Manhunt on Mystic Mesa Read online

  Fighting a feeling of dread, Jana got out of the Jeep and was immediately buffeted by a stiff breeze. She held on to her straw sun hat and started toward the white pop-up canopy she had been told indicated the archaeologists’ base of operations, dodging to avoid an honest-to-goodness tumbleweed and muttering a prayer that there be no snakes lurking behind the clumps of sagebrush she skirted.

  A tall, graying man with a deeply pockmarked face looked up from a clipboard as she approached, his mouth turned down in a frown. She recognized Jeremy Eddleston, Jenny’s supervisor. “I’m Jana Lassiter,” she said, before he could order her away. “We met briefly at my sister’s orientation.”

  His face relaxed, and he set the clipboard on the folding table in front of him and walked out to meet her, extending both hands. “Ms. Lassiter, it’s good to see you again, though not under these circumstances. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  She froze at his words, anger warring with panic in her chest. She opted for anger. “Is there some news I don’t know about?” she asked. “Is my sister dead?” She had to force out the last word.

  Eddleston’s face turned the color of the iron-infused sandstone around them. “Of course not. I mean, we don’t know... I only meant...”

  She decided to let him off the hook. “It’s always difficult to know what to say in a situation like this,” she said.

  The stiffness went out of him, his shoulders slumping so that he appeared several inches shorter. “Exactly. We’re all so terribly worried about Jenny. She was such a valuable part of our team, and so well liked. We can’t imagine what happened to her.”

  “What did happen to her?” Jana asked. “That’s what I came from Denver to find out.”

  “We don’t know.” Eddleston turned and gestured toward the mesa that rose up a quarter mile or so away, its slopes heavily pocked with large boulders and clumps of scrub oak and juniper. “We’ve been excavating in this area all summer. Jenny, as you probably know, joined us at the beginning of June. She was helping to sift through some of the material we had recently extracted and after lunch said she was going to take a short break to stretch her legs. Her friends thought that meant she was going to use the portajohn.” He indicated the bright blue portable toilet under a tree to Jana’s left. “Everyone was so engrossed in the work no one noticed she hadn’t returned until the team began packing up for the day a couple of hours later. They called and looked everywhere, but she didn’t answer and no one could find a trace of her.”

  “Why didn’t you call the police right away?” Jana asked. “I understand they didn’t get out here until this morning.”

  “There’s no phone service out here,” Eddleston said. “It’s a ten-mile drive over rough roads to get a signal. By the time anyone realized Jenny was missing, it was getting dark. As you might imagine, this place is almost impossible to find at night. There’s only the Jeep trail we’ve made and no lights at all.”

  Jana shivered, trying not to imagine Jenny out here in that darkness, hurt and alone. But the images of her sister in danger rushed in anyway.

  “I was away at a meeting I had to attend,” Eddleston said. “But the rest of the team searched until they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces while others went for help.”

  “It’s true.” A young man who had been standing nearby joined them. “We shouted for her until we were hoarse. This morning the park rangers and the county sheriff brought out a search dog. They even flew a helicopter, searching for any sign of her. But they didn’t find anything.”

  Jana scanned the area again. “I don’t understand,” she said. “How could someone just...vanish? Jenny isn’t some flighty, irresponsible schoolgirl. She’s smart and sensible. She wouldn’t simply wander off.”

  Eddleston was nodding his head like a bobblehead doll. “I know. I’ve said the same thing myself. I wish I had answers for you, but I don’t.”

  Jana opened her mouth to ask another question, but was silenced by the distinctive low crackling sound of a vehicle slowly making its way across the rocky track that passed for a road to the dig. She and Eddleston turned together to watch the approach of a black-and-white FJ Cruiser, light bar on top. The cruiser parked beside Jana’s Jeep and two men in khaki uniforms and Stetsons exited.

