C. Box - The Highway

They were in the trailer of the truck, and it was moving. She had no idea how long they’d been there or when the ride would be over.

The smell of her own vomit joined with the sawdust and varnish and cold stagnant air inside the container. Whatever was in the syringe was taking hold of her again, pulling her down, and she felt herself swoon. There was some comfort when she closed her eyes again, and she knew she wouldn’t last very long before she passed out again.

10:59 P.M. Tuesday, November 20

Cody’s cell phone lit up and he snatched it up from his home office desk and looked at the display: dispatch calling back.

“Edna,” he said, “Tell me something good.”

“Everybody always asks me that,” she said, “and I always let them down.”

He frowned. His head was pounding. The ibuprofen had done no good. Every cell in his body screamed, More alcohol! at him-a familiar feeling. He idly wondered what proof was listed on the bottle of Listerine in the bathroom.

Cassie was in the kitchen with Jenny. He had no doubt they were talking about him , since he was probably the only thing they had in common.

Edna was the senior dispatcher at the L amp;C Sheriff’s Department and she’d only recently given up trying to marry Cody off to someone-anyone-to complete one of her life goals. She hated the idea of single cops in the department, and she claimed she’d played matchmaker to eighteen relationships over the years. Of those, half were still married. Cody was grateful Jenny had come home for many reasons, but getting Edna off his back was an unexpected bonus.

“I checked with state dispatch as well as the NPS emergency center in the park,” she said. “There are no reports of accidents involving a car of that description either on state highways or in Yellowstone. I asked the troopers at the I-90 roadblock to look for a car of that description and we’re waiting for a callback.”

“Crap,” Cody said.

Edna said, “Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re not out there somewhere, but no one has called it in.”

Cody said, “That includes the Beartooth Highway, the road in Yellowstone from Cooke City to Mammoth, and Mammoth to Livingston?”

“You don’t have to repeat it,” she said. “I got it the first time. No one has called anything in on a red Ford Focus with Colorado plates.”

“Damn,” he said, leaning back in his chair. He’d been checking on his computer to monitor the roadblock on I-90-the Montana Department of Transportation site still said the road was closed. That was good because it isolated hundreds of westbound vehicles in one place and if the girls were stopped in traffic they’d be located. But the odds weren’t good, since Justin said they’d taken the alternative route.

“We need to put out an alert on that vehicle,” Cody said. “Let everybody know to keep a lookout and call you if they find it. Let the Wyoming folks and the Idaho folks know about it, too, just in case those girls really screwed up and went out another park entrance. Can you do that, Edna?”

“Already done,” she said. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Cody.”

“Here are the descriptions of the occupants of the car,” Cody said, giving Edna the details from memory.

“One of them is your son’s girlfriend?” Edna asked.

“Yes.” Then: “Sort of. Used to be.”

He thought of something. “Edna, have there been any reports of cell phone outages? That could explain the lack of communication.”

She said there had been no reports. Then she asked him to hold on for a moment, and he could hear the beeping of numbers being punched on a keypad, then Edna saying, “Just checking” to someone. She came back on the line and said, “I just called my sister Sally’s cell phone in Gardiner from my cell phone. It went right through.”

“Another theory knocked down,” he grumbled.

“I’ll let you know the second I hear something,” she said. “But you know how kids are. They could just be lost, or whatever.”

“Well, we need to find them,” he said.

“Have the parents been notified?”

“No. I’ll do it but I want to make sure I can tell them something one way or the other. In fact, can you look up a number for me in Omaha? Ted Sullivan. He’s the father.”

What wasn’t said between them was that the most horrific duty of anyone in law enforcement was to be the one to notify parents of missing or hurt children. Cody had done it too many times, and it tore his heart out. And he rarely even knew the victims.

“I’ll do that and get back to you,” she said.

“Send the number in an e-mail,” Cody said.

“Ten-four,” she said. Then: “I called a state trooper I know who is stationed between Livingston and Gardiner. He used to be married to Sally. His name is Rick Legerski and I left a message on his voice mail about what was going on. I hope you don’t mind that I left him your number.”

Cody sat back. “ Thank you, Edna. That was good thinking.” He jotted the name down on his pad.

There was a long moment of silence before Edna said, “Cody, I heard you were suspended today.”

“Just a flesh wound,” Cody said. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Will I get in trouble with the sheriff for helping you out?”

“Maybe,” Cody said. “If you want to tell him.”

“I won’t.”

“Besides, would you really not want to find those stupid girls?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, then,” he said.

“Dispatch clear,” Edna said.

He mumbled a thank you and closed his phone.

* * *

“No luck?” Cassie asked from the door. He realized she’d been there since the phone rang and had been listening in.

“Not yet,” he said.

She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the living room, obviously checking to see where Jenny and Justin were, then stepped in and closed the door behind her.

“Cody,” she said, “what do you really think?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “But I do know it’s not going to help anybody to panic. We’re pulling the trigger on this thing pretty fast. If someone called in the situation to me at my desk, given the short time period that’s lapsed between the last text message and now, I’d counsel them to calm down and wait for at least a couple more hours.”

She nodded. “This Danielle,” she said. “Is she trouble?”

Cody said, “Oh, she is. But she’s that kind of trouble boys find irresistible. You should see her picture.”

Cassie said, “Justin showed me a shot of her on Facebook. She looks like the kind of girl who used to take me aside and tell me I could be pretty if I just tried .”

Cody smiled.

“So,” she said, turning serious, “what do we do?”

He nodded at his phone. “We wait. Somebody out there will locate them.” He didn’t say how. Or what they’d find.

She came over and leaned against the edge of the desk, facing him. She said, “What does your gut tell you? Just between us?”

He looked away for a moment, then back at her. “We give it a couple of hours. The word is out to the highway patrol, local law enforcement, game wardens, and park rangers. There may not be a lot of ’em out there this time of night, but if they’re out on patrol there aren’t that many roads to check.”

She took in a deep breath and crossed her arms. “And if after a couple of hours we don’t hear anything?”

“Then we start to get worried,” he said. “This is the kind of situation where time is everything. If they are in trouble, well, we can’t act fast enough.

“In fact,” he said, squinting up at her, “if we don’t hear anything soon I’m going to head down there and start rousting people.”