“Yeah, you think so.” The joviality of the conversation seemed to have shifted. Why was she thinking about him being married? As much as he liked Lydia, he didn’t even want to entertain the thought. His focus needed to be on finding Elsie.
When he pulled onto the road that led back to town, he paid more attention to the cars around him.
“Isn’t there something else we could do here in town to confirm their alibi?”
River thought for a moment. They had to do something to either eliminate Sheryl and Norm as suspects or to home in on them. Once they had probable cause, they could secure warrants to examine credit card use and search the house and any other place they might have kept Elsie. “Why don’t we grab a bite to eat at home and figure it out from there?”
Still looking for any suspicious vehicles, River pulled up in front of his house. After letting Lydia in and making sure it was safe, he took Frankie for a patrol around the outside of the house. The back of his house connected with a park where children played on the swings and a slide.
As he watched the children play, a sense of despair invaded his mind. This felt like Noah all over again. Maybe they should have looked at the grandparents sooner. Had he made the right choices, asked the right questions, understood the dynamics of the relationships of the people connected to Elsie?
It was clear Lydia couldn’t see Norm and Sheryl as being involved with something as bad as this. Maybe she was right. Then where else could they look?
Frankie whimpered, pulling him out of his tangled thoughts. “Let’s go get something to eat, huh?”
As he stepped inside, the image of Elsie from Lydia’s phone was burned into his mind. He had to find her alive.
TWELVE
As she gathered the ingredients for the ham and Swiss sandwiches, Lydia wondered why she’d made the remark about River needing a wife. Was she picturing herself in that role? She shook her head at the idea. She was coming to rely on him, and he had been so kind and attentive, but she had to remind herself that he was just doing his job.
River came back in the house with Frankie.
“Lunch will be just a few minutes.” It was well after two and her stomach was growling.
River sat down with his phone. “I have to text some of the task force and find out if any progress has been made finding the free clinic Gayle Gorman may have gone to in Denver.”
She nodded, assembling the sandwiches, then toasting them and cutting up some fruit. They sat at the table and River said grace.
After he ate, River stayed busy on his phone and computer.
She found a book to distract her on River’s bookshelf. She kept reading the same sentence over and over. There must be something more she could do to find Elsie. She rose from her chair and paced through the house. When she returned to the living room, River looked up from his laptop. “If your in-laws have not been at their house or in Grand Junction, where else would they go?”
“Did you talk to the police in Grand Junction?”
“They did a drive-by. There’s no sign of their other car there.”
She’d just heard him talking to another task force member, but it was clear his mind was on Elsie as well.
“Not sure. They don’t own like a cabin or a vacation home or anything. When they retired, they wanted to use their money and time to travel to foreign countries. They might even own a condo or time-share in one of them. They certainly have the money for that.”
“Maybe they left the country. I can check with the airport to see if they flew out. Elsie’s old enough that they would have had to buy a seat for her, too.”
Lydia collapsed in a chair as tension invaded her chest. Was Elsie already in a different country? If Sloane had put them up to this, was he intending to join them later? It just seemed so far-fetched. She wondered if she should just call Sloane. She of all people would be able to tell if he was hiding something.
While River made a phone call to the Denver airport, she wandered back into the bedroom she was sleeping in. The stuffed animal she’d grabbed for Elsie, a brown bear, was peeking out of her bag. Its blue-button eyes stared at her blankly. She picked it up and held it to her chest.
She thought about what River had said about working a case from all angles. If Norm and Sheryl had been involved, they or their car would have been spotted heading to Ridge Mountain the day Elsie disappeared. If they’d been close to the trail, they couldn’t have been in Grand Junction. Their alibi would be broken.
She let out a heavy breath.
None of this mattered if they’d already left the country with Elsie.
When she stepped back out into the living room, River was working on his laptop again. He looked up at her. “No one under the name of Norm and Sheryl Caldwell got on a plane with a three-year-old passenger. It would take time to put together fake ID that would fool TSA.”
“I suppose that’s good news.” They could take a bus or drive their car. “I was thinking maybe we could go back out to the road that leads to Ridge Mountain. Maybe someone saw them or their car or a camera picked something up. That would mean they lied about being in Grand Junction.”
“A gray SUV is kind of generic. Eva could track down the license number. If a camera picked that detail up, we’d know for sure.”
