Chapter 5
Focusing just on young women from twenty-one to twenty-five who were missing was a lesson in heartache.
There were too many of them, too many families who didn’t have answers.
He couldn’t help remembering when his mom had left and all the sleepless nights he’d had wondering where she was and if she was ever coming back.
Wes, who had started two days after him, was at the desk next to his, filling in paperwork for a break-in the night before. There was almost always something happening around the reservation. This thing with kidnapping and keeping a woman near the edge of it—Chay didn’t like it.
Rubbing the back of his neck, he reached for his coffee cup, but the bit in the bottom had gone cold.
He swallowed it anyway and then went to refill it before opting for water instead.
He drank too much coffee. Walking around the almost empty office just to stretch and clear his head, he thought of Fern.
She’d looked so small in the hospital bed when she’d been talking about being taken.
Starting with the missing-persons report that Annie Ross had filed on Camille Lancaster, he went over the details matching them to what Fern had revealed.
But because Annie had only secondhand knowledge and the officer who’d taken the report hadn’t included much other information, Chay suspected that Annie’s drug offenses and the fact that her friend may have had the same influenced the slim report.
But Camille Lancaster…he ran a check on the woman and found out she’d been in the foster care system in Wilson. Nowhere near where Fern had been raised. Was there a connection there he was missing?
Cross-referencing the missing young women with the foster care system, he got several hits.
Like sixty percent of the woman on the list had been in the foster care system.
Of that number, many of them had been reported because they missed work.
There were a handful that had been reported by a partner or a roommate.
Carefully, he started to compile a list. There was no obvious connection to these women other than they all seemed to have no one in their life. No close family or friends to miss them when they disappeared.
He sent the information he’d gathered to Jacob and then leaned back in his chair to stretch his back. Tomorrow he’d start following up with the local police departments and get the missing-persons reports together.
His phone rang, and he glanced down to see it was his grandmother. A quick glance at his watch confirmed he was late for dinner. Uh-oh. She wasn’t one who liked it when he missed their time together.
“Sorry. I’m leaving the office now,” he said as he answered her call. Getting to his feet, he grabbed his jacket and headed out of the office, waving goodbye to the night officer on duty at the front desk.
“I figured you would be. You’ve got fifteen minutes to stop and pick up some flowers for me,” she said wryly. He could picture her standing in her kitchen, talking to him from her landline because she refused to rely on her cell phone.
“I already have them,” he retorted. When he had turned sixteen, he had started bringing home flowers for her.
It was a simple way of saying thank you when he’d been too confused inside to express his emotions for her.
She’d saved his life. He knew it. There was no way he’d have become the man he was today without her influence.
“See you soon.”
He hung up, unable to stop thinking about those missing women.
The foster care system did the best it could, but when young people turned eighteen they were adults.
There was no safe place for them to move to.
There was some housing, but it was rough and in some places riddled with gangs, drugs and violence.
Fern had moved beyond that living situation and had had a good job and her own place. But being abandoned took a toll. Moving from place to place made it hard to form connections. All of those missing women were in the same boat.
Someone was taking advantage of that. Someone who had access to the foster care system and would know when a kid aged out?
He dialed Ava’s number to ask her.
“Hey, it’s Chay,” he said when she answered.
“Hey.”
“As a foster carer, what kind of information are you given?” he asked.
“About what? Gracie’s family? I have access to knowing who her parents were if they are known. I fostered two brothers in that situation but with Gracie I only know what you do. What is going on with the criminal investigation into how Annie died. Is that what you are asking?”
“Sort of. Would you be able to find out who is aging out of foster care?”
“I don’t know. I can ask around, but that doesn’t seem like information that would be shared,” Ava said.
“Thanks. No need to ask anyone else,” he said.
“Sure.”
“I have to run—I’m late to dinner with my grandmother,” he said.
“Oh, you better get going. ’Bye.”
Tomorrow the top of his list would be finding out if there was a list of kids who aged out and who had access to it.
He needed to see if there was any crossover in skills.
