Page 40 of Peak Suspicion
“No you won’t. And it will make you feel better. I promise.”
“All right. I’ll come with you. Where do you want to go?”
“I’ll think of a good trail by tomorrow. Be ready about ten?”
“Sounds good.” She wiped her eyes, then squeezed Mira’s hand. “Thanks. You’re a good friend.”
“So are you.” She would do her best to distract Shayla from her worst thoughts. And if those thoughts turned out to be true, she would give her a shoulder to lean on. She was someone who had been through a similar situation and come out the other side, wounded, but still standing.
Saturday night, Carter stoppedhimself three times from calling Mira. If she wanted to hear from him, she would contact him. She had asked him to be patient, so he had to do that—no matter how impatient the idea made him.
Dalton looked up from his computer. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked. “You’re like a hyperactive puppy that can’t sit still for two seconds. You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m just restless.” He stopped to look over Dalton’s shoulder at his computer screen. But the strings of numbers there made no sense to him.
“Then go for a run. Or to the bar. Just get out of here.”
“Good idea.” He grabbed his keys and headed out the door. Not for a run, but to Mo’s Pub. The server at the door greeted him. “You’re with search and rescue, right?” she asked. “Those guys are at the big table in the back.”
“Is this a meeting no one told me about?” he asked as he approached the table. Ryan, Vince, Eldon, and Tony, their girlfriends, and several climbers Carter recognized but didn’t know well were crowded around the table, with pitchers of beer and platters of pizza between them.
“Carter! Come join us.” Vince scooted over to make room and Carter pulled a chair from another table. “You know Tammy.” Vince introduced the curly-haired blonde with him. “She writes for the paper.”
“Hi, Tammy,” Carter said. Several other people introduced themselves. Someone handed him a beer and someone else passed over a platter of pizza. He helped himself. “So what’s going on?” he asked.
“We just all ended up here,” Ryan said.
“Some of us were climbing over in Caspar Canyon and came here because we were hungry and thirsty,” Eldon said. “The others just showed up, like you.”
“Everyone ends up at Mo’s sooner or later,” Tony said.
“Hey, anybody know what’s up with Mitch Anders?” one of the climbers at the other end of the table asked. “I heard he was arrested.”
“Mitch?” Ryan’s girlfriend, Deni, asked. “What for?”
“Apparently, they think he’s the guy who tried to kidnap that kid. The one we searched for and found up above Galloway Basin,” Tony said.
“No way,” the climber said. “Mitch?”
“I heard he has an alibi,” Carter said. “He was at school that afternoon. I know a couple of people who saw him.”
“Who?” Ryan asked.
“Mira Veronica and another teacher. She said Mitch was at school all afternoon.”
“Then why arrest him?” Tony asked. “They must have some evidence.”
“I don’t know,” Carter admitted.
“Your brother is a cop, isn’t he?” Vince asked. “What does he say?”
“Aaron doesn’t talk about stuff like that.” He took a bite of pizza, an excuse to stop talking.
“Mitch always struck me as a good guy,” Ryan said. “It just goes to show you never really know about people. They must have had some good evidence to arrest him.”
“Maybe the kid identified him,” Eldon’s girlfriend, May, said.
“Maybe they got DNA or something,” someone else suggested.
