The Hunt (27 page)

Miranda felt like she was in school again. “What are the Middle Paleozoic formations?”

He glanced at her and frowned. “You passed my class, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.” But the information had promptly left her memory.

He shook his head and sighed. “The Paleozoic formations were created by shallow seas that covered much of the western U.S. from 500 to 250 million years ago, particularly the Four Corners states—Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico—as well as a large slice of Nevada.”

“But what about southwest
Montana
?”

“Well, like I said, there are fine clays and soils all along the Missouri River. They come in varying colors and textures, but nothing that I would call red. Still.” He frowned. “If I can see it, I might be able to tell you more.”

“Thanks, Professor. Glen.” She stood. “I’ll see if I can have someone bring you a sample, but it’s evidence and I don’t know how much the lab retained.”

“I hope you and Sheriff Thomas catch this guy. He’s been terrifying the women of Bozeman far too long.”

“Thanks.” She left, her heart beating frantically. She pulled out her cell phone and called Quinn.

“Peterson.”

“Quinn, it’s Miranda. I just spoke to Professor Austin about the soil. He said there’s a small area in western
Montana
that might have it. It’s also found in
New Mexico
,
Arizona
,
Utah
, and
Colorado
. Can he take a look? He might be able to give us more information.”

“I’ll call Olivia and see if she can have someone drive it down to the University.”

“Thanks.”

“Is Nick over there?”

“With me? No. I haven’t seen him this morning.”

“We were supposed to meet thirty minutes ago at his office, and he’s not here. I tried his house and cell phone and he’s not picking up.”

Miranda frowned. “That’s unlike Nick.”

“Hold on.” Miranda heard Quinn mumbling in the background, then he came back on. “Deputy Booker has been trying to track him down, but no one has heard from him since yesterday evening when he called for his messages.”

“I’ll drive by his house. Maybe he’s sick,” Miranda said. Her stomach did flips. Something was wrong.

“Be careful,” Quinn said. “Booker and I are going to call around and see who talked to him late yesterday. Check in as soon as you get to Nick’s, okay?”

“I will.” She shut her cell phone and crossed the campus to her Jeep.

Fifteen minutes later, Miranda stopped in front of Nick’s small Victorian on a quiet street in downtown Bozeman. His SUV wasn’t in the driveway.

The hairs on the back of her neck prickled. The house
felt
empty.

Miranda slid out of the car and cautiously approached the house. She didn’t know why she felt so apprehensive: it was the middle of the morning in downtown Bozeman. Down the street, an old man was watering his lawn. Around the corner, she heard young kids playing a game of tag, their shrieks of laughter slicing the air.

But Quinn had sounded concerned. Nick hadn’t checked in this morning.

She walked up the wide front steps and paused on the porch, staring at the bench she and Nick had often sat on, talking, during their years of friendship. It reminded her of what she’d lost after they split up—before they’d been involved, Miranda never thought twice about stopping over for pizza and beer, or just sitting around talking. But after they stopped seeing each other romantically, she’d never felt comfortable just visiting.

She’d always considered Nick her best friend. But during the last year or so they’d had only a working relationship. It saddened her.

She rang the bell, then knocked. “Nick! It’s Miranda.”

No answer.

She knocked again and looked through the narrow side window. Nothing moved within sight.

Leaving the porch, she walked down the carport toward the rear of the house. Everything seemed in place. No broken windows, no open doors.

She circled the house and noticed nothing unusual. Nick kept a spare key in the shed in the rear of the property, so she retrieved it and unlocked the back door. The house was too cold—as if the heat hadn’t been on the night before.

Nervous, she pulled out her gun. Foolish, she thought, but better a fool than dead.

The kitchen was immaculate except for a large plastic cup from a local fast-food restaurant. It sat on the edge of the counter and she picked it up carefully. It was half full. Nick kept his trash under the kitchen sink; she walked over and opened the cabinet door. On top was a bag from the same restaurant. She extracted it and looked at the receipt. Time stamped 8:04 the night before.

She put the trash back, looked around, but didn’t see anything else out of place. She went upstairs and paused in the bathroom. Nick was a tidy person by nature. He had a place for everything. On his organized counter was a pill box with seven compartments, one for each day of the week. Nick believed daily vitamins kept him healthy, and Miranda couldn’t remember a day he had been out ill. He always took them first thing in the morning, right when he got up, so he didn’t forget.

She opened the compartment for
Friday.

Today’s pills were still there.

She opened all the other compartments—maybe he wasn’t as regimented as he used to be.

Sunday through Thursday were empty. Nick hadn’t changed.

Going back to her Jeep, she called Quinn. “Nick’s not at home.”

“Shit.”

“He came home last night after eight, but I think he left sometime later.” She explained about the fast-food receipt.

“Do you know what he was doing yesterday?”

“No. I assumed you did.”

“No idea.”

“Where are you?”

“Nick’s office.”

“I’ll be right over. I have a bad feeling about this.”

“So do I.” Quinn sounded as worried as Miranda felt.

Quinn was going through Nick’s desk trying to find out where he’d gone off to when the undersheriff, Sam Harris, came in without knocking.

Harris was a short man who stood rigid in an attempt to make himself appear taller. Quinn had met many men in law enforcement like Harris, cops who enjoyed the power they had just because they wore a uniform.

“Agent Peterson,” Harris said with a nod.

“What can I do for you?”

