Sara (7 page)

             
Closing his eyes again, Mike tried to make a connection with his missing daughter.
Give me a sign, Sara. Please help me find you.

             
A slamming door shook Mike from his reverie. He turned to see Jordan walking from the county building. The boy looked at him and snickered with a slight smile on his face and Mike sensed that this young man had hurt his daughter. Anger boiled in his blood.

“Mike! Why haven’t you called? I have been worried sick about you and Sara all day long.”

Jean took a deep breath before continuing, “My God! I would hope that you would have the common decency to at least let me know that our daughter is safe. Where are you guys?”

             
Mike switched the cell phone to his left ear. His tone was sharp, “She’s not here, Jean. I haven’t found her yet.”

             
Mike sat in his car outside a small bed & breakfast in Ranch Springs. He had dreaded making this call.

             
Jean was stunned to silence on the other end, so Mike began to fill her in.

“Her car is here. It’s parked in an impound lot. No one claims to have seen Sara. The sheriff thinks she may have caught a ride to Laramie with another student.”

              “That’s ridiculous, Mike,” Jean yelled into the phone. “Sara would have called us. She would have let us know, did you tell the police that?”

             
Mike leaned forward and rested his head against the steering wheel.

“Sara’s cell phone and purse we
re on the front seat of the car,” he said. “The tow truck driver says that she was not with her car when he arrived.”

             
Jean was crying hysterically now. “Jesus Christ, Mike! Am I the only one who can see that something terrible has happened to our daughter? Are you really that blind?”

             
Mike sat back and rubbed his right temple, “Jean, getting hysterical is not going to---”

             
Jean exploded, “I am not hysterical, mister! I am afraid for my daughter!”

             
“I know, I know,” Mike said soothingly. “I’m sorry, honey. I am afraid, too. I need you to pack some clean clothes and bring them to me in the morning.”

             
Jean listened quietly, so Mike continued.

“Transfer our home phone to your cell phone so we don’t miss any calls, okay Jean?”

              “Okay,” was Jean’s only reply.

             
“I’m in Ranch Springs at the…” Mike looked out the window at a dimly lit sign on the bed & breakfast. “Sightseer Inn. It’s just across the street from the only church in town. You’ll see it on the hill when you turn off the highway.”

             
Jean was crying now, “What have they done to my Sara, Mike? Why did you make her leave?”

             
Mike sat quietly before responding, “We’ll find her, Jean. We’ll bring her home.”

After listening to his wife’s sobs for several seconds, Mike added,
“Jean, I want you to bring my Ruger and a box of ammo. Make sure the box says .45 caliber on it, and make sure it’s full, okay?”

             
“Okay,” was all she said. Mike noticed the exhaustion in her voice.

             
“I’ll see you in the morning, honey. We’ll find her, okay?”

             
Jean hung up the phone without responding.

twelve

The seasonal stream offered a quiet solitude with its reluctant trickle over moss covered rocks. Sara dipped her cupped palm into a narrow pool and brought the cool liquid to her lips. The water offered solace. It calmed a place in her soul that had been laid open to an acrid dimension she once thought existed only in fiction.

             
The sun was setting, feeding an instinctual desire to find shelter and safety, but Sara could not abandon this sanctuary. A smile turned the corners of her mouth and she eased herself to the ground to run a finger through the crystal surface of the brook. A water spider darted from its hiding place and skated across the face of the pool.

“EEK! Daddy, come look at this spider!”

F
ive-year-old Sara squatted near the edge of a beaver pond and poked at the floating Fisher Spider with a long blade of Indian grass.

             
“What did you find, Sara?” Her father had always been interested in her thrilling discoveries.

             
“How does it do that, Daddy?” Sara asked. “How does the spider walk on water like that?”

             
Her father sat his fishing pole aside and knelt beside her to watch the spider skitter away to safety. Gently taking her hand and turning her palm up, he explained, “That spider has tiny little hairs on the bottom of his feet that support him on the surface of the water.”

He tickled her palm and sent her into a fit of giggles.

              “If fish had hair, would they float too?” she asked.

Sara relished her father’s patient answers to her never-ending questions.

              “Well, honey, if fish had hair and floated, they would certainly be easier to catch.” He lifted her into his arms and held her close. “But, would you be willing to wear a coat made from fish fur?”

             
Sara wrinkled her nose, “Yuk, Daddy. That would smell terrible.”

             
“It wouldn’t smell terrible to the other fish, Squeaky. They would love the way you smelled.”

             
Sara giggled again.

“Do fish have noses, Daddy?”

Sara’s father hoisted her to his shoulders, retrieved his rod, and began walking along a well worn trail.

“Fish have very good noses, Sara. They can smell a tast
y worm clear across this pond.”

He held her hands tightly and ducked under a tree branch.

              Sara pulled her hands free and grabbed her father’s ears for balance.

“Do fish have ears, Daddy?”

Mike held tightly to his little girl’s legs to keep her from falling.