  The passenger was closest to Jana—a broad-shouldered, sandy-haired guy who would have looked right at home on a beach with a surfboard. He was clean shaven, and dark aviator glasses hid his eyes, but she had the sense he was checking her out, so she stared boldly back at him.

  The driver, a slim, dark-haired man, spoke first. “I’m Officer Reynolds and this is Officer Spencer, with the Ranger Brigade. We’re looking into the disappearance of Jennifer Lassiter and wanted to interview the people who were with her the day she disappeared.”

  “I’m Professor Jeremy Eddleston, lead archaeologist on this dig and Jennifer’s supervisor.” Eddleston stepped forward and offered his hand.

  “Ma’am.” The blond Ranger—Officer Spencer—touched the brim of his hat. “Did you work with Jennifer, also?”

  “No. I’m her sister. I drove from Denver for the same reason you’re here—to talk to people and try to find out what happened.”

  “When was the last time you talked to your sister?” Officer Spencer asked.

  “We spoke the day before yesterday. She was in good spirits, enjoying her work and excited about some finds of pottery they had made.” She glanced at Eddleston. “She said she liked the people she worked with.”

  “So she didn’t mention anything that was troubling her?” Spencer asked.

  “Nothing was troubling her, I’m sure,” Jana said.

  “Would you say you and your sister are close?” Spencer asked.

  “Yes. We shared an apartment in Denver the first part of this summer, before she started the internship.”

  “Do you have any other siblings?” Spencer asked. “Parents?”

  “Our mother and father both passed away some years ago,” she said. Her mother had succumbed to cancer while Jana was still in high school, her father killed a few years later in a car accident on an icy road. “We don’t have any siblings.”

  “And you’re sure nothing was troubling your sister?” he asked again.

  “Nothing was troubling her. If it had been, she would have told me. Why are you even asking these questions?”

  Spencer glanced at his partner, who was deep in conversation with Eddleston. “We need to eliminate any obvious reason for your sister to walk off the job and disappear. Unfortunately, a certain percentage of missing persons are people who have chosen to run away from their responsibilities or even commit suicide. We look for things like depression, troubled relationships or financial difficulties as possible motivations. Once we eliminate those, we consider other explanations.”

  “Well, you’d better start considering those other explanations now. My sister wasn’t depressed, she didn’t have any debt, and she got along with everybody.”

  Spencer removed his sunglasses, the sympathy in his blue eyes catching her off guard. “What do you think happened to Jennifer?” he asked.

  “I have no idea,” she said. “You’re supposed to find that out.”

  “Yes, but you knew her best. What do you think would have motivated her to leave the group? Would she want to be alone if she had had an argument with someone? Was she the type who would investigate an odd noise, or try to help an injured animal? Would she have left camp to check out an interesting rock formation, or maybe gone in search of a better cell signal?”

  She relaxed a little. “I see what you’re getting at.” She looked around them, at the bright, windswept landscape. “I don’t think she would have gone after an animal. She likes dogs and cats, but she’s a little afraid of wild animals—like I am. There’s apparently no cell service out here and she had been working out here long enough to know that, so there was no point in wandering around trying to find a better signal. I suppose it’s possible she might have wanted some time alone if she had had an argument with someone.”

  “Then let’s find out if that’s the case.” He moved to join his partner with Eddleston. “Did Jennifer have a disagreement with any of her coworkers that day?” he asked.

  “Not at all,” Eddleston said. “Jenny got along great with everyone.”

  “We’ll want to talk to her coworkers and verify that,” Reynolds said.

  “Of course.” The archaeologist squinted past them, obviously distracted. Jana turned and saw a dusty whirlwind on the horizon that drew nearer and morphed into a late-model, sand-colored Camry racing toward them. “I was wondering when he would show up,” Eddleston said.

  “Who is it?” Officer Spencer asked.

  “Eric Patterson,” Eddleston said. “He’s a reporter with the Montrose paper.”

