We Won’t Stop Until They Find Her
We Won’t Stop Until They Find Her
Sam never drank coffee after noon, but she was grateful for the huge ceramic mug full of steaming French press that Fergus pressed into her hands.
She’d cracked open the door to Bex’s back patio so that she could watch the rain churn up the surface of the pool. “Is it ever going to quit coming down? I don’t remember it raining this much in May.”
“Any given day this month, there’s about a sixteen percent chance of rain.” Her brother’s smile was sad. “But I hear what you’re saying.”
They’d made Logan give them a ride back here.
It was the PA’s decision to stick around.
He wanted to help, and he had useful contacts.
Logan and Bex’s sisters had been working their way through a list of Howling cast and crew who’d been on Mount Baldy Friday, asking everyone when the last time was that they’d seen Ramona.
They weren’t finished. They were being thorough.
But a clear pattern had already emerged.
No one had seen Ramona in the parking garage.
No one had ridden down with her in a van.
These were the facts that had finally enabled Ramona’s parents and the detective they’d been working with to activate the full resources of the LAPD.
“I still don’t understand why LAPD can’t bring Sloan and Chad in for questioning,” Sam complained.
She and Bex had spoken to the detective to provide a quick summary of what they knew.
They were supposed to go to the station in the morning to be interviewed.
The detective had assured them the LAPD was doing everything in its power, and rescue teams were launching a search of the location shoot site.
With this, Bex and Sam had been dismissed.
“They don’t have evidence yet that anything’s happened to her,” Fergus said. “Without it, they can’t compel someone to talk who’s lawyered up. They have to know what they’re dealing with first. For now, it means the focus has to stay on finding Ramona.”
The late afternoon light was starting to fade. The rain reduced visibility to near zero. Search and rescue would be limited in what they could do tonight, but they were still up there, looking.
“What are the chances, Ferg?” Sam let out a shaky breath. “It’s been five days.”
He leaned his shoulder against the wall beside her and looked out at the hills. “I’ve known search and rescue folks. They’re experienced outdoors people who can operate in nearly any conditions. They know where to start looking, which helps narrow the parameters.”
“Sure, but if the crew just left Ramona behind close to where the vans were parked, she’d have called a car or hitched a ride back by now. Something bad happened. What are the odds, if Ramona didn’t die from whatever was done to her, that she’s still alive now?”
“It’s hard to say. Overnight temperatures up there are survivable.
It’s rocky and steep, with a lot of abrupt changes in the terrain that can make it disorienting.
Looking at the map Frankie got her hands on, they were shooting in an area near the river where there’s a little more ground cover.
If Ramona’s mobile and conscious—if she’s not in shock from a serious injury—she likely could have found or made a shelter and be in better shape.
But on Baldy, the rain will change the terrain quite a bit.
It might reveal waterways that weren’t there when it’s dry.
It will make some areas impassable.” He swallowed.
“The rain means she can potentially collect fresh water that’s safer to drink, but no doubt she’s cold and hungry. ”
“She’s a petite woman in her fifties in extremely poor weather conditions, without food or clean water, wearing no more than a shirt and pants and a light jacket. If she had an injury to her head or is bleeding a lot—”
“—her survival would be a miracle delivered by freak favorable conditions. Like if she was able to make an effective tourniquet and had water or an energy bar. Head injury scares me, always, when it comes to outdoor activities. Our brains swell fast. We can’t recover from losing oxygen or from the kinds of traumatic brain injuries that are possible out there. ”
“But Macie says Ramona is fit and self-reliant. She’s a gardener. Maybe she would know what she could safely eat.” Sam felt herself grasping at straws. She rested her head against the doorjamb.
“Sammy. Look at me.” Fergus pushed against her arm, his tone firm enough that she lifted her head.
When she turned to face him, he clasped both of her shoulders in his hands.
His fingers were firm through her fuzzy sweater.
“Help is on that mountain because of you and Bex. The information you found out is what sent help to Ramona. You haven’t slept.
