“Trevor died the night before Olivia disappeared,” Aaron said. “Stella said Olivia was upset about something that happened the night before she ran away. Could she have seen something to do with Trevor Lawson’s death?”
“Stella also said Olivia had been ‘sad’ for a couple of weeks before that,” Ryker said. “I read that in one of her first interviews. I think that means whatever upset Olivia wasn’t something new.”
“All right, but what if she was sad about something—maybe homesick, something like that?” Aaron asked. “And then the night Trevor died, she saw something. Maybe she saw who killed him. That might have frightened her enough to run away.”
“Trevor Lawson committed suicide,” Gage said. “He drove his car off Dixon Pass.”
“He was legally drunk and had Seconal in his system,” Jake said. “But his brother swears Trevor didn’t drink to excess or do drugs. And there were indications Trevor had been in a fight before he died.”
“Maybe someone made sure Trevor wasn’t in any shape to drive before he got into his car to go home that evening,” Aaron said.
“They couldn’t have been sure he would go off the road,” Ryker said. “I’ve stopped plenty of drivers with blood alcohol levels higher than Trevor Lawson’s who weren’t showing any signs of being drunk.”
“Still, what if Olivia saw something to do with Trevor’s death?” Aaron said.
“You’re going to have a hard time proving it,” Gage said.
“Maybe. But if someone did do something to Trevor and they knew Olivia saw them, it would explain why she was frightened enough to run away.”
“It could also explain the blood and the ripped shirt,” Ryker said. “I can’t help wondering if Olivia ever left this camp. There are a lot of places to hide a body around here.”
“And we’re searching them all,” Gage said. “We’ve got a cadaver dog coming on loan from Mesa County tomorrow. Meanwhile, let’s get back to work.”
They trudged after him to take apart the storage shed and the kitchen, while workers huddled in the empty mess hall, casting hostile stares their way and muttering among themselves. No one liked disruptions to their routine, and everyone thought the deputies were wasting their time.
Aaron couldn’t help thinking the same thing. They were missing something here. He had felt that way with other unsolved cases. If they could only discover the one missing piece of the puzzle, everything would shift into focus and they would find the guilty party. But all this searching wasn’t turning up anything, and with a little girl’s life at stake, they were running out of time.
Gary stopped bythe medical clinic a little after noon on Saturday. Willa spotted him coming in the door and rushed into the waiting room. “Gary! What are you doing here? Are you all right?” She searched him for any sign of injury or illness.
“I’m fine. The camp sent me home early.”
“Why? What happened?”
He glanced around the empty waiting room. “The sheriff’s deputies are at camp searching everything,” he said, keeping his voice low. “From attic to basement. They came this morning with a warrant. Mrs. Mason was in a tizzy and Scott was nowherein sight. He showed up two hours in and I thought he was going to stroke out, yelling at the cops to stop what they were doing. They went right on emptying drawers and going through files, as if they hadn’t even heard him. About that time, Scott ordered all the kids confined to quarters and all nonessential personnel—meaning everyone but the counselors—to go home. He also told us not to talk to anyone, but I figure that’s an order he can’t really enforce.”
The door buzzer sounded as a woman and a little boy entered.
Willa took Gary’s arm. “Come back here where we can talk.” She led him to the back of the building, and the small break room. “What are the deputies looking for?” she asked.
“They didn’t say.” He helped himself to a doughnut from a box someone had left on the counter. “You should ask Aaron. Maybe he’ll tell you. He was there today. I saw him shifting boxes of canned goods in the storage shed. He didn’t look too happy.”
She turned away, praying she wasn’t blushing. She couldn’t claim she hated Aaron anymore, after the night they had spent together. But she wasn’t ready to declare they were a couple again.
“Anyway, I stopped by to tell you a couple of the kitchen staff and I are going hiking along a stretch of the river near camp to see if we can find any sign of Olivia. We want to find her, but we don’t want to find her, if you get what I mean.”
She nodded. “You want to find her, but you don’t want to find her body.”
“Yeah. Anyway, don’t wait up.”
“You’re a grown man, Gary. You don’t have to check in with me.”
“I don’t have to, but if I don’t, you’ll worry.”
“I can’t help that.”
He squeezed her shoulder. “I know. I hated it when I was a teenager and I’d come home and you’d be sitting there, waiting. But later on, I could admit it felt good, after Dad died, knowing I had someone looking out for me.”
“We looked out after each other,” she said.
