A CHILD WITNESSES A MURDER

AND BECOMES A KILLER’S TARGET...

Murder doesn’t belong in the peaceful town of Eagle Mountain, Colorado. Yet Deputy Gage Walker has a brutal double murder on his hands and a missing deaf child. Gage’s only hope to find the little girl is her aunt, Maya Renfro. But nothing has prepared Gage for the intense chemistry between them...or just what happens when love gets mixed with murder.

Eagle Mountain Murder Mystery

CINDI MYERS is the author of more than fifty novels. When she’s not crafting new romance plots, she enjoys skiing, gardening, cooking, crafting and daydreaming. A lover of small-town life, she lives with her husband and two spoiled dogs in the Colorado mountains.

Also by Cindi Myers

Saved by the Sheriff

Murder in Black Canyon

Undercover Husband

Manhunt on Mystic Mesa

Soldier’s Promise

Missing in Blue Mesa

Stranded with the Suspect

Colorado Crime Scene

Lawman on the Hunt

Christmas Kidnapping

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Avalanche of Trouble

Cindi Myers

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07916-7

AVALANCHE OF TROUBLE

© 2018 Cynthia Myers

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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For my nieces, Morgan and Kelli

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Extract

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Gage Walker wouldn’t have said he was a superstitious man, but he didn’t believe in tempting fate. Don’t brag about your bank account being full or a big bill will surely show up in the mail that will tap you out. Don’t plan a fishing trip in April and leave the rain gear at home just because it was sunny when you left the house. Don’t complain about being bored at work or you’ll get a call that will have you working overtime for the next week.

When your work was as a sheriff’s deputy in a small, rural county, boring was good, or so he always reminded the rookies and reserve cops. Boring meant crime was down and people were happy. The adrenaline rush of a real crime might make your day go faster, but it also meant someone was hurt, or had lost something valuable to them, or, worst of all, someone was dead.

The man and the woman in this camp up near Dakota Ridge were definitely dead, each shot in the back of the head, execution-style. They were both in their early thirties and had probably been a nice-looking couple before someone had tied their hands behind their backs and sent a bullet through each of their brains. The driver’s license in the man’s wallet identified him as Greg Hood, from Denver.

Judging by the matching gold wedding bands they wore, Gage guessed the woman was Greg’s wife. The couple hadn’t been killed for money. The man’s wallet still had cash and credit cards in it, and in addition to the wedding rings, they both wore expensive-looking watches. They had been left lying on the forested floor between their tent and the cold remains of a campfire, eight miles from the nearest paved road, about a hundred yards from the late-model SUV registered in their name.

“Creepy.” Gage’s fellow deputy, Dwight Prentice, came to stand next to Gage, staring down at the bodies. Dwight looked around them, at the still forest, lodgepole pine and aspen so thick in places a man could scarcely walk between the trunks, the evergreen-scented air now tainted with the stench of death.

“Yeah, it’s creepy,” Gage said. “If someone had it in for these two, why not kill them in Denver?” To his way of thinking, murder belonged in the city, not in the peaceful mountains where he had been born and raised and made his home.

Though he had been a member of the Rayford County Sheriff’s Department for four years now, Gage hadn’t seen death like this before. People in Eagle Mountain—the county’s only town—died peacefully of old age, of diseases or a heart attack, or maybe after a fall while climbing or hiking in the surrounding mountains. A little over three years ago, a young lawyer in town had been murdered. People still talked about that case; it had been so unusual for the quiet community that primarily made its living from tourists.

This case was going to give everyone something more to talk about. “I’ll drive down in a few minutes and call this in,” Gage said. No company had thought it worthwhile to build cell towers on Dakota Ridge, so this corner of the sheriff’s department jurisdiction had no coverage, and the radio wasn’t much more reliable. Besides, talking about something like this over the radio pretty much guaranteed that half the town would know about it, since so many of them made a hobby out of listening to police scanners. They would be out here to sightsee before the crime scene techs had even finished pulling on their Tyvek suits.

“I want to have another quick look around first.” This was his last chance to size up the scene for himself, before the techs and photographers, ambulance personnel and reporters trampled everything into dust. Oh, they’d do all the right things—cordon off the scene and establish an entry corridor—but never again would the scene look like this, unmarred by tape and markers and footsteps.

Moving carefully, Gage stepped around the tent and bent down to look inside. “Who called this in, do you know?” Dwight asked. He remained standing near the bodies.

“Milo Werth called it in,” Gage said. “Said he saw the car parked here two days ago when he delivered propane to Windy Peak Ranch, at the end of the road. He came by this morning to pick up a heeler pup Jim Trotter at Windy Peak had for sale and said the car looked like it hadn’t moved. With the pup and his little boy in the truck, he didn’t want to stop and look, but thought we should check it out.” He unhooked the collapsible baton from his utility belt and extended it, then used it to pull back the tent flap.

Inside was a jumble of sleeping bags, a plastic tote with a lid, and a scattering of clothes. A battery-operated lantern hung from a hook at the center of the tent’s dome, and a backpack sat propped to the left of the door. Then he spotted a woman’s purse next to the backpack. He pulled out a camera and took a picture of it in place, then pulled on latex gloves and, using the baton, hooked the straps of the purse and carefully lifted it out.

“Looking for ID?” Dwight asked.

“I’m looking for anything that tells me why they were up here.”

“That’s easy enough to figure out,” Dwight said. “They came up here to camp. A nice break from city life.”

“Except this isn’t National Forest or BLM land,” Gage said as he pulled a red leather wallet from the purse. “This is private property. This whole area is patented mining claims.”

“Maybe they didn’t know that,” Dwight said. “Maybe they thought they could pull over anywhere and camp. Nobody bothered them, so they thought it was all right.”

“Maybe.” The sheriff’s department had been called in before to explain to clueless campers that even if the land they were on wasn’t occupied, it wasn’t free for them to set up camp. Gage opened the wallet and studied the driver’s license in the little plastic window opposite the checkbook. Angela Hood had been a pretty brunette with long, straight hair, green eyes and a wide smile. She was thirty-two years old, five feet five inches tall. Gage flipped through the credit cards and store loyalty cards in their clear plastic sleeves next to the license and stopped when he came to a bright yellow card. In Case of Emergency, Contact Maya Renfro, (sister). A phone number and address were neatly printed in the space below.

Gage made note of the number, then dropped the wallet back into the purse and replaced the purse inside the tent. “I got a number for her emergency contact,” he said. “Looks like it’s her sister.”

“You could let Travis contact her.” Travis Walker was the Rayford County sheriff—and Gage’s older brother.

“No, I’ll do it,” Gage said. Not that he looked forward to telling a woman her sister had been murdered, but he hoped Maya Renfro could lend some insight into what Angela and Greg had been up to that might have gotten them killed.

He made his way back around the tent to the rough track that led into the clearing. “I’ll be back as soon as I make the call,” he told Dwight.

