“I borrowed this Jeep from my folks,” Ryker said when he picked up Harper for their drive to the Ida B Mine Monday afternoon in a red Rubicon. He had called midmorning to tell her the sheriff’s department had found nothing of significance in their investigation of the site, and they were free to make their own visit. She had rushed to her apartment over her lunch hour and grabbed a change of clothes and a daypack. At the end of the day, she changed out of her dress and heels into jeans and hiking boots in the ladies’ room at the office minutes before Ryker arrived. “I didn’t think my car would make it up Stoney Gulch Road.”

“It wouldn’t,” Harper said. “We barely got up it in the Beast—that’s what we call the search and rescue vehicle. It has four-wheel drive and can go a lot of places regular cars can’t go, but that road is really narrow. I was glad I was sitting in the back and couldn’t see everything we had to navigate.”

“Feel free to close your eyes on the way up,” he said.

“I didn’t used to be so nervous on those Jeep roads,” she said. “But I’ve attended a few accidents now and heard enough stories about others that I know all the ways people get into trouble when they’re just trying to have fun.”

“How did you get involved with search and rescue?” he asked as they headed up the highway leading from town.

“I was living in Ohio and the company I worked for folded and I was out of a job. I was having a hard time finding a new one and my dad told me Taylor Geographic was looking for someone. I didn’t want to have to depend on my parents for help, but I was getting desperate, so I interviewed for the job and was hired. I lived with my folks for six weeks until I got my own place, but in those six weeks I was restless and looking for excuses to get out of the house.” She shook her head. “It’s silly, I guess. But being back home, in the room I had since I was a little girl, unemployed and newly divorced—I felt like such a failure.”

“I felt the same way when I moved back home with Charlotte,” he said. “I needed help with her, but I felt like I was right back where I started. I’m starting to get over that. It would help if I had my own place, but you know what housing is like around here, and being in the same house with Mom and Dad really works better with Charlotte. Anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Tell me about search and rescue.”

“The second week I was back I ran into Hannah Richards and she told me about volunteering with search and rescue and it sounded so, well, important . Not the sort of thing someone who was a failure would do. She invited me to an orientation class for new recruits and I liked what I heard. And it turns out, I’m pretty good at it. I don’t panic and I’m good at pitching in to do whatever needs doing. And I really like helping others.”

“That’s great. It really is important work.”

She angled toward him. “Now I want to know how you ended up as a cop.”

“Don’t sound so shocked. It’s not like I was a juvenile delinquent.”

“I would have thought after the way you were treated following Aiden’s disappearance, you wouldn’t be the biggest fan of law enforcement.”

“I mainly wanted to avoid cops,” he said. “I got a degree in computer science but had a hard time finding a job after I graduated. Then my girlfriend, Kim, got pregnant and I had to find a way to support a family. The Fort Collins Police Department had a hiring fair and I picked up an application. The officer I talked to seemed like a good guy. The job had decent pay and benefits, so I decided to apply. I was shocked when they called to tell me to report to the police officer training academy.” He frowned. “Kim laughed when I told her. She said she didn’t know if she could stand being married to a cop.”

“So you took the job because you didn’t see another choice,” she said.

“I thought so, but I ended up really liking the work.” He slowed, searching for the turnoff to Stoney Gulch Road. “A patrol officer works alone much of the time. I had to learn to think on my feet, to act in a way that protected myself but also protected those around me. And even though I was working alone, I was part of a team of good officers who banded together to keep people safe and to prevent or solve crimes. There’s a lot of variety. A lot to learn, too. And the paperwork is a pain. But I guess, like you with search and rescue, I discovered I’m good at the job. And I like making a difference.”

“I wouldn’t have laughed at you,” she said.

“I know.” He had spent too much of his marriage to Kim comparing her to Harper, or at least the ideal of Harper that he carried around in his head.

“I didn’t leave because of what happened with Aiden,” she said. “Or at least, that was one of the reasons my parents sent me away, but I never believed you had anything to do with his kidnapping.”

He glanced at her, then back at the road. “I wondered. My lawyer told me I would find out who my friends really were, and when you left and I didn’t hear from you...”

