Page 5 of Peak Suspicion
“Someone tried to snatch a kid last night,” Mitch said. “I guess the boy got away, but the sheriff wants everyone to be on the lookout for anyone acting suspicious around the kids.”
“That’s horrible,” Shayla said. “Who was the boy?”
“I don’t know,” Mitch said. “And apparently, he wasn’t able to give much of a description of the person who tried to grab him. The bulletin from the sheriff’s office mentions a white car, but that’s about it.”
“Lots of people drive white cars,” Shayla said. “Mira has a white car. So does Principal Martin. So do you.”
“I think it’s one of the most common car colors,” Mitch said. “So that’s not going to help the cops much.”
“I hope they find whoever it was before some child gets hurt,” Shayla said.
The bell rang, signaling classes would begin in ten minutes. “We’d better go,” Shayla said.
“You ladies have a good day,” Mitch said.
Mira followed Shayla out of the teachers’ lounge and made her way to her classroom. She nodded to students and fellow teachers who greeted her, even as her mind raced with her memories of David Ketchum’s disappearance three years ago.The nine-year-old boy had been snatched off the street and found dead several days later. The crime had dominated news headlines in Santa Fe for weeks, but the killer had never been found. That someone would think Mira had anything to do with such a horrible thing shook her badly. The news that someone had tried to abduct a child here in Eagle Mountain was too eerie a coincidence. The two incidents had no connection, surely, but it unsettled her.
Once in her classroom, she booted up her laptop and pulled up a search engine. Her first period was open. She was supposed to use it for meetings with students who needed extra help, or working on the day’s lessons, but she had no appointments today. Instead, she searched for information about David Ketchum.
Mira had been a second-year teacher at the time. David had been one of her youngest students, in a Spanish-language class for elementary school students. Mira traveled from the high school two days a week to play language games with third and fourth graders. The emphasis was on conversational Spanish and she tried to make the classes fun. David was a charming boy with beautiful brown eyes and a sweet disposition.
He disappeared two weeks before school let out for the summer. The news that he had vanished on his way home from school shook everyone. Mira had joined her fellow teachers in searching for him. As she scanned online accounts of those days she was startled to come upon a photo of herself, standing with other teachers in a field just outside of town. The caption said they were a group preparing to search for the missing student.
Three days after he disappeared, David’s body was found in a shallow grave on public land a mile from town. He had been strangled. Mira felt sick all over again as she read the news accounts. David’s murderer had never been found, though thepolice questioned hundreds of people. As far as she could tell, there had never even been a suspect.
So why had someone suddenly decided thatshewas to blame?
She was still reading through the news stories when students began arriving for her second-period class. Hastily, she shut down the laptop and focused on the day’s lesson. By the time class ended, she was feeling calmer. By the end of the day, she had decided to chalk the letter up as someone’s idea of a sick joke. She would ignore them, they would see they couldn’t get a rise out of her, and eventually she would forget this had ever happened.
She maintained this positive attitude until she unlocked her car door and stared at a folded sheet of paper lying on the front seat. She had left the front windows rolled down a scant half inch to keep the interior of the car from getting so hot and someone must have slipped the note through the gap. She picked it up and sat, staring at the blank side of the paper, afraid to unfold it and read the message. She told herself she was being silly, and opened the note.
You can try to ignore what you did, but I won’t. David’s ghost cries out for justice.
She glanced around. Someone—Mitch Anders—was walking toward her. She looked down the row of cars. There was Mitch’s SUV, three vehicles down from hers. She couldn’t let him see her like this. With shaking hands, she fastened her seat belt, then started the car and pulled out of her spot. Mitch lifted a hand in greeting as she passed and she forced a smile to her lips.Nothing to see here. Everything’s fine.
She didn’t drive home. She was too terrified she would find another note there. Instead, she turned onto the highway outof town—the road that led up into the mountains. The soaring peaks, rushing waterfalls and crystalline sky never failed to lift her spirits.
Except today she had a tough time focusing on the scenery. Her mind kept replaying the messages in those notes, alongside the details of David’s disappearance and death. How could anyone believe she had anything to do with that horrible crime? And why focus on her now, almost three years later? None of it made sense.
Her heart raced, and with it, her car. She didn’t realize she was driving too fast until she skidded around a curve. Heart in her throat, she stomped on the brake, but that only made things worse. Her car slid, then fishtailed. She wrestled with the steering wheel, trying to bring the vehicle under control, but found herself helpless as the car careened off the road. The world tilted and she swallowed a scream as the car rolled onto its side, the seat belt choking her.
Chapter Three
Carter accelerated up the steep slope leading to the top of Dixon Pass. For once he wasn’t leading a tour group into the mountains. He’d borrowed a Jeep from the rental pool at Alpine Jeep Tours and Rentals, the family business, and headed out for a solo trail run. There was plenty of daylight left. He wasn’t interested in anything too extreme, just a chance to stretch his legs and get some fresh air.
A white Toyota SUV with a solitary driver was just ahead of him on the otherwise deserted road. The car’s tires squealed as it took a curve a little too fast. Carter wasn’t known for being an especially cautious driver, but working search and rescue had given him a healthy respect for these mountain roads. Probably the most common type of call he had responded to in his short time with Eagle Mountain SAR was traffic accidents.
He lost sight of the Toyota on a series of S curves as it surged ahead, and shifted his attention to watching for the turnoff to the trail he wanted to check out. Another half mile or so to go, he estimated. The directions to the trailhead said to take the first left after an old mine tram. He slowed for a particularly sharp curve and hit the brakes even harder at the sight of fresh skid marks on the roadway, leading over the edge. He craned his neck, trying to see if someone had gone over the side, but the angle was too steep. He slowed further, then pulled onto a narrow shoulder, shut off the engine and switched on his emergency flashers.
He hurried to stand on the edge of the road and peer down below. The drop wasn’t straight down from here, but a series of rock ledges. The white Toyota was on its side on the first ledge, about ten feet down, wedged against a stout pinion pine. He cupped his hands to his mouth. “Hello! Can you hear me?”
He listened, but the only sounds were the pinging of the Jeep’s engine cooling, and the gravel beneath his feet as he shifted his stance. He pulled out his phone, saw that he had a signal, and punched in 911.
“Rayford County Emergency Services. What is your emergency?”
“I’m here on Dixon Pass and a car just went over the side. It’s wedged on a ledge about ten feet down. I can see someone in there, but they’re not moving or responding to my shouts.”
“What is your name and location?”