“I’ll be here.”

Gage took another look at the SUV parked at the road—a dirty white, late-model Chevy with a cooler and a black plastic garbage bag in the rear compartment. The couple had probably stashed the food and garbage there as a precaution against bears, which showed they were savvy campers. The techs would go over the vehicle, but to Gage, it looked as if it hadn’t been touched. And he spotted no other shoe or tire impressions in the soft soil on the verge of the road. So how had the killers gotten to the site?

He went over the details of the crime scene in his head as he drove the eight miles back to the highway. Once he had a strong phone signal, he parked on the shoulder and called the sheriff’s department. “Gage, I’ve been calling you for the last half hour. Where have you been?” Adelaide Kinkaid, the police department’s office manager, or, as she liked to refer to herself, “the woman who keeps everything going around here,” addressed Gage as if he was a sixteen-year-old delinquent instead of a twenty-five-year-old cop. But Adelaide talked to everyone that way. It was part of her dubious charm.

Gage ignored her question. “Is Travis in?”

“No, he is not. When I couldn’t get hold of you, he had to go over to the high school to take a theft report.”

“Fine. I’ll call his cell.”

“But where—”

Gage ended the call. Later, he would no doubt get a lecture from Adelaide about it being his responsibility to keep her informed of his whereabouts, but annoying her now was worth a little aggravation later.

Travis answered Gage’s call on the second ring. “What’s up?” the sheriff asked. Two years older than Gage, he had won a hotly contested election two years previously to become the youngest county sheriff in Colorado. Since then, even the detractors who had tried to hold his youth against him had admitted to being impressed with his performance. Gage hadn’t been surprised at all—Travis had always been the more serious and determined of the three Walker siblings. Gage, though equally smart and athletic, preferred a more laid-back approach to life.

But there was nothing laid-back about his current situation. “We’ve got a mess on our hands,” he said. “That abandoned car Milo Werth called in belongs to a young couple who got themselves killed up on Dakota Ridge.”

“Killed?” A sound like Travis closing a door. “How?”

“Shot in the back of the head. Execution-style—hands tied behind their backs. Greg and Angela Hood, from Denver. They were camping on land up there—probably a mining claim.”

“Who owns the claim?” Travis asked.

“I haven’t got that far yet. We need to call in the crime scene techs. And depending on what they find, we may need to get some help from the state. Everything about this feels bad to me.”

“I’ll call CSI as soon as we get off the phone,” Travis said. “You head back up there and guard the crime scene.”

“Dwight’s up there now. I found a next of kin notification card in the woman’s wallet. I figure I’ll make that call before I head back up. Says it’s her sister.”

“Hard,” Travis said.

“Yeah, but it needs to be done. And if it was our sister, I’d want to know right away.”

“Agreed,” Travis said. “Fortunately, I talked to Emily this morning. She was on her way to class.” Their baby sister was working on her MBA in economics at Colorado State University.

“Good to know. Tell the forensics team there’s a pull-off just after mile marker eight. I want it checked for any tire impressions or other evidence. There aren’t any signs near the Hoods’ car, so I’m wondering if the killers parked there and walked up.”

“Will do.”

The call ended, Gage pulled up the number for Angela Hood’s sister. A woman answered the phone. “Hello?” Her voice was raised to be heard over what sounded like a crowd.

“This is Deputy Gage Walker with the Rayford County Sheriff’s Department,” Gage said. “Is this Maya Renfro?”

“Speaking.” A cheer rose up behind her, momentarily drowning her out.

“I can hardly hear you,” Gage said. “Where are you?”

“High school gym. Hang on a minute.” The crowd noise rose again, then was abruptly cut off. “I ducked into the locker room,” Maya said. “This should be better.”

“You’re in high school?” Cold sweat beaded on the back of Gage’s neck. It was hard enough giving bad news to an adult, but to hurt a teenager that way? “Maybe you should get a teacher in there with you. I can wait.”

“I’m a teacher,” Maya said. “Who did you say you were again? I didn’t catch it.”

“Deputy Gage Walker with the Rayford County Sheriff’s Department.”

Silence. He tried to picture her—probably dark-haired, like her sister, with the same green eyes and open face. “Ms. Renfro?” he prompted.

“What’s happened?” she asked, her voice strained. “Why are you calling me?”

“You have a sister—Angela Hood?”

“Has something happened to Angie? What’s happened to her?”

Better to get this over with. There was no way to cushion the blow. “I’m sorry to tell you your sister is dead.”

More silence. No screaming or crying. Gage waited. He could hear her breathing, hard, on the other end of the line. “What happened?” she asked finally, her voice hoarse with unshed tears.

“She and her husband, Greg Hood, were shot and killed at their campsite near here.”

“Shot? I don’t understand? Was it hunters? Some kind of accident?”

“It wasn’t an accident. Did your sister and her husband have any enemies? Anyone who would have wanted to kill them?”

“No! Are you saying they were murdered? While camping?”

“That’s what it looks like. Do you know why they were here?”

“They bought the land a few weeks ago and wanted to spend some time on it. They said it was really beautiful up there. Who killed them?”

“We don’t know yet. Did either of them mention having an argument or disagreement with anyone? Did they mention arranging to meet someone up here?”

“No. It was just a quick trip to get the lay of the land and make plans.”

“What kind of plans?”

“Casey!” She choked out the word. “What about Casey? Is she all right?”

“Who is Casey?” Gage asked.

“Their daughter. My niece. She was with them. Is she all right? Did whoever do this kill her, too?”

Gage felt as if someone had reached into his chest and grabbed his heart and squeezed. “You’re sure she was with them? How old is Casey?”

“She’s five. And yes, I’m sure she was with them. You didn’t see her?”

“No.” He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to bring his memory of the scene at the camp into focus. No child’s toys scattered about. Sleeping bags and tote box in the tent. Some clothing—maybe something pink, but at the time he had assumed it belonged to the woman. Women wore pink. But now that he thought about it again, the T-shirt had been a little on the small side for Angela Hood. “You’re sure your niece was with her parents on this trip? Maybe they left her with friends or a relative.”

“They wouldn’t do that. Or if they did, I would know about it. If they needed someone to watch Casey, I would do it.” Her voice rose, pinched with agitation. “What’s happened to her?”

“I promise I’ll find out. I have to go now, but I’ll call you back as soon as I know something.”

Fighting a sick feeling in his stomach, he hit the speed dial for Travis again, even as he started the SUV. “Those two murder victims up here?” he said as soon as Travis answered. “They had a kid with them. We’ve got a missing little girl.”

Chapter Two

Maya Renfro gripped the steering wheel of her Volkswagen Beetle so hard her fingers ached, and depressed the accelerator until she was doing eighty. The roads were dry and clear and if highway patrol stopped her, she’d give them Deputy Gage Walker’s number and tell them to take it up with him. Her sister was dead and her niece was missing, and every movement felt as if Maya were swimming through quicksand.

