Читать книгу A Cache of Trouble: A Cassidy Callahan Novel - Kelly Rysten - Страница 7

Chapter 1

Time was running out and it was late in the evening. The sun was fading fast, the trail endless. I’d been on it for two days and I would have killed for a piece of cheesecake. I was cold, wet, hungry and getting very worried that I wouldn’t find Angie Grey in time. It had rained twice since starting this trail and with each drop her footprints faded more. She had been happily camping with her family at Piney Point when, in typical teenage fashion, she’d gotten mad at her parents and stomped off into the woods. Her parents had wanted to stay another couple of days but Angie wanted to go home to see her boyfriend. She left camp to sulk, or maybe, they thought, to try and walk home and they hadn’t seen her since. So her parents called the police, who called search and rescue, who then called me. I’m Cassidy Callahan, tracker. My search team is good and we have a very good record. Our guys are dedicated and give their all to each case but sometimes they need a little help, and when they do they call me because I have a handy knack for seeing people’s footprints. It’s just something I grew up doing and somehow I got pretty good at it. Good enough that I’d been sent off to police academy and gotten my handy little badge and my stiff uniform. Then I began to help out the police, search and rescue, or anybody who would call on me. Mostly I worked with a team under Lou “Strict” Strickland. We were becoming a tight group, able to work well together and follow the toughest trails.

Right then I could really identify with Angie. I would have liked to just walk right out of there and join my boyfriend too. I thought this search would be a simple matter of following Angie until she got tired, but she didn’t get tired. Not only that, but she had left the trail and headed up a canyon that pointed towards the city. I hoped she wasn’t really trying to walk home, but I knew how irrational teenage girls could be. They can rationalize any wish into a simple solution, which later turns out to be more difficult than imagined. So there I was, two days up a fading trail chasing down an emotional teenager.

Victor wasn’t much help. He was along for two reasons. One, because they wouldn’t let me go out alone, and two, he knew how to use a first aid kit. EMTs are handy that way, but this call was more my area of expertise. I doubted Victor could have followed this trail. He tried keeping track of the footprints for a while, but after many attempts to see what I saw and getting left behind, he gave up and followed me. His job would come later.

“Cassidy, do you ever slow down?” Victor gasped, short of breath.

“Do you see these tracks?”

“Barely.”

“In an hour you might not. One more rain like we had this afternoon and the trail will be gone.”

“Neither rain, nor snow, nor dark of night…” Victor said.

“Nope, that doesn’t work for tracking. Can’t track at night. And rain is murder on tracks. We need to find Angie before it rains again. The only good thing about rain is that maybe she was able to get enough water to stay alive. As far as snow goes, I’ve seen my share of snow for a lifetime. How many times did we go after lost skiers this winter?”

“Me, or you?”

I’d just joined the team in January, so I guess I couldn’t complain about the snow trips. I’d only gotten two months worth and then the snow had melted enough to make the snow birds stay home. Lou, Victor, Landon and Rosco sure had their share of snow shoeing even before I came on board.

“Aaaangie!” We called out as we tracked along. Time was getting critical. At first we hadn’t called her name because following her trail seemed sufficient. However, as we thought we were getting closer and Angie’s time was running out we started calling her by name, hoping for a response. So far, the hills had been silent. When darkness finally stopped our search I became torn. Another night out in the open and I would put the chances of Angie’s survival at almost zero. Nights were still cold. We’d woken up to frost on the ground the two nights we’d been out. Angie’s family had slept snug and warm in a motor home but she was a city kid out to get her yearly dose of the outdoors. She’d taken off without water. I needed to find that kid and I needed to do it yesterday.

After we made camp, ate some dinner and cleaned up, I put a headlamp on and walked a circle around camp. More than one lost person had spotted headlamps and then called out to us, so I wanted to give Angie a chance to spot us too. Two circuits around camp and still no response. I went to bed dejected.

“Up at first light,” I called out to Victor as I crawled into my tent.

The next morning the trail was noticeably fainter. Frost again covered the ground. I called out to Victor as soon as I got up and then I started my little one burner camp stove to heat water for hot chocolate and breakfast. I was tired of oatmeal and so determined to not eat it again that I made a pouch full of powdered eggs, then couldn’t eat it all. Victor looked at it and went to his pack and pulled out a sweet roll, gooey with glaze and begging to be eaten.