“My parents didn’t give me a choice. I tried to get in touch with you, but my parents took my phone away, and my aunt didn’t give me access to a phone or computer.”

“I hoped that was the case,” he said. “But it’s good to hear you say it, even after all this time.”

“I hated that I couldn’t be there for you. And I hated more that you didn’t know how much I believed in you.”

“You’re here now. That means a lot.”

He made the turnoff onto Stoney Gulch Road and they immediately began to climb. The farther up they traveled, the narrower and rougher the road became, until he had slowed to five miles an hour, inching the Jeep over or around rocks and through deep ruts. “How much farther do you think it is?” he asked Harper, trying to gauge how many hours of daylight they had left. He didn’t relish coming back down this road in the dark.

“Not much farther,” she said. “The road ends at the mine and there’s a flat space where you can turn around and park.”

Fifteen minutes later he spotted the gravel apron that marked the end of the road. He parked and they got out. “That path leads to the mine.” Harper pointed to an obvious trail as she slipped on a daypack.

He grabbed his own pack, locked the Jeep and they set out, Harper in the lead. The place was typical of other mountain mines he had visited, gray and red rock scraped bare of all but the most stunted vegetation, piles of waste rock and gravel spread around, bits of dried-up timbers, scraps of rusting metal, and the occasional old can or bottle the only testaments to what had once been a source of hope for the people who dug the shafts and searched for precious metals. Despite the barren landscape, the vividly blue sky and expansive views leant a wild beauty to the scene.

“The shaft is over here.” Harper picked her way through loose rock to a metal grate approximately three feet square. Looking through the metal mesh, he could just make out the rocky sides of a shaft that extended into darkness. “Somebody said it was probably an air shaft, not an actual mine entrance,” Harper said.

“Gage Walker said the mine entrance is a few hundred yards from here, and it’s covered with an iron gate with a big padlock,” Ryker said. “He said it didn’t look like it had been disturbed.” He nudged the grate with his toe and it shifted. “Why would someone cut off this grate?”

“I don’t know.” She turned to look along the small ridge they stood upon. “I found the ribbon over here.”

He followed her to what looked like another pile of rock. “The grate was there.” She pointed to a spot. “And the ribbon was about here.” She looked down at their feet.

Ryker knelt and studied the ground. He didn’t know what he had hoped to find that his fellow deputies or Harper hadn’t already noted. There were no footprints. No blond hairs caught in the rock, nothing else to indicate a person had ever been here.

He rose again. “That ribbon couldn’t have gotten up here unless Charlotte was here,” he said. “Kim and Mick must have been here.”

“It’s a pretty desolate place to try to live,” Harper said.

“Let’s take a look around.”

They followed a faint path away from the shaft, slightly downhill to the wooden frame and metal gate that marked the mine entrance. Peering inside, he could see a narrow hallway, not tall enough for him to walk upright, leading into the side of the hill. “Hello!” he shouted.

Only silence answered him. He examined the lock and his hand came away covered in orange rust. The lock, and the gate itself, looked as if they had been in place a long time.

They found a few old boards, some rusted cans and a no-trespassing sign full of bullet holes, but nothing to indicate Kim and Mick had spent any time here.

“There are a couple of other mines near here,” Ryker said. “Let’s see if we turn up anything there.”

They walked back to the Jeep in silence. He tried to shrug off the heavy disappointment. It wasn’t reasonable to expect to find anything where so many others had already looked. “I wonder,” Harper said when they reached the vehicle. “Do you think Charlotte dropped that ribbon on purpose? As a clue, maybe?”

He stared. “What makes you think that?”

“You’ve read her stories, right? Little Red Riding Hood, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in the woods?”

“I have. And we’ve gone hiking since she was a baby. I used to carry her in a pack on my back. I taught her to look for blazes on the trees to find the trail. We made a game of it and she loved spotting them before I did.”

“You taught her a lot of useful skills she can use now,” Harper said. “And she knows you’re looking for her. I have no doubt of that.”

“I hope she knows.”

“You’re a good dad,” Harper said.

“I try. I read books and stuff, before she was born, but there’s so much no one talks about. How the responsibility of having someone who depends on you totally is so heavy.” He fit the key into the ignition but didn’t start the Jeep. “I used to think about the baby you and I almost had. Would I have had any idea how to take care of him—or her—when I was so young?”