This had to be a bad dream. Real life couldn’t be this horrible, could it?

But of course it could. You didn’t teach high school for four years without seeing a little of that awfulness—kids kicked out of the house while they were still in their teens, colleagues who died of cancer, budget cuts that sliced into the most meaningful programs.

But life that bad had never happened to Maya before. It shouldn’t happen to Angela—or to Casey.

She fought back tears and gripped the steering wheel even harder. She had to keep it together. When she got to Eagle Mountain, she had to be there for Casey.

The cop on the other end of the line—Gage Walker—hadn’t even known Casey existed. How was that possible? Angela and Greg never traveled anywhere without a whole carload of kid gear. Not to mention both their phones were full of pictures of Casey, from newborn right up through her fifth birthday party two months ago.

Maya had been at that party. She had brought a tiara for Casey to wear and the little girl had been thrilled. The screen saver on Maya’s phone was a picture taken at the party, of her and Maya grinning for the camera.

Casey had to be okay. She had to be.

As soon as the news of Angela’s death really began to hit her, Maya had tried to call the cop—Gage—again. The call had gone straight to voice mail. Instead of leaving what would probably have been a hysterical message, she left an aide in charge of her sixth period class, let her principal know she was leaving and why, and rushed home to throw a few things in her car and head for Eagle Mountain.

By the time Deputy Walker had called her back to tell her Casey was missing and they were making every effort to find her, Maya was already speeding toward Eagle Mountain. She didn’t know much about the town—it was in western Colorado, apparently located in a beautiful area that attracted lots of tourists. Angela and Greg had raved about the place, both so excited over the mining claims they had bought and their plans for the property. “If this works out, we’re thinking of moving to Eagle Mountain,” Angela had said at dinner the night before their trip.

“You should come with us,” Greg said as he passed Maya a bowl of steamed broccoli. “You could get a teaching job there, I bet.”

“You really want to live in a small town?” Maya was incredulous. “Why?” Small towns, by definition, were small, which to her meant limited opportunities, limited entertainment options and maybe even limited thinking. “You have everything you could ever want here in Denver.”

“Eagle Mountain is the perfect place to raise kids,” Angela said. “If we’re going to relocate, now’s a good time, before Casey has really settled into school.”

Maya wasn’t so sure about that. Wouldn’t kids get bored way out here in the middle of so much nature? Everywhere she looked she saw endless fields, soaring mountains, colorful rocks, rushing streams and vast blue sky—but not many people or buildings. What did people out here do for excitement and entertainment?

How was a five-year-old girl going to survive alone out in all this emptiness?

By the time she turned onto Eagle Mountain’s main street, she was exhausted from grief and strain, her stomach in knots with worry over Casey, and in no mood to deal with any slow-talking, easygoing backwater cop, which was the only kind she expected to encounter here. After all, if a man had any real talent and ambition, wouldn’t he opt to go someplace with a little more action?

The first person to acknowledge her when she walked through the door of the Rayford County Sheriff’s Department was a white-haired woman who wore purple-framed glasses and earrings shaped like pink flamingos. “May I help you?” she asked, eyes sharp, expression all business.

“My name is Maya Renfro. I’m looking for a Deputy Walker.”

Any hardness melted from the woman’s face. She jumped up and moved toward Maya, hand extended. “You’re the sister. We’ve been expecting you. I’m so sorry for your loss. Such a tragedy.” She ushered Maya to a small office down a short hallway. “You must be worn out. Everyone is out looking for your niece, but I’ll call and let Gage know you’re here. I’m Adelaide, by the way. I’ll get you some tea. Or would you rather have coffee?”

“I just want to speak to Deputy Walker.”

“Of course. I’ll get him here as soon as I can.”

Then Maya was alone in the office, a claustrophobic cube of a room with barely enough space for a desk and one visitor’s chair. She sat and studied the walls, which were filled with several framed commendations and half a dozen photographs, all featuring a tall, good-looking man with thick brown hair and the weathered face of an outdoorsman. In one picture, he knelt beside a mountain stream, cradling a colorful fish and grinning at the camera. In another, he supported the head of a trophy elk, golden aspens in the background. In a third photograph, he posed with another officer, both of them in uniform and holding rifles.

“That’s Gage and his brother, Travis.” Adelaide spoke from behind Maya. She set a cup on the edge of the desk. “I brought you some tea,” she said. “I know you said you didn’t want anything, but after such a long drive, you look like you could use something.”

“Tea is fine.” Maya picked up the cup and sat stiffly upright in the chair. “So Gage and Travis are both law enforcement officers?”

“Travis is the county sheriff,” Adelaide said. “He’s out with the others. We’re all just sick about this. Things like this just don’t happen in Eagle Mountain.”

“They happen everywhere, Addie. You know that. We’re not special.”

The man who moved into the room past Addie was tall and rangy, his khaki uniform streaked with dirt, his face creased with exhaustion. “Gage Walker,” he said, extending his hand to Maya. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to meet you.”

“I told her you were out looking for her niece,” Adelaide said.

“We’ve got everybody in the county with any kind of experience in the woods out there looking for her,” Gage said. The chair behind the desk creaked under his weight as he settled into it, and the office seemed more claustrophobic than ever with his oversized, very masculine presence. Adelaide returned to the front office, leaving them alone.

Gage didn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes fixed on Maya, his expression unreadable. “Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked, setting the teacup on the desk.

He shook his head, as if coming out of a daze. “You said you’re a teacher?”

“Yes. I teach high school English at Centennial High School.”

Gage shook his head again. “None of my teachers ever looked like you.”

She stiffened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, for one thing, none of them had blue hair.”

She touched the ends of her hair, which she had dip-dyed blue only two weeks before. “I made a deal with my students. If they brought up their achievement test scores, I would dye my hair blue.”

“Just not what I expected.”

He wasn’t what she had expected, either. He wasn’t slow and dumb, but he definitely looked right at home in this rugged country.

“What happened to my sister?” she asked.

“We’re still trying to get a complete picture, but it looks like your sister and her husband were in their camp when someone—probably more than one person—came up, tied their hands behind their backs and shot them.”

The picture his words created in her mind was almost too horrible to bear. She forced the image away and bit the inside of her cheek to stave off tears. She couldn’t break down now. She had to be strong. “They just shot them?”

“I’m sorry, yes.”

“Why? And what happened to Casey?”

“We’re trying to find the answers to both those questions. It’s possible whoever shot your sister and brother-in-law took Casey with them. But it’s also possible she ran away.” He leaned toward her. “Tell me about your niece. Is she a shy child—the type who would hide from strangers?”

“Casey isn’t really shy, no. But if she saw someone hurt her mother and father, of course she’d be afraid. And having a bunch of people she didn’t know stomping around the woods looking for her would probably frighten her even more.” She had a clear picture of the little girl, hiding behind a big rock or tree, watching all the commotion around her and too afraid to come out. “I want to go look for her. She knows me. She won’t hide from me.”