“Where’d you get that?” I snapped. It wasn’t cheesecake but it would doin a pinch.

“The grocery store.”

“You’re lucky it isn’t cheesecake. I’d do anything for a piece of cheesecake!”

“Anything?”

“Well, almost anything.”

“Sorry, I don’t have cheesecake.”

We hit the trail and I could hear little sweet rolls whispering to me from the bottom of Victor’s pack. I wasn’t going to ask for one, though. Nope, I would be tough. I’d ignore the call of the sweet roll.

The only way I knew I was still following Angie’s trail was the fact that her tracks were the only footprints around. All distinguishing marks had been erased by the rain. The one thing that kept me going was the fact that Angie was not experienced in the woods. She didn’t walk carefully and she was tiring. She dragged her feet a lot now and she was growing unsteady.

We finally caught up to her around mid morning but the sight of her was so disturbing I had to stop, taking a second to let things register. Not wanting to rush into this all panicky, I calmed myself and then walked over to her. Victor was still several steps behind me. She was lying on her side out in the open. She was covered with muddy raindrops, so she had been lying there for a long time. I felt for a pulse and almost fainted with relief when I found one.

I ached for her, though. Victor stepped in, handed me the radio, and started his work. Still feeling overwhelmed, I contacted base camp and arranged for pick up. Missing person found. Condition serious. Send airlift. Stat. Lou could tell just from my voice that I’d been hit hard this time. I was glad he didn’t know why.

After a seemingly endless wait the helicopter clattered overhead and lowered the basket. Victor and I lifted Angie’s still form into the basket and strapped her down. Victor rode up with Angie and then the basket was lowered again and I hopped in. I rode the basket up into the helicopter and found a place that was out of the way. I sat beside a very still Angie all the way to the hospital, Victor and Nathan monitoring her vital signs as we flew along. Dehydration and hypothermia were the main concerns. She didn’t appear to have been attacked by animals or have any broken bones from a fall. She’ll be okay, I kept telling myself. One good thing I noticed, we were headed towards Joshua Hills. If Angie were in real danger Victor and Nathan would have sent the helicopter to L.A.

At the hospital Angie’s family found me, clapping me on the back and thanking me profusely. I was embarrassed. They were thanking me for taking three days to find their daughter and she’d lain out in the open for close to a day unconscious. How could they be thanking me when I felt so guilty?

I should have called Rusty and gotten a ride home, but I was still so disheartened that I shouldered my pack and started walking towards the condo. A half mile from the hospital a big, white, older model car pulled up and a little old lady tottered around to the sidewalk. She pressed a bag of fast food into my hand and handed me a flyer about her church’s upcoming revival.

“God bless you,” she said pleasantly, tottered back to her car and drove away. I guess she didn’t notice the 9mm still strapped to my thigh or she would have kept driving. I was puzzled. She either knew about the search or thought I was homeless. I was going with the homeless theory. Backpack, dirty clothes, no bath for three days, walking through town… Oh well, who could blame her. I opened the hamburger and ate it as I walked. Even fast food cheesecake would have been an answer to prayer right then, but I only found a burger and fries.

I entered the condo hot, tired and discouraged. My dog, Shadow, raced around, happy to see me. I petted him until he calmed down then I dropped my pack by the front door and went upstairs to shower. The warm water went a long way toward perking me up, but I still needed a warm hug, a slice of New York cheesecake with something gooey on top, and a good report about Angie to make me feel like my old self again. I put on a tank top and shorts and stretched out on the big, soft bed and was out like a light.

I didn’t sleep long before I felt the bed move and an arm came around me. My hug had arrived. I really needed that hug. I turned over and put my arms around Rusty’s broad shoulders.

“I missed you,” he said, “Why didn’t you call?”

“I rode in with the helicopter.”

“I know, Strict told me. He was as puzzled as I was about why you weren’t at the hospital, though.”

“I’m sorry, I was discouraged and I thought a long walk would help so I just walked home from the hospital.”

“You spent two days hiking those rugged mountains and you still needed a walk? What could have you that discouraged?”

