Blind Faith - Sharon Sala Page 0,9
between the missing boy and Randall Wells. Now she just needed Charlie to call in. It might not help him find Tony Dawson, but it could explain the holes in the other boys’ story.
It was just after 10:00 p.m. and she was sitting cross-legged in bed with a bowl of popcorn in her lap and a cold Pepsi on the table beside her, watching a country-music awards show. Even though she didn’t know much about country music, living in Dallas, it seemed like the appropriate thing to do.
A singer named Blake Shelton was onstage, and Wyrick was thinking to herself that Shelton was as tall as Charlie when her phone rang. She hit Mute and answered abruptly.
“Hello.”
“Hey, it’s me,” Charlie said.
“Are you okay?” Wyrick asked.
Charlie sighed. “Yes, Mother. I’m getting ready to go inside my little tent and tuck myself into my little sleeping bag.”
“Shut up,” Wyrick said. “I have news.”
Charlie grinned. He’d gotten under her skin, which was rare. Score one for him.
“So, talk to me,” he said.
“Remember Baxter and Macie saying they haven’t lived here but a few months?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, over a year ago, before they ever moved here, guess who Randall Wells was dating?”
“I don’t do guessing games,” Charlie said.
“Trish Caldwell!” Wyrick said.
“Wait...what? The same girlfriend Tony has now?” Charlie asked.
“Yes. I found pictures of Randall and Trish together on Snapchat and Instagram. They were a couple for about six months, and then evidently they parted ways. Trish went back from being ‘in a relationship’ to single, and so did Randall.”
“How long ago was this?” Charlie asked.
“Their breakup was at least four months before the Dawsons moved to Dallas, so Trish was a free agent for at least six months before she hooked up with Tony. Now she and Tony are a couple.”
“No one mentioned this,” Charlie said. “I wonder if Tony knew.”
“If you want, I can find out tomorrow,” Wyrick said.
“I want,” Charlie said. “Interview Trish first. Find out if Tony knew that. Then when you talk to Randall and Justin, find out when they started hanging out with Tony. See if it was before he hooked up with Trish or after they began dating, and then let me know.”
“I’ll call parents and set up interview times first thing tomorrow,” Wyrick said.
“Thanks,” Charlie said. “I’ll be on the trail. No iPad signal, so you’ll have to call the sat phone.”
“I know. Now go tuck yourself in your itty-bitty tent and try not to get into trouble.”
She disconnected before Charlie could respond, but she heard him chuckle, and that was enough to sleep on.
* * *
A coyote howled from a nearby ridge, and another one answered way down in a canyon. A cougar was on the way back to its lair, dragging the carcass of her kill to her cubs—a great horned owl her only witness as it soared silently above her, going in the other direction.
A half mile away, a steady trickle of water was seeping out from the walls of a deep, narrow cave, falling near Tony Dawson’s motionless body and into his outstretched hand.
His face and clothes were caked with dirt and dried blood. The visible skin on his fever-racked body was cut, scratched and purple with bruises.
In his delirium, his mother was sitting beside him and crying. Sometimes it was his father’s voice telling him to hang on, but the pain was constant. His body was on fire, and when he was conscious, he wondered why it took so long to die.
* * *
Charlie’s sleep was fitful. He kept dreaming about Annie. Then the dreams would change to a kid crying for help, but he couldn’t find him. Once he woke up to an animal snuffling around the outside of his tent, but stayed quiet until it moved away.
He was up, dressed and having an MRE for breakfast with his camp coffee when a porcupine waddled into camp. Charlie eyed it carefully, and then took another bite of meat ravioli from the pouch as the critter sidled off into the underbrush.
He broke camp and was back on the South Rim Trail by sunup. There was a junction up ahead where two trails merged, one of which was Boot Canyon Trail, which would take him down a narrow canyon trail into forest, and he was leaning toward taking that one at the junction. As it got lighter, he used his binoculars constantly, stopping periodically to scan the vista.
And all the while he was looking, he was wondering what magic Wyrick was going to pull