High-Risk Affair

Chapter 3

“What have you got?” Willy hurried toward him, her gaze sharp and intent.

He was always glad to work a case with the detective. She had a quick, analytical mind and always took a second or third look at the facts to make sure she wasn’t missing anything.

She wasn’t bad on the eyes, either, with tawny skin and the long-legged grace of a natural athlete. Not that he had ever spent much time noticing, but maybe he should. These last few weeks had made him painfully aware of the loneliness of his life outside of work. Somehow he had focused all his energy on the job, leaving nothing for a personal life.

When the job went wrong, he had been left with nothing.

Not that he wanted that kind of complication right now. But if he did, he ought to think about hooking up with someone tough-shelled and resilient, like Wilhelmina Carson.

He certainly wouldn’t be stupid enough to waste his time taking a second look at someone breakable like Megan Vance.

“Did I miss something?” Willy asked.

He put any thought of soft, fragile women out of his head, then slipped off his shoes and socks, gauging the wall carefully as he did. “I don’t know. See those holes up there?”

She looked baffled but studied where he pointed. “Those little things? I thought they were just screwholes or imperfections in the logs or something.”

“They’re a little too evenly spaced to be imperfections. Hang on.”

He stuck the index finger of his right hand in the lowest three-quarter-inch hole, then extended his left hand to the next highest. Pain radiated from his shoulder but he ignored it, as he’d been trying to do for two long weeks. As he suspected, the holes were about three feet apart, just about the width of a nine-year-old’s outstretched fingers.

“Damn. This kid is amazing.”

Ignoring the strident cry of protest from his shoulder, he pulled himself up the logs using the conveniently placed fingerholes, pausing about halfway between the ground and the boy’s window.

“You are frigging crazy, Davis!”

Below, he caught a clear view of Willy’s consternation. “You’re two weeks out of having your shoulder ripped open, you idiot. Let me find you a damn ladder.”

“I’m good. Just hang on.”

“Do I have to go find McKinnon to drag you down?”

Okay, this hadn’t been the smartest idea. His shoulder wasn’t anywhere near ready for this, especially when he was wearing a shirt and tie and his second-best summer weight slacks instead of Lycra and climbing shoes.

“I’m done.” He jumped the five feet to the ground. “You’re going to want to find that ladder now and dust those finger holes I didn’t use for prints.”

“You really think the boy climbed out on his own using those dinky finger holes?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time a kid climbed out an open window.”

“That took time and effort to drill those holes. This wasn’t something that happened overnight. Could someone else be involved?”

“Possibly, but I’m beginning to doubt it. Those holes are custom-set for a nine-year-old’s arm span. Did you notice how awkward they were for me to use, spaced so close together?”

Willy shook her head in disbelief. “All I saw was an agent with the Federal Bureau of Idiots trying to kill himself. Good grief, Davis. This kid is only nine years old! How the hell could he pull it off?”

“My guess is practice. The holes are already worn in spots.”

“That would explain why the boy’s fingerprints are the only ones I can find on the window ledge. Am I wasting my time looking for evidence somebody else was involved in the kid’s disappearance, then?”

His gut was telling him the boy escaped completely on his own, for reasons Cale didn’t yet understand.

He really hoped that was the case, for the mother’s sake, and that searchers would find him camped out in the mountains somewhere oblivious to all the trouble he had left behind.

“It’s never a waste of time to check out all the angles. I could be completely off base here.”

“But you don’t think so.”

“You didn’t hear it from me,” he answered. “Until we know otherwise with absolute certainty, the FBI will continue working this case as a possible abduction.”

And he would do his best not to spend more time than absolutely necessary dwelling on the missing boy’s mother, with her soft skin and her scared eyes.

12:25 p.m.

This wasn’t the right way, either.

In the fading light of his flashlight, Cameron saw a huge pile of rubble blocking the shaft he had been certain would take him back to familiar ground.

He turned off the flashlight to conserve whatever juice he had left and slumped to the ground, feeling worse than the time his soccer team back in San Diego had lost the championship game in the league playoffs by one stinking last-minute goal.

He pressed one hand to his whirly stomach and used the other to wipe away the hot tears burning his eyes. He had been so sure this way would lead him back to the tunnels he had explored, where he could follow his own chalk marks back to the entrance and go home.

Home.

He wanted so much to be there, safe in his own room with the pictures of his dad on the wall and his soccer trophies on a shelf by his bed.

He sniffled, wiping his nose on his shirt. Was anybody looking for him yet? He could bet his uncle and cousins were out there. But his stomach hurt even worse thinking about it. Nobody would have any idea where to look for him, and that was the scariest thing of all.

He knew a good Navy SEAL left no trace behind him, and Cam had been careful to wipe away his tracks leading into the shaft and to cover the entrance with a dead sagebrush.

If only he hadn’t been so careful, maybe someone would find the mine entrance and figure out he was in here.