He nodded. “That makes sense. I’ll take you up to the camp, but I can’t allow you to go wandering around in the woods on your own. The terrain is rough and it’s getting dark. Even the trained searchers will have to pack it in soon and wait until morning.”

“Maybe she’s close to the camp and she’ll see me and come to me.” Maya stood. “Let’s go now. I don’t want to waste another minute.”

Gage rose also and motioned toward the door. “After you. My cruiser is parked out front.”

The black-and-white SUV sported the requisite light bar on top and the legend, Rayford County Sheriff’s Department, on the door. Gage walked around and opened the passenger door, then leaned in and scooped an armful of papers, file folders, gloves, a flashlight and who knew what else off the front seat. “Welcome to my mobile office,” he said, holding the door wide for her.

She climbed in, studying the tablet computer mounted to face the driver, the radio and the shotgun in a holder beside her seat. Gage buckled his seat belt and started the engine. “You said your sister and her husband had just bought the property they were camping on?” he asked as he pulled out into the street.

“Yes. They closed on the purchase last week and wanted to spend some time up there, enjoying the scenery.” She choked on the last word. Angela wouldn’t be enjoying anything anymore.

“So they bought the property to have a place to camp? Or did they plan to build a house up there?”

“Not a house, no. They bought up a bunch of old mining claims, with plans to reopen the mines.”

“Interesting choice.” He turned onto the highway, leaving the town behind. “Most of those old mines haven’t been worked in fifty or sixty years or more. Even then, most of them never earned much. Though I guess some people do still dig around in them as a hobby.”

“This wasn’t a hobby. Greg is—was—an engineer. He’s developed new techniques he thinks will make those old mines profitable again. He wanted to do a demonstration project here, and use that to sell his equipment to others.”

“That sounds like it could end up being pretty lucrative,” Gage said. “Did he have competitors? Anyone who might have killed him to get his ideas or to stop him from implementing them?”

“No! That’s crazy. He doesn’t know people like that. And he had patents on all the equipment he had designed. People don’t kill other people over things like that. If they wanted his ideas, they could have bought him out—or tried to.”

“So he never mentioned having been threatened by anyone?” Gage asked.

“No. And Angela would have told me if he had. She wasn’t one to hide her emotions from me. And if either one of them had thought they were in any danger at all, they never would have brought Casey up here.”

“Can you think of any reason someone would have killed them?” Gage asked. “Something in their pasts, maybe?”

“No.” She shook her head, fresh tears flowing in spite of her efforts to hold them back. “They were quiet, ordinary people.” She blotted the tears with her fingers and angled toward him. “Maybe they stumbled on drug activity—a meth lab or something like that—and were murdered because of it.”

“It’s possible,” Gage said. “And we’ll look into it. But most of the meth labs have moved to Mexico these days.” He slowed as they approached a bank of lights—headlights, work lights, even flashlights bobbed about in the woods on either side of the road.

“This is where they were killed?” Maya asked, staring at the confusion of lights and people—and lots and lots of trees and rocks and dirt. This was the place Angela had gushed about as being so beautiful?

“Yes.” Gage shut off the engine. “Stay with me,” he said. “If you go wandering off around here, you could end up falling down an abandoned mine shaft or stepping off a cliff.”

“Those things could have happened to Casey,” she said, climbing out of the SUV and following him down the side of the road.

“Hey, Gage.”

“Hi, Gage.”

“Thought you’d packed it in for the night?”

Various people greeted the deputy as they passed. An older man with a crooked nose and bushy eyebrows approached. “Deputy Walker, what are you doing about the press?” he asked.

“I’m not really concerned about the press right now, Larry,” Gage said. He turned to Maya. “Maya Renfro, this is Eagle Mountain’s mayor, Larry Rowe.”

“Ms. Renfro.” The mayor nodded solemnly. “I’m very sorry for your loss.” He turned to Gage. “Now, about the press. Something like this could reflect very badly on the town if it isn’t handled properly.”

“Not now, mayor.” Gage pushed past him, only to be waylaid a few yards farther on by a petite woman with a large red hound on a leash. “Did you get anything?” Gage asked her.

“I’m sorry, no.” The woman stopped and leaned down to pat the dog. “Daisy picked up the scent from the shirt you gave me, but after about a hundred yards, she lost it. I marked the path for you. And we can try again tomorrow if you like. Right now, Daisy is just tired and frustrated.”

Daisy stared up at them with mournful brown eyes, then let out a low moan and scratched at one floppy ear with her hind foot.

“Thanks for trying, Lorna,” Gage said. He patted Daisy. “Give her a biscuit from me.”

Maya spotted Greg and Angela’s SUV and faltered. The vehicle was surrounded by a cordon of yellow-and-black tape, and more tape marked a path from the vehicle into the woods. “Is that your sister and her husband’s car?” Gage asked.

“Yes.”

He took her arm. “Come on. I’m going to take you into their camp, ask you to identify some things. Their bodies have already been taken away. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes.” They were just things. She wouldn’t think about them in relation to death.

“Step where I step,” Gage said. “Don’t get off the path or touch anything.” He led the way through a section of tape.

“That’s their tent,” she said as they approached the blue dome tent. “They bought it a couple of years ago, to replace an old one our parents gave them.”

“All right.” Gage led her to the tent and pulled back the flap. “Take a look inside and tell me if you see anything unusual—anything that doesn’t belong to your sister, her husband or Casey.”

He swept the beam of the flashlight over the contents of the tent—sleeping bags, backpack, clothing, Angela’s purse. Maya covered her mouth with her hand when she spotted the purse and shook her head, swallowing hard against the sob that threatened to escape.

Gage dropped the tent flap and straightened, playing the beam of the light around and behind the tent. Pink tape fluttered from a slender metal stake behind the tent. “This is where Lorna and her dog picked up the scent,” he said, guiding Maya over to the stake. “Don’t walk in the path, but walk beside it. Call your niece. If she’s near enough, she might recognize your voice and come to you.”

Maya stared at him, still numb. “Calling her isn’t going to help,” she said. “We have to look for her.”

“Call her. She might hear you. Identify yourself and if she’s hiding, she might come out.”

Maya shook her head, the tears flowing freely now. “You don’t understand,” she said. “I could call all night and it wouldn’t make any difference. Casey wouldn’t hear me. She’s deaf.”

Chapter Three

Gage stared at Maya. “Your niece is deaf and you’re just now telling me?” he asked.

“I’m sorry! I was in shock. And it’s not like I think of Casey as my deaf niece. She’s just my niece. Being deaf is part of her, the way having brown hair is part of her.”

“This is a little more significant than her hair color.”

“I said I’m sorry.” She stared into the surrounding darkness, looking, he was sure, for the little girl. Gage stared, too, his stomach knotting as the difficulty of their task sank in. Simply getting within earshot of Casey Hood wasn’t going to be enough. They were going to have to get her in their sights, and then somehow persuade her that they were friendly and wanted to help her. All of that required light, which meant waiting until tomorrow to continue the search.

