Page 24 of High Country Escape

He sat in the desk chair and swiveled to face her. “How have you been?” he asked.

She opened her mouth, fully intending to lie and tell him she was fine, busy unpacking, etc. Instead, she said, “The sheriff’s department says they haven’t found any trace of William Ledger, and I haven’t seen him, either. But I had a scare when I found footprints in the flower bed under my window.”

Dalton leaned toward her. “Do you think Ledger was there?”

She shook her head. “They were too small to be his. Anyway, my landlord said they belonged to his nephews. They were visiting and apparently running wild. He told them to stay away from the tiny houses, but they must have been curious.” She sat back. “It was unnerving, though.”

“Do you believe your landlord—that it was just his nephews?”

“Well...of course. I don’t think Mr. Lusk would lie to me. And the prints weren’t large enough to be a grown man’s.”

“What about a woman?”

“I guess... I mean they could have belonged to a woman. But what woman would be looking in my windows?”

He looked away, then back at her. “We had a search and rescue call a week ago—a hiker with a sprained ankle in the canyon that runs behind your house.”

She frowned. “I didn’t know there were any hiking trails down there.”

“There aren’t. This person says she went down there to look for petroglyphs.” His eyes met hers. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you this or not, but it was Debra Percy.”

“Oh.” She sat back, trying to let this sink in. “But she was down in the canyon, right? A long way from my house.”

“Yes, but she had a drone. She said it crashed and she hurt her ankle while retrieving it.”

“What did she say she was doing with the drone?” Roxanne asked.

“She said she was looking for petroglyphs.” He leaned forward. “But there aren’t any petroglyphs in the canyon.”

“So you think she wasn’t actually looking for petroglyphs? Maybe she didn’t know there weren’t any really there.”

“Or maybe she was using the drone to spy on you.”

The idea of anyone spying on her was unsettling. “But why would Debra want to spy on me? I mean, she’s a little too intense for me, but she’s looking for information about her sister. She’s decided I’m the person who can give her that information and doesn’t want to accept that I don’t know anything. But a drone isn’t going to help her get the information she’s looking for.”

“I don’t know. It just struck me as odd.” He lifted his hands as if to type, then put them back in his lap. “She asked me if I had talked to you lately. And then she asked me out.”

She what?the voice in Roxanne’s head screeched. That this thought had occurred annoyed her. She hardly knew Dalton. So what she actually said was, “So, did you make a date?” Then held her breath, waiting for an answer.

“No.” He held her gaze. “She doesn’t interest me.”

And Roxanne did. That message was clear in his eyes. She interested him, even though he knew more about her past.

She looked away, uncomfortable with his scrutiny, yet feeling his gaze still on her.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “About Alice. If you wanted to find her now, I could do some digging online. I’m pretty good at that kind of thing. I helped Carter’s fiancée find out about a man who was harassing her.”

“Do you mean you can hack into files?”

“Well, yeah. But I don’t do it to be malicious. Only to help people.”

“Thanks, but I don’t really want to find Alice,” she said. “She’s a part of my life I don’t care to revisit.”

“Fair enough.”

She tensed, waiting for the questions she was sure would come—the questions others had asked, once they learned her story. Questions like “what did he do to you?” and “how did he capture you?”

“Take a look at this and see if you can spot where I’m going wrong.” His words directed her attention to his computer screen once more. “I should be able to link the data in any part of the program with the calendar, but it’s not working on every page,” he continued. “I know I’m missing something, but what?”