The bubbly Bolivian woman was a charming lady, but she was chattier than a blacked-capped Chickadee on a sunny spring day. Five minutes in her company was enough to send any sane person into social overload.
“Morning, Maria.” With any luck it’d be a quick request. “What can I do for you?”
“Me church collecting clothes for people in earthquake. You have lot clothes in bedrooms. Like to give some? Me stay longer and clean closets for you. No charging more.”
All the quality clothes he used to wear in his former life cluttered his spare bedroom. Had he bothered sorting them before moving to Montana, he would have given them away instead of packing them. His maid’s offer presented too much merit to ignore.
“That’s very nice of you, Maria. You can take all the clothes in the guest bedroom, but do not remove anything from mine. Do you understand?”
“Me not take clothes from señor bedroom. Understand.” She beamed with gratitude. “Me clean closet real good for señor. Thank you.”
Her joy and enthusiasm brightened his day, sparking an idea. “Maria, would you have room in your weekly cleaning schedule for another house?”
“Si. Si.” She nodded with such gusto, her head threatened to roll off her shoulders. “You have customer for me?”
“Would you go to Deputy Eve Ford’s house once a week to clean? Her husband hurt his back and she’s six month pregnant. They need help.” If Eve objected, he would tell her it was his baby gift. “I will pay you.”
“You good man, señor. Go work now. Adiós.”
Had Maria known him a decade or two ago, she wouldn’t have called him a good man. He’d been a selfish and arrogant fool, and he’d paid the price. The ultimate price.
He tossed the newspaper in the recycling bin. “I’m leaving, Maria.”
“Wait, señor.” Small, quick steps resonated in the hallway. Out of breath, his maid emerged holding a folded envelope and a few twenty-dollar bills. “Found in blue and gray line coat. Not give church.”
Having no idea which jacket she meant, Rich took the wrinkled envelope and shoved it in his pocket. “You keep the money. Have a good day.”
Four intersections and a railway track separated his house from the sheriff’s office. Depending on the amount of red lights or trains he encountered, it took him anywhere from five to twenty minutes to get to work.
Rich stopped at the railway tracks behind a green SUV. Two locomotives rolled by, pulling a chain of wagons as far as the eye could see.
With nothing to do but wait, he leaned back in his seat and dug his hands into his pockets, stumbling onto the envelope Maria had given him.
Let’s see...
He opened it. As soon as he glimpsed the folded piece of blue paper inside, his past caught up with him, jabbing an invisible knife into his chest.
Phoenix...
Eighteen years later, her name still evoked heartache and regrets. With quivering heart, he unfolded the tattered piece of paper he’d read so often he could recite it in his nightmares.
West Point, May 11th
This is a goodbye letter, Ducky.
On his third year at Harvard, he’d made the rowing team. During an exhibition race against West Point, he’d struck a duckling with his oar, catapulting the feathered baby into the crowd. After the race, which they’d won, a female cadet had approached him. It’d taken Rich an eternity to divert his eyes from her gorgeous blues eyes to the quacking duckling she held with her gloves.
From that point on, she’d called him Ducky.
Meeting your parents was a mistake I regret. Your mother refused to shake my hand and your father kept staring at my arm. Their actions made it painfully clear that you deserve a perfect woman and that I don’t belong in your family.
She’d been perfect in every sense of the word, but his parents had treated her with contempt. His cowardly silence had reinforced their positions.
I’m graduating on the 15th and I’m being deployed in Europe on the 18th. They want me to improve my Russian and German.
Only in the Army would they want her to improve something she mastered better than the local residents.
The last weekend we spent together, I asked you to come with me. You said you’d think about it. It’s been three weeks, and I still haven’t heard from you. Your lack of response speaks volumes.
He’d chosen money over love—and lived long enough to regret it.
Please take care of yourself.
Love you always,
Phoenix
Like the mystical bird, she’d risen from the ashes, and at her touch, he’d crashed and burned.
***
Gil picked up the infamous business card from Eve’s desk.
SFS Photos - Show your Fangs and Smile
Sly Serpent, PO Box 8888, Montana
The male model had forgotten where he’d put the card. By the time he found it in the glove compartment of his Porsche and drove to the sheriff’s office to drop it off, it was hours later. Too late to work on the lead.
