”
“She’s a kindergarten teacher and her parents are dead.”
“And? Maybe she came into a plump inheritance.”
“She’s not rich.” I’d have staked my life on it.
“Doesn’t leave many reasons why someone wouldn’t want her to be found or go home. Unless…” Juan lowered his voice. “She witnessed a crime.”
“This is real life, not a telenovela,” I snapped, even as Juan’s theory made a perverse sort of sense.
“Look at the facts. You found her roughed up with no memory. How did she get injured? What if someone tried to kill her and assumed they’d succeeded?”
“You’re being crazy. She probably fell. The canyon can be treacherous.”
“You think she went hiking by herself? No,” Juan answered before I could. “Meaning she would have been in a group. If she’d been injured, or tumbled or anything, someone would have given her aid or sent for help.”
He made a good point, one that had been niggling. Tourists didn’t wander the wilds on their own. And what of her friend?
“Who would want to kill a schoolteacher from Ohio?”
“I don’t know. Did she have anything on her when you found her? Drugs? Money? Jewels?”
I shook my head. “Nothing.” The only person who came out of the canyon with anything of value that day was me. Which was when it hit me. Pollita had mentioned people with cages near the volcano. People intent on capturing a dragon.
“You thought of something,” Juan stated.
“I found something while I was out there.”
“Treasure?”
I snorted. “No. A lizard.”
“That’s not unusual.”
“This one is.” I hesitated before blurting, “I found a dragon.” Yeah, I let it slip after chiding my mother about wanting to tell the family. But this was Tío Juan. I knew I could trust him.
