LITMIR.BIZ

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to your room.” Paige put an arm around Maya and ushered her into the house. In the doorway, she stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Gage. “Don’t leave yet,” she mouthed, then went into the house with Maya.

      Gage moved to the porch swing to the right of the door and sat, letting the calm of the night seep into him. Only one or two lights shone in the houses that lined the street, not enough to dim the stars overhead. He thought of the little girl in the woods and hoped she was where she could see those stars, and that maybe, seeing them, she wouldn’t feel so alone.

      The door opened and Paige stepped out. “I got her settled in,” she said. “Grief can be so exhausting. I hope she’s able to get some sleep.”

      “I’ll come by and pick her up in the morning and take her up to the campsite,” he said. “We’re hoping her niece will see her and come to her. I found out tonight that the little girl is deaf, so she wouldn’t hear us calling for her.”

      Paige sat in a wicker armchair adjacent to the swing. “I can’t even imagine how worried Maya is. I don’t even know this kid and it upsets me to think of her out there.”

      Gage stifled a yawn. “Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked.

      “Yes. I wanted to tell you I saw that couple—Maya’s sister and her husband—the day before yesterday. And the little girl. She was with them. Adorable child.”

      Gage sat up straight, fatigue receding. “Where was this?”

      “Some of us from Eagle Mountain Conservation went up to Eagle Mountain Resort—you know, those mining claims Henry Hake wanted to develop?”

      Gage nodded. Eagle Mountain Conservation had succeeded in getting an injunction to stop the development three years ago. “You saw the Hood family up there?”

      “They were unloading camping gear from a white SUV parked on the side of the road. I guess they were camping on one of the claims near Hake’s property.”

      “They bought the claim and I guess a few others in the area,” Gage said. “But what were you doing on Henry Hake’s land? It’s private property.”

      Paige frowned at him, a scowl that had intimidated more than one overzealous logger, trash-throwing tourist or anyone else who attracted the wrath of the EMC. “We weren’t on his land. There’s a public easement along the edge of the property. It’s a historic trail that’s been in use since the 1920s. We established that in court, and Hake and his partners had to take down a fence they had erected blocking access. It was part of the injunction order that stopped the development.”

      “So you went up there to hike the trail?”

      “We had heard complaints that the fence was back up, so we went to check,” she said.

      “And was it up?”

      “Yes. With a big iron gate across it. Our lawyers have already filed a complaint with the county commissioners. We tried getting in touch with Hake, but didn’t have any luck.”

      “He’s been missing for almost a month now,” Gage said. “No one has heard anything from him, and every trail we’ve followed up on has gone cold.”

      “A man like that probably has plenty of enemies,” Paige said. “And he hung around with some nasty people. Maybe that former bodyguard of his did him in.”

      “Maybe so, though we haven’t found evidence of that.” Hake’s one-time bodyguard had died in a struggle with Travis when he had kidnapped the woman who was now Travis’s fiancée. Three years previously, the same man had murdered Andy Stenson, a young lawyer in town who had also worked for Hake.

      Paige leaned toward Gage. “It looked to me like work has been done up there on Hake’s property,” she said. “There’s a lot of tire tracks, and maybe even a new building or two.”

      “I’ll see if I can find out anything,” Gage said. “Maybe someone working up there saw or heard something related to the Hoods’ killing.” He stood. “Thanks for letting me know. I’ll see you and Maya in the morning.”

      “I’m hoping she’ll get a good night’s sleep,” Paige said. “And that tomorrow we find her niece safe.”

      “We all hope that.” He returned to his SUV and headed toward the house he rented on the edge of town, but he had traveled less than a block when his cell phone rang. “Gage, this is Al Dawson, over at the high school.”

      “Sure, Al.” Gage glanced at the clock on his dash. Ten minutes until midnight. “What’s up?”

      “I came in to do the floors here in the gym, but found the lock on the door is broken. Somebody bashed it in.”

      “Did you go inside?” Gage asked, looking for a place to turn around.

      “No. When I saw the damage to the door, I figured I’d better call you. It looks like we’ve got another break-in.”

      “I’ll be right there, Al. Don’t go in.”

      “I won’t. What’s going on, Gage?” Al asked. “Travis was out here just this morning to take a report on some items that were stolen from the chemistry lab. This used to be such a peaceful town—now we’ve got crime all over the place.”

      “I don’t know, Al,” Gage said. “But I’ll be right there.” Ordinarily, a random burglary wouldn’t seem that unusual, but two burglaries in one week was enough to rate a headline in the local paper. Add in a double murder and Gage had to ask what the heck was going on.

       Chapter Four

      On his way to the high school, Gage called Travis. “Didn’t you respond to the high school this morning about a break-in?” he asked when his brother answered the phone.

      “Yesterday morning,” Travis said. “It’s already this morning.”

      “Sorry to wake you,” Gage said. “But I just got a call from Al Dawson, the janitor over there. He says the gym door has been tampered with.”

      “All the doors were fine when I was out there,” Travis said. “The thief got into the lab through a broken window.”

      “Al thinks somebody broke into the gym. I’m on my way out there.”

      “I’ll meet you.”

      Al was waiting by his truck when Gage pulled into the lot at the high school. Security lights cast a jaundiced glow over the scene. Whoever had attacked the door to the gymnasium hadn’t bothered with subtlety. They had bashed in the area around the lock with a sledgehammer or iron bar. “Is this the only door that’s been damaged?” Gage asked.

      “I think so,” Al, a thin man in his sixties, said. “I took a look around while I was waiting for you and I didn’t see anything else.”

      “You don’t have any security cameras focused on this area, do you?” Gage asked.

      Al frowned. “We’re a rural school district. Our budget doesn’t run to security cameras.”

      “All right.” Gage took out a pair of gloves and pulled them on. “I’ll check things inside. You wait here.”

      But before he could open the door, Travis pulled up. Gage waited for his brother to join them. Travis greeted them, then surveyed the door. “They obviously didn’t care about hiding the damage,” he said. “Same thing with the science lab yesterday—smash and grab.”

      “What did they take from the lab?” Gage asked.

      “Science equipment—some test tubes and flasks, reagents and a Bunsen burner,” Travis said.

      “You think it was kids making drugs?” Al asked.

      “Kids or adults,” Travis

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