sorry to upset you, but we always need the whole truth when we’re trying to solve a case.”
“It’s okay,” Trish said, wiping her eyes. “I just pray you find Tony alive. I love him, and if he’s too mad at me to want to be with me anymore, then that will have to be okay, because all I want is for him to be safe.”
Beth glanced at Wyrick. “If your boss has news, will you keep us updated?”
“Yes,” Wyrick said. “Thank you for the coffee and the information. It’s been helpful.”
Beth walked her to the door. “If those boys are hiding something, they aren’t going to tell.”
“But I’ll know it if they’re lying, so there’s that,” Wyrick said, and left without explaining herself.
Three
Charlie had been hiking down Boot Canyon Trail for the better part of two hours when he paused to use his binoculars again. He swept the horizon, then aimed them down and started a slow search of the area below him.
As he did, something flashed in the sunlight below, catching his attention. He looked down, but saw nothing that would explain the flash. He looked again and again through the binoculars without ever relocating the flash, but he couldn’t ignore it. So he began looking for a landmark to mark the area where he’d seen the flash, and picked a pinyon tree that had been struck by lightning. Using it as a marker, he found what looked like a natural path on the slope and started down. The incline was steep and rocky, but there was just enough growth of pinyon and juniper to hang on to as he began to descend. The going was slow, but safety demanded it.
It took over thirty minutes to get down the slope to the dead pinyon tree, and then he began searching the area for something shiny. It could have been anything that would have caused that flash, from an empty glass bottle, to a piece of metal. But he had to find it to be sure it wasn’t some kind of signal from someone in need, so he began poking around in the underbrush and looking among the crevices.
Another fifteen minutes passed before he saw what looked like a canvas strap on the ground beneath some brush, and as he reached down and pulled it, he quickly realized it was attached to a hiker’s backpack.
His heart skipped a beat as he knelt down to check it out. It was obvious that animals had been at it. He could see drag marks where they’d pulled it out from beneath a rock. A portion of one side had been torn open, and the wrappers from the protein bars that had been in it were scattered beneath the pack and caught in the underbrush.
Charlie turned it around, and when he did, he saw a metal dog tag clipped to a zipper pull...the kind of identification a soldier would wear. That was what had caused the flash of light. Sunlight caught on that shiny piece of metal. He turned it over and saw the name, Grant Dawson. It was from WWII. The timeline would have made him a great-uncle or a great-grandfather to Tony.
“Dammit,” Charlie muttered, and began digging inside the pack. He found Tony’s wallet and ID.
He stood there a moment and then looked up the slope he’d just descended. If Tony had fallen down from above, then why had his backpack been beneath the rock? It would have been on the ground or on top of the rock. And if he’d fallen, then where was Tony? He would not have left this behind.
All of Charlie’s warning signals were going off as he began circling the area, looking for signs of blood or drag marks that would indicate animals had dragged a body away. But he found nothing that would lead him to believe Tony was ever here.
“What the hell is going on?” Charlie muttered, and then reached for his phone.
He called the ranger station first to notify them of what he’d found, then gave them the GPS coordinates and said he was leaving it for them to recover.
“But that area was thoroughly searched,” the woman said.
“I don’t doubt that,” Charlie said. “I think it had been hidden before, because there are visible drag marks where it had been pulled out from beneath some rocks. I think animals are responsible for moving it back into view, because it was torn into and food wrappers are all around it.”
“Okay. We’ll get someone out to