Not a lead, a wild goose chase.
“Four slithering eights. Fangs. Snake. That Serpent guy is a creep.” Gil dropped the card next to her keyboard. “I can’t believe Joel didn’t notice the name of the town was missing.”
“An extra dose of grey matter isn’t a prerequisite in his line of work, that’s for sure.” A rosy tinge colored Eve’s cheeks. “Now, about that missing town. Nathan’s back was killing him last night, so he stayed up and did some research for us.”
“You mean hacking?” Gil’s appreciation for his shrewd partner and her techie civilian husband bordered admiration. “You know you’re corrupting the poor guy, don’t you?”
“At least he’s working for us. Now look at this.” She tipped the screen of her computer toward him. “This is a list of all the places in Montana where you can rent a postal box.”
A low whistle wisped through his lips. “Tell me you narrowed it down to the dozen locations highlighted in pink?”
“The actual number is thirteen.” An air of satisfaction enveloped her. With her hands over her belly, she glowed. “And yes, these are the only places where they have a box 8888. If the sheriff authorizes it, you and I could go on a road trip starting with
this
one.”
With her index finger, she pointed at the town of Anaconda.
“Anaconda?” It was a
snake
connection, but it sounded too easy. “I don’t know, Eve. It’s a long drive only to check the name of the owner of a postal box. Serpent could have printed that number at random. Can’t we just phone the place?”
“Geez, how come I didn’t think of that?” Eve didn’t need a gun. The glare in her eyes had the precision of a laser beam and looked as lethal. “Or maybe I did try that, but the employee didn’t like my voice. I’m sure her refusal had nothing to do with the privacy laws I was asking her to breach over the phone.”
“You’re right.” For his sake, he needed to stop arguing with a pregnant redhead. “Want me to fill the paperwork for the warrant?”
“Already requested one. It should be ready by now.”
The door opened, creating a cold draft. A woman in an army uniform entered. Her gaze swiftly swept across the office before settling on him.
“I was told a mishap at the Snowy Tip Training Center falls under the sheriff’s jurisdiction.” Bouncy brown curls framed her face, adding shadows to her mystic expression. “Am I correct?”
The training center, located forty minutes north of town, fell under their jurisdiction, but Gil hadn’t set a ski on their trails since he was a reckless teenager. For as long as he’d been deputy, the sheriff’s office hadn’t had to intervene once at Snowy Tip.
“Yes, ma’am.” The silver eagles on the shoulders of her winter coat unnerved Gil. She looked to be in her thirties, too young for the rank of colonel. “I’m Deputy Thompson. How can I help you?”
“The sign by the door says Sheriff Tim Oakley. If you don’t mind, I’d like to see him. Now.” Her voice, as soft and melodious as the wind, carried her authority throughout the room.
Maybe Gil was wrong about her age...or her rank. “Sheriff Oakley retired last year, ma’am. We haven’t gotten around to changing the sign yet. Sheriff Morgan should be here shortly. Would you like a cup of coffee?”
“No, thank you.” Her cap tucked under her arm, she unbuttoned her coat without removing her black leather gloves. “If I drink one more cup, I won’t sleep for weeks.”
Something in the officer’s demeanor as she paced between his desk and the window suggested she wasn’t in the habit of waiting.
“Would you—” Gil’s invitation to take a seat was cut short by the sheriff’s arrival. “Sheriff? Eve has a new lead we’d like to follow, and you have a visitor.”
“Go ahead with the lead.” Morgan hung his cap on a hook near the door. “What’s the Army doing here?”
The military woman spun around. The astounded look on her face matched Morgan’s. “Richmond?”
Up to this morning, Gil had never seen anything or anyone rattle the sheriff’s composure or shake his boots. The visitor’s mere presence had managed both.
As entertaining and enlightening as it might be, staying to watch the encounter didn’t strike Gil as a good or safe idea. “Eve and I are leaving. We’ll keep you posted.”
Chapter Four
Amelia had a knack for emptying rooms, but never with so few words. The speed at which Thompson and the pretty redhead with an unmistakable front bump exited the office had to be a new record.
“Hello, Amelia.” Richmond raked his fingers through short blond hair streaked with rich caramel lowlights. Age had chiseled his face, accentuating his piercing blue-grey eyes. “What brings you here?”