He touched Maya’s shoulder. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go.”

She stared at him, eyes wide, red rimmed from crying. She didn’t look quite as young as she had when she had first walked into his office. The blue-tipped hair and dangling earrings had him thinking she was a teenager then. He saw the maturity in her eyes now, and the desperate struggle to keep hope alive. “We can’t just leave her out there all night—alone,” she said.

“We’re going to have someone here all night,” he said. “I’ll have them build a fire and keep it going. Maybe Casey will see it.”

“I should be the one waiting,” she said.

“No. You should go back to your hotel room and try to get some sleep.” She started to argue, but he cut her off. “We’re going to need you in the morning. Once it’s light out here and we can see, we’re going to need you close in case someone spots Casey. She’ll recognize you and want to come to you.”

She looked out into the darkness again. “Do you really think she’s all right?”

“We haven’t found evidence to the contrary,” he said. “No signs of struggle, no other signs of blood at the scene. I think she got away from the killers.” Whoever shot Angela and Greg Hood might have taken the child with them, but that didn’t make sense to him. The parents’ deaths had been cold and efficient—for whatever reason, someone had wanted them eliminated. Why then burden yourself with a five-year-old child? “I think Casey saw what was happening, became frightened and ran away. Tomorrow, we’re going to find her.” He touched her shoulder again. “Come on. I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

“I don’t have a hotel room. I mean, I didn’t call and make a reservation. I didn’t even think of it.”

“Then we’ll find you one. Come on.”

She made one last glance into the darkness beyond the camp, then followed Gage to his SUV. “I’m going to speak to the sheriff,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

He found Travis with a group of search and rescue volunteers who were packing up to head back to town. “I got some more information about the little girl we’re looking for,” Gage told them. “Seems she’s deaf. So shouting her name isn’t going to do any good. We’ll need to make eye contact.”

“I know a little American Sign Language,” one of the SAR volunteers, a middle-aged woman, said.

“That might come in handy,” Gage said. “Can you come back to help with the search tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here.”

They said good-night. Travis waited until he and Gage were alone before he spoke. “Does the sister have any idea what the Hoods were doing up here that got them killed?” he asked.

Gage glanced back toward his SUV. He could see the shadowed figure of Maya as she sat in the passenger seat. “Greg Hood was an engineer who had developed some new equipment he thought could make these old mines profitable. He purchased these old claims to create a kind of demonstration project. He and his wife and the kid were camping up here, checking out their new acquisition.”

“Any enemies, threats, anything like that?” Travis asked.

“She says no, and she thinks she would know. Sounds like she and the sister were close.”

“All right. Maybe we’ll turn up something when we have a chance to go over the evidence from the scene. And I’m going to talk to Ed Roberts.”

Gage thought of the old man who was as close as Eagle Mountain came to a hermit. He lived in an apartment above the hardware store, but spent most of his time working an old gold mining claim in the area. “Is his claim around here?” he asked.

“Behind this property.” Travis gestured toward the north.

“You think he might have seen or heard something?”

Travis’s expression grew more grim. “And he’s a registered sex offender.”

Gage stared. He knew the department received regular updates from the sex offender registry, but he didn’t remember Roberts’s name being on there. Maybe it dated from before his time with the department. Now he felt a little sick to his stomach. “Did he molest some kid or something?”

“He was convicted of exposing himself to women—flashing them. It happened years ago, in another state, but still...”

“Yeah,” Gage said. “Still worth questioning him.”

“In the meantime,” Travis said, “we’ll have someone up here overnight and we’ll start the search again at first light.”

“That little kid must be scared to death, out there in the dark by herself,” Gage said.

“At least if she’s scared, it means she’s still alive,” Travis said. He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Go home. Try to get some rest. Pray that in the morning we get lucky.”

“I’m going to find a place for Maya to stay. I’ll probably pick her up in the morning and bring her up here with me. She’s the person the kid is most liable to run to on sight.”

“Good idea.”

Maya sat hunched in the front seat, hugging herself. “I should have started the engine so you could get warm,” he said, turning the key in the ignition. “Even in summer, it can get chilly up here at night.”

“I keep thinking about Casey, cold and alone out there in the dark,” she said.

“Most of the time, with little kids like this, they get tired and lie down somewhere,” Gage said. “We’re hoping she’ll see the fire at camp and come back there. A husband-and-wife team with the search and rescue squad have volunteered to stay there. They’ve got kids of their own, so they shouldn’t be too scary to Casey.”

“If she comes to them, you’ll call me.” It wasn’t a question.

“Of course,” Gage said. “As soon as we hear anything.”

They drove back toward town in silence. Full darkness had descended like a cloak, the sky a sweep of black in the windshield. When he had a cell signal, Gage pulled out his phone and made a call. “Hello?” The woman on the other end of the line sounded cautious, and maybe a little annoyed.

“Paige, this is Gage Walker. Sorry to bother you so late, but I’ve got a lady here who needs a room for the night—probably several nights. She’s the aunt of the little girl we’re searching for.”

“I heard about that,” Paige said. “Poor thing. And I do have a room. It’s my smallest one, but I doubt she’ll care about that.”

“Great. I’m going to take her to get something to eat, then we’ll stop by.”

“Sure thing, Deputy.”

“When was the last time you ate?” he asked Maya as they neared town.

“I had a sandwich at lunch,” she said. “That seems like days ago.”

“And now it’s almost ten. I know you probably don’t feel like eating, but you should. And I’m starving. Let me buy you dinner, then I’ll take you over to the Bear’s Den.”

“The Bear’s Den?”

“It’s a bed-and-breakfast. You should get along great with the woman who runs it.”

“Why do you say that?”

He glanced at her, but it was too dark for him to read her expression. “The hair, the VW bug, the English degree—trust me, the two of you will get along great.”

“Why do I get the feeling that’s not exactly a compliment?”

“It’s not an insult,” he said.

“Then what is it?”

He searched for the right words—words that weren’t going to offend her, that would convey what he really meant. “You stand out from the crowd around here,” he said. “That’s not a bad thing.”

“You mean the blue hair,” she said.

“The blue hair. The attitude.”

“You think I have an attitude?” Her voice rose and she leaned toward him.

Gage bit back a groan. Yes, she had an attitude—a “don’t mess with me” vibe that shone through the grief and fatigue. “I didn’t say it was a bad attitude,” he said. “And hey, maybe I’m full of it. Ignore everything I said.”

“You’re not the kind of man a woman ignores, Deputy.”

The words jolted him. Was she flirting with him? But when he glanced her way, she was facing forward again, what he could see of her expression betraying nothing.

Mo’s Pub was the only place open this late, so Gage drove there. When they walked in the waitress showed them to a booth. “Any word on that lost little girl?” she asked as she distributed menus.

“Not yet,” Gage said.

