Ridley Pearson - In Harm's Way

“I thought you have to canvass.”

“When will Kira be back?”

“I don’t keep her calendar.”

“I’ll walk around the premises. No sign of the bear-man, right?”

“Kira will tell you she hears things, but that’s Kira.”

“And you? Do you hear things?”

She turned away, and he thought maybe he’d embarrassed her and he wondered how he’d managed. Gail had been out of his life long enough, and the girls had dominated his attention, that he’d forgotten about how dealing with a woman was so incredibly different.

“It may take me a while to get good at this,” he said. “I’ve lived in a bubble for too long. It may take me a while to remember that all women are not eleven-year-olds.”

He got the smile he’d been hoping for earlier.

“Some of us are seventeen,” she said.

“Point taken.”

“Have a look around. I’ll clean up and we’ll grab some dinner. That is, if you want?”

“It was my idea.”

“Take your time. Give me fifteen minutes.”

A woman who could clean up in fifteen minutes? He’d hit the mother lode.

“Back shortly,” he said.

Sunset was still two hours out, but dusk had begun as a change to the quality of light, the mountains stretching long shadows across the narrow valley and turning the air a dusty gray. Walt walked the perimeter of the property, admiring the garden beds all dominated by a profusion of vibrant lilies, and the meticulous landscaping, briefly envious of the wealth on display. The valley was a playground for trust funders, and there were times that kind of inherited, unearned money made him crazy. His tracker’s eye caught evidence of activity up the hill toward the east ridge, where he found a dump pile of dried twigs and leaves. He circled high above the house and cottage, then around and down a grassy slope overlooking a small teardrop pond. He walked the back side of the house, arriving at the attached garage, and peered in through the window to notice a vehicle missing from the first of the three bays.

He decided to mention the empty bay when he reconnected with Fiona.

“Does Kira use that car?”

Fiona gave him a sideways glance and crossed the drive. She keyed in a code and the first of the garage doors opened, revealing the empty space. Put her hands on her hips but said nothing.

“No, the vehicles are off-limits, except in emergencies. Though she must have taken it, because I’m sure it wasn’t stolen or anything. I could call her and ask, but I tried calling her earlier and her phone wasn’t picking up.”

“Not a big deal,” he said, wandering into the garage and admiring the two luxury cars in the other bays. He caught sight of a sheet of paper taped on the butt end of a tool cabinet. “LoJack,” he said.

“What?”

“Looks like the Engletons subscribe to a LoJack service. GPS boxes that can track cars down if they’re stolen.”

“That sounds like Michael. Should I call them and ask?”

“Can if you want. I don’t want to get Kira in any trouble. She’s had enough of it as it is. And to add insult to injury, if she’s taken off, then she’s probably lost her job.”

Fiona stood still as Walt wandered the garage.

“You think I should call the company first?” she asked.

“I think if you call, the Engletons will hear about it for sure, because there could be charges involved with tracking down a vehicle. I’ll bet Kira’s car is in the shop and she borrowed this one and didn’t dare tell you about it.”

“Probably.”

“I’d track her down first, you know?”

“Good idea.”

He held the door for her as she got into his Jeep, and she paused there a moment as if not knowing what to do. “You have to be careful,” she said.

“Why’s that?”

“I could get used to this.”

“Not such a bad thing.”

“You spoil me, I’ll be spoiled.”

“When you leave food on the shelf unattended, it spoils. When you pay attention to someone, they only get better.”

“I never would have figured you for a sweet-talker.”

“I suspect there are things about both of us that we have yet to learn. Isn’t that supposed to be the fun part?”

She didn’t answer. She pulled the door and he helped it shut, and only as he glanced at her through the windshield, as he came around the front of the Jeep, did it occur to him that with that statement he’d somehow bruised her. And he realized he had a lot to learn.

Fiona returned from her dinner with Walt and marched straight to the phone through a haze caused by constant flirting, two glasses of wine, and her unspoken concern for Kira. Her first instinct was to call Katherine, to try to find out if the anxiety she felt could be a result of her memory lapse, but she didn’t want to be overanalyzed and she didn’t need someone to question a decision she’d already made. So she Googled the name of the company on the sheet in the garage and asked how to go about tracking down a missing vehicle.

Angel rubbed warmly against her calf. Fiona reached down and cradled her in her lap and wondered if Angel and Beatrice would get along and whether or not it would ever come to that.

The man on the other end of the call spoke in a heavily accented Indian English that she found hard to understand. She repeated herself often, briefly losing track of her purpose, and finally determined that the company distinguished a missing vehicle from a stolen vehicle, and only offered their service for stolen vehicles.

The request to trace a stolen vehicle had to come from a police department. She was advised to report the vehicle as stolen and to tell the police department to make the request with their company as soon as possible. Vehicles reported within the first three hours of theft were statistically proven to suffer the least amount of damage and vandalism.

She hung up. Tried Kira’s cell phone for the umpteenth time in the past two days and listened as it went directly to voice mail, disconnecting without leaving a tenth message only to have it never returned.

She considered calling Kira’s parents, but knew of the strained relationship there and didn’t want to get the girl in trouble over nothing. But was it nothing? Was it a coincidence that Kira had been missing since Fiona had awakened from her comatose nightmare? Had she not tripped? Had Kira pushed her? Had Kira panicked and fled without calling an ambulance? What kind of argument could have preceded such an act? And why had Katherine said that the apology revealed by her hypnotism had come from a man and not a woman, if Kira had been the one apologizing? And why would Kira possibly have to apologize?

They both avoided driving the Engletons’ vehicles because of insurance coverage. Fiona had a hard time believing Kira would take one of the cars; if she had, then it spoke volumes about Kira’s mindset at the time. Finding the truck was more important than ever.

She felt a twinge of guilt. Why had she intentionally avoided telling Walt the missing vehicle was a pickup truck?

She locked the door to the cottage, grabbed up her camera and reconnected it to the laptop, quickly working through the shots of the Gale crime scene, her finger finally hovering over the mouse as a series of shots appeared on-screen: muddy tire impressions.

Walt had made it clear a pickup truck had left the tire impressions at the crime scene.

The missing pickup truck? she wondered.

She double-clicked the first of the four images and it opened in its own window. She leaned in to take a closer look.

“No photo to go with it,” Deputy David Blompier reported from the other side of Walt’s desk. He was balding, with an amiable face and bulging belly. He was under a second caution to begin a workout regimen and Walt feared he’d soon have to be suspended for failing to act upon the warning.