Some reason why all of these women were taken.
As a medical coder, Fern might have read some sensitive information that she wasn’t aware of.
He hadn’t thought to check what job Camille Lancaster had.
Pulling into his grandmother’s driveway, he smiled as he always did. It was hard not to remember his first glimpse of the house and how scared he’d been when he saw her in the doorway. His mom hadn’t told him much other than that he was going to stay with his grandmother for a little while.
It wasn’t the first time she’d left him with someone, but it was the first time the person had been a relative.
He walked to the front door, the Gerber daisies he’d picked up at the grocery store in one hand. There was some light snow falling, but it was February, so that was to be expected.
He knocked, then let himself in.
“In the kitchen,” she called.
Hanging his coat on a peg near the door and taking off his boots, he went to find her. He gave her a hug and a kiss on the top of her head.
“Good to see you.”
They ate dinner before she asked why he’d called earlier. “There’s a baby in Dark Canyon that was left at the fire station. She’s part Diné. She was wrapped in a blanket that had a little moon in the corner. Just like all of our weavers have done for generations.”
Grandmother sat in her thoughts for a few minutes, and Chay let her. That was a lot of information to digest.
“I would like a great-grandchild.”
“Whose baby could she be? Did Mom have another kid? I know Dad didn’t.” His father had died when he’d been a baby.
Grandmother pursed her lips. “Not that she told me. But I can’t rule it out. Are you involved with the child?”
His mom hadn’t exactly kept in touch with them. But he hadn’t been sure if his grandmother had had any contact that she hadn’t shared with him. There was one year when he’d been twelve that he’d really wanted his mom to come to his birthday. Which she hadn’t.
“No. I’m not made to be a father. But I want the baby to be raised with The People. Also I wanted to get your opinion.”
“Smart. I think she should be raised here. I’m not sure why you believe you wouldn’t be a good father, though.”
“Grandmother,” he said with a sigh.
She just tutted at him. “You’re so much more than you give yourself credit for.”
Ava’s calendar was free until the afternoon, and she made an appointment with Marg at Family Services. Gracie was in a chatty mood on the way to the meeting and kept up her babble as they were seated at Marg’s desk.
Marg’s office was smaller than Ava’s and had three big filing cabinets lining one of the walls.
There was a poster of the Dark Canyon National Park on the other wall.
Marg was about Ava’s age but always looked tired.
Her brown hair was always up in a messy bun and she wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
“What’s up?” Marg asked.
“With the DNA results in and matching Officer Benally, I thought it would be nice to have Gracie spend more time with him.”
“Oh, thank God. I was afraid you were going to say you couldn’t keep her,” Marg said.
“No. I’m keeping her for as long as I’m needed. I’ve spoken to Officer Benally—”
“Does he want to adopt her? What’s his connection to the child?” Marg asked, riffling around on her desk for some papers.
“He’s got about a twenty-five percent genetic match with her, which would make him her uncle or maybe cousin,” Ava said. Chay had been adamant that he didn’t want to raise the child, but Ava was convinced if he spent more time with Gracie that would change his mind.
She knew from growing up with a close-knit group of cousins that bond was strong. Chay would feel the same way, she just knew it. Also he was magic with Gracie—it was as if she knew that he was related to her somehow.
“Okay, that’s a good connection. I’ll have to talk to the court. You were cleared to foster her, but because of the investigation around the mother’s death…I’m not sure they’d allow a switch.”
“That’s fine,” she said. Especially since Chay didn’t want to take Gracie. “I was hoping we could spend some time on the Navajo Nation and with Chay and his grandmother.”
“I don’t see that as a problem. But let me run it by the court first. I should have an answer for you in a few days.”
“Great,” Ava said.
“Do you need anything else?”
“No. She’s such a little sweetie. She’s a bit colicky at times but her doctor said that’s normal for her age. She’s finished her course of medicine and seems to be bouncing back from the infection.”
“All good. Thanks again for taking her on short notice.”
“You know I didn’t mind,” Ava said.