One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin #2)(3)

Martin O’Day fought the good fight the longest. He had a lifetime of experience and the advantage of being the one who’d trained his son. He headed back into the mountains, expedition after expedition, while Patrice held press conferences with her future daughter-in-law by her side. Twin advertisements for grief and desperation. The college friends, Neil, Josh, Miggy, and Scott, did their best to assist while having to accommodate the demands of jobs, family, obligations of their own.

Martin O’Day searched for his son. Then he searched for signs of his son. And then he searched for his son’s body.

“Grizzly bear,” Neil whispered.

“Mountain lion,” Josh argued.

“Goddammit,” Miggy said.

As for the real answer, the woods never said. Seasons turned into years and Timothy O’Day became one more missing hiker, vanished without a trace.



* * *



—

Here are things most folks don’t know: At least sixteen hundred people, if not many more times that number, remain missing on national public lands. Hikers, day-trippers, children on family camping trips. One moment they were with us, the next they’re gone.

There’s no national database to track such cases. No centralized training for search and rescue or, in many cases, even clear jurisdictional lines to identify who’s in charge of such operations. There’s also little in the way of designated funding. A large-scale search effort can cost upwards of three hundred thousand dollars a day. For many county sheriffs, that’s their annual budget.

Meaning when the volunteers go away, so do rescue efforts. Leaving behind a family with little hope and no closure. Most will continue on their own for as long as they can. Some, such as Martin O’Day, continue the hunt every year, assisted by friends, funded by online campaigns, and advised by various experts.

According to the article I’m reading in a small, local paper, Martin’s been at it for five years. This August will be his final attempt. His wife, Patrice, is now dying from the same cancer that tried to kill her before. She wants to see her son one last time. She wants her body to be buried next to his.

I sit in a diner not so dissimilar to the one Tim O’Day’s hiking buddies must’ve rushed into the morning after. I’ve spent the past twelve hours on a bus and am now catching my breath, somewhere west of Cheyenne and south of Jackson, Wyoming. I don’t particularly know, and I’m enjoying a sense of freedom—life on the road—as I read the article again, then again. Something about the story has sunk into my skin, refusing to let go.

My name is Frankie Elkin and finding missing people is what I do. When the police have given up, when the public no longer remembers, when the media has never bothered to care, I start looking. For no money, no recognition, and most of the time, with no help.

I have no professional training. I’m not a former detective or registered PI or ex–anything special. I’m only me. An average, middle-aged white woman, short on belongings, long on regret. I tried real life once. There was a house, a job, even a man who loved me enough to hold my hand as I fought my way to sober.

In the end, the walls closed in; the relentless sameness drowned me. And the man who loved me . . .

One day, a woman in my AA meeting talked about her daughter who’d disappeared and the police’s lack of interest in finding a young woman with a troubled past. I became intrigued, started asking questions, and the next thing I knew, I’d found the daughter. Unfortunately, the daughter’s fucked-up boyfriend had chosen to blow off her head and abandon her body in a crack house rather than let her go. But despite the case not having a happy ending, or maybe because of that, one search became another, which became another.

Ten years later, this is now my life. I travel from place to place, armed with only my good intentions. Currently, I’ve been traveling by bus to Idaho to take up the case of Eugene Santiago, an eight-year-old boy now missing sixteen months. I read about Eugene’s disappearance in one of the various online cold case forums I frequent. Something about his soulful dark eyes, his very serious smile. I don’t always know why I choose the cases I do. There are so many of them out there. But I spot a headline, I read an article, and then I just know.

Kind of like now, I think, setting down the local paper. I haven’t done a woodland search in forever. Mostly I work small rural communities or dense urban neighborhoods. I gravitate more toward kids than adults, minorities more than Caucasians. But my mission is to help the underserved, and as the families of those sixteen hundred people vanished in public parks will tell you, they are so underserved.

Mostly, I keep thinking of Timothy O’Day’s mother, who just wants to be buried next to her son.

Eugene Santiago has been missing for nearly a year and a half. A few more weeks won’t matter. And while there may be no chance of finding Timothy O’Day alive, I know from experience that finally bringing home a body still makes a difference.

I pick up the bus schedule and plot my new destination.





CHAPTER 2





Being poor requires patience. I don’t own a car or have the kind of bank account that can allow me a rental to get to the small town of Ramsey, Wyoming. Which means taking a bus from point A to B to C. Bus stops are more varied than many people realize. As in, there might be a beautiful mass transit station complete with restrooms and fast food. Or there can be this: a gas station mini-mart sitting completely alone off the side of the road.