He never knew dark could be so dark. It was heavy and scary—he couldn’t even see his own hand when he held it right up to his eyes.

The two times he had sneaked into the tunnels before, he hadn’t stayed very long and he had always had plenty of light. It had been more exciting than scary, like exploring a whole new planet somewhere that nobody else knew about.

It was exciting then. Now the dark was so heavy and sometimes he couldn’t even tell whether his eyes were open or closed.

He had two more sets of batteries and a spare flashlight, but he didn’t know how long he was going to be in here. He didn’t want to use all his light and then be left with nothing.

He didn’t want to die in the dark somewhere, alone and scared. He wiped his nose again, wondering what he should do. He had turned so many corners in the mine that he didn’t have the first idea which way would lead him out.

Overwhelmed by his fear and at the thought of dying, he couldn’t keep in a sob. He cried for a minute, then tried to stop. He wasn’t making any progress sitting here like a big baby and bawling his eyes out. Every minute he wasted was another minute he had to stay in the dark.

His breath came in little baby gasps, but he managed to quit bawling after another minute or two. He would say a prayer, he decided. That’s what his mom told him to do whenever he was worried or scared or hurting.

Though he whispered the words, they sounded loud and echoing in the total quiet of the tunnel.

“Help me out of here, please. I promise if You do, I’ll never sneak out at night again, even when I’m a teenager, and I won’t yell at my sister when she touches my stuff. I’ll share my Play Station with her and I won’t talk back to my mom, even in my head.”

He paused, not sure what else to say. “You know,” he said after a minute, “I could really use my dad’s help in here. If he’s not busy, could You send him down to help me out? Amen.”

He felt a little better after he prayed, though he had to admit to some disappointment when the way out of the mine shaft didn’t suddenly glow in front of him in big flashing lights.

After a minute, when nothing supermiraculous happened, such as his dad’s angel suddenly showing up, he sighed and pulled the water bottle out of his pack, allowing himself just a tiny sip.

He was so thirsty he wanted to suck down the whole thing, but he knew that would be a bad idea. He might need some later.

He would just go back the way he had come this time and try a different route. Sooner or later, he would find his way out.

He stood up, then remembered something else and raised his eyes to the ceiling of the chamber. “One more thing,” he prayed out loud. “Can You please help my mom not to be so mad at me?”

1:30 p.m.

She was suffocating under the weight of all the solicitude being piled on her.

Just now it was her big sister adding another layer.

“Honey, you can’t stay here all day,” Molly entreated, her green eyes dark and worried. “Why don’t you come on back to our place where things are a little more quiet and rest for a while?”

“I can’t leave right now,” she said firmly.

“Our house is just down the road. You know Daniel will let us know the minute they find him.”

She deeply appreciated her sister’s stubborn optimism, but she still wasn’t willing to leave the house. Not until Cam was found.

“You go, Mol,” she replied. “I know you’re exhausted from that press conference.”

Megan couldn’t help thinking Molly was the one who looked as if she needed to rest. Her pretty soccer mom of a sister looked ravaged, totally wiped out by the stress of this ordeal.

Guilt pinched at her. Had she asked too much of Molly to put her in front of the cameras?

“I’m fine,” Molly answered. “I only hope whatever I said to the media will somehow help us find Cam.”

“It will.”

She hugged her sister, thinking how much she owed her. Molly had been there any time Megan needed her, a quiet, steady source of strength and support.

Megan had been twelve, Molly nineteen—a freshman in college—when the cancer that had ravaged their mother for more than a year ultimately took Carol Kincaid’s life. Megan could never forget that her sister had left school and returned home to Boston to care for her and Kevin, their brother who had been fourteen at the time.

When other girls her age were busy with boyfriends and algebra finals and trips to Cancun for spring break, Molly had been home with them doing laundry, fixing lunches, helping with homework. She never complained, but Megan knew it couldn’t have been easy on her.

A year later, they were all barely beginning to find their way through the grief over their mother’s death when the unthinkable happened—their police officer father was struck and killed by a drunk driver while he was standing on the side of the road giving a routine traffic ticket.

With patience and love, Molly had pulled her and Kevin through the devastating pain. Completely on her own, her twenty-year-old sister had kept their little family together for three years until Kevin left for college.

By then she’d started dating a handsome young law student. Megan didn’t think her sister ever would have married the love of her life until Megan reached adulthood if she hadn’t interfered.

One night when Molly had been busy in the kitchen, she had taken Scott Randall aside and told him bluntly that if he wanted to marry her sister, Megan would be happy to go live with friends for the remaining two years of high school so they wouldn’t have to start married life with an annoying teenage girl underfoot.

Scott had been surprised at first at her bluntness, then had laughed, hugged her, then pulled out of his pocket the ring he planned to give to Molly that very night.

Together, the two of them had worked for two weeks to convince Molly there was no obstacle to her marrying the man of her dreams.

They had all grieved together on 9/11 when their New York firefighter brother had died running into Tower One of the World Trade Center. And Scott and Molly had packed up their family and come to stay for a month in San Diego after Rick’s death.

