Page 15 of Peak Suspicion
“I should go check on my dad,” Mitch said. “He sounded pretty shook up when he called. I just thought you’d want to know about the missing boy.”
Shayla stood. “I should go, too,” she said. “I’ll walk with you to the parking lot.” She glanced at Mira. “If you’ll be okay?”
“I’ll be fine. Go.” Mira waved her away.
Alone, she stared at her half-empty backpack and the stack of student tests she needed to take home and grade. But the news of another child victim had left her stuck to her chair. What had she been doing when the announcement came that David was missing? She couldn’t remember. The next day she had gone with some other teachers to volunteer to help search for him. The next day—or maybe the next?—she hadattended a candlelight vigil organized by the family’s church. The child’s disappearance—and the discovery that he had been murdered—had been a tragedy that brought strangers together. At first everyone was focused on taking care of the family and monitoring the news and social media feeds for any updates about the murderer.
But after a while, when the crime remained unsolved, people returned to their regular lives. David wasn’t forgotten, exactly, but memory of the tragedy faded.
Someone here in Eagle Mountain remembered it, though. And had decided to connect Mira with it. Nothing about that made sense to her.
She picked up her phone and thought about texting Carter. To say what?Be careful? Good luck?
Instead, she slid the phone into her pack, along with the papers that needed grading. She found her keys and headed to the rental car—a small red sedan—that her auto insurance company had provided while they determined whether they would pay for her Toyota to be repaired or declare it totaled. When David had disappeared, she had gathered with friends and family. With Shayla busy with Mitch, she was keenly aware of how alone she was. How much of that was circumstance, and how much her own fault for always keeping people—men—at arm’s length?
“We’re looking forBryce Atkinson, age eleven,” Danny told the assembled volunteers. “Four feet three inches tall, eighty pounds. Blond hair, blue eyes. He’s wearing a blue Eagle Mountain Raptors T-shirt, blue jeans and white-and-gray tennis shoes. He may have a blue backpack.”
“How do we know this report of a boy running from a car in this area is even accurate?” Dalton asked.
“We don’t,” Danny said. “But we have to assume that a boy might be out there who needs our help until we learn otherwise.”
Sheriff Travis Walker came to stand beside Danny and the volunteers fell silent. “I’ve spoken with Bryce’s father,” the sheriff said. “He tells me Bryce hiked up here with the family last summer. Bryce is in Scouts and likes the outdoors. His dad thinks he would look for a trail and head down, toward town. But if he’s afraid of a pursuer, he would hide, so be sure to search any caves and rock crevices that might be big enough to conceal a child.”
“Do you think the kidnapper is up here, too?” a woman farther back in the crowd asked.
“The only other car in the parking area when we arrived—a bright blue Jeep—belonged to a couple of hikers,” the sheriff said. “They didn’t see anything or meet up with anyone else on the trail. If the kidnapper was here, I think they’re gone now.”
They divided into groups of three and set out to sweep the section of the map they were assigned. They moved slowly, a few feet apart, striving to look under every shrub and behind every large rock and in every hole, and over every ledge. In addition to Bryce himself, they searched for any sign he had been here—small footprints, torn pieces of clothing, or any kind of distress signal he might have fashioned.
Carter tried to put himself in Bryce’s shoes. If a person he didn’t know grabbed him and forced him into a car, what would he do? Had the kidnapper tied up the boy? Or knocked him out? Then what?
“Why would someone bring a kid all the way up here?” he asked fellow volunteer Vince Shepherd.
“Maybe the kidnapper knew he had to get out of town quickly, but thought they might meet up with too many cops or nosy people if they took the highway to Junction,” Vince said. A tall, muscular man with dark hair, Vince had a reputation for beingquiet, but dependable. “There’s a lot less traffic up here in the high country. Not too many tourists this time of year. Maybe he stopped to restrain the kid better or threaten him or worse, and the boy saw his chance and got away.”
“I hope he did,” Harper Vernon said. “And I hope he hurt his kidnapper when he did.”
They continued the search, alternately calling Bryce’s name, and identifying themselves as search and rescue. Carter climbed up a steep jumble of car-sized boulders and stood at the top, surveying the landscape below. At first he saw only stillness—gray and red rocks, dark green trees, and the occasional flash of paler green or green-yellow from aspens on the verge of changing to the gold of fall.
Something flashed blue in the corner of his eye. Was that a bird? There wasn’t a breeze, but that tree limb had definitely moved. He looked over his shoulders and saw Vince and Harper searching below. He checked to his left again. Whatever was down there was moving away from him. Was it because they were afraid?
The blue flashed again, farther away this time. Definitely not a bird. If that was Bryce, he was fast moving out of sight.
Carter scrambled down and began heading in the direction of his last sighting. No more methodical searching—he was almost running, stumbling over loose rock and flailing to maintain balance as he slid on the heavy duff of dried piñon needles. When he caught a glimpse of blue again, he stopped and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Eagle Mountain Search and Rescue!” he shouted. “We’re looking for Bryce Atkinson.”
Whatever was ahead of him was crashing through the underbrush, making so much noise Carter wondered if they could even hear him. He took a deep breath and charged forward again, batting aside branches and ducking under larger limbs.
He came to a low stand of mountain willow, the thin branches repeatedly snagging at his pants, when he caught the flash of blue out of the corner of his left eye once more. He froze, and pretended to focus on freeing himself from the willow, but watched the blue. It wasn’t moving, and as he watched he thought he could make out the shape of a person, crouched in the underbrush, scarcely six feet away.
Carter straightened. He still didn’t look at the boy, but said, in a conversational tone, “My name is Carter Ames. I’m with Eagle Mountain Search and Rescue. Bryce, if you’re ready to go home to your mom and dad, I promise I’ll take you to them.”
He waited, holding his breath. Then twigs snapped and leaves rustled. A boy, dressed only in a blue T-shirt and white underwear, rose up out of the willows. He stared at Carter’s blue-and-yellow search and rescue vest, then began to push his way through the willows toward him, a pained look on his face.
Carter tried not to show his alarm at the blood trickling down the boy’s legs. But Bryce noticed him staring. The boy looked down at his legs, which were lacerated with a thousand shallow scratches from the willow branches. “He took my pants and shoes,” he said. “He told me it was so I wouldn’t run away. But first chance I got, I did run.”
Carter crouched to get a closer look. The boy wore dirty and tattered white crew socks. “Your feet must be pretty sore, running over all these rocks,” he said.
Bryce made a face. Carter thought he was trying hard not to cry. One of his eyes was swelling shut. Had the kidnapper done that to him? A surge of fierce protectiveness brought a lump to Carter’s throat. He swallowed hard, and fought to keep his voice even. “You’re a brave kid,” he said. “Are you ready to go home?”
