Cold Fear (12 page)

SEVENTEEN

Immediately after
Emily Baker’s
first interview with the task force, Zander pulled Bowman aside in the few
minutes they had alone.

“Emily’s demeanor at this stage is absolutely critical.
She could bond, open up. She may need a little nudge.”

A female Ranger had taken Emily to find an unoccupied
restroom. Zander’s attention darted between where she would emerge and Bowman.

“I want you to begin working on securing Emily’s trust
before you fly back with her to the command post. Work on her woman to woman.”
Zander’s blue eyes bored into hers. “It is vital you not fail. You will not get
a second chance at this.”

The full weight of what was at stake began settling on
Bowman. Through the command center windows she saw the news trucks. Inside, the
TV monitors in the operations room played the muted chatter of live network
reports. Bowman swallowed. A few hours ago, she would have been at her desk,
quietly dealing with forms, her keyboard and her little frustrations. This was
huge. Moving so fast. She could not afford to screw up.

“You understand, Bowman? Can you handle that? Or should
I request someone else?”

Zander was an ass. He might be a legendary detective,
able to pick up her twinge of self-doubt, but he was still an ass.

“Tell me, Zander, with you being an expert on the
‘woman-to-woman approach,’ what advice can you provide so that I don’t fail?”

“It’s evident she likes you, Bowman. Get her talking to
you. Beat us up if you like. Win her confidence. Whatever it takes.” Zander
checked his watch. “You’ll have an hour, maybe less, with her. Then we bring
the dad in.”

“What do we want to know?”

“The truth.”

Emily returned, nodding her thanks to the ranger, giving
a half-smile to Bowman, who escorted her through the chaos of the command
center.

Emily’s face tightened, her eyes glistening as the
impact of her daughter’s drama hit her with the force of a sledgehammer.

Paige staring back at her from the TV monitors from the
early-morning news reports, still pictures of her and Doug. The entire country
was watching.

“This way, Emily.”

Bowman took Emily outside through a back entrance to an
empty FBI SUV with Utah plates, filled with manuals, maps, empty fast-food
wrappers and newspapers. At least it would be private. They climbed in.

Emily was tearful, drained.

“How long before I can get back to the campsite? I want
to be there in case they find her.”

“About an hour”, Bowman explained. Because the search
was going full throttle it might take that long before a helicopter could ferry
her back and fly Doug in. Emily stared at the mountains.

“Have they found anything?”

“I’m sorry. Nothing so far that we’re aware of.”

Emily was dabbing her eyes, sniffling. “Do you think I
am a horrible mother?”

“Every mother thinks they are a horrible mother when
something bad happens.”

“I think Zander and the others think I am a terrible
mother.”

“Why?”

“For losing my child.”

“I think they just want to know everything that happened
so they can find Paige.”

“I told Zander everything. I know he doesn’t believe me.
I saw it in his face, heard it in his tone.”

Emily looked at Bowman, assessing her as a friend or an
enemy.

“Do you have children, Tracy?”

“A son, Mark. He’s nine.”

“Have you ever had anything horrible happen in your
life?”

Bowman rolled to Carl’s empty side of the bed that
night he took the call. Then the pounding began on the front door. Barry Tully,
highway patrolman, stood there, his hat in his hand. He couldn’t get the words
out. He didn’t have to because she knew….

“Yes. I have,” Tracy said. “My husband died a few years
ago.”

“I’m sorry. How, illness or…”

“Highway crash.”

Emily looked at nothing in the treetops. “Then you know
what it is like to get pulled into a surreal whirlwind where nothing makes
sense, where it is so painful you would give anything to stop it, to go back to
better days.”

Bowman could feel Emily reaching out to her, subconsciously
trying to bond. Woman to woman, mother to mother. Be careful, she told herself.

“Yes, Emily, I’ve known terrible things in my life, like
most people.”

“I know Zander and the others are trying to find out if
I had anything to do with Paige’s disappearance.”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“Is it?”

“We’re--”Bowman caught herself--“they’re just trying to
learn truth surrounding the time Paige got lost, I mean--”

“The truth?
That implies
you think I’m lying--”

“No, Emily, I mean, I mean the facts, the details--I am
sorry--”

“What about you, then? Do you think I had something to
do with Paige’s vanishing? And I want
you
to tell me
the truth
and let me judge
you
.”

Bowman searched her heart. She found no evidence that
convinced her Emily committed any crime other than having an argument that
resulted in her ten-year-old daughter running off and getting lost in the Rocky Mountains. But somewhere in a dark corner, Bowman felt, Emily was hiding something
disturbing.

“I do not think you committed any crime.”

Emily brought her fists to her mouth. “Thank you.”

Oh Jesus, was that a mistake, telling her that?
Bowman thought quickly.

“But I do think you and Doug are, or were, in the midst
of something very troubling that you fear is related to Paige running off.”

Emily said nothing for a moment, then, “Do you think we
will find her?”

“I’m praying that we do.”