“More, what can I do for you? It seems the sheriff has disappeared, and that puts me in charge. Of course, I’m pleased to have the FBI assisting our small department.”

“We need an APB put out on Nick if it hasn’t already been done. I asked two deputies to put together a timeline of Nick’s entire day yesterday. We know he ate dinner at home between eight and nine. He called in to dispatch for messages at eight thirty from his home phone. But at some point he left and didn’t return.”

“It’s done,” Harris said.

“Thanks.”

Quinn was about to ask if Nick’s truck had Global Positioning—many police departments had installed the systems in their vehicles—when Harris spoke up.

“I need to brief the mayor on the investigation. She didn’t hear from Nick after the press conference yesterday, and the mayor has asked for daily reports.”

“Nick and I agreed that the mayor—and media—are on a need-to-know basis. I don’t have to tell you that this is a very sensitive investigation.”

“I completely agree,” Harris said in a tone that conveyed the exact opposite, “but the mayor has been upset with the media coverage. She’s being put under intense scrutiny not only by the local paper, but national news stations.”

“Everyone’s under the microscope,” Quinn said. “It’s the nature of the business.”

Harris smiled thinly. “True, true. But you know which way shit flows. The mayor is under pressure, we’re all under pressure.”

Even under the most heated circumstances, Quinn usually handled local politics well. But this case was personal. First Miranda’s involvement, now Nick’s disappearance.

“I understand,” Quinn said with forced restraint. “I will trust you to relay the appropriate information to the mayor.”

Harris stared at him. “Let me ask you something, Agent Peterson. Put your friendship with Sheriff Thomas aside. Can you honestly say everything that could be done has been done?”

“I’m not going to stand here and play Monday-morning quarterback when we have two missing people,” Quinn said. “I can assure you, I have found no fault with the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Department.”

“We’re not a big department. We don’t have the resources for two major missing person’s cases. Maybe the sheriff just needed a little time. He’s been under intense pressure.” Harris attempted to sound understanding, but an undercurrent of disdain was evident in his tone.

Quinn was about to respond when Harris cut him off.

“Perhaps now’s the time to bring in some more of your people,” he said, standing with his hands behind his back. “Since the sheriff is unable to request the assistance at this time, I would be more than happy to do it.”

It was subtle to be sure, but coupled with Harris’s tone, Quinn didn’t miss the insinuation that Nick should have requested additional FBI assistance.

He took a deep breath before answering. “Thank you,” he said diplomatically, “but a pair of agents are already on their way to assist with the interviews. They’ll be here tonight. In fact, I need to get on it right now.”

Miranda burst through the door while asking breathlessly, “Quinn, have they found Nick yet?”

She almost ran into Sam Harris. A look of distaste swam over her face, then she hid it. “Sam,” she acknowledged.

“Miranda,” he said in the same formal tone. He looked back at Quinn. “I’ll be happy to talk to the mayor for you, Agent Peterson,” Harris said with another curt nod.

“What was that about?” Miranda asked as she closed the door behind the undersheriff.

“Hell if I know. Power game?” He ran a hand through his hair. “Last thing we need are egos getting in the way of the job.”

“No word?”

“Nothing.”

“Was Sam acting his usual asshole self?” She rolled her eyes.

“More or less. Harris was right about one thing.”

“What?”

“We don’t have the resources for two major missing persons cases.”

“Don’t say that. We can work them simultaneously.”

“As best we can, we will. But the priority right now is Ashley van Auden.” The phone on Nick’s desk buzzed. Quinn answered it, and a few moments later hung up.

“That was Jeanne Price, the assistant clerk from the Clerk and Recorder’s Office. Apparently, Nick spent five hours copying maps and property records yesterday afternoon.”

“What are we waiting for? Let’s go.”

Three hours later, Quinn and Miranda sat at the Clerk and Recorder’s Office staring at the piles of maps and land records Nick had pulled.

Neither Quinn nor Miranda could make any sense of the thousand pages of information. When Miranda asked Jeanne Price what specific copies she’d made for Nick, she was informed that Nick made all his own copies.

“Do you think he had a lead and pursued it? Got into an accident or some sort of trouble?” Miranda stared at Quinn, worried.

“Nick’s too smart to go off without backup,” Quinn said. He frowned.

“What?” she asked.

“He was feeling overwhelmed yesterday. Between the press, and the lack of evidence, and the national media coming in—I don’t know. I can’t see him doing anything on his own, but maybe it was a long shot.”

“Long shot. He should have told
somebody
where he was going!” She’d always been ready to run off in any direction, but Nick had repeatedly insisted she alert dispatch every time she went into the field. Finally, it had become a habit. Why hadn’t he followed his own established protocol?

She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I don’t even know where to start.” She stared at the documents in front of her. “Land ownership records going back twenty years . . . maps of the entire county . . . he had to have had some thought, but I can’t make the connection.”

“I don’t know,” Quinn began, when his cell phone rang. “Peterson.” He listened for several minutes, then said, “Great, we’ll meet you there in an hour.”

“Who was that?” Miranda asked when he’d pocketed the phone.

“Olivia. She’s coming down with the state lab director to talk to your professor. The preliminary results from Quantico came back on the red clay. Your professor was right—it’s from the Four Corners states and the analyst is leaning toward
Utah
. Olivia is hoping he can take a look at the sample and technical data to narrow it down further. Quantico is calling in an expert from the U.S. Geological Survey, but that’s going to take another day.”

“What about these maps and records?” Miranda stared at the overwhelming stack of paper.