  Reynolds scowled. “We don’t have time to talk to reporters.”

  “He’s not just a reporter,” Eddleston said. “And you probably do want to talk to him.” He turned to Jana. “You, too.”

  “Why is that?” Jana asked.

  Eddleston looked confused. “Because he’s Jenny’s fiancé. Didn’t she tell you?”

  Chapter Two

  Ryan studied Jana’s reaction to Eddleston’s identification of the approaching visitor—shock, confusion and then anger played across a face that had the same fair beauty as her sister, but with a maturity that lent more angularity and sophistication to her features. Her eyes held more shrewdness than the photo of the missing young woman, as if she had learned the hard way to be skeptical of the promises people made.

>   The Camry stopped a short distance away in a cloud of red dust, and a slight young man with thinning blond hair and a boyish face stepped out. He assessed the quartet waiting for him with a glance and nodded, as if approving this welcoming party, then strode toward them and spoke in a loud voice, as if addressing a crowd. “I heard the Rangers had been assigned to the case,” he said. “Now maybe we’ll get some results. No offense to the local cops, but they don’t have the resources and expertise you guys do.”

  Before either Ethan or Ryan could reply, Eric turned to Jana and seized her hand. “You must be Jana. Jenny has told me so much about you.”

  Jana pulled her hand away and didn’t return Eric’s smile. “Funny. She never mentioned you.”

  The wattage of his grin didn’t lower. “We wanted to give you the news in person,” he said. “We planned a trip to Denver to see you later this month. Jenny wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “So it’s true—you’re engaged?” Jana asked.

  “Yes.” He held up a hand like a cop halting traffic. “Now I know what you’re thinking—Jenny is young and we haven’t known each other that long—but when it’s true love, I guess you just know.”

  “How long have you and Jenny known each other?” Ryan asked.

  “Two months. We met when I was working on a story on this archaeological dig.”

  “Eric did a wonderful piece about our work that was picked up for the Denver Post,” Eddleston said. “It was great publicity for our department.”

  “How long have you been engaged?” Ryan asked.

  “Not long,” Eric said. “We decided a couple of weeks ago, actually.”

  “It isn’t like Jenny to keep something like this a secret from me,” Jana said.

  “Well, she isn’t a little girl anymore, telling big sis everything,” Eric said. “She wanted her own life.”

  Ryan felt Jana stiffen beside him. He didn’t blame her. Patterson had all the subtlety of a steamroller. But an argument between the two of them wasn’t going to help find Jenny. “When was the last time you spoke to Jenny?” he asked Patterson.

  “We talked over breakfast at my place yesterday morning before she left to head out here for work.” The way he said it—emphasizing the word breakfast and watching for Jana’s reaction—made Ryan think he was bragging. He and Jenny had spent the night together and Patterson wanted to make sure Jana knew it. He was letting her know that he had been closer to her sister than she was.

  Patterson turned to Eddleston. “I just came out to let you know I want to do anything I can to help,” he said. “If you think more publicity in the paper would be useful, I’m your man.”

  “We’ll certainly have questions for you,” Ryan said before Eddleston could answer. “And we have a copy of the interview you gave the sheriff’s office. Right now, we’d like to talk to some of the other people Jenny worked with.”

  “Of course.” Eddleston gestured toward the base of the mesa, where half-a-dozen people milled about amid a grid of pink plastic flags. “Talk to anyone you like.”

  Ryan nodded to Jana and touched the brim of his hat. “Ma’am,” he said, then followed Ethan across the rough ground toward the excavation.

  When they were far enough away from the others that they couldn’t be overheard, Ethan said, “Give me your impressions.”

  “The sister doesn’t know as much about Jenny as she thought she did,” Ryan said. “Eddleston is most concerned about making a good impression. The fiancé is too cocky and sure of himself and for some reason he’s going out of his way to goad Jana.”

