Best Laid Plans(135)
Yet, somehow, they worked. It was books, Max believed—they both loved books, both were lit majors, and they had the same sense of humor. Better, Karen didn’t lie. She was as blunt and straightforward as Max, and Max ended up trusting Karen more than she did anyone.
She’d needed Karen at a time in her life when everyone she’d known and grown up with proved to be untrustworthy. Her friends, her ex-boyfriend, her family. Max had wanted to be far from home, moving from California to New York, and she didn’t look back. Max didn’t want to care for anyone except herself. She understood—because she had always been honest with herself—that the reason she didn’t want any close friends was because she had abandonment issues. First her mother dumped her on her rich grandparents’ doorstep and walked away, sending her sporadic postcards that had ended abruptly when she was sixteen; then nine years later, her friend Lindy was killed the week of their high school graduation. She didn’t want to get attached to anyone it would hurt her to lose.
But Karen was the type of girl who latched on and didn’t let go. When Max was irritated with her, she called Karen a parasite, impossible to get rid of. But now, more than ten years after they’d met, Max knew Karen was exactly what she’d needed to reconnect with the flawed but compelling human race.
Karen wasn’t perfect. She was a flirt. She drank too much. She slept with the wrong guys and got her heart broken more times in their first year of college than Max had in her lifetime. They needed each other—Karen to bring Max down off her pedestal and enjoy living again, and Max to protect Karen from herself.
But in the end, she couldn’t protect Karen. Karen had disappeared, and though Max and law enforcement knew she was dead, they’d never found her body, nor brought her killer to justice.
The one time Karen lied to her had proved fatal.
Max sighed and stretched. The water had cooled uncomfortably, so she quickly finished her coffee, pulled the drain, and rinsed off under a hot stream of water through the dual jets. She dressed in layers, since the early spring morning was cold, then dried her thick hair and put on make-up while drinking another cup of coffee.
Finally, she felt ready to start the day.
She called room service for breakfast and more coffee. She didn’t like to eat in her hotel room, but she couldn’t bring her desk down to the restaurant and she had work to do.
After room service left, she ate a blueberry scone and reviewed her e-mail. While on the flight yesterday, she’d planned her day, but Max preferred to remain flexible when starting an investigation. She had the basics of the case, but it wasn’t as cut-and-dried as she’d have liked.
First, there were jurisdictional issues. The college was in the county, not the city of Colorado Springs. The campsite where Scott Sheldon had disappeared was in a national park, putting the location under the federal government. The National Park Service rangers were responsible for the initial search and rescue, but they had a joint operation with the county and adjoining cities. Adele Sheldon had told her she filed the missing persons report with the college and with Colorado Springs PD, and Detective Amelia Horn was her contact. Why CSPD? Neither the college nor the campsite was in the city. Who was really in charge? Detective Horn had nothing to add when Max spoke to her, pointing out that CSPD wasn’t in charge.
Max pulled out a trifold board she’d created last night and set it up on the credenza. The time line was clear, even though it made no sense.
Last Halloween Eve, nearly six months ago, was a Friday. Scott Sheldon told his roommate that he was going camping with three friends—Tom Keller, Arthur Cowan, and Carlos Ibarra. They planned to be back Sunday morning.
According to the statements by Scott’s three friends, they’d been drinking and joking Friday night. At some point, Scott got angry—no one claimed to know exactly what set him off—and he grabbed his backpack and left. When he didn’t return, they assumed he was sleeping in the truck, which was parked an hour’s hike from the campsite.
The next morning, Scott still hadn’t returned. The weather turned from overcast to rain, and Keller, Cowan, and Ibarra returned to the truck. When they didn’t find Scott, they looked for him in the area, but the rain came down hard and heavy. They left—there was nothing in the notes saying that they went back to the campus on Saturday, but that was implied. It snowed late Saturday night and the boys said they trekked back to the campsite Sunday morning and looked for Scott. They didn’t call the rangers, they didn’t alert campus security, nothing, until Sunday afternoon.
That was the part of the story that set off Max’s instincts. Why had it taken them so long to tell anyone that Scott was missing? Why did campus security wait until Monday morning to notify the park service? By that point, the storm was so severe, they could search for only a few hours each day. By the end of the week, the roads to that area of the mountain were impassable.
There was no doubt in her mind that Scott Sheldon had died on that mountain, but the question was how and when. The fact that he was missing for nearly forty-eight hours before the three boys had alerted anyone told Max they were lying about something.
She reviewed her notes until eight, when she called Chuck Pence with the park service. He was based in Colorado Springs, near the police station, but Pence was on the search and rescue staff and had led the effort to find Scott. His specialty was working with tracking dogs.
He wasn’t there, and the staff said he was already in the field. Max left a message and reviewed her schedule. She’d wanted to talk to Pence first for more background on the search and what, if anything, they’d found that hadn’t made it in the official files, but that would have to wait. She considered talking to Detective Horn again, but after their phone conversation, Max suspected it would be a waste of time. If she learned anything new, she’d talk to the police. She’d go to the college first and talk to Scott’s roommate, then track down the others.