“She was a girl,” Harper said.

An image of Charlotte as a newborn flashed into his mind. So tiny and fragile and utterly amazing. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you,” he said. “I should have—”

“Don’t! Don’t beat yourself up. We both did the best we could.”

He started the Jeep. She was right. But that didn’t really make him feel better.

He eased the Jeep back down Stoney Gulch Road to the highway, then turned off again a few miles farther on. The route here was not as rough, and led to a popular hiking trail. But before the trailhead was an unmarked turnout across bare rock to a claim that had been marked on the map as Sharp #8.

Long shadows stretched across the landscape by the time Ryker parked in front of what was left of the mine. “We can’t spend much time here,” he said. “But I’d like to look around.”

“Sure.” Harper turned in a half-circle, taking in the site, which had a few more trees than the Ida B Mine, stunted pi?ons bent by harsh winds and broken by heavy snow. A cabin formed of unchinked logs, silvered and hardened by a century or more of exposure to the elements, sat in the shadow of a hill, an orange-and-black no-trespassing sign affixed to the wall beside the opening for the door.

Ryker walked to the opening and peered in. The sharp, acrid tang of woodsmoke hit him. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, he could just make out the remains of a campfire in the center of the room. “Someone has been here,” he said as Harper moved up beside him.

He stepped over the threshold and pulled a small flashlight from his pocket and trained its beam on the fire ring. Someone had pulled a trio of stumps around a circle of rocks that formed the fire ring. He held his hand over the charred wood. It was cold. It could have been lit days or even weeks ago.

Harper moved slowly about the small room, examining the dried leaves, shells of pi?on nuts, and other debris that littered the floor. She returned to Ryker’s side with the wrapper from a stick of beef jerky and a crushed soda can. “I found these.”

They were probably left by hikers who had stopped there for lunch, but he stuffed them in an evidence bag he had brought along just in case. He conducted his own survey of the little cabin, but found nothing.

When he and Harper stepped outside again, most of the daylight had faded. Ryker played the beam of the flashlight over the ground around the cabin and they walked as far as the mine opening, sealed by a metal gate. As they stood there, a trio of bats exited, and Harper jumped back with a squeak. “They startled me,” she said, watching them flutter away.

“We’d better go,” he said.

The Jeep bounced back down the narrow trail to the intersection of the Jeep road. He was preparing to turn when a vehicle sped past him, headed uphill at a reckless rate of speed. He braked hard to avoid being hit and stared after a white Jeep, its back end splattered with mud.

“There was a little girl in the back seat,” Harper said. “A blonde. And a blonde woman in the passenger seat.”

Ryker didn’t hesitate, but turned to follow the other Jeep. The road quickly deteriorated, and they jounced over deep ruts and he jerked the wheel to avoid boulders that could have wrecked the vehicle. He gritted his teeth to keep them from slamming together at each jolt, and Harper clung to the dash with one hand and the strap hanging from the roof with the other. But no matter how fast he drove, the other Jeep was getting farther and farther away. He could barely make out the glow of its taillights in the distance.

They came to a section of road lined with three-foot boulders. He had to slow to a crawl to navigate through them. He could no longer see the other vehicle ahead. “I don’t know how they’re driving so fast,” Harper said.

“They either know the road or they’re being reckless,” he said. “Probably a little of both.”

“Where does this road go?”

“I think it ends at a trailhead, but I’m not sure. I’ve never driven it.” Why hadn’t he brought the maps with him? He had thought he could remember all he needed to know.

“If it ends, they’ll have to stop and we can catch up with them then,” she said.

They could, and what then? If the driver really was Mick, he was likely armed. Would Kim put Charlotte in danger? The thought made him cold all over, but it also made him keep driving. If the girl Harper had seen really was Charlotte, Ryker couldn’t leave her with Kim and Mick.

He kept his speed down as the road climbed steadily. The moon rose, its light faint at first, then brighter. It painted the rocks in pewter shades. Some creature, dark and sleek, darted across the road in front of them and up into the rocks.

