Page 7 of Bait and Switch (Subtle Deceptions #2)

SIX

Casey

Tuesday

Casey’s phone vibrated, dragging him out of a pleasant enough slumber.

With bleary eyes and sluggish fingers, he grabbed for the damn thing and squinted at the screen.

Damn, it was just after six in the morning.

He should be up already. He peered at the number, knowing it was familiar, but he had been deep asleep.

Blinking several times, he tried to force his brain into working order. Bingo . The number belonged to Rowan Leary, his acquaintance-friend who flew helicopters for the Park Service. The phone vibrated again, and Casey pressed Accept.

“Leary, what’s going on?”

Casey was already sitting up. No doubt this call meant he would have to be up and out ASAP. Rowan wouldn’t be calling if there wasn’t an emergency.

“Sorry to call so early, Casey, but we’ve got a missing person.

Someone from the brush crew.” The brush crews drove themselves up The Valley, riding together in vans and pickups.

“Sounds like they didn’t realize he’d been missed until this morning when his girlfriend called around.

Both drivers thought he was in the other car. ”

“Keep talking, I’m putting you on speaker while I get ready.”

This was not the time of year to go missing.

It was cold and wet, and the days were short, making everything about a search that much more difficult.

Casey grabbed a thick pair of socks from his dresser and started to put them on.

It would be cold as fuck in the forest today.

The last thing anyone wanted was a rescue worker needing to be rescued themselves.

“I’m assuming you’re calling Greta? I’ll stop and pick her up too. What can you tell me about the missing person?”

With Bowie by his side, Casey exited The Barbara and walked quickly down the pier. He’d learned early on in his residency at the marina not to move too fast when it was frosty out. His ass had felt the impact for days.

“Carlos Garcia, mid-twenties. This was his first season up The Valley, but he’s done other work for us in years past. From what we can piece together, he just didn’t show up at the pickup point. The last carpool was around four p.m.”

“That’s a long damn time to be out in the cold.” Temperatures were getting steadily colder as the official change from fall to winter drew closer.

“Yeah,” Rowan agreed. “Wires got crossed, not good. I’ve talked to both drivers directly, and neither remembers seeing Carlos. His girlfriend has tried his phone and it goes to voicemail.”

Either because he was out of service range or battery. Also not good.

Opening the gate, Casey let Bowie squeeze through first and then relocked it after he’d done the same. Not that it would keep someone from dumping a dead body there, he thought grimly.

Covering the mic, Casey yelled, “Bowie, get back here! We don’t have time for the cat. Sorry about that,” he said to Rowan.

With a doggy roll of his eyes, Bowie trotted over to the car and waited for Casey to catch up. Once Bowie was safely in the back, Casey buckled himself in and started the engine, continuing to listen to what Rowan had to say about the missing person.

“Not much else to tell you. I already alerted Tor and his team. We just need experienced searchers before it’s too late for this guy.”

Brush work was fast money this time of year, but the conditions could be dangerous.

Weather conditions were always iffy and there was little to no oversight.

The work was exhausting, there was always the risk of serious injury, and they were paid by the pound, which meant the quicker folks made more money but encouraged carelessness.

Casey found it ironic that most folks had no idea where the holiday wreaths they hung on their walls and doors, or the pretty salal leaves that were often added to bouquets, came from.

Or the effort that went into harvesting just the boughs themselves—it was back-breaking work.

“I figure we’re an hour out, hopefully less.”

Travel time was, obviously, unavoidable, but even two more hours out in the cold for Carlos Garcia was too long; fingers crossed, they would find him quickly, alive and relatively uninjured.

“That’s all I’ve got for you,” Rowan said.

“Great, see you when we get there.” Casey set his phone back in the cup holder and focused on the road in front of him.

He was proud of his tracking abilities. After a lifetime spent as much in the forest as possible, he was pretty damn good at finding people.

But Greta was even better. His partner had incredible instincts when it came to locating lost hikers, campers, and other creatures.

Once she’d located a cat that had escaped its owners and spent a few days in the woods.

The only other being Casey personally knew who was better at tracking was Bowie, and he had the advantage of an incredible sense of smell.

“What do you know about this guy?” Greta asked from the passenger seat, her go-cup gripped tightly in her hands.

