LITMIR.BIZ

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       Chapter Two

      Maya Renfro gripped the steering wheel of her Volkswagen Beetle so hard her fingers ached, and depressed the accelerator until she was doing eighty. The roads were dry and clear and if highway patrol stopped her, she’d give them Deputy Gage Walker’s number and tell them to take it up with him. Her sister was dead and her niece was missing, and every movement felt as if Maya were swimming through quicksand.

      This had to be a bad dream. Real life couldn’t be this horrible, could it?

      But of course it could. You didn’t teach high school for four years without seeing a little of that awfulness—kids kicked out of the house while they were still in their teens, colleagues who died of cancer, budget cuts that sliced into the most meaningful programs.

      But life that bad had never happened to Maya before. It shouldn’t happen to Angela—or to Casey.

      She fought back tears and gripped the steering wheel even harder. She had to keep it together. When she got to Eagle Mountain, she had to be there for Casey.

      The cop on the other end of the line—Gage Walker—hadn’t even known Casey existed. How was that possible? Angela and Greg never traveled anywhere without a whole carload of kid gear. Not to mention both their phones were full of pictures of Casey, from newborn right up through her fifth birthday party two months ago.

      Maya had been at that party. She had brought a tiara for Casey to wear and the little girl had been thrilled. The screen saver on Maya’s phone was a picture taken at the party, of her and Maya grinning for the camera.

      Casey had to be okay. She had to be.

      As soon as the news of Angela’s death really began to hit her, Maya had tried to call the cop—Gage—again. The call had gone straight to voice mail. Instead of leaving what would probably have been a hysterical message, she left an aide in charge of her sixth period class, let her principal know she was leaving and why, and rushed home to throw a few things in her car and head for Eagle Mountain.

      By the time Deputy Walker had called her back to tell her Casey was missing and they were making every effort to find her, Maya was already speeding toward Eagle Mountain. She didn’t know much about the town—it was in western Colorado, apparently located in a beautiful area that attracted lots of tourists. Angela and Greg had raved about the place, both so excited over the mining claims they had bought and their plans for the property. “If this works out, we’re thinking of moving to Eagle Mountain,” Angela had said at dinner the night before their trip.

      “You should come with us,” Greg said as he passed Maya a bowl of steamed broccoli. “You could get a teaching job there, I bet.”

      “You really want to live in a small town?” Maya was incredulous. “Why?” Small towns, by definition, were small, which to her meant limited opportunities, limited entertainment options and maybe even limited thinking. “You have everything you could ever want here in Denver.”

      “Eagle Mountain is the perfect place to raise kids,” Angela said. “If we’re going to relocate, now’s a good time, before Casey has really settled into school.”

      Maya wasn’t so sure about that. Wouldn’t kids get bored way out here in the middle of so much nature? Everywhere she looked she saw endless fields, soaring mountains, colorful rocks, rushing streams and vast blue sky—but not many people or buildings. What did people out here do for excitement and entertainment?

      How was a five-year-old girl going to survive alone out in all this emptiness?

      By the time she turned onto Eagle Mountain’s main street, she was exhausted from grief and strain, her stomach in knots with worry over Casey, and in no mood to deal with any slow-talking, easygoing backwater cop, which was the only kind she expected to encounter here. After all, if a man had any real talent and ambition, wouldn’t he opt to go someplace with a little more action?

      The first person to acknowledge her when she walked through the door of the Rayford County Sheriff’s Department was a white-haired woman who wore purple-framed glasses and earrings shaped like pink flamingos. “May I help you?” she asked, eyes sharp, expression all business.

      “My name is Maya Renfro. I’m looking for a Deputy Walker.”

      Any hardness melted from the woman’s face. She jumped up and moved toward Maya, hand extended. “You’re the sister. We’ve been expecting you. I’m so sorry for your loss. Such a tragedy.” She ushered Maya to a small office down a short hallway. “You must be worn out. Everyone is out looking for your niece, but I’ll call and let Gage know you’re here. I’m Adelaide, by the way. I’ll get you some tea. Or would you rather have coffee?”

      “I just want to speak to Deputy Walker.”

      “Of course. I’ll get him here as soon as I can.”

      Then Maya was alone in the office, a claustrophobic cube of a room with barely enough space for a desk and one visitor’s chair. She sat and studied the walls, which were filled with several framed commendations and half a dozen photographs, all featuring a tall, good-looking man with thick brown hair and the weathered face of an outdoorsman. In one picture, he knelt beside a mountain stream, cradling a colorful fish and grinning at the camera. In another, he supported the head of a trophy elk, golden aspens in the background. In a third photograph, he posed with another officer, both of them in uniform and holding rifles.

      “That’s Gage and his brother, Travis.” Adelaide spoke from behind Maya. She set a cup on the edge of the desk. “I brought you some tea,” she said. “I know you said you didn’t want anything, but after such a long drive, you look like you could use something.”

      “Tea is fine.” Maya picked up the cup and sat stiffly upright in the chair. “So Gage and Travis are both law enforcement officers?”

      “Travis is the county sheriff,” Adelaide said. “He’s out with the others. We’re all just sick about this. Things like this just don’t happen in Eagle Mountain.”

      “They happen everywhere, Addie. You know that. We’re not special.”

      The man who moved into the room past Addie was tall and rangy, his khaki uniform streaked with dirt, his face creased with exhaustion. “Gage Walker,” he said, extending his hand to Maya. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here to meet you.”

      “I told her you were out looking for her niece,” Adelaide said.

      “We’ve got everybody in the county with any kind of experience in the woods out there looking for her,” Gage said. The chair behind the desk creaked under his weight as he settled into it, and the office seemed more claustrophobic than ever with his oversized, very masculine presence. Adelaide returned to the front office, leaving them alone.

      Gage didn’t say anything for a moment, his eyes fixed on Maya, his expression unreadable. “Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked, setting the teacup on the desk.

      He shook his head, as if coming out of a daze. “You said you’re a teacher?”

      “Yes. I teach high school English at Centennial High School.”

      Gage shook his head again. “None of my teachers ever looked like you.”

      She stiffened. “What is that supposed to mean?”

      “Well, for one thing, none of them had blue hair.”

      She touched the ends of her hair, which she had dip-dyed blue only two weeks before. “I made a deal with my students. If they brought up their achievement test scores, I would dye my hair blue.”

      “Just not what I expected.”

      He wasn’t what she had expected, either. He wasn’t slow and dumb, but he definitely looked right at home in this rugged country.

      “What happened to my sister?” she asked.

      “We’re

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