31. Twists that Turn
Chapter 31
Twists that Turn
Pearl settled as soon as not one, but two bits of evidence were recovered from under Reece’s truck. She probably relaxed once she realized the stupid humans got what she’d been signaling, and she came willingly, as if she understood she should tread as lightly as possible to preserve the area.
Reece returned her to the truck, and when he came back around, Shane was bagging and marking the items: a spent syringe and an empty pharmaceutical bottle. The look he gave Reece telegraphed they’d discovered something critical. Profoundly critical.
“O’Brien, sweep the entire area under that truck,” Sheriff Chesterton ordered. “Hunnicutt, you’re going to have to leave your vehicle here until O’Brien’s done. I’m going to head inside and have a look around for myself.”
Reece got it, but he bristled at the order. He needed to bolt so he could start searching for Neve. Let these guys do their investigating; he had to find her. Every fiber in his being screamed that she was in danger.
Once the sheriff was out of earshot, Reece prodded Shane. “What did you find?”
Shane held up the bag containing the bottle in his latex-gloved fingers. “Ketamine.”
“Isn’t that the same shit that was stolen from the clinic?”
“Same kind of shit. Hang on, and I’ll tell you if it is, in fact, the same shit.” The deputy began scrolling through his phone. Stopped, held up the bag, and narrowed his eyes. “Read off that lot number.”
Reece did, and one side of Shane’s mouth curled up. “That lot number matches one of the bottles Neve reported missing.”
“What the hell’s it doing out here? And the syringe …” Puzzle pieces Reece didn’t like began clicking into place. “Do you think whoever stole the meds used them on Neve so they could take her somewhere?”
Shane pushed out a loud exhale. “I don’t know. Maybe they were after the Tahoe, and Neve got in the way.”
A voice inside Reece’s head boomed that this was not a carjacking. He gripped his friend’s arm. “Find out where Chelsea is!”
“What’s with you needing to know Chelsea’s whereabouts?”
“Just do it. Please.”
Sympathy shone in Shane’s eyes—or maybe he thought Reece had completely lost it. He mumbled something Reece couldn’t understand and pivoted to re-enter the clinic. Noah pulled up a split second later, and Reece jogged over to him. “I need your truck.”
Without a word, Noah got out and tossed him the keys.
“And I need your help to transfer my gear from my truck into yours so I can start searching for Neve.”
“Let’s do it.”
Reece looked up at the glowering sky through his windshield and felt the wind buffet Noah’s truck. He smelled a storm moving in, and he cursed aloud inside the cab. If a helicopter needed to be deployed, it wouldn’t be able to fly in this. Then there was the wind chill that made the freezing temperature feel even colder.
He struggled to shift his mindset back to his SAR persona. Gripping the steering wheel, he willed himself to stuff his emotions into a box and slam the lid shut. This mission was no different than any other. The delusion, repeated over and over, was the only way he could keep his wits sharp enough to find Neve and bring her home safely.
Shane was buttoning things up at the clinic and would join the hunt as soon as he was done. He hadn’t been able to reach Chelsea. Reece had even tried calling her himself, thinking she’d pick up if she saw his number on her screen, but he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t. His suspicions that she’d done something to Neve multiplied, along with his foreboding.
Word about Neve’s disappearance spread like bindweed, and members of his old search and rescue unit began mobilizing to assist. Neve hadn’t been gone long, and in another jurisdiction he might have been working solo, but not in Fall River. Everyone knew Neve. Everyone loved Neve. Everyone wanted to find her.
Even Micky volunteered to help. The guy might be an idiot about most things, but he knew the back roads as well as SAR, and Reece was glad to have him. In the meantime, Charlie was racing back to Fall River and would hit town in thirty minutes. Noah had wanted to ride with Reece, but Reece needed an incident command post with steady cell service, and the Miners Tavern was a good stand-in. So instead, Pearl rode shotgun beside him. She couldn’t talk and she was no trained tracker, but she had some kind of connection to Neve, and Reece was counting on her alerting to a scent.
Searching for lost souls was always tricky, but the patrols looking for them often had some idea where to start—the last place the person had checked in, coordinates they’d sent a loved one, one side of a mountain instead of the whole damn range, and when SAR was really lucky, a tracking beacon.
But he had none of those clues. Hell, he might not even have cell service soon. But he was striking out for Silver Summit Resort, the only place he could think of where someone might have seen Neve or heard of her movements. The lead was thin, but he was grasping at straws, and this was the only one he’d managed to snag .
His phone rang, adding to the jangle of his nerves.
“Shane, what did you find out?”
“First, have you seen any sign of Neve?”
“Not a one.”
“Okay. Here’s what I learned. Chelsea Selkirk no longer works for San Juan Search and Rescue.” Reece sat in stunned silence. “You there, buddy?”
Reece’s thoughts scattered in a million different directions, racing through as many possibilities. Stay sharp, dumbass . “Yeah, I’m here.”
“She up and quit over a week ago.”
“How did you not know this?” Reece barked.