I got a big lump in my throat. I really needed that hug so I snuggled closer.

“Oh, Babe,” he said pulling me close, “okay, we’ll talk later.”

“Would you call for a report for me, later? I know she’ll be okay. I just can’t shake the sight of her. But I think she’ll be okay.”

“Sure.”

Now that I was home, had my hug, and Rusty was there I relaxed enough to think about other things. My mind wandered to other questions. Questions that had popped up from time to time but had never been answered.

“Rusty?”

“Yeah?”

“This seems like kind of late to be asking but, with a wedding to plan, do you have a family? It seems kind of strange to think we’re getting married and I don’t even know if you have a family.”

“Of course I have a family. I have two brothers and a sister. My parents live in San Diego.”

“Do you ever visit them? Can I meet them? Do they know about me?”

Rusty pushed himself up onto one elbow and looked down at me, eyes smiling.

“You really want to meet them?”

“Of course! I’d love to. Do they all live in California?”

“One brother lives in New York, the rest live in the San Diego area. Why so many questions all of a sudden?”

“All of a sudden? I’ve been wondering these things for months.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“I am.”

His eyes smiled again. He lay back down and started telling me about his family. He was the oldest of four kids. I could have guessed that he was the oldest. He just acted like an older brother. His dad was a cop and his mom was a dispatcher. They were retired. The next younger brother worked for a big sports magazine based in New York City. He had a long-standing Yankees/Dodgers rivalry going with his brother. His sister was close to my age. She designed store displays for a big department store. The youngest brother would finish college this semester and liked the beach more than work. Rusty spoke of them with detached fondness.

“Did your dad inspire you to go into police work?”

“Not exactly. It kind of ran in the family. It was the talk at the dinner table so as I grew up it was all familiar to me and I just followed what I knew. The other kids were more creative, I guess. They did their own thing.”

“Do you think they will come to the wedding?”

“They’ll try. If it doesn’t work out, though, there will be no hard feelings one way or the other.”

“Do they know about me?”

“A little. They know I met someone I love very much and I’ve never been happier. That’s enough for them.”

“You didn’t warn them about me being a trouble magnet?”

“Cass, no one is a trouble magnet. You’ve put yourself in some sticky situations, but trouble doesn’t go looking for you. You could avoid getting into trouble if you didn’t go looking for it.”

“I don’t go looking for it. I didn’t ask to be carjacked. I didn’t ask to be hunted by drug dealers.”

“Poking around drug labs hidden in the mountains is asking to be hunted. Going after Patrick when Peccati took him was asking to be hunted. Driving around in a marked car was like asking Trent to kidnap you. I know you don’t do these things on purpose. But you do them accidentally with frightening regularity.”

“The search went okay,” I said, changing the subject to something safer. “I wish I’d known how hard it was going to be from the beginning… I was looking for a fourteen year old girl. Her parents thought she’d be close to camp. They thought she ran off to sulk and ran into trouble. Instead, she’d tried to walk home not knowing how far it was, not taking anything with her. We had two rainstorms in the search and every time it rained the trail got harder to follow. When we found her she’d collapsed. She was unconscious and she’d lain out in the open for close to a day. When I found her I saw what could have happened to me so many times and no one would have known to look for me. No one even knew I was out there or where I’d gone. It could have happened a dozen times but I always managed to come home again.” I paused, waiting for the lump in my throat to go away. “I felt guilty that I took so long to find her… And her family thanked me for it. How could they thank me for leaving their daughter out in the wilderness while I patiently followed a bunch of tracks? I couldn’t understand it. So what if I found her, I almost found her too late. I still hope I wasn’t too late. Can you find out for me later?”

“You know I will. But you can’t blame yourself for any of this. You did what you could. You have to remember that, no matter what the outcome of your search. You can only do so much. The outcome is not in your hands.”

“I keep telling myself that I could have tracked faster. I could have gotten there sooner…”

“Shhh, don’t do that to yourself. You did what you could and you probably saved a life. Who went with you?”

“Victor.”

“And could Victor have followed the trail?”

“No. He tried. He watched the trail for a while but I kept leaving him behind so he had to quit.”

“There, you see, no one could have gotten there any sooner than you did.”

I snuggled up close, still worried.

