Manhunt On Mystic Mesa

“Yes, but you knew her best. What do you think would have motivated her to leave the group? Would she want to be alone if she had had an argument with someone? Was she the type who would investigate an odd noise, or try to help an injured animal? Would she have left camp to check out an interesting rock formation, or maybe gone in search of a better cell signal?”

She relaxed a little. “I see what you’re getting at.” She looked around them, at the bright, windswept landscape. “I don’t think she would have gone after an animal. She likes dogs and cats, but she’s a little afraid of wild animals—like I am. There’s apparently no cell service out here and she had been working out here long enough to know that, so there was no point in wandering around trying to find a better signal. I suppose it’s possible she might have wanted some time alone if she had had an argument with someone.”

“Then let’s find out if that’s the case.” He moved to join his partner with Eddleston. “Did Jennifer have a disagreement with any of her coworkers that day?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Eddleston said. “Jenny got along great with everyone.”

“We’ll want to talk to her coworkers and verify that,” Reynolds said.

“Of course.” The archaeologist squinted past them, obviously distracted. Jana turned and saw a dusty whirlwind on the horizon that drew nearer and morphed into a late-model, sand-colored Camry racing toward them. “I was wondering when he would show up,” Eddleston said.

“Who is it?” Officer Spencer asked.

“Eric Patterson,” Eddleston said. “He’s a reporter with the Montrose paper.”

Reynolds scowled. “We don’t have time to talk to reporters.”

“He’s not just a reporter,” Eddleston said. “And you probably do want to talk to him.” He turned to Jana. “You, too.”

“Why is that?” Jana asked.

Eddleston looked confused. “Because he’s Jenny’s fiancé. Didn’t she tell you?”

Chapter Two (#u4c111fe1-4b95-562e-beaf-7ee15f9d5e1d)

Ryan studied Jana’s reaction to Eddleston’s identification of the approaching visitor—shock, confusion and then anger played across a face that had the same fair beauty as her sister, but with a maturity that lent more angularity and sophistication to her features. Her eyes held more shrewdness than the photo of the missing young woman, as if she had learned the hard way to be skeptical of the promises people made.

The Camry stopped a short distance away in a cloud of red dust, and a slight young man with thinning blond hair and a boyish face stepped out. He assessed the quartet waiting for him with a glance and nodded, as if approving this welcoming party, then strode toward them and spoke in a loud voice, as if addressing a crowd. “I heard the Rangers had been assigned to the case,” he said. “Now maybe we’ll get some results. No offense to the local cops, but they don’t have the resources and expertise you guys do.”

Before either Ethan or Ryan could reply, Eric turned to Jana and seized her hand. “You must be Jana. Jenny has told me so much about you.”

Jana pulled her hand away and didn’t return Eric’s smile. “Funny. She never mentioned you.”

The wattage of his grin didn’t lower. “We wanted to give you the news in person,” he said. “We planned a trip to Denver to see you later this month. Jenny wanted it to be a surprise.”

“So it’s true—you’re engaged?” Jana asked.

“Yes.” He held up a hand like a cop halting traffic. “Now I know what you’re thinking—Jenny is young and we haven’t known each other that long—but when it’s true love, I guess you just know.”

“How long have you and Jenny known each other?” Ryan asked.

“Two months. We met when I was working on a story on this archaeological dig.”

“Eric did a wonderful piece about our work that was picked up for the Denver Post,” Eddleston said. “It was great publicity for our department.”

“How long have you been engaged?” Ryan asked.

“Not long,” Eric said. “We decided a couple of weeks ago, actually.”

“It isn’t like Jenny to keep something like this a secret from me,” Jana said.

“Well, she isn’t a little girl anymore, telling big sis everything,” Eric said. “She wanted her own life.”

Ryan felt Jana stiffen beside him. He didn’t blame her. Patterson had all the subtlety of a steamroller. But an argument between the two of them wasn’t going to help find Jenny. “When was the last time you spoke to Jenny?” he asked Patterson.

“We talked over breakfast at my place yesterday morning before she left to head out here for work.” The way he said it—emphasizing the word breakfast and watching for Jana’s reaction—made Ryan think he was bragging. He and Jenny had spent the night together and Patterson wanted to make sure Jana knew it. He was letting her know that he had been closer to her sister than she was.

Patterson turned to Eddleston. “I just came out to let you know I want to do anything I can to help,” he said. “If you think more publicity in the paper would be useful, I’m your man.”

“We’ll certainly have questions for you,” Ryan said before Eddleston could answer. “And we have a copy of the interview you gave the sheriff’s office. Right now, we’d like to talk to some of the other people Jenny worked with.”

“Of course.” Eddleston gestured toward the base of the mesa, where half-a-dozen people milled about amid a grid of pink plastic flags. “Talk to anyone you like.”

Ryan nodded to Jana and touched the brim of his hat. “Ma’am,” he said, then followed Ethan across the rough ground toward the excavation.

When they were far enough away from the others that they couldn’t be overheard, Ethan said, “Give me your impressions.”

“The sister doesn’t know as much about Jenny as she thought she did,” Ryan said. “Eddleston is most concerned about making a good impression. The fiancé is too cocky and sure of himself and for some reason he’s going out of his way to goad Jana.”

“If Jenny was the only woman missing, I’d put him at the top of the suspect list,” Ethan said. “But his name hasn’t come up in our investigation of the first missing woman, Lucia Raton, and it seems unlikely he knew an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who just happened to be passing through.”

“So he’s a jerk but probably not a killer,” Ryan said.

“Provided the women are dead,” Ethan said.

“Right. We don’t have any bodies, but we both know the stats.” When young women went missing for no reason, too often they were eventually found dead.

“Maybe this case will be an exception to the norm,” Ethan said.

For the next hour, the two Rangers questioned Jenny’s coworkers, who all professed sadness and shock at her disappearance. They were able to establish a timeline for yesterday. No one had noticed anything unusual before she vanished. They all agreed she hadn’t seemed depressed or afraid or anything like that. “Jenny was one of these really upbeat, look-on-the-bright-side kind of people,” said a twenty-year-old archaeology major, Heidi. “I used to tease her about it sometimes. If she had a flat tire on the way in, she wouldn’t complain about the tire, she’d talk about how amazing it was to be in such a beautiful setting with nothing to do but wait for something to come along and help.”

“So even if something had happened that might upset most people, she wouldn’t necessarily show any distress,” Ethan said.

“I guess you could put it that way,” Heidi said.

“What about her relationship with Eric Patterson?” Ryan asked.

Heidi slanted him a wary look. “What about it?”

“Was she happy? Excited about being engaged?”

“She never actually said anything about being engaged,” Heidi said. “First I heard of it was after she disappeared and he came out with the local cops this morning and told everyone. He said they had agreed to keep it a secret until she had a chance to tell her sister.”

“Did that strike you as odd—that she wouldn’t have shared something like that?” Ryan asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, it surprised me a little. I knew she had gone out with the guy a few times, but I didn’t think it was that serious. I mean, they hadn’t known each other long, but love makes people do crazy things sometimes, I guess.”

“Tell me a little more about her mood yesterday,” Ryan asked. “Did she mention anything at all about anything that had happened to upset her—an argument with someone, worry over finances, anything like that?”