Chapter 7 #2
Once the call was finished Tommy turned toward me. “You’re already here. Want to give us a hand with this one?”
I nodded, trepidation tingling over my skin. “Yeah, I’ll help. Afterward, I really need to speak to you.”
“You bet, Kid,” he told me with a smile.
* * *
We made it back to the vehicles, climbed into our trucks, and as one large convoy, with his deputies following, we picked our way out of Madera Canyon and hit I-10.
It was going to take at least two hours to make it out to The Silverbell Mountains.
They were north of the city over by the Ironwood Forest National Monument.
A lot of people liked to go check the area out.
It was ripe with smuggling activity so typically you’d run into Border Patrol in the area.
But with this being a U.S. Citizen who was lost, it fell to the Sheriffs to mount the search and rescue.
I hated going out to The Silverbell area.
Too many people had gone missing and I’d had too many times where I wasn’t able to find them.
It shouldn’t be hard, the area was wide and open, except for the mountains themselves.
The weird part was, we rarely searched in those mountains.
The people all went missing in the flat desert and it was always in one particular area.
I couldn’t figure it out. My dogs always lost the scent there.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up on end as I thought back to my many cases out there.
After each mission, I recorded my notes down in a little book.
Too many pages were dedicated to the area we were headed to right now.
Arizona's very own Bermuda Triangle. Only, I seemed to be the only one who realized it.
The monsoon hit us again right as we turned off I-10—it’d been chasing us the whole drive north—and started out onto the dirt roads.
Tommy would call in the Casa Grande PD to help with the search, he always did.
They’d be coming in from the west, while we came in from the east and we’d meet in the middle.
The more people searching out here, the better.
The dirt roads became slick and slimy with rain and we all had to stop to engage our four-wheel drive.
Even then, some of our trucks might end up stuck.
The moondust out here was a fine, powdery dirt that became slick as snot as soon as it got wet.
Drive over it too much and it became reminiscent of quicksand.
It’d suck heavy vehicles down to the axel in mud.
With the storm just beginning, we managed to get out to the search area with little trouble.
The rain was going to be a pain for searching, but hopefully with Auron on the task we’d get through it quickly enough.
I always held out hope that we’d find missing people as soon as possible.
Even when it was out here in The Silverbells.
Tommy split our crews up into three teams, I was with him, and we set out. Jecht got to stay dry and comfy in my truck. It was Auron’s turn to work.
The rain began pouring not long after we left and I gritted my teeth as thunder and lightning rolled through the area.
It was the worst time to be out in the desert, but we didn’t want to waste the daylight waiting out the storm.
Again my mind strayed to Hush, and again I had to bar the thoughts.
He was the last thing I needed to be focusing on out here.
It was already nearing five p.m. and we didn’t know how long this was going to take. Our odds of finding people in the dark always dropped.
Auron ran along, searching in his usual distinct pattern, when he hit on the scent.
Thank God.
There was no way for us to follow footprints because the heavy rains had already washed them away. My drenched clothes clung to my skin as the rain fell. I’d been soaked within minutes of it starting and we’d only been searching for fifteen minutes.
We followed along after Auron for what felt like forever, but was only about thirty minutes.
The monsoon passed us by, letting the sun peep out from behind dark clouds and start drying everything off, including us.
That was the thing about monsoons, you’d get a day's worth of rain in less than an hour, then it was right back to sunshine.
Auron paused up ahead of us and moved his head back and forth, sniffing the air. He ran side to side, searching as he went, before he came back to me. He whined, ears pinned back to his head, and sat down on the trail.
I sighed, heart sinking in my chest. “He lost it.”
Tommy frowned and looked around. “There’s nothing and nobody out here?”
I stared out over the scrub brush and cactus and nodded. “I know. Tommy, this is what I wanted to talk to you about.” He gave me a curious look. “This marks the sixth person to go missing in this exact area in the last year. I was called in to every search and none have been found.”
“Seek…” He didn’t seem to know what to say. He tried again. “What’re you trying to say?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, angrily kicking at some brush. “Just that people go missing in this area and we can’t find them. Something weird is going on out here.”
“The Silverbell area is-”
“No,” I said, interrupting him. “Not the whole area. This area. West of the Sawtooth mountains, south of Picacho Peak, but not as far west as the Indian Reservation. This little area. I have my notebook back in the truck, but every one of those searches was in this area. The GPS coordinates are all within ten miles of this spot.”
“That’s…”
“Weird,” I finished his sentence.
He nodded in agreement. “I’ll look into it.
But Seek, without any sign of wrongdoing…
I can’t really be of any help. As far as we know these people have just gone missing.
I get what you’re implying, I’ll check with the Border Patrol and other agencies, see if they have any intel on this area.
But without real evidence, it could just be bad luck. It’s a pretty isolated area.”
“And maybe that’s all it is,” I said with a sigh. “An unlucky place where something is preventing us from finding them.”
“But you don’t think so,” he replied, watching me with patient, knowing eyes.
I shook my head. Tommy knew I didn’t make things up.
I certainly didn’t give in to conspiracies.
Didn’t panic. I was as level headed as they came.
So he trusted me. I’d stake my reputation on the fact that something was happening to the people out here.
If it was mountain lions or coyotes we’d find evidence of the kill. There was nothing.
It was a dangerous area thanks to the smugglers who crossed through here heading toward Phoenix, but they usually tried to stay away from people.
I couldn’t imagine they’d go after unsuspecting hikers.
Maybe robbing them, if the opportunity presented itself, but there would be survivors and evidence then.
No, it wasn’t the smugglers, but someone was out here making these people disappear, I just knew it.
One missing person was unlucky, two was a coincidence.
Six? That’s…what? What would anyone gain from snatching up citizens going on a day hike?
“I’ll check back on the cases. Send me your notes on them and I’ll see if the people ever showed back up on their own.”
We both knew that wasn’t likely, but he had to check. “Thanks, Tommy.”
Auron had been running around, trying to reestablish the scent, but was unsuccessful. We searched for another hour, but with the rain washing all traces of footprints away and my dog unable to pick it up, Tommy sent me home.
I drove back toward Tucson, upset over this loss and wanting to vent to someone.
Mom would always listen when I called, whether it was about a case or my personal life, but for some reason I didn’t have the urge to talk to her.
The urge to talk to a man I barely knew was there like an itch under my skin.
Shoving it, and the intense look in Hush’s eyes whenever he seemed to look at me, out of my mind, I focused on getting back home. All three of us deserved a treat after the long day we’d just had. The dogs had done their jobs well and I was proud of them for their efforts.