“Now you are just being silly, Sara. Can you imagine how goofy a fish would look with ears?”

              Sara giggled and stretched her daddy’s ears out as far as she could.

“Horton hears
a who!” she said in a gruff voice.

             
Mike set his little girl to the ground and took her hand to lead her through a grove of Aspen trees.

“And you must be Mr.
FarFloogin of the Cloogin FarFloogins,” he recited.

             
Sara continued in well rehearsed theatrics, “In my world everyone is a pony, and we all eat rainbows and poop butterflies.”

             
Mike laughed out loud and tried to think of another line from a long list of favorite bedtime stories.

“
And now, cried Max, let the wild rumpus start.”

             
Sara pulled her hand from her father’s and crossed her arms across her chest.

“No, Daddy,” she said. “I don’t like that story.”

              Mike stopped and mused over the change in his daughter’s demeanor.

“What’s the matter, Sara?
” he asked. “I thought that, ‘Where the Wild Things Are’, was one of your favorites.”

             
Sara stopped and puffed out her bottom lip.

“No,” she pouted. “A monster from that story lives outside and tries to come in my window at night.”

              Mike pulled Sara into his arms and ran his fingers through her fine hair.

“Oh, sweetie,” he cooed, “Daddy will never let the monsters get to you
. Daddy will always be here to keep his little girl safe.”

              Mike sat at the edge of his bed in a small room at the Sightseer Inn. His eyes were closed, his shoulders slumped, and his head bowed.

“Daddy will always be here to keep his little girl safe
,” he whispered to himself.

thirteen

“Tell me every detail of how you snagged this girl.”

             
Jordan sat at the dining room table and picked at the dirt beneath his nails.

“She was broken down a mile or so north of town. When I got there, she was sitting in the front seat, listening to her music player.”

              “Did any cars pass by while you were there? Did anyone see you with the girl?”

             
“No!” Jordan sat up a little straighter, “There was no one on the highway that afternoon. I wasn’t even going to take her. I was just going to fix her tire and let her go, but when I knocked on her window to get her attention, it scared the heck out of her. I don’t know; it made me excited to see her scared like that.”

             
“Did she make any calls on her phone while you were there? Could she have told anyone that the tow truck driver was there to help her?”

             
Jordan leaned back, placing his hands behind his neck to support his head.

“No, she was just sitting there listening to her music.” A smile crossed Jordan’s face and he closed his
eyes to remember more clearly. “She got out of the car to show me the flat tire. She was so pretty in her little skirt. I knew she wanted me to fuck her right---”

              A hard slap across Jordan’s head shook him from his reverie.

“Watch your language, young man. Nobody respects a man with a filthy mouth.”

              Jordan braced himself in his chair, prepared for another slap.

“I’m sorry,
Pop,” he said.

             
“How did you get the girl into your truck?”

             
Jordan leaned forward, spreading his elbows across the table, rubbing at the sore spot on his head.

“She started getting nervous. I think she knew what I was thinking. No cars had passed since I had gotten there and she caught me staring at her as……..butt
.”

Jordan winced a little, but the slap never came.

“She opened her cell phone and started to make a call. I didn’t even think. The next thing I knew, she was struggling in my arms and I was dragging her to my truck. I tied her up, gagged her, and threw her in the tool box. I was scared to death. You’re always the one who gets the girls.”

             
“I am always the one who gets the girls because I know what I am doing. There is never any connection between them and me. No one ever knows that I was anywhere near the girls that I take. You screwed up, Jordan. You left a huge trail right to our doorstep. You, and only you, have a connection to this missing person. Everyone will now focus on you.”

             
Jordan’s head was bowed.

“I’m sorry,
Pop,” he said. “I thought you would be proud of me.”

             
“You buried the girl’s body like I told you, right?

             
Jordan nodded.

             
“I’m not going to hear that hunters stumbled across the nude body of this missing college student, am I?”

             
Jordan shook his head, “No,” he mumbled. “I buried her under the mattress. Just like you told me to.”

             
“If this doesn’t work, Jordan, I am going to cut your throat and bleed you out real slow. I am not going to let you take me down with you, do you understand that?”

             
Jordan sat back and bowed his head, nodding scarcely.

             
“Do you understand what I am saying, Jordan?”

             
“Yes, Pop.”

fourteen

Morning peeked through the heavy curtains in Mike Haller’s rented room at the Sightseer Inn. Its advance had be
en agonizingly slow as Mike lay in his bed and questioned every decision he had made over the past twenty years. His confidence was gone and he began to wonder if his choice to stay in Ranch Springs was based on sound principle.

             
Mike sat up and rubbed at his temples. Migraine headaches were a persistent reminder of his run in with a contract killer earlier in the year. The thought of Butch Dawson brought memories flooding back of Mike’s boss and good friend, Sheriff Danny Blum. If Danny were alive now, he had no doubt that Blum would be here and Sara would be found in short order. Looking around the empty room, he was run over by a sense of loneliness. His best friend was dead, his daughter vanished, and his wife of twenty years was pulling away.