Barely ate. Search and rescue will be just as tenacious. ”
“I know, but—”
“You don’t know. I’m telling you. You’ve done everything you can.”
When she looked into her brother’s hazel eyes, Sam could see how deep his certainty went.
It helped. She didn’t believe him, but it helped anyway.
She managed a weak smile. “How much do you want to get in your truck and drive up there, though? Dad took us on so many camping trips. I feel like we trained our whole childhood for this moment.”
“I wouldn’t be much use. The experts aren’t going to let civilians on the mountain in the dark if they can help it. All they need is to lose someone else. And you left my truck in Malibu. But yeah, of course I want to beat through the bushes yelling, ‘Ramona Watts!’ until my voice gives out.”
Once, when Sam was around thirteen, her dad had taken them on a camping trip in southern Oregon, where they’d gone whitewater rafting on the Deschutes River.
In the middle of a rapid, Sam had been flipped out of the raft and into the water.
She got caught in a current, what the rafting guide later called a “hole,” that pulled her under and wouldn’t let her go.
Fergus was the one who’d jumped into the water to save her.
She’d forgotten about that.
“Look, I know it feels like the next step is physically finding this woman,” he said.
“But the reason I’ve stayed relevant in outdoor recreation is because I am anxious and methodical.
I’m obsessed with the newest safety equipment.
I hire people who are just like me. If you want to paraglide off a cliff without so much as breaking a fingernail, I’m your guy.
But when every minute counts, you want the person who knows what to do in the worst-case scenario and when even the worst-case scenario goes tits up. ”
Sam knew he was right.
She also knew she would have nowhere to put the screaming energy roaring through her body until Ramona was found.
She looked over at Logan on the phone. His face was so pale, he looked gray. She’d always thought that was a figure of speech. Guilt was riding him hard.
But it wasn’t really his fault, was it? As much as Sam wanted to find Ramona, there were two people who had never wanted her to be found. At least two people. Chad and Sloan had lied about Ramona’s being in the van. What had they done to her? What else had they lied about?
And were they the ones who’d planted the Star Spy item and posted fake pictures on Ramona’s Instagram? Had they stolen her phone to do it?
But wouldn’t that mean Haris would have seen Ramona’s location tracking turn on, even briefly, around when those photos were posted?
What had happened to her phone?
Had Bex and Sam really done everything possible? The LAPD detective strongly implied they should hunker down and let the professionals take over, but until Ramona was found there was no crime. Without a crime, the LAPD wouldn’t begin an investigation.
If there was no investigation, there was technically nothing for Sam and Bex to obstruct by asking the questions Sam still wanted answers to.
Most likely, the search team wouldn’t find Ramona until the morning. They would find her in the morning.
That left the rest of the night. Hours and hours until dawn.
“Bexley!” Sam turned and shouted into the dining room.
Bex had been pacing back and forth, flipping through the pages of her notebook. “Yeah?” Her cheeks were red-hot. The tension around her eyes and mouth was awful to see.
“If we can’t help find Ramona on that mountain, maybe you and I should figure out what happened to her before she was left behind.
I want to know who planted the Star Spy piece and how those pictures from the Maldives got on her account.
I want to paint an entire picture in oils of Ramona’s life that led to her getting left behind so we can hand the LAPD a fat report in the morning.
And tell StudioHonor who to fire on Friday, because it’s sure as hell not going to be Ramona. ”
“Fuck, yes. I’ve got an idea.” Bex jogged over to Vic, who had just hung up a phone call and was wrapped up in one of her plush hoodies. She had been taking the turn of events incredibly hard. Sam was worried about her.
“I know you want to help,” Bex said to her sister. “I have something only you can do. I need you to raise an army.”
Sam sat in a chair in Piper Redwood’s pool cabana—or, more accurately, her parents’ pool cabana.
There were young people everywhere. Every one of them wore something that sparkled or showed skin or boasted a label.
Everyone’s hair was stylist-casual in a glossy way and their makeup breathtaking.
But the expressions on their faces were grimly determined.