She hadn’t seen him in eighteen years, and the last she’d heard, he worked for the FBI. His reputation as a cold and calculating agent, the best in the field, preceded him. That he didn’t conceal his surprise at seeing her was nothing short of stunning.
“You’re Sheriff Morgan?” Had she known
he
was the sheriff, she might have hesitated—for a second. Unless he’d lost his touch, Richmond Morgan was still her daughter’s best hope. “Is that a promotion or demotion from Special Agent?”
“Promotion.” He tossed his coat on a chair. The outerwear slid from the backrest, heaping on the seat, but he didn’t seem to care. “No commute, no bureaucrat, and no politics. Only fresh air, friendly folks, and two dedicated deputies.”
“You look great, Richmond.” It appeared the decades had washed away his aristocratic attitude, leaving behind a quiet contentment. “Your
promotion
agrees with you.”
“You’re not doing too bad yourself.” The ghost of a smile fleeted across his lips. “Colonel at thirty-eight. I’m impressed.”
“Thirty-nine to be exact, but I’m not here on Army business.” Goldman’s phone call had interrupted a late night meeting. She hadn’t bothered changing into civilian clothes before jumping in the first plane out of Boston. “My daughter is missing, Richmond. I need your help to find her.”
“Daughter?” He sat on the corner of an unoccupied desk near the coffee cart. “I’m listening.”
“Her name is Hope Craig a.k.a. Quest.” Amelia retrieved her daughter’s biography from her purse—to save time she’d printed it from the team’s website—and handed it to him. It contained a close-up picture of Hope taken in August.
“She’s as pretty as her mother.” For a moment, his gaze seemed to lose its focus. “Where’s her father?”
“He was a U.S. Air Force pilot. We met in Europe after I graduated. He died that August in a training accident.” Her voice faltered. “He never knew about Hope.”
“I see...” As he focused his attention on the sheet of paper, an invisible veil dropped over his head, blanking his expression. “Biathlon athlete...Trains at Snowy Tip...Seventeen...Lt. Norm H. Craig...” With a few random words, he’d summarized Hope’s life story. “When did she go missing?”
“Hope went on a lone training run at dawn yesterday morning.”
If only her disappearance had raised suspicion earlier on.
“It was the last time she was seen.”
“Your daughter disappeared more than twenty-four hours ago, and you just notified me?”
Richmond didn’t move or raise his voice, but he might as well as yelled. The verbal blow struck her the same.
“I didn’t learn about her disappearance until late last night. I flew...” Tears she refused to shed in front of him stung her eyes. Despite her military training, keeping her emotions at bay was becoming increasingly difficult. “Her coach got a message but it wasn’t from Hope.”
“Hold on here.” Abandoning his stoic pose on the desk, he closed the distance between them and captured her right hand. “For your daughter’s sake, let’s just start at the beginning, okay? You said she was alone in the mountains?”
He stroked the bare skin at the edge of her glove. In his touch, Amelia found the strength she’d sought all night.
“Hope was born deaf. As a child, she was equipped with a Cochlear implant, but it’s not a perfect fit. Sometimes the white noise becomes too much to bear. She needs her daily dose of silence. Early every morning, Coach Goldman allows her to train solo without her transmitter.”
That special treatment had been the main reason why Amelia had resisted Hope’s decision to train at Snowy Tip, but her daughter was as stubborn as her father. In the end, Amelia had yielded.
Without releasing her hand, Richmond forced her to sit on a chair. “The transmitter is the external part that connects to the ear allowing her to hear, right?”
Surprised by his knowledge of her daughter’s condition, Amelia responded with a short nod.
“Can she hear at all on her own? Or would she have been oblivious to any threatening sounds?”
“Oblivious, but she’s learned to rely on her other senses to compensate for the lack of hearing.”
“I understand.” His gaze bore into her soul, unleashing memories too painful to revisit. “Please continue.”
“Yesterday morning, Coach Goldman received a text message he believed to be from Hope. The message said she was taking the rest of the day off to deal with personal issues. Goldman assumed Hope had returned from her practice run and was either too upset or too tired to show up at the shooting range. He didn’t push for an explanation and didn’t worry until last night when she missed the curfew. That’s when he called me. I took the first flight west and went directly to Snowy Tip.