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Investigation in Black Canyon
by Cindi Myers
Chapter One
Sun glinted off the hood of the late-model black pickup, the glare almost blinding. Rocks and cactus ground under the tires as it rolled toward the canyon rim. The walls of the canyon glowed red with the early morning light, in shades from pink and orange and deepest vermillion. But the man behind the wheel had no appreciation for the view. His hands gripping the steering wheel until his knuckles ached, his jaw clenched in concentration, he forced himself to keep his foot on the gas pedal when everything in him screamed for him to put his foot on the brake.
The front tires skidded in loose shale at the canyon’s edge and then, in the kind of slow motion he had thought only happened in movies, the truck launched forward, rear wheels momentarily hanging up before the pickup plunged downward. Somersaulting in the clear, thin air before striking the rocks with an impact that sent steel and glass exploding outward, the screech of metal and the shattering of glass reverberated against the granite cliffs.
But there was no one around to hear the crash. No one to see the truck as it careened off the rock and hurtled into the dark abyss.
CARA MEAD PULLED her Toyota Prius into the visitor’s lot near the entrance to Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park. She wiped her sweaty hands on her black slacks and breathed deeply, trying to slow her racing heart. She didn’t want to be here, speaking with these people, but she owed it to Dane to try. Something was very wrong and she was determined to keep talking until she found someone who would listen.
Feeling bolstered by the thought, she shoved open the driver’s door and stepped out. The intense heat of the Colorado sun was mildly tempered by a stiff breeze that swirled dust across the gravel parking lot and set the small sign at its entrance swinging. Ranger Brigade Headquarters, the sign read. Cara frowned. Was she in the right place? Should she drive to the park headquarters instead and ask to speak to a ranger?
No. She had read enough articles in the local paper to know that the Ranger Brigade was the law enforcement agency charged with investigating crimes on public land in this corner of Colorado. Land that included Black Canyon National Park.
She crossed the lot quickly and pushed open the entrance door to the plain, low-slung building.
A middle-aged woman behind a metal desk looked up. “May I help you?”
“I need to speak to an officer,” Cara said. “I need to report a crime.”
The woman’s eyes behind her blue-framed glasses widened. “I’ll see who’s available.”
She disappeared behind a door and emerged a few moments later with a man in a khaki uniform. Tall and clean-shaved, with short-cropped brown hair, he looked like a law enforcement recruitment poster boy. Though boy wasn’t exactly the word she would have used, if they had met under different circumstances. “I’m Officer Beck,” he said. “How can I help you?”
“I need to report a missing person,” she said.
“You might be better off talking to local law enforcement,” Officer Beck said. “Would you like me to put you in touch with the sheriff’s office?”
“I’ve already spoken to them,” she said. The woman who had taken her report there had showed no sense of urgency. “The person who’s missing said he was headed to Black Canyon of the Gunnison. If something has happened to him here, isn’t that your concern?”
“Why don’t you come back here where we can talk?” He motioned for her to follow him and led her down a short hallway to an unadorned gray-painted room furnished with a table and three chairs. He sat on one side of the table and indicated a chair for her to sit across from him. He waited until she was seated before he spoke again. His eyes met hers. “I’m going to record this for our records. Start with your full name, then tell me who’s missing and why you think something might have happened to him.”
She had thought Officer Beck was ordinary until that moment—just another jaded man with a badge who had already made up his mind about her and her situation ten seconds after she’d walked into the building. But when Beck’s eyes met hers, she felt the jolt of his concern and an almost physical connection that startled her. She glanced at the microphone between them, swallowed hard, then began with, “My name is Caroline Mead—Cara. The person I’m concerned about is Dane Trask. He’s my boss at TDC Enterprises. He’s been gone two days—and that’s really not like him. He hasn’t contacted me or anyone else at work. I haven’t been able to reach him. None of his neighbors has heard from him. His daughter is out of the country and I haven’t been able to reach her, either.”
“Maybe he went camping or decided to take a few days to himself.”
“But it’s not like him to just take off without telling anyone anything.”
“Why do you think he’s in the national park?”
“The last time I saw him, on Wednesday, about six o’clock, he had his backpack and said he was coming here to the park to hike and try to clear his head. When he didn’t show up for work the next day, I knew something was wrong.”
Officer Beck plucked a clipboard from the end of the table and took a pen from his shirt pocket. “Let’s start with some vital statistics.”
Cara gave him the details she had memorized—Dane was forty-one, six feet two inches tall, and weighed one hundred and eighty pounds. He had brown hair and blue eyes, a tattoo of a coiled snake on his right biceps, and he drove a late-model black Ford pickup. That last time she had seen him he’d been wearing sunglasses, khaki