She knew she relied on her sister’s strength too much. At some point she needed to stand on her own.

But not now. She couldn’t survive this without her sister’s help—and she knew Megan would use up every bit of her emotional reserves if she didn’t convince her to rest.

“Go on home and take it easy. Scott and the kids need you and so does Hailey. I’ll let you know how things are going here.”

Molly looked torn. “Are you sure?”

She nodded firmly. “Go.”

“All right. I’ll take a few hours to check on things at home and make sure nobody’s set the house on fire. You take care of yourself while I’m gone, promise? You need to rest and eat something, honey.”

“I will,” she lied.

Her sister kissed her cheek, and the worry in her eyes took Megan’s breath away. Somehow, seeing the edge of panic in her sister who was usually so calm and in control seemed to magnify Megan’s own gut-wrenching fear.

After her sister left, she crossed to the window above the sink and looked out at the mountains behind her house. As the weather forecasters had warned, a hot, dry wind blew down the mountains, rattling the branches of the crabapple tree outside her kitchen window and fluttering the heads of the daisies and columbines in her flower garden.

People were coming and going in every direction. Megan had never felt so helpless.

This was the first time she had been completely alone since she had called the police and then Molly in the early hours of the morning. It had been hard enough keeping her fear under control in the presence of others. She found it impossible when only in the company of her own terrible thoughts.

Where could he be? Was he safe? Why hadn’t they found him yet?

She knew there were several theories buzzing around the command center. There were no doubt some—like Agent Davis—who suspected she had harmed Cam in some way and then had reported him missing to cover up her heinous crime.

Though it stung to know people might be so cynical, she couldn’t really blame them. She supposed it was logical to look at those closest to the child in cases like this. Knowing that, though, didn’t make the shame of those suspicions any easier to bear.

She knew there were also those who believed Cam might have wandered away. If that was the case, why hadn’t they found him yet? The mountains were vast, but he was just a nine-year-old boy. He couldn’t have wandered that far.

Still, that was far easier to digest than the third alternative, that someone had taken him out of his bedroom for reasons she couldn’t even bear thinking about.

She had no enemies in Moose Springs, no one willing to exact revenge on her through her child. She knew only a few people—some clients, some of her sister’s friends, a handful of people she’d met at church. If this had been a random act, why target Cameron?

Please keep him safe, she prayed silently as a thousand doubts and fears stampeded over her.

“Mrs. Vance? Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes and saw with some degree of consternation that the grim-faced FBI agent had entered the kitchen. He had changed from his suit to jeans and a black T-shirt with FBI on the back and he studied her with an odd look in those icy blue eyes—a strange mix of concern and reluctance, as if he hadn’t expected to find her here.

“No. I’m sorry, but I’m not okay.” She didn’t know if she ever would be again.

“Did your sister leave?”

“I sent her home to get some rest,” she answered. “The press conference exhausted her.”

“Did you watch any of it?”

She nodded. “As much as I could stand. I had to turn it off near the end.”

She had had enough after the media started asking questions about Rick’s death and the stress a grieving widow must be facing as she raised two young children on her own.

“Your sister was a perfect spokesperson—calm and controlled, but impassioned and forceful at the same time.”

“That’s Molly in a nutshell.”

He looked as if he wanted to say something else and continued to study her with that probing look she found so uncomfortable.

“Was there something you needed, Agent Davis?” she asked when the silence between them stretched on a little too awkwardly. She deliberately used his title and that seemed to jar him back to awareness.

He blinked. “Right. I came in for a drink. That hot wind out there is a killer.”

Between the rain of the night before and the hot dry wind today, conditions couldn’t have been more unfavorable for tracking one missing little boy.

“I hope the searchers are keeping hydrated.”

“They’re all under strict orders, eight ounces of water for every hour they’re out in the sun.” He paused. “You know they had to call off the search dogs, don’t you?”

She nodded tightly. She had been devastated when Daniel Galvez had told her the news, explaining that the swirling wind and the volunteer searchers were all muddying the scent and the dogs hadn’t been able to pick anything up.

“The handlers will take them out again tonight after they’ve rested, when it’s cooler and the wind dies down,” Agent Davis said. “They might have better luck then.”

Nighttime. She couldn’t bear to think of Cam being out there somewhere in the dark, alone and wanting his mother. Even more frightening, each tick of the clock was one more minute he spent without his life-saving seizure medication.

“Do you know anything about epilepsy, Agent Davis?”

He finished a swallow of his water before answering. “Some. My first partner had a sister with it.”

“My son suffers from grand mal seizures. After much trial and error, we’ve been lucky to find a medicine combination that has worked for him for the last few years. As long as he takes his meds twice a day, his seizures are controlled. He’s now missed one dose. By this evening he’ll have missed two doses. He’s out there somewhere, and every moment that passes until we find him puts him in more jeopardy of having a seizure that could kill him.”