“Tony was up there all afternoon with the search and rescue crew, and we’re all praying y’all find her soon. Poor little baby. She must be scared to death up there on her own.”

“This is Casey’s aunt, Maya Renfro,” Gage said. “This is Sasha Simpson.”

“You poor thing.” Sasha patted Maya’s shoulder. “You must be worried sick. They’re gonna find her, I’m sure of it. They won’t stop looking until they do.”

“Thanks.” Maya looked a little dazed as Sasha hurried away to wait on another table. “She sounded really worried—and she doesn’t even know me or Casey.”

“She has two little girls of her own,” Gage said. “And that’s the way people are around here. Everybody knows everybody and while it’s not exactly family, it’s something like it.”

“I can see how that would be appealing,” she said. “But a little claustrophobic at times, too. Sometimes I like not knowing anything about my neighbors.”

Sasha returned and took their orders. Maya ordered a salad, which he expected she wouldn’t eat, but she was drinking her soft drink, so that was something. “So what do you do in Denver besides teach English?” he asked.

“I do poetry slams.”

Again, not what he would have expected. “That’s where people get up and perform poetry they’ve written, right?”

“Exactly.” She didn’t even try to hide her surprise.

“We may be a little out of the way here in Eagle Mountain, but we’re not completely backward,” he said.

“Have you ever been to a poetry slam?” she asked.

“No. But then, I can’t say I’ve ever cared much for poetry. Probably comes from having to memorize ‘O Captain! My Captain!’ when I was in fourth grade.”

“My poetry isn’t like that.”

“I kind of figured.”

She fell silent and Gage focused on his food as soon as Sasha had placed the dishes on the table. When he looked up again, Maya was staring at him. “I’d like to see Angela,” she said softly.

He should have seen that coming. “I can arrange that. Maybe late tomorrow.” He leaned toward her. “Is there someone else you should call to be here with you? Another sibling? Your parents?”

“I spoke to my parents after I talked to you,” she said. “They live in Arizona. My mom isn’t in good health and traveling is hard for her. And there’s nothing they can do. I told them they should stay put until we know more. And there aren’t any other siblings.”

“Okay.” So she had to bear this all by herself. He would do what he could to ease the burden for her.

“What about you?” she asked. “I know you have a brother—the sheriff. Any other brothers and sisters?”

“I have a sister. She’s a graduate student at CSU. Our parents have a ranch just outside of town.”

She speared a cherry tomato on her fork. “A ranch as in cows?”

“And horses. The Walking W Ranch has been in operation since 1942. My great-grandparents started it.”

“So do you, like, ride and rope and all that stuff?” she asked.

He suppressed a grin. “All that stuff.”

“That explains the belt buckle.”

He glanced down at the large silver-and-gold buckle, which he had won as State Junior Champion Bronc Rider in high school. “I was riding horses years before I learned to ride a bicycle,” he said. “And I still help out with fall roundup.”

She shook her head. “Our lives are so different we could be from two different countries.”

“We’re probably not that different,” he said. “I’ve found that people behave pretty much the same wherever they’re from.”

“Well, I’m from the city and I have no desire to ride a horse. And I hope you won’t take this wrong, but I thought my sister was crazy when she said she and Greg were thinking about moving here.”

“You told me they bought the mining claims for a demonstration project, not to live on.”

“That’s right. But they were talking about finding a place here in town. They had fallen in love with Eagle Mountain. I don’t know why.”

“You might be surprised,” Gage said. “I’ve heard from other people that the place has a way of growing on you.”

“I just want to find my niece and go home.” She looked all in, her eyes still red and puffy from crying, her shoulders slumped.

Gage pushed aside his plate. “You must be exhausted,” he said. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll take you to your car at the sheriff’s office and you can follow me to the B and B.”

Fifteen minutes later, they parked at the curb in front of the Victorian home Paige Riddell had converted into a bed-and-breakfast. The light over the front door came on and Paige stepped out. “I’m Paige,” she said, coming forward to take Maya’s bag. “You’ve had a pretty miserable day, I imagine, so I won’t prolong it, but I will say how sorry I am for your loss.”

“Thank you.” Maya gave Paige a long look. “Gage said I would like you—that he thought we’d have a lot in common.”

“That depends,” Paige said. “Some folks around here think of me as the local tree-hugging rabble-rouser, but I don’t take that as an insult.”

“Then yeah, I think we’ll get along fine,” Maya said.

“Let me show you to your room.” Paige put an arm around Maya and ushered her into the house. In the doorway, she stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Gage. “Don’t leave yet,” she mouthed, then went into the house with Maya.

Gage moved to the porch swing to the right of the door and sat, letting the calm of the night seep into him. Only one or two lights shone in the houses that lined the street, not enough to dim the stars overhead. He thought of the little girl in the woods and hoped she was where she could see those stars, and that maybe, seeing them, she wouldn’t feel so alone.

The door opened and Paige stepped out. “I got her settled in,” she said. “Grief can be so exhausting. I hope she’s able to get some sleep.”

“I’ll come by and pick her up in the morning and take her up to the campsite,” he said. “We’re hoping her niece will see her and come to her. I found out tonight that the little girl is deaf, so she wouldn’t hear us calling for her.”

Paige sat in a wicker armchair adjacent to the swing. “I can’t even imagine how worried Maya is. I don’t even know this kid and it upsets me to think of her out there.”

Gage stifled a yawn. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked.

“Yes. I wanted to tell you I saw that couple—Maya’s sister and her husband—the day before yesterday. And the little girl. She was with them. Adorable child.”

Gage sat up straight, fatigue receding. “Where was this?”

“Some of us from Eagle Mountain Conservation went up to Eagle Mountain Resort—you know, those mining claims Henry Hake wanted to develop?”

Gage nodded. Eagle Mountain Conservation had succeeded in getting an injunction to stop the development three years ago. “You saw the Hood family up there?”

“They were unloading camping gear from a white SUV parked on the side of the road. I guess they were camping on one of the claims near Hake’s property.”

“They bought the claim and I guess a few others in the area,” Gage said. “But what were you doing on Henry Hake’s land? It’s private property.”

Paige frowned at him, a scowl that had intimidated more than one overzealous logger, trash-throwing tourist or anyone else who attracted the wrath of the EMC. “We weren’t on his land. There’s a public easement along the edge of the property. It’s a historic trail that’s been in use since the 1920s. We established that in court, and Hake and his partners had to take down a fence they had erected blocking access. It was part of the injunction order that stopped the development.”

“So you went up there to hike the trail?”

“We had heard complaints that the fence was back up, so we went to check,” she said.

“And was it up?”

“Yes. With a big iron gate across it. Our lawyers have already filed a complaint with the county commissioners. We tried getting in touch with Hake, but didn’t have any luck.”

“He’s been missing for almost a month now,” Gage said. “No one has heard anything from him, and every trail we’ve followed up on has gone cold.”