Bowie was staying with Greta’s partner, Abby, for the day.

He wasn’t an official tracking dog and he’d probably get in the way.

Casey made a mental note once again to research training schedules when things calmed down.

When they’d pulled out of Greta’s driveway, Bowie was happily playing fetch with Abby, not caring that he was being left behind.

“Nothing that I haven’t told you already.

Male, mid-twenties, has worked for Rowan’s group before so should know not to wander off.

The crew is heading up The Valley at first light.

” This time of year, the sun didn’t rise until just before eight a.m. “Fingers crossed, he’s waiting for them up at the site.

But since he didn’t answer calls to his cell phone, I’m not holding my breath. ”

“Don’t these crews generally stick together?”

Casey shot her a Look; the question had to be rhetorical.

“It’s part of their training, you know that.”

“Training,” she scoffed. “We both know what that means.”

Greta had a point. Training was often five minutes of pep talk before they headed into the woods with sharp tools.

“We’ll talk to the team—obviously. Maybe one of them can tell us more about him. I, for one, would love to learn that he has backwoods survival experience.”

Being an experienced outdoors person didn’t ensure survival or even that the worker would be found, but it might help. Casey navigated around a deep pit in the road but managed to hit another in the process.

“Did they bring a pothole installer up here?” Greta griped. “Blessed be the inventor of the thermal go-cup with a tight lid.”

“Maybe they did. Maybe potholes keep the riffraff out? But I’m pretty sure there’s been some equivalent of the go-cup since the Romans. Probably before that.”

“And now I have an image of Sasquatch hanging out in the forest with his hollowed-out stone mug.”

“You’re welcome.”

They passed by the sign advertising Snowcap Estates. Somehow it looked even more tattered and bedraggled than it had only ten days ago. There weren’t any signs of construction, just the orange survey tape fluttering in the wind.

“Mmph,” said Greta. “I’d sure like to know whose pockets were lined in order to push that through.”

“And why has it been sitting for as long as it has? Not that I want a brand spanking new development up here, but they were so hot to do it. Came in right away, cut all the trees down, and now, nothing. I hate it and the people responsible for it.”

“Ironic, considering the LLC that got their hands on the land chose Trillium as their business name, yet they’ve probably destroyed a huge swathe of the plant’s habitat. Fuckers.”

Casey had to agree. Trillium was exceedingly slow-growing and hated to be disturbed. It was illegal to pick or harvest the native species growing on state land, but sadly, Snowcap Estates was privately owned.

“Definitely fuckers.”

Another quarter of a mile and the ingress leading to Gordon MacDonald’s property appeared out of the mist. The driveway looked a bit sad and lonely in the gray drizzle, and a strand of yellow tape had blown all the way to the road, where it caught on some Oregon grape.

Casey wondered if Calvin Perkins had been found yet.

As far as Casey knew, he hadn’t been seen since before his brother Dwayne was discovered on Gordon’s land with a bullet hole in his head.

“No news about Perkins?” Greta asked, seeming to read Casey’s thoughts. She was often very good at knowing what he was thinking.

“Nope.” He grunted as the truck’s tires thudded in and out of another massive dip in the road. “Have you heard anything?”

“No time to tap into the rumor mill yet, we only got back Friday.” Greta stared out the passenger window. “The Snowcap Estates folks know this road is impossible, right? They’ll have to have a year-round work crew on call. Or convince the county to pave the whole thing.”

“Maybe that’s what’s taking them so long,” Casey said.

“Maybe.” But she didn’t sound convinced.

Slowing to a crawl, Casey muscled the truck around a hairpin turn that eventually connected to the service road they were aiming for. Then, with skill and a little bit of luck, they would find the work crew and Rowan somewhere along the next stretch of road.

“Where the hell is Perkins?” Greta said, returning to the subject of the missing brother. “I’d expect him to be rampaging around trying to get revenge for Dwayne. I cannot believe all this happened while Abby and I were on vacation.”

“Yeah. Definitely eventful while you were out of town. Do you think Calvin could’ve killed his own brother?”

“I mean, in a meth-fueled rage maybe? Together they were idiots, but they were inseparable. I think that most likely they finally fucked with the wrong person.”