Missing in Blue Mesa Page 8

  “My trunk!” Michelle rushed into the tent, to the place at the foot of her cot where her trunk—containing all her pictures, the newspaper clippings about Cass and David Metwater she had saved and Hunter’s birth certificate—had been. She turned in a slow circle, hoping to spot this precious depository for her few keepsakes, but the tent was empty, as if it had never been occupied.

  She raced from the tent and up the steps to the motor home, where she beat on the door, rage blinding her to the stares of those around her. The door opened and Ethan took both her hands in his. “What is it?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything’s gone,” she said.

  “What do you mean?” He led her into the motor home, where Metwater and Asteria stood with Carmen and Simon.

  “The tent is empty. All my things—all Hunter’s things. My trunk! It’s all gone.” She turned to Metwater. “What did you do with it all?”

  “You left,” Metwater said. “Asteria decided to move in with me. I redistributed the items in the tent, and disposed of whatever was no longer needed.”

  “That trunk was mine!” She tried to launch herself at him, but Ethan and Simon held her back.

  “You’re wrong,” Metwater said. “Everything you had is mine now. Everything.”

  Chapter Eight

  The stricken look in Michelle’s eyes tore at Ethan. He moved between her and Metwater. “Are you talking about her son—Hunter?”

  “No.” He made a dismissive gesture. “I don’t have Hunter. I already told you, she’s a liar. You shouldn’t believe anything she says.”

  “Maybe in this case, you’re the liar,” Ethan said. “It’s something I intend to find out.” Ignoring Metwater’s glare, he turned to Asteria. “Ma’am, would you come outside with us for a moment? We need to ask you some questions.”

  “I can answer your questions here,” she said.

  “No.” Carmen took her arm. “We want to talk in private.”

  Ethan braced himself for an argument. Asteria, like Metwater, had made no secret of her loathing for the Rangers. Judging by her stormy expression, her opinion hadn’t changed.

  “Go with them,” Metwater said. “The sooner they find out you don’t know anything, the sooner they’ll leave us alone.”

  Lips pursed in a stubborn pout, Asteria let Carmen lead her toward the door. Ethan took Michelle’s arm and tugged her after them. Outside, he released her. “We need to talk to Asteria alone,” he said. “You can wait with my cruiser if you like.”

  “I need to find my trunk,” she said.

  “We’re going to try to get Asteria to tell us what Metwater did with it,” he said.

  She didn’t look happy with the answer, but she turned abruptly and walked away. He watched her leave and was struck by how slight and vulnerable she looked. Her fierce attitude often made her seem larger.

  He turned and followed Carmen and Asteria into the tent. Carmen had found a folding chair for the pregnant woman to sit on. Asteria perched on the edge of the chair, eyeing the Rangers warily. Ethan remembered seeing pictures of socialite Andi Matheson in the newspaper and online. The sometimes model had dated sports figures and rock stars and had made more than one “most beautiful people” list. Now she looked listless and uncomfortable, her hair dull and skin sallow. “How are you doing?” Ethan asked. “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Why do people always ask me that? I’m fine.”

  “You look tired,” Carmen said. “Have you seen a doctor during your pregnancy?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  So much for trying to persuade her they were on her side. “What can you tell us about Hunter and Michelle?” Ethan asked.

  “I can’t tell you anything,” she said.

  “Do you say that because you truly don’t know anything, or because you’re afraid of Daniel Metwater?” Carmen asked.

  Something he couldn’t read flickered in her eyes. “I’m not afraid of the Prophet,” she said.

  “You’re closer to him than anyone else in this camp,” Ethan said. “Maybe you can help us understand him better.”

  She said nothing, but he thought she didn’t look as hostile. “You saw Michelle the morning Hunter disappeared, right?” he asked. “How did she look?”

  “What do you mean? She looked fine.”

  “She says Daniel Metwater beat her when he caught her in his motor home the night before.”