“A man like that probably has plenty of enemies,” Paige said. “And he hung around with some nasty people. Maybe that former bodyguard of his did him in.”

“Maybe so, though we haven’t found evidence of that.” Hake’s one-time bodyguard had died in a struggle with Travis when he had kidnapped the woman who was now Travis’s fiancée. Three years previously, the same man had murdered Andy Stenson, a young lawyer in town who had also worked for Hake.

Paige leaned toward Gage. “It looked to me like work has been done up there on Hake’s property,” she said. “There’s a lot of tire tracks, and maybe even a new building or two.”

“I’ll see if I can find out anything,” Gage said. “Maybe someone working up there saw or heard something related to the Hoods’ killing.” He stood. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll see you and Maya in the morning.”

“I’m hoping she’ll get a good night’s sleep,” Paige said. “And that tomorrow we find her niece safe.”

“We all hope that.” He returned to his SUV and headed toward the house he rented on the edge of town, but he had traveled less than a block when his cell phone rang. “Gage, this is Al Dawson, over at the high school.”

“Sure, Al.” Gage glanced at the clock on his dash. Ten minutes until midnight. “What’s up?”

“I came in to do the floors here in the gym, but found the lock on the door is broken. Somebody bashed it in.”

“Did you go inside?” Gage asked, looking for a place to turn around.

“No. When I saw the damage to the door, I figured I’d better call you. It looks like we’ve got another break-in.”

“I’ll be right there, Al. Don’t go in.”

“I won’t. What’s going on, Gage?” Al asked. “Travis was out here just this morning to take a report on some items that were stolen from the chemistry lab. This used to be such a peaceful town—now we’ve got crime all over the place.”

“I don’t know, Al,” Gage said. “But I’ll be right there.” Ordinarily, a random burglary wouldn’t seem that unusual, but two burglaries in one week was enough to rate a headline in the local paper. Add in a double murder and Gage had to ask what the heck was going on.

Chapter Four

On his way to the high school, Gage called Travis. “Didn’t you respond to the high school this morning about a break-in?” he asked when his brother answered the phone.

“Yesterday morning,” Travis said. “It’s already this morning.”

“Sorry to wake you,” Gage said. “But I just got a call from Al Dawson, the janitor over there. He says the gym door has been tampered with.”

“All the doors were fine when I was out there,” Travis said. “The thief got into the lab through a broken window.”

“Al thinks somebody broke into the gym. I’m on my way out there.”

“I’ll meet you.”

Al was waiting by his truck when Gage pulled into the lot at the high school. Security lights cast a jaundiced glow over the scene. Whoever had attacked the door to the gymnasium hadn’t bothered with subtlety. They had bashed in the area around the lock with a sledgehammer or iron bar. “Is this the only door that’s been damaged?” Gage asked.

“I think so,” Al, a thin man in his sixties, said. “I took a look around while I was waiting for you and I didn’t see anything else.”

“You don’t have any security cameras focused on this area, do you?” Gage asked.

Al frowned. “We’re a rural school district. Our budget doesn’t run to security cameras.”

“All right.” Gage took out a pair of gloves and pulled them on. “I’ll check things inside. You wait here.”

But before he could open the door, Travis pulled up. Gage waited for his brother to join them. Travis greeted them, then surveyed the door. “They obviously didn’t care about hiding the damage,” he said. “Same thing with the science lab yesterday—smash and grab.”

“What did they take from the lab?” Gage asked.

“Science equipment—some test tubes and flasks, reagents and a Bunsen burner,” Travis said.

“You think it was kids making drugs?” Al asked.

“Kids or adults,” Travis said. “We’re keeping our eyes open.”

“I was just about to take a look inside,” Gage said.

“I’ll come with you.” Travis pulled on a pair of gloves and followed Gage inside, both men careful to keep to one side, out of what they judged was the direct path of entry. Later, a crime scene team would investigate and gather what evidence they could. “I don’t hold out much hope of getting good prints,” Gage said as he flipped the light switch. Banks of floodlights lit up the wood-floored space. Basketball hoops hung from the ceiling at either end of the gym, and metal bleachers lined the far wall.

“Doesn’t look like they did any damage in here,” Gage said, surveying the empty room.

“Let’s get Al in here and see if he sees anything out of place.” Travis walked back the way he and Gage had come. A minute later, he returned with the janitor. “Do you see anything missing, Al?”

The janitor scratched his head. “I don’t see anything—then again, I wouldn’t necessarily know. You need to get one of the coaches over here for that.”

Gage checked the time. Almost one in the morning. “For now, we’ll seal off the area and get one of the reserve officers over here to babysit the scene until the crime scene guys can make it over. What time do the coaches show up?”

“Seven thirty or so, usually,” Al said. He frowned across the silent gym. “I guess this means I won’t be doing the floors in here tonight.”

“No one comes in here without an escort from the sheriff’s department,” Gage said.

They went outside again and while Travis pulled crime scene tape from his SUV, Gage called in a reserve officer to stand guard and made notes about Al’s statement. “I’ll swing back here early to talk to the coaches,” he said.

Thirty minutes later, he and Travis walked back to their cars, prepared to leave. “Did you get Ms. Renfro taken care of?” Travis asked.

“She’s over at the Bear’s Den,” Gage said. “I told her I would pick her up and take her back to the camp in the morning. She wants to help search for her niece, and I think it’s probably a good idea. The little girl will recognize her, plus Maya can communicate with her in sign language.” He glanced over his shoulder at the high school. “I guess I’ll swing by here first, see if I can get anything useful from the coach.”

Travis clapped him on the shoulder. “Let me know what you find. I’ll see you later at camp.”

Gage opened the driver’s-side door of his SUV. “And to think just yesterday I was complaining about being bored,” he said. “That’s what I get for opening my big mouth.”

* * *

MAYA LAY AWAKE much of the night, alternately weeping and praying, terrified of what might be happening to Casey, unable to accept she would never see her sister again.

When the clock showed 6:00 a.m., she got out of bed and took a shower, then did her makeup and ventured downstairs. When she walked into the dining room, which was painted a cheery apple green, Paige gestured toward a buffet, on which sat a large coffee urn and plates of muffins. “Help yourself,” she said. “The other guests haven’t come down yet, but I knew you’d want an early start.”

Maya filled a coffee cup and stirred in cream and sugar. “I don’t guess you’ve heard anything from Gage?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, no,” Paige said. “I’m sure he would have called you if they had found anything.”

Maya dropped into one of the chairs at the dining table. Paige sat opposite her. “I know it’s hard,” Paige said. “But don’t give up hope. Everyone available is looking for your niece—and we’ve done this before. Two summers ago, a little boy got lost when his family was hiking and they found him the next day, a little cold and scared, but safe.”

Maya wrapped both hands around the sky-blue mug decorated with little fleurs-de-lis. “I keep telling myself that we’ll find Casey today. I wish I was up there right now, helping to look for her.”