  “If Jenny was the only woman missing, I’d put him at the top of the suspect list,” Ethan said. “But his name hasn’t come up in our investigation of the first missing woman, Lucia Raton, and it seems unlikely he knew an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who just happened to be passing through.”

  “So he’s a jerk but probably not a killer,” Ryan said.

  “Provided the women are dead,” Ethan said.

  “Right. We don’t have any bodies, but we both know the stats.” When young women went missing for no reason, too often they were eventually found dead.

  “Maybe this case will be an exception to the norm,” Ethan said.

  For the next hour, the two Rangers questioned Jenny’s coworkers, who all professed sadness and shock at her disappearance. They were able to establish a timeline for yesterday. No one had noticed anything unusual before she vanished. They all agreed she hadn’t seemed depressed or afraid or anything like that. “Jenny was one of these really upbeat, look-on-the-bright-side kind of people,” said a twenty-year-old archaeology major, Heidi. “I used to tease her about it sometimes. If she had a flat tire on the way in, she wouldn’t complain about the tire, she’d talk about how amazing it was to be in such a beautiful setting with nothing to do but wait for something to come along and help.”

  “So even if something had happened that might upset most people, she wouldn’t necessarily show any distress,” Ethan said.

  “I guess you could put it that way,” Heidi said.

  “What about her relationship with Eric Patterson?” Ryan asked.

  Heidi slanted him a wary look. “What about it?”

  “Was she happy? Excited about being engaged?”

  “She never actually said anything about being engaged,” Heidi said. “First I heard of it was after she disappeared and he came out with the local cops this morning and told everyone. He said they had agreed to keep it a secret until she had a chance to tell her sister.”

  “Did that strike you as odd—that she wouldn’t have shared something like that?” Ryan asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, it surprised me a little. I knew she had gone out with the guy a few times, but I didn’t think it was that serious. I mean, they hadn’t known each other long, but love makes people do crazy things sometimes, I guess.”

  “Tell me a little more about her mood yesterday,” Ryan asked. “Did she mention anything at all about anything that had happened to upset her—an argument with someone, worry over finances, anything like that?”

  Heidi shook her head. “Nothing like that. She was maybe a little quiet. When she took a break at about one, I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “You thought she’d gone to use the restroom,” Ryan said.

  “At first, but then when she didn’t come back, I figured she’d taken a walk. She did that sometimes, when things were slow. She was really interested in wildflowers and plants and stuff, and she liked to photograph the scenery.”

  “What was your first thought when you realized she was missing?”

  She shrugged. “I wondered if she’d gone too far from camp and gotten lost.” She swept her hand to indicate the surrounding landscape. “It’s pretty empty out here. I know I get disoriented all the time. But we spread out and searched and none of us saw any sign of her. I wouldn’t think she could have gone that far.”

  The rest of the students who had worked with Jenny shared Heidi’s puzzlement as to what might have happened to Jenny. Ethan and Ryan finished their questions and headed back to the cruiser. Eric’s Camry was gone and Eddleston had returned to his work, but Ryan was surprised to find Jana Lassiter waiting beside the cruiser.

  “Could I speak with you a moment?” she asked as he approached. She glanced toward Ethan. “Privately?”

  “I’ll start filling out the reports,” Ethan said, opening the driver’s-side door.

  Ryan walked with Jana about fifty yards, to the shade of a pile of boulders. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

  “What do you know about Eric Patterson?” she asked.

  “No more than you do,” he said. “I’ve only been in town a week. I transferred to the Rangers from Grand Junction.”

  She hugged her arms around her stomach, as if she was in pain. “I didn’t know about him—not just that he and Jenny were engaged, but I didn’t even know he existed. That isn’t like Jenny. Not that I expect her to tell me everything, but she always talks to me about the men in her life.”

  “Maybe she didn’t say anything to you about Eric because this relationship was different from those others,” he said. “More serious. Maybe she wanted to be more sure of her feelings before she shared them with you.”