“I need a cheesecake fix. I’ve been craving cheesecake. Victor brought sweet rolls on this search and it was all I could do to keep from stealing his pack.”

His eyes laughed again. “Come on,” he said rolling off the bed, “let’s go find that elusive cheesecake.”

I changed into jeans, t-shirt and moccasins. I always felt underdressed when I was with Rusty in his detective clothes. We went to a restaurant that served dinner and dessert. Rusty ordered dinner. I ordered cheesecake.

“You have to eat more than cheesecake,” he said.

“What’s wrong with cheesecake? Milk, cheese, eggs, flour. I don’t need meat every day.”

“Cass.”

“Okay,” I said looking up at the waitress, “with strawberries on top. I’ll add fruit, it’s healthier than caramel sauce. Is that better?” After the waitress left I turned back to Rusty. “I won’t need another cheesecake fix for a couple of weeks. Besides, some lady thought I was homeless and handed me a hamburger while I was walking home from the hospital.”

He shook his head grinning. “My poor homeless fiancée.”

“I have a homework assignment for you.” I said over dinner. “I need you to make a list of everyone you should invite to the wedding. Family, relatives, friends, co-workers, anybody who would want to be invited. And I will need addresses for all those people, too. I need to get a head count so I can find a place to have the wedding.”

“Can’t we keep it simple?”

“We could try, but I doubt if we’ll succeed. Just make the list and you’ll see how impossible that is. Think of how many people there are just at the station and it’s already a big wedding. Plus, my mom will be in her element with this. She didn’t get to go all out the first time around. She basically just showed up for the ceremony and Jack and I wore our dress uniforms. She’s going to have fun with this. But the first step is getting a head count. Then, with the count in mind, we look for a location. After we have a few places in mind we can try for a date.”

“I thought the date was up to us.”

“In a way it is, but we also have to work with the schedule of the person performing the ceremony and the site where the ceremony will take place. So what day would you like to shoot for? It takes at least three months to plan a wedding. At this point we are looking at July, but we need to avoid holidays. Everybody at the station is going to be busy over Independence Day Weekend so that’s out.”

“This is going to be complicated, I can tell already.”

“I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make your assignments short and easy if you’ll have patience when things get crazy. The list of addresses will probably be the toughest one.”

“What else?”

“You might be thinking about who you want for attendants. I hope it’s a short list because I don’t know anybody besides my sister who would be a bride’s maid. I suppose I could talk Rhonda into it if I had to. After that I draw a blank. I think Steve and Randy would feel pretty silly standing up there. So, if you can, think of two people that would work and I’ll talk to Rhonda.”

“What else?”

“That’s all for now. You’ll have to get fitted for a tux later.”

“That can’t be all.”

“I told you I’d keep your part easy.”

“What if I want to help?”

“If you want a really tough assignment then plan the honeymoon.”

I could tell this idea interested him. Where would a cop and a tracker go on their honeymoon?

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know, surprise me.”

“Well, what do you want to do?”

“I want to spend time with you.”

“Do you want to rough it or go easy?”

“To be honest, I don’t want to spend my whole honeymoon in a tent. And I definitely don’t want to eat oatmeal for breakfast. And I’d prefer to avoid all kinds of backpacker food except trail mix.”

He smiled at me, glad to see my outdoors fix was over for a while. Maybe, if people would watch where they were going in the woods, we’d have a few days to ourselves.

After dinner Rusty excused himself, “What’s the patient’s name?”

“Angie Grey.”

Rusty went outside to make the phone call so I wouldn’t try and read him during the conversation. He knew me too well. He came back looking somber.

“We’ll try again in the morning,” he said when he got back to the table. “It was good news, just not the news you were hoping for.”

It was going to be a long night. Rusty’s cell phone rang and he got up to answer it, wandering off again. I always made a point to not listen to his work conversations.

“That was Strict,” he said on his return. Lou Strickland, Search Commander. “He just wanted to know how you were doing. He said we should go do something fun tomorrow. You’ve been running yourself ragged.”

“I am not, I’m just wishing this last one had turned out more positive.”

“Nope, Strict is right. You do need a break. Let’s start a different search.” I looked at him quizzically. “I have something I want to show you. Tomorrow.”