“It’s still too dark out to see much,” Paige said. “And do you even know how to get there?”

“Gage took me there last night.” She sipped her coffee. “And I can follow directions, if someone tells me which way to go.”

“You might as well wait for Gage,” Paige said. “He should be here soon.”

“He probably has plenty to do besides babysitting me,” Maya said.

“He probably does,” Paige said. “But that’s the kind of guy he is—a real gentleman. I know it’s an old-fashioned word, but it’s true. He really cares about people. It’s what makes him good at his job.”

Maya shifted in her chair, curiosity warring with embarrassment. Curiosity won. “Are you and Gage involved?” she asked.

Paige laughed. “Oh my goodness, no. What made you think that?”

“I know you went down to talk to him after you showed me to my room. I just thought...” She shrugged.

“No. Gage and I are not involved.” Paige pinched off a bite of muffin. “Neither one of us is interested in getting serious,” she said. “It’s easier.”

“I know what you mean,” Maya said. “I’m not seeing anyone right now, either.” Though she couldn’t help thinking how nice it would be to have someone she could lean on. She pushed the thought away. She had been standing on her own two feet for plenty of years—no reason to stop now. “How did you end up in Eagle Mountain?” she asked.

“I came here on vacation and fell in love with the place,” Paige said.

“Where did you live before?” Maya asked.

“Portland, Oregon.”

“This is certainly different from Portland,” Maya said.

“Different was what I needed at the time. I was coming off a painful divorce, and both my parents had died in the three years prior to that. I had a little money my aunt had left me, so I used it to buy this place and fix it up.” She shrugged. “At the time, I thought maybe I would stay a few years then move on, but I got involved in life here and I love running the B and B. It’s a good fit all around.”

“I think small-town life would bore me after a while,” Maya said.

“There’s plenty to do here if you know where to look,” Paige said. “Maybe not as many choices as in the city and we’re low on anything resembling the club scene, but I’ve made a lot of friends here. I care about this place and it feels like home.”

The doorbell chimed and Paige scraped back her chair. “That’s probably Gage.”

Maya told herself her heart beat faster because she was hoping for news from Gage about her niece, but she had to admit to the thrill of attraction that ran through her when the sheriff’s deputy stepped into the dining room. “Good morning,” he said, and nodded and touched the brim of his hat.

The courtliness of the gesture moved her. He looked tired, and there was a heaviness about his eyes that heightened her own sadness. “Did you get any sleep last night?” she asked.

“A little.” He accepted a cup of coffee from Paige, and pulled out the chair next to Maya. “I had a late call. Break-in at the high school.”

“Kids?” Paige asked.

“Maybe.” Gage sipped his coffee.

Maya thought of the students in her classes—a mixed bunch of good and bad. “I guess even little towns like this aren’t immune to that kind of thing,” she said.

“Kids get bored and in trouble everywhere,” he said. “Though we like to think in Eagle Mountain there’s a little less trouble for them to find. No gangs, anyway. Drugs are always a concern, but there’s not as much of it here. And people in smaller communities get involved—if they see a kid up to something, they don’t hesitate to call it in.”

“I guess being nosy has its upside,” Maya said.

“It can.” He helped himself to a muffin. “We can go whenever you’re ready.”

“Let me grab my backpack.”

She waited until they were on their way before she asked the question that had been foremost in her mind all morning. “Have you heard anything from the other searchers?” she asked.

“I’m sorry. No.” He glanced at her, then back at the road. “Have you thought about where Casey might have gone if she ran away? Let’s go with the theory that she saw what happened to her parents and ran, scared. Is there anything in particular that she’s attracted to? Is she drawn to water? Would she hide in a cave, or would she avoid that?”

“I think a cave would frighten her. I don’t think she cares about water, one way or another.” She frowned, trying to think past her exhaustion and fear. “I mean, she’s five years old. She’s a sweet, innocent girl who’s never known danger for a minute in her life. Seeing her parents killed—” She shook her head. “She must be terrified.”

“We haven’t found any indication that the people who killed your sister and her husband harmed Casey,” Gage said. “Hold on to that hope.”

She nodded. “I will. I’m hoping Casey spent the night hiding, and once she sees me, she’ll come out.”

“That’s what we’re hoping, too.”

“You were right—I do like Paige. And she vouched for you as a good guy.”

“Were you worried I was otherwise?”

“No, but it’s always good to have someone verify my first impression.”

“Glad I passed the test. Though I can’t say I’m all that comfortable knowing you two have been discussing my merits and flaws.”

“Ha! As if men don’t do the same with women.”

“I promise, I haven’t discussed you with anyone.”

Under other circumstances, that admission might have disappointed her, Maya told herself. But there were bigger things at stake right now. “What’s the plan for this morning?” she asked.

“I think you should hang around the main camp. If any of the search team spot Casey, or any signs of her, they can contact the base and we’ll get you to that location.”

That sounded like a lot of sitting around and waiting for other people to find Casey—not what she had in mind. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I want to take a look at the property adjacent to the place your sister and her husband owned. A few years back, a developer bought it and had plans to build a big resort, but he ran afoul of local environmentalists. The property is supposed to be vacant, but Paige told me last night she was up there a few days ago and it looked as if someone had been working there. If I can find whoever that was, maybe they saw something that will lead us to your sister’s killer. Or maybe someone there has seen Casey.”

“Or maybe this mysterious person is the killer.” Maya wrapped her arms across her stomach to ward off a chill.

“Maybe.” Gage looked grim. “It’s something I need to find out.”

“I want to come with you,” Maya said. “If there are other people working there, it makes sense that Casey would have headed in that direction.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to walk into,” Gage said. “I can’t risk putting you in danger.”

“I don’t care about that.” When he gave her a questioning look, she set her jaw. “No offense, Deputy, but I’ll do almost anything to save my niece. That’s more important to me than anything else right now.”

“And if I order you to stay away?” he asked.

“Then you would have a fight on your hands,” she said. “And when it comes to people I love, I’m not afraid to fight dirty.”

“The scary thing about that,” Gage said, “is that I absolutely believe you.”

“Why is that scary?”

“Let’s just say, I never met a teacher like you. I’m still making up my mind whether I like that or not.”

“You don’t have to like it. Just don’t stand in the way of me taking care of my niece.”

“I won’t stand in your way,” he said. “Unless you’re in mine. But I think we’re on the same side in this matter. Just respect that I have a job to do. I want to find your niece as much as you do, but I also need to find your sister’s killer. I think we can do both.”

“Are you going to take me with you this morning or not?”

She waited a long, tense moment for him to answer. If she had to, she would go to his brother, the sheriff. Or she would get the press on her side—there was bound to be a reporter at the site, surely.

“All right, you can come with me,” he said. “But if I sense anything dangerous, I’m taking you right back to camp—no arguments.”

“All right.” That would have to do—for now. Maya had meant it when she told Gage she would do anything to protect her niece. Anything at all.

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