“It’s empty. I’m knocking.” He heard the pounding knock and the silence that followed. “No one here, Kee.”
Kee pressed his free hand to his forehead. “So he’s still out there.”
“Call Chief Tinnin. Report him missing. Do you know the route he takes?”
Kee squeezed his eyes shut thinking. “He has several.”
“What are they?”
He relayed the routes he knew and she said she’d drive them. Kee called Jake again. His brother assured him he’d report that Day was unaccounted for. Kee went back to work with a cold knot in his stomach. He just felt something was wrong.
He was just finishing a round of immunizations on an eighteen-month-old when the phone rang. He snatched it out of his pocket right there in the exam room. It was Ava. A glance at the clock showed that it was three in the afternoon. Kee punched the receive button and lifted the phone to his ear.
“I found Day’s car,” Ava said.
He pressed his hand to his forehead. “Where?”
She told him.
“That’s the trailhead to the ruins,” said Kee.
“Hard to know which way he went from there,” she said. “Lots of trails through the cliff dwellings. Right?”
“My brother Ty has a dog. She’s an excellent tracker.”
There was a long pause.
“Ava?”
“Yeah, call him. Meet me here.”
“Should I call the police?” he asked.
“Up to you. Would Ty want the police here?” she asked matter-of-factly.
He pressed his lips together. Ava was just a visitor on their rez and yet she knew about Ty. She likely knew about their father, as well. “I’ll wait.”
“We need something of Day’s,” said Ava. “Something he recently wore or frequently wears, to help the dog find his scent.”
Kee swallowed at this and then raked a hand through his black hair. “I’ll stop at the trailer and find something. Meet you there at the trailhead in ten.”
* * *
AVA LEANED AGAINST her Malibu in the bright golden light of the crisp late afternoon. The blue sky and bird sounds belied her mood. Day had parked in a parking area before the lower ruins. His pale blue Subaru was covered with a fine coating of red dust, so it had been here awhile. It did not make sense that he’d be here all day when he was supposed to be at work.
She checked her service weapon and then returned it to her holster beneath her suede russet-colored jacket. She wore her badge under her shirt. The jacket would cover her service weapon from sight and she just felt more comfortable with the weapon near at hand.
Before Kee’s call, Ava had broken into the tribe’s clinic, which she knew was due to reopen this week. As she suspected, all their files were digitized and the computers password-protected. Kee’s and Hauser’s passwords had been easy to discern, but the clinic’s was a different story. So much for that plan, she thought. Shifting approaches, she’d placed a hidden camera directly over the administrator’s desk. Then she could remotely activate the camera, which had a six-hour battery. But then she had to wait for the clinic to open and for Betty Mills to log in before Ava could gain access to their system.
She wondered how long before their police discovered she was here and how long before her police force learned that she’d very definitely gone off the reservation. What she was doing could cost her her job. Her position gave her authority, respect and the autonomy she’d always longed for. She didn’t want to lose all that. But she was willing to chance it because the only thing more important than being a detective was finding Louisa and saving those missing girls.
She wondered if Day’s disappearance was related to this case. Suspicious things were happening and they all spun like a tornado around that clinic.
She hoped the worst thing that could’ve happened to Dr. Day was an accident that had left him lying along the trail somewhere with a twisted ankle and without a phone. But her gut told her that his disappearance could be related to her case.
Kidnapping a federal employee would be a terrible move and very brazen. Even if they thought he was investigating the clinic and closing in on the culprit, which he likely wasn’t, it would be better to...push him off a cliff.
The thought made Ava’s stomach churn.
Ava stared up at the mountain. Somewhere along that trail were several cliff dwellings. She’d never seen them but her sister, Sara, had told her about them. That also meant that there were cliffs.
Kee pulled up in his old blue pickup. He climbed down and hurried toward her, looking distracted as he greeted her by clasping both elbows and kissing her on the cheek. She was so rattled by the simple brushing of his mouth on her cheek that it wasn’t until Kee was already halfway to Day’s Subaru that she realized what he intended.
“Don’t touch that!” she called.
He paused and turned back. “Why?”
“Umm, what if something happened to him, then wouldn’t this be a crime scene?” That wasn’t well-done, she thought.
Kee backed up. “A crime scene?” He looked even more agitated as he looked in through the dusty windows from a safe distance. “Everything looks normal. He didn’t lock it.”
“You know this trail?” asked Ava, drawing him away from the vehicle.
“Part of it. It’s a quarter mile past the pasture to the lower ruins. I only hiked to the upper ruins once.” He rubbed his leg and frowned. “Couldn’t keep up with my kid brothers.”
How hard that must have been, always being the slowest, Ava thought. She touched his cheek with the palm of her hand.
“Well, you can keep up now.”
They shared a smile and she resisted the urge to step closer. His hands went to her waist and she moved away, not wanting him to discover her service weapon.
“There’s miles of trails up there,” he pointed to the ridgeline against the crystal blue sky. “And cliff dwellings, several. I suppose Richard could have tried to bike it.”
From the distance she heard a low rumble.
Kee turned toward the road. “That will be Ty. You know about him?”
She had run his record but she didn’t say that. Instead she offered a half-truth. “I mentioned meeting you to my sister. And...”
Kee flushed. “She naturally mentioned Ty and...my father, too?”
She nodded, wondering why he looked so ashamed. He hadn’t robbed a store. Mr. Perfect, she thought again. No missteps except the ones of his family reflecting badly on him. The law didn’t judge families; it judged individuals. She did the same. But she knew the pain caused by the poor decisions made by family members. Her mother had been a train wreck and Sara had gotten pregnant in high school. It happened.
“No one is perfect,” she said.
“I’m not like my dad.” He met her gaze and she thought the expression was not shame but anger. Was he angry at his father for being a con or at her sister for gossiping? “I’ve never broken a law in my life.”
She’d have to see about that.
“In fact, seeing my dad’s sentencing, well, it changed me. I’d always been cautious because of my leg. But that made me realize that your reputation, well, it’s more breakable than bones.”
She thought about how one wrong step and her own reputation would be beyond repair. She had a stellar law enforcement