             
Mike worked his right shoulder to loosen a kink, then scraped the crust from his eyes. Each time sleep had found him throughout the night, he was jolted awake by the sounds of Sara screaming and begging for her life. He swung his feet to the floor and checked his cell phone for the time and to see if he had missed any calls. A haunting vision of Sara reaching to him from a hole in the ground kept forcing itself from a fog that clouded his consciousness. Deep in his soul, he knew that his daughter was alive, but he also felt that she was far away. Urgency pounded at his heart, but uncertainty paralyzed his muscles.

             
“Sara,” he said quietly. “I need some help, baby doll. I need a sign. Anything.”

Mike’s stomach growled loudly and he felt a wave of nausea pass over him. He rubbed both hands through his hair and stood.

“I need you to help me find you, Squeaky. I promise to never let you down again.”

Mike sat at a small table in the large dining room of the Sightseer Inn. Breakfast was included with his stay and he knew that he would be
of no help to his daughter if he collapsed from lack of nutrition. A pot of steaming coffee and small bowl of fresh sliced fruit had been placed in front of him.

             
“Mr. Haller, we are serving a baked frittata this morning, made with fresh asparagus and feta cheese.”

Trina Lang was paying special attention to her only guest this morning while her husband,
Brian, was in the kitchen preparing the meal. She topped off Mike’s cup with steaming coffee and frowned. “Honey, you look like a herd of sheep walked all over you and ruined your day.”

She lowered the coffee pot to the table and sat in an empty chair across from Mike. “I realize that it’s none of my business, but
I am not used to my guests looking like they have witnessed the apocalypse. Is there anything I can do, sweetie?”

             
Mike swallowed a peeled grape he had been chewing absent mindedly. “Oh,” he said and cleared his throat. Finally looking into the eyes of his host, Mike tried to conceal his grief. “I apologize,” he continued. “My eighteen-year-old daughter is missing, and I am just trying to figure out what to do next.”

             
Trina furrowed her brow and reached out to Mike, “Oh sweet Jesus, not another one.”

             
Mike shook his head to clear it, “What do you mean, ‘not another one’,” he asked bluntly.

             
Mrs. Lang straightened a linen napkin on the table. “It just seems that this part of the country is cursed is all.” She poured a spot of creamer into Mike’s coffee before continuing, “We have universities on either side of us, and it seems like kids come up missing all the time.”

             
Mike’s law enforcement skills woke to the information, “Please explain what you mean by, ‘missing all the time’.”

             
Trina Lang’s husband approached with a small skillet, filled with steaming egg and asparagus. His smile disappeared when he saw the concern on his wife’s face. “Oh no,” he said. “Our guest has an allergy to feta cheese?”

             
Trina motioned for her husband to sit next to her. “No, honey, Mr. Haller’s daughter is missing.”

             
Brian Lang frowned deeply and placed the egg dish gently to the table before sitting. “I am so sorry, Mr. Haller. Is there anything we can do to help?”

             
Mike pulled the photo of Sara from his shirt pocket and handed it to the couple. “This is my daughter. She passed through here day before yesterday and hasn’t been seen since.”

             
Brian Lang held the photo for his wife to look at. “You know, just this past week, Trina and I were talking about those two girls who went missing up in Rawah Wilderness last spring. They found their car and their tent and all their supplies, but it was like they just vanished off the face of the earth.”

             
Mike thought for a second, then asked, “Was there an investigation? Did anyone ever discover what happened to these girls?”

             
Trina shook her head sadly. “No,” she said. “The sheriff organized a search team. The Civil Air Patrol was called in, and search dogs were even brought in from Larimer County, but they found no sign of the girls.”

             
Mike puzzled over the information, “Could have been a simple case of the girls getting lost on the trail. Rawah is pretty rugged.”

             
Mr. Lang joined in, “That’s what many people believe, but when you look out over the history of this area, it seems to fit a pattern. Five years ago, a young man and his girlfriend from Weld County came up missing. They had stopped here in Ranch Springs for gasoline on their way to the mountains for a picnic and that’s the last anyone ever heard.”

             
Trina added, “It was written off as ‘lovers eloping and disappearing forever’, but that only happens in bad novels. Something terrible happened to those kids, I just know it.”

             
Brian Lang nudged the frittata toward Mike. “You need to eat,” he said. “The asparagus gets a bit stringy when it gets cold.”

             
Mike scooped some of the dish to his plate and took a bite. “This is delicious, thank you,” he said. Taking a sip of coffee, he asked over his cup, “Have there been any others?”

             
Mr. Lang passed a fresh biscuit to Mike. “Oh yes. Over the years, I would say that as many as ten or twelve youngsters have disappeared. Most of them were just girls hitch-hiking or passing through this area. Several weeks later, a parent shows up with a photograph asking if anyone remembers seeing their child.”