Manhunt On Mystic Mesa. Cindi Myers
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work and excited about some finds of pottery they had made.” She glanced at Eddleston. “She said she liked the people she worked with.”
“So she didn’t mention anything that was troubling her?” Spencer asked.
“Nothing was troubling her, I’m sure,” Jana said.
“Would you say you and your sister are close?” Spencer asked.
“Yes. We shared an apartment in Denver the first part of this summer, before she started the internship.”
“Do you have any other siblings?” Spencer asked. “Parents?”
“Our mother and father both passed away some years ago,” she said. Her mother had succumbed to cancer while Jana was still in high school, her father killed a few years later in a car accident on an icy road. “We don’t have any siblings.”
“And you’re sure nothing was troubling your sister?” he asked again.
“Nothing was troubling her. If it had been, she would have told me. Why are you even asking these questions?”
Spencer glanced at his partner, who was deep in conversation with Eddleston. “We need to eliminate any obvious reason for your sister to walk off the job and disappear. Unfortunately, a certain percentage of missing persons are people who have chosen to run away from their responsibilities or even commit suicide. We look for things like depression, troubled relationships or financial difficulties as possible motivations. Once we eliminate those, we consider other explanations.”
“Well, you’d better start considering those other explanations now. My sister wasn’t depressed, she didn’t have any debt, and she got along with everybody.”
Spencer removed his sunglasses, the sympathy in his blue eyes catching her off guard. “What do you think happened to Jennifer?” he asked.
“I have no idea,” she said. “You’re supposed to find that out.”
“Yes, but you knew her best. What do you think would have motivated her to leave the group? Would she want to be alone if she had had an argument with someone? Was she the type who would investigate an odd noise, or try to help an injured animal? Would she have left camp to check out an interesting rock formation, or maybe gone in search of a better cell signal?”
She relaxed a little. “I see what you’re getting at.” She looked around them, at the bright, windswept landscape. “I don’t think she would have gone after an animal. She likes dogs and cats, but she’s a little afraid of wild animals—like I am. There’s apparently no cell service out here and she had been working out here long enough to know that, so there was no point in wandering around trying to find a better signal. I suppose it’s possible she might have wanted some time alone if she had had an argument with someone.”
“Then let’s find out if that’s the case.” He moved to join his partner with Eddleston. “Did Jennifer have a disagreement with any of her coworkers that day?” he asked.
“Not at all,” Eddleston said. “Jenny got along great with everyone.”
“We’ll want to talk to her coworkers and verify that,” Reynolds said.
“Of course.” The archaeologist squinted past them, obviously distracted. Jana turned and saw a dusty whirlwind on the horizon that drew nearer and morphed into a late-model, sand-colored Camry racing toward them. “I was wondering when he would show up,” Eddleston said.
“Who is it?” Officer Spencer asked.
“Eric Patterson,” Eddleston said. “He’s a reporter with the Montrose paper.”
Reynolds scowled. “We don’t have time to talk to reporters.”
“He’s not just a reporter,” Eddleston said. “And you probably do want to talk to him.” He turned to Jana. “You, too.”
“Why is that?” Jana asked.
Eddleston looked confused. “Because he’s Jenny’s fiancé. Didn’t she tell you?”
Ryan studied Jana’s reaction to Eddleston’s identification of the approaching visitor—shock, confusion and then anger played across a face that had the same fair beauty as her sister, but with a maturity that lent more angularity and sophistication to her features. Her eyes held more shrewdness than the photo of the missing young woman, as if she had learned the hard way to be skeptical of the promises people made.
The Camry stopped a short distance away in a cloud of red dust, and a slight young man with thinning blond hair and a boyish face stepped out. He assessed the quartet waiting for him with a glance and nodded, as if approving this welcoming party, then strode toward them and spoke in a loud voice, as if addressing a crowd. “I heard the Rangers had been assigned to the case,” he said. “Now maybe we’ll get some results. No offense to the local cops, but they don’t have the resources and expertise you guys do.”
Before either Ethan or Ryan could reply, Eric turned to Jana and seized her hand. “You must be Jana. Jenny has told me so much about you.”
Jana pulled her hand away and didn’t return Eric’s smile. “Funny. She never mentioned you.”
The wattage of his grin didn’t lower. “We wanted to give you the news in person,” he said. “We planned a trip to Denver to see you later this month. Jenny wanted it to be a surprise.”
“So it’s true—you’re engaged?” Jana asked.
“Yes.” He held up a hand like a cop halting traffic. “Now I know what you’re thinking—Jenny is young and we haven’t known each other that long—but when it’s true love, I guess you just know.”
“How long have you and Jenny known each other?” Ryan asked.
“Two months. We met when I was working on a story on this archaeological dig.”
“Eric did a wonderful piece about our work that was picked up for the Denver Post,” Eddleston said. “It was great publicity for our department.”
“How long have you been engaged?” Ryan asked.
“Not long,” Eric said. “We decided a couple of weeks ago, actually.”
“It isn’t like Jenny to keep something like this a secret from me,” Jana said.
“Well, she isn’t a little girl anymore, telling big sis everything,” Eric said. “She wanted her own life.”
Ryan felt Jana stiffen beside him. He didn’t blame her. Patterson had all the subtlety of a steamroller. But an argument between the two of them wasn’t going to help find Jenny. “When was the last time you spoke to Jenny?” he asked Patterson.
“We talked over breakfast at my place yesterday morning before she left to head out here for work.” The way he said it—emphasizing the word breakfast and watching for Jana’s reaction—made Ryan think he was bragging. He and Jenny had spent the night together and Patterson wanted to make sure Jana knew it. He was letting her know that he had been closer to her sister than she was.
Patterson turned to Eddleston. “I just came out to let you know I want to do anything I can to help,” he said. “If you think more publicity in the paper would be useful, I’m your man.”
“We’ll certainly have questions for you,” Ryan said before Eddleston could answer. “And we have a copy of the interview you gave the sheriff’s office. Right now, we’d like to talk to some of the other people Jenny worked with.”
“Of course.” Eddleston gestured toward the base of the mesa, where half-a-dozen people milled about amid a grid of pink plastic flags. “Talk to anyone you like.”
Ryan nodded to Jana and touched