  “The Prophet doesn’t beat people.” She said this in the same tone of voice she might have declared that he didn’t eat pig’s feet or wear polyester—as if doing so was beneath him.

  “Someone hurt her, though. She was still hurting that morning.”

  “She had some bruises,” Asteria admitted.

  “How did she behave with Hunter?”

  Asteria shrugged. “Normal.”

  “What was she doing with him?” Carmen asked.

  “She was taking care of him. Cuddling him.”

  “So she wasn’t angry with him, or distant?”

  She frowned. “No. Starfall is a good mother.”

  “When she left your tent to go to the showers, did she take Hunter with her?” Ethan asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see her or Hunter after that?”

  “I saw her when she ran back to camp looking for him.”

  “Where was Daniel Metwater while she was in the shower?” Ethan asked. “Did you see him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He tried to hold her gaze and failed. She stared down at her lap, picking at a patch on her long skirt. “When was the first time you saw Daniel Metwater after Michelle headed to the shower?” Ethan asked.

  “I saw him coming out of his motor home on the way to breakfast.” She lifted her head, her expression defiant. “He goes to breakfast about that time every morning. There’s nothing sinister about that.”

  “I never said there was. Did you see him anywhere else? Anywhere near the showers?”

  “No. I went back into the tent and lay down.” She smoothed her skirt over her belly. “I was tired.”

  Maybe she was telling the truth. Or maybe she was trying to protect Metwater. “You didn’t see Metwater with Hunter?”

  She shook her head, lips pressed tightly together as if holding back words. Time to change tactics. “Why did he take Michelle’s trunk?” Ethan asked.

  Asteria blinked, her blue eyes troubled. “She left and didn’t take it with her.”

  “But she intended to come back for it,” he said. “Everything in it was valuable to her—family pictures and important papers. Hunter’s birth certificate was in that trunk.”

  Asteria shifted in the chair. “He thought it was abandoned.”

  “Can you help us get her things back?” Ethan asked.

  She looked away. “I can’t.”

  “Where do you keep things like pictures and personal items?” Carmen asked.

  Asteria looked around the now-empty tent. “I have a lockbox. Why?”

  “What if Metwater took them away from you?” Carmen asked.

  “Imagine how that would feel,” Ethan said.

  Asteria shook her head. “He didn’t take Starfall’s trunk—she left it.”

  “What did he do with it?” Ethan asked. “Did he open it?”

  “No. It was locked.”

  “Then you did see it.” He moved in closer, leaning over her. “What happened when he couldn’t open the trunk?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “You do know something. Why are you covering up for him? It’s not as if he’s faithful to you.”

  He couldn’t mistake the hurt in her eyes at that remark, but he pressed on. “If Daniel Metwater would take a woman’s most precious possessions, how do you know he didn’t take her child, too?” he
asked.

  “He didn’t. He wouldn’t.”

  “Help us find Hunter, Andi. He needs his mother.”

  Tears streamed down her pale cheeks. “I don’t know anything about Hunter,” she whispered.

  “What about the trunk?” Carmen asked.

  She bowed her head. “He had a couple of guys haul it off. He told them to destroy it.”

  “Who?” Ethan asked.

  “Eugene and Derek. I don’t know what they did with it. I really don’t!”

  “Where can we find Eugene and Derek?” Ethan asked.

  She shook her head, mute.

  Ethan turned away. The job was supposed to make him tough enough to ignore a woman’s tears, but he wasn’t there yet. “You can go now,” he said. “Thank you for your help.”

  She jumped up and hurried away. Carmen moved past Ethan. “I’ll start looking for Eugene and Derek, but my guess is we’re not going to find that trunk.”

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky,” he said.

  But luck wasn’t on their side. No one in camp had seen Eugene or Derek that morning. Ethan suspected at least some of them were lying, but pressing the issue wasn’t getting them anywhere. “I’ll break the news to Michelle,” he said. “We’ve got a chopper coming in this afternoon to do an aerial search for Hunter.”