Bowman’s pulse was racing, not seeing the activity, the
mountains. She was torn between her fear that Emily was so calculating and
cunning she had just been played for a fool, or Emily was the innocent victim
of tragic circumstances.

“I understand you used to live in Montana, grew up
here?”

Emily nodded. “But it has been years.”

“Why did you come back?”

“To bury something from the past.”

Bowman felt gooseflesh surface on the back of her neck.

“Would you like to talk to me about it, Emily?”

Emily shook her head. “I can’t.” A curtain of sorrow
fell over her. “I can’t tell anyone. I--I.” Emily began weeping softly, her
voice dropping.

Bowman strained to listen, Emily almost whispering to
herself, making Bowman unsure of what she was hearing.

“I need my daughter back. I cannot go through this
again. I will not survive this,” Then Emily’s voice rose, her face lifting to
the mountaintops.

“God, please, where is she?”

EIGHTEEN

Paige awoke,
shivering and hungry.

It was cold and damp in her shelter. She should get into
the sun. Try to find her way back. Was it safe? She was afraid.

Was the thing that chased her last night still out
there?

So afraid. She had to stop shivering.

Where’s Kobee?

She inched her head out, began looking in every
direction, her entire body aching, cuts and scrapes stinging. She was starving.
Her throat was raw. She coughed. It hurt a little.

She threw small rocks in every direction, hoping to hear
the thing stir if it was waiting for her.

Nothing. She continued tossing them, only farther.

She had to get back. Her parents were going to kill her.
Maybe they would be so mad they would leave without her.

No. Don’t let that happen! Please! Somebody help me!

But why were they fighting so much? They were getting a
divorce. That had to be it. They brought her on this trip to tell her they did
not love each other anymore, that she would have to decide which of her parents
she wanted to live with, then tell a judge or something.

Some of the divorced kids at school said that’s how it
happens.

She prayed it would not happen to her.

Mom and Dad still love each other, don’t they?

Paige had to get back. Had to help them stay together.

Carefully, she stepped out of her shelter, shielded her
eyes from the morning sun, scanning the slope, then decided on a direction.
Walking warmed her, made her feel a little better. But she had no idea where
she was going. She walked into a forest that looked inviting, easy to travel
through.

She was so hungry.

She started thinking about a cheeseburger, fries, a
milkshake, tacos, the fridge at home, a ham and cheese sandwich, yogurt, fruit,
orange juice with shaved ice, her mom’s spaghetti with mushroom sauce and
garlic bread, homemade apple pie.

She missed San Francisco, their house near Golden
Gate Park, her room with her cool loft bed, her books, the computer, her
poster of Leonardo DiCaprio. The big beautiful picture Mom took of her and
Kobee at the beach.

Where was Kobee?

She called for him. “Kobeeee!” Stupid beagle.

Paige stopped to sit on a flat sun-warmed rock. She was
so hungry.

The trees, the slopes and mountains that went on forever
and ever. She hated this place. It was not beautiful; it was scary. Something
had chased her last night. Something frightening that she did want to even
think about.

Paige had overheard her mother telling someone on the
phone once that her monster “dwelled in the mountains.” Paige now knew monsters
were real. One almost got her last night. Would she ever get back home? She had
no idea where she was going. Her feet were sore.

She was so hungry.

She swallowed and searched her pack.

Two granola bars, an apple and a bottle of water.

She was starving. Licking her lips, she forced herself
to eat only the apple, to eat it as slowly as possible. Savoring every bit,
sucking the juice, actually tasting the skin, nibbling down to the core,
leaving no meat on the seed pockets or the stem, contemplating eating them too.

When she finished, she was still hungry. Gripping the
two packaged granola bars. One blueberry. One strawberry. Sitting there
craving, aching to eat them.

But then what?

What would she eat when they were gone?

She wept.

Mommy. Daddy. Come and get me. Please. Take me home.
Please.

She sobbed, believing her parents, the entire world, had
forgotten about her; fearing she would never see them or her friends again. At
first, she didn’t hear the distant sound as it drew closer, familiar, pricking
her ears. A jingling, then panting.

Paige blinked.

Kobee?

Suddenly, out of nowhere, he was in her lap.

“Kobee!”

Licking her face.

Squeezing him, hugging him, kissing him.

“You bad, bad wonderful mutt. I love you--don’t you ever
leave me again!”

Paige placed her hand on either side of his head,
staring at him eye to eye.

“Now you have to show me the way back! You!”

What was wrong? His eyes were not right. They held
something bad. Terror. Body trembling. Her fingers. Wet. Something gooey on
them pulling them away, stained red. Blood. Kobee was bleeding. Paige’s heart
raced.

“What happened?”

She swallowed.

His side had been sliced. Like it been raked with sharp
knives. Flesh torn.

What was that?

Huffing. Snorting.

Coming toward her, crashing through the forest. Branches
snapping. Louder than the sound of the distant search helicopter.

“Oh God!”

Paige scooped Kobee in her arms and ran for her life.