Page 5 of Canyon of Deceit
“That’s where I can help you. Alina has GPS trackers hidden in her shoes. Not even Daria knew about them.”
“Why would you track your young daughter?”
“Alina’s biological mother died when she was a baby, and I’ve been consumed with protecting my daughter ever since. I checked my phone app and learned at one thirty this afternoon, Alina was taken to a private landing strip west of Houston. I called there, and a woman who worked in the small office said no one had filed a flight plan. But she made a mistake. The tracker had stopped registering.” He coughed and asked me to wait while he got a glass of water.
A connection at Harris County Office of Homeland Security & Emergency Management popped into my consciousness. They had the technology to confirm the date and time a plane took to the skies and where it landed.
“I’m better. I apologize for my lack of control,” the professor said. “My app showed tracking again near an abandoned airstrip in a remote area south of Hobbs, New Mexico. The tracking indicated ground-speed movement for two and a half hours to a section on the north side of Guadalupe Mountains National Park called Dog Canyon. That’s where the tracking ended, and I’ve detected nothing since. I assume the kidnappers parked the vehicle and proceeded on foot with Alina. Research shows the area is off-grid. Ms. Palmer, did they remove her shoes? How would they expect her to walk in bare feet?”
My thoughts trailed to the worst possible scenario. Why take Alina to a remote location unless they planned to dispose of her body there? Another argument lay with logic. Why go to the expense of transporting a kidnap victim there when they had the ability to dispose of her body in their backyard? A morbid idea, except true. Whatever the reason, they risked exposure from security cameras until they reached an off-grid area.
“I can’t stress enough how the authorities have technology and skills to find Alina. They can unravel valid threats and comprehend the danger of taking your story to the media.”
“The man who called me said they’d be watching my every move. I bought a burner phone tonight to call you.”
His anguish rippled through me, interfering with my ability to think clearly. “What about the ransom?”
“I can liquidate assets here and in Russia to meet their demands,but the statistics on kidnappers returning my Alina alive are not good. Perhaps they would accept what I can put together now. I’m sorry... I wish I had an answer. Why harm an eight-year-old little girl?”
“I have empathy for your grief.” Daria’s lovely face and the white-blonde-haired little girl refused to leave me alone. “Although I could lead you into Dog Canyon, I have no idea how to pull her out of the clutches of dangerous men. You’d need armed law enforcement and possibly a negotiator.”
“That would draw attention. I’ll pay you whatever you want.”
“Money is not the issue, Professor—”
“Alina means more to me than anything else in this world. What is love but to take ownership of a problem and do all I can to stop those men?”
“What if I fail?” The terror of not finding his daughter alive resurrected an echo from the past that had shaped my career.
“Can you live with yourself if you don’t try?”
Unaware, he’d pressed my weakest button. “I’ll hear you out. But I don’t believe you’ve given me the whole story, and I need the truth before I risk my life.”
“I’ve... I’ve given you all of it.”
“You’ve stated what youwantme to know. What have you done or not done in this tragedy that Daria is dead, Alina is missing, and you can’t go to the police?”
TWO
NEW CANEY, TEXAS
I paced the floor of my bedroom, battling the war within my soul. Professor Ivanov’s tragedies reached into the fiber of the woman I am today. A helpless little girl caught up in a vicious crime? My emotional fiber screamed to say yes to a rescue mission, but reason shouted just as loudly that I didn’t have all the information to make a solid decision.
I arranged to meet Professor Ivanov at The Breakfast Brew restaurant at 5:00 a.m. The early hour meant Houston traffic hadn’t paralyzed the interstate. The time gave me a few hours to think and pray about his tragic story and how best to respond. I had no idea what to do about his missing daughter. If answers were supposed to come with a morning sun that streaked orange and yellow across the sky, would I soon see through the darkness? How had I been caught in the middle of such an impossible situation?
I weighed the odds of finding Alina alive, and doubt shook my confidence. Maneuvering uncharted trails across rough terrain where others refused to venture or weren’t equipped with the wilderness skills didn’t frighten me. But something far worse hovered over my psyche.
I’d found the hideous remains of adults who’d succumbed to nature’s pitfalls, but never a helpless child.
Kate dictated my life after twenty years. Alina was the same age as Kate when she died. I couldn’t save her, and now Alina faced potential death.
Alina suffering under the control of the monster who might have killed her mother caused me to forget all manner of good sense. How had the kidnappers navigated her to Dog Canyon? How had they raised and lowered her over steep inclines and slippery shale rock? With ropes? Carried her?
If I accepted the job, I needed a member of law enforcement whom I trusted... Someone wilderness-worthy with negotiation skills and able to expertly use a firearm without hesitation.
A man’s name held my attention. Seven months ago in Houston, I’d trained Texas Rangers on wilderness-survival skills through a four-day-long series of hands-on classes. One of the Rangers worked in the Crisis Negotiation Unit—CNU. A man I respected. He had a master’s degree in psychology and a reputation as a risk-taker. I needed a trained professional who put others first... providing he let me lead and give the orders.
Captain Blane Gardner.