“There’s the trailhead,” Harper said.

A brown wooden sign listed the trails accessible from this parking area. A pit toilet sat at the far end of the lot, which was otherwise empty. “Where did they go?” Harper asked.

Ryker put the Jeep in Park, but didn’t shut off the engine. He got out of the vehicle and turned to look in every direction. Was the other Jeep here, parked behind a boulder or an outcropping of rock? Moonlight drenched the landscape. Surely a white vehicle would stand out in all that light?

“I don’t see anything,” Harper said.

He walked to the edge of the parking lot. The ground dropped off sharply in a jagged cliff. No one had driven down there.

He moved to the trail. It was narrow, winding between boulders. No vehicle had passed this way, either.

He returned to the Jeep. “Let’s go back the way we came,” he said. “Maybe there’s a turnoff we missed.”

He found the turnoff a half mile back the way they had come. The narrow track was almost hidden by a rock outcrop, and was even rougher than the road they had traveled so far, carpeted with fist-size chunks of granite. Two hundred yards on, Ryker had to stop the car. “You wait here and I’ll go ahead on foot,” he said.

“Oh no you don’t,” she said. “The first rule of wilderness survival is ‘don’t separate from the group.’ I’m coming with you.”

He didn’t argue, merely set out up the road, her walking behind. He had no trouble seeing the way in the moonlight, but he was also aware that they would be visible a long way before they approached wherever the Jeep had parked. They were taking a big risk, but the only alternative was leaving his daughter behind, and he couldn’t do that.

“Look to your left,” Harper whispered behind him. “There’s something white behind those trees.”

He slowly scanned to the left and spotted what she was talking about—a flash of something pale among the trees. “I’ve got to get closer to get a better look,” he said. “But we need to pretend we haven’t seen it, in case someone is watching.”

“I’ll follow you,” she said.

He turned, and led the way back down the trail, as if they were returning to their Jeep. When they were out of sight of the clump of trees, he veered off into a boulder field. Trying to keep the largest rocks between him and the trees, he set an oblique, meandering path toward the spot.

They moved slowly, partly to avoid making noise and partly to keep from falling in the uneven terrain. He estimated it took the better part of an hour to circle around and come up on the other side of the trees. The pale object Harper had spotted was more visible now. It wasn’t, as he had thought, the Jeep, but a tent. His heart beat faster as he realized he may have found what he was looking for—the place where Kim, Mick and—most important to him—Charlotte were staying.

“Wait here while I move closer,” he whispered to Harper. “If anything happens to me, run back to the Jeep.” He pressed the keys into her hand.

She nodded, eyes wide in the moonlight.

He crept forward, moving from bush to boulder, until he was on the edge of the clearing that contained the tent, a stack of firewood and a firepit lined with chunks of rock the same sandy red as the surrounding terrain. He paused, listening for any signs of movement inside the tent—the whisper of fabric as a body shifted in a sleeping bag, or the soft snoring of someone deep in slumber.

But the silence was absolute. It bothered him that he didn’t know where the Jeep was. If they had followed the trail farther, maybe they would have found its parking place, but he would have felt better about approaching the tent and whoever was inside if he could have been sure of the vehicle’s location.

He bent and scooped a handful of gravel from the ground at his feet, then straightened and hurled it toward the tent. It hit the side with a series of staccato patters.

No response. He repeated the gesture three times, waiting a full minute between each barrage, but no one stirred inside the tent. No one called out and no one emerged.

He took a step into the clearing, then another. He moved quickly after that, to the back of the tent. He drew out a knife and plunged it into the taut nylon fabric. The cut easily widened into an opening large enough for him to peer through.

The tent was a large cabin model, maybe eight feet square. Inside were three cots and several duffel bags, clothing spilling out of each. He played the beam of the flashlight over all of it, sorting out items suitable for a man, a woman and a little girl.

He stepped into the tent and went to the child’s clothing. It was a smaller pile than the rest, only half a dozen items—shirts and pants and socks and underwear, all in Charlotte’s favorite pink and purple. At the bottom of the pile was a pair of shoes. Pink tennis shoes with flowers stitched on the toes. The shoes Charlotte had been wearing the day she disappeared.