“Because they didn’t announce it to the team until late yesterday. I wasn’t pulling a shift, so I wasn’t there to hear about it,” Shane fired back.
Realization slammed into Reece. Chelsea’s had all kinds of time to stalk Neve. “Does anyone know where she is?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah. She accepted a job in Portland, Oregon, and flew up there early this morning.”
Reece swerved to avoid a chunk of highway that had broken off. “How did you find out?”
“You know Reuben Keyes, right?” Who in San Juan County didn’t know Reuben Keyes? He was a well-respected former superior who was now way up the state’s food chain. “Well, it turns out she was shopping with his wife yesterday afternoon, then spent last night with both of them. They went out and ate and talked until almost midnight—sort of a farewell dinner—and she spent the night in their guest room. Reuben took her to DIA himself first thing this morning. Turns out she has a husband in Portland who’s a member of one of their hotshot crews, and she moved out there to be with him. Who knew, huh? Guess the guys who were trying to make time with her here look like complete idiots.”
Reece held back a choke; she had come on to him . He hadn’t put up much resistance, but she had definitely initiated. Not that any of that mattered now.
Shane’s tone grew more serious. “Not sure what made you think she could have been involved in Neve’s disappearance, but no way could she have been in both places at the same time.”
“You’re right,” Reece agreed. “Thanks for checking on that.” If Chelsea wasn’t responsible for taking Neve, then who the fuck was ?
“So where are you?”
“Heading toward Silver Summit. Thought I’d stop in and find out if anyone’s seen Neve there.” Maybe Cantrell was acting the scorned lover and was behind all of this.
“Don’t waste your time at Silver Summit. A deputy from La Plata happened to be there just now and heard our BOLO, so he asked around. Nobody’s seen Neve.”
A BOLO. Reece was so consumed with finding Neve that he hadn’t realized until right then that San Juan County had alerted surrounding counties to be on the lookout for her. Of course they had. It was standard practice in the small mountain communities, and he drew a measure of comfort knowing the BOLO was out there. More eyes upped their chances of finding her.
“Cantrell hasn’t seen her?”
“Nope. Cantrell’s not even there. His private jet took him to the East Coast four days ago for some business thing.”
“He could have flown back …”
“No, he didn’t. You’re a dog going after the wrong bone.”
“Then which fucking bone should I be going after?” Reece shouted.
Shane seemed unfazed by Reece’s sharp tongue. “I do have one more piece of information, but I’m not sure if it’s relevant. I wanted to follow up on Dr. Bunting’s whereabouts, so I contacted her office. They confirmed what the cat lady said.”
“Okay?” So what?
“They didn’t elaborate on what the unexpected something was that pulled her away because they didn’t know, but it sounds like they’re scrambling. Obviously, her being gone caught them totally off guard. They said it’s not like her.”
“And they’ve tried reaching her?”
“Multiple times, every fifteen minutes since her no-show.”
“ Two vets missing. Do you think they’re related?”
“I don’t know.”
Reece’s head was on a swivel, looking for any speck of anything out of the ordinary, his frustration mounting. He pulled off on a turnout and idled. As soon as he hung up with Shane, he’d turn his truck around and return to Fall River. Where else could he go without any leads?
“You have good instincts, Reece. Any hunches on this one? ”
Reece scrubbed his hand over his beard. “At this juncture, I don’t know what to think. Neve tries to reach you, then me right afterward. She doesn’t keep an appointment with a very upset pet owner—which is not like Neve—and Dr. Bunting is missing.” A light bulb blasted on in Reece’s head. “Have you tried tracking Dr. Bunting’s phone?”
“As a matter of fact, we have. Hang on. I’m getting something now.” Excruciating silence stretched and stretched. When Shane came back on the line, his usual drawl was missing, replaced by a telltale urgency. “We found Neve’s Tahoe.”
Reece’s blood pressure spiked. “Is she in it? Is she okay? Where is it?”
“The Tahoe was parked behind the depot. Scuff marks, like something was dragged from it, but no sign of foul play. The only sign of Neve is her winter jacket.”
“The blue one?”
“Yes.” Her warmest coat, the same one she’d been wearing when Reece had last seen her, which meant she could be out in the elements without any protection. Shane continued, “Also, we’ve picked up a few pings from Bunting’s cell phone, all in the same area. You’re heading right toward it. Seventeen miles from your current location.” Shane gave him the mile marker. “I’m getting in my vehicle now, and I’m headed your way.”
Desperation burst through its confines. “I need to find her, Shane!”
“I know, buddy, and you will. Remember, it’s what you do best.”
But would he find her in time? Reece and his team had failed to rescue people in these same conditions, instead recovering their bodies. A shudder racked him.
Don’t go there. It’s not gonna help you find her.
Lark Bunting was the key. Somehow she was tied to Neve. Whether she too had been taken or was responsible for Neve’s disappearance, he could only guess, but if he found one woman, he was certain he’d find the other. Two needles in a haystack.
He depressed the accelerator, his tires spitting gravel as the truck launched from the turnout and hurled down the highway.