  “I hope the little guy is all right,” Carmen said. “Even though I don’t care for Daniel Metwater, I never saw him as the type to hurt a kid.”

  “I think he’s a sociopath who’s capable of anything,” Ethan said.

  He found Michelle slumped against his cruiser, arms folded over her chest, head down. She straightened at his approach. “Well?”

  “Asteria says Metwater couldn’t open your trunk, so he gave it to two guys named Eugene and Derek and told them to get rid of it. Do you know them?”

  “Eugene is the guy who found that bloody sock,” she said. “Derek is just a bully. The two of them are loyal to Metwater because he lets them throw their weight around. That’s the only kind of men who stay with him for long—that, and a few hangers-on who are hoping for a chance with all the women he attracts.”

  “Why did Hunter’s father leave?” He couldn’t imagine walking out on the mother of his child, or leaving his son without a father. He held the passenger door of the cruiser open for her. “I know you said he wasn’t interested in being a father, but did something specific happen to make him quit the Family?”

  “He thought I was obsessed with the Prophet.” She slid into the passenger seat and reached for the seat belt. “I couldn’t tell him the real reason I wanted to be here—about Cass and David Metwater and everything. He was too much of a talker. I knew if I told him he wouldn’t be able to keep the information to himself.” She shrugged. “He hated living out here, and he was too immature to be a father. I couldn’t depend on him.”

  “You and Hunter deserve someone you can depend on.”

  “It’s okay. I’m used to looking after myself.”

  He turned toward her, the anger he had been suppressing too long, surfacing. “I get that you’re capable of looking after yourself, but you shouldn’t have to. You should have people in your life you can depend on to be there for you.”

  “Yeah, well, I should be able to eat ice cream three times a day without gaining weight, too. The world isn’t perfect. I’d think a cop would know that.”

  “I know it.” He started the cruiser and shifted into Reverse. “But I don’t have to like it.”

  He backed out of the parking lot and headed down the rutted forest service road, following the rooster tail of dust raised by Carmen’s vehicle. Michelle remained silent, though he could feel her gaze on him. “What I don’t like is how men like David and Daniel Metwater get away with anything,” she said. “And no one listens to the people they hurt, like me.”

  “I’m listening,” Ethan said.

  “Yeah, you are. But I thought you’d be able to do more. Why don’t you arrest him?”

  “It doesn’t do any good to arrest someone if you don’t have the proof you need to keep him in jail,” Ethan said. “We don’t have anything that links Metwater to your son’s disappearance.”

  “He stole my trunk. Isn’t that enough to lock him up, at least for a little while?”

  “He’s saying you abandoned the trunk, and that it was his property anyway because of the agreement everyone signs when they join the Family.”

  “I didn’t sign the agreement.” She gripped the dashboard as they bounced over a washboarded section of road. “And I didn’t abandon the trunk.”

  “We’ll keep looking for it, but you might want to start trying to get copies of the important papers that were in it—birth certificates, that sort of thing.”

  “You don’t think I’ll ever see the things that were in there again.”

  “I’m saying it’s possible they’re gone for good.”

  She fell silent again. He scanned the landscape of sagebrush and juniper, wishing he could find the right words to give her something positive to hang on to. Her son had been missing over twenty-four hours now. Every hour that passed lessened the chances they would find Hunter alive. The idea made him angry all over again.

  “Is that smoke over there?” Michelle said. She pointed out the front windshield. He leaned forward and squinted at the thin gray column rising up from the ground. A simple campfire wouldn’t make that much smoke, unless it had gotten out of control. Wildfire was a constant concern here in the high desert. One errant cigarette butt or abandoned campfire could lead to the destruction of thousands of acres of public land.

  He shifted into Low and turned the cruiser off the road and began bumping his way toward the column of smoke. Michelle leaned forward in the seat, straining to see ahead of them.

  Ethan braked the cruiser well back from the blaze. The fire had consumed an area about four feet square. Whoever had set it hadn’t tried to be subtle. Ethan could smell the gasoline as he climbed out of the driver’s seat. He pulled a fire extinguisher from the back of the vehicle, then started toward the blaze, Michelle on his heels.

  He pulled the pin on the extinguisher and sent a cloud of suppressant over the smoldering ground at the perimeter of the main blaze. Michelle broke a green branch from a nearby piñon and began beating the ground with it, extinguishing sparks as she moved forward.

  Ethan hit the center of the blaze with the full force of the extinguisher, engulfing the flames and coating everything in white. When he could no longer see flames, he took the branch from Michelle and used the end to tease apart the smoldering logs to reveal a blackened shape beneath.

  Michelle gasped. “It’s my trunk,” she said.

  She would have reached for it, but Ethan held her back. “It’s too hot to touch,” he said. And everything in it was likely ruined—the top had caved in and fire had all but consumed most of one end. “We’ll get a crime scene team out here to investigate,” he said. “They’ll save whatever they can of the contents.”

  “He wants to destroy me.” She stared at the smoldering trunk, eyes unfocused, the words so soft Ethan wasn’t even sure she realized she had said them.

  He touched her arm, lightly, the way he would approach a sleepwalker. She glanced at him, no recognition in her gaze. “He wants to destroy me, the way his brother destroyed Cass,” she said. “But I won’t let him. I won’t.” Then she turned and walked back to the cruiser, leaving Ethan standing on the blackened ground.

  Chapter Nine

  Ethan drove Michelle back to Ranger Headquarters, and then he and a crime scene team returned to the smoldering remains of the trunk. The team photographed the area, took measurements and hauled the trunk away for processing. “You’ve done all you can for today,” Commander Ellison said when Ethan reported back to headquarters. “Take Michelle back to the duplex and both of you try to get some rest. The heli
copter we asked for got diverted to the Front Range, but we’ve rescheduled the air search for tomorrow.”

  “Will do.” Ethan walked over to where Michelle sat slumped at a desk, a cold cup of coffee at her elbow. “Ready to get out of here?” he asked.

  She nodded. She didn’t say anything until they turned onto the highway from the park road. “Nights are the worst,” she said. “I’m exhausted, but every time I close my eyes I think about Hunter, alone somewhere in the dark.” She bit her lip, and he could feel the force of her willing herself not to cry.

  “I think we’re all really good at torturing ourselves with thoughts like that,” he said. “For weeks after my dad died I couldn’t sleep for wondering if I could have done something to save him. He had a heart attack while he was painting the back fence. I told myself I should have painted the fence for him, or persuaded him to hire someone to do the job.” He shook his head. “Useless to think all that, but I couldn’t stop myself.”

  Michelle angled toward him. “When did he die?”

  “Six months ago.” He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “It’s one of the reasons I took the job with the Ranger Brigade. My mom lives in Montrose and I wanted to be close to her.”

  “That’s really nice,” she said. “And I’m sorry about your dad. But if his heart was bad, even if you had painted that fence, wouldn’t the problem have shown up some other time?”

  Ethan nodded. “Of course it would have. And the truth is, my dad liked painting things. He died doing something he enjoyed, and I guess we can’t ask for better than that.”

  “I’ll bet he was a really nice guy,” she said. “Because you’re a nice guy. I never knew my father. I’m not sure my mom even knew who he was. The one thing I really beat myself up about is being too much like my mom that way—I should have been more careful, and waited to give Hunter a real dad.”

  “Lots of kids these days don’t have two parents and they do okay,” Ethan said.

  “Yeah, but I can’t help thinking a boy needs a good man in his life.”

  Ethan’s dad had been a good man—the best. He glanced at Michelle. “Would you mind if we ran by to see my mom for a few minutes?” he asked. “I like to check on her a few times a week. My dad was the kind of guy who did everything for her, and I think she’s having a tough time now that he’s gone.”