Flagstaff.
Diana had left Braden, and now her friends were heading out, too, in the direction of a town Diana had once lived in. Were they meeting up with her there? Maybe even with Sara? The possibility seemed too great to ignore.
“Stay on them,” he told Dev. “I’ll catch up with you.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Sara had been trying the number for hours, but every single time she’d been greeted with the same message: “The caller you are trying to reach is not currently within our coverage area.”
Where are you?Why aren’t you answering?
Her panic had been caused by a call she’d received from Diana four and a half hours ago.
“Sara…Sara, can you hear me?”
“Yeah. You’re breaking up a little, but I can hear you,” she’d replied.
“Can you hear me? Sara?”
“I’m right here. I hear you.”
“Oh, good. There you are.”
“What’s going on? Is something wrong?” They hadn’t been scheduled to talk again until the next day.
“I screwed up.”
Sara froze. “What…what are you talking about?”
“Have you seen anyone? Anyone at all?”
“No,” Sara said. “Not since Richard came by two weeks ago. Why?”
“Stay inside. Don’t go out.”
“Diana, what’s going on?”
“I’m taking care of it. That’s all you need to know. Just hold tight.”
Hold tight? “What happened?”
“I’ll call you later.”
“Diana! What happened?”
Dead air.
“Diana? Diana?”
Nothing.
“Dammit! Diana, can you hear me?”
It was no use. The line was dead.
Immediately she’d called Diana back. That was the first time she’d received the out-of-service-area message. She’d lost count how many more times she’d heard it since.
Movement through the window caught her eye. Panic almost choked her as she stared out at the trees that surrounded the cabin. If someone was that close already, what would she do? Run? Hide? Could she really hope she wouldn’t be caught?
There it was again, a few feet above the ground.
She let out her breath and closed her eyes in relief. A deer. It was only a deer.
She quickly walked over and pulled the curtain shut, temporarily denying the existence of anything beyond the cabin walls.
Even though they had stuck to the plan, something had obviously gone wrong. It should have worked. It had worked to this point.
Not knowing what else to do, she tried Diana again.
“The caller you are trying to reach is not-”
She hung up, waiting five seconds, then hit redial.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Not wanting to leave Harp and Barney without transportation, Logan arranged for a rental car through the manager at the Desert Inn, then headed east on I-40, fifty minutes behind Dev. As he passed through Kingman, Arizona, his father called.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Logan? Barney and I want to go back to the hospital. You’ll need to give us a ride.”
“Just take the Cherokee.”
Harp paused. “I thought you said we weren’t supposed to drive it.”
“It’s fine now, Dad. The others are gone.”
“Gone? Where did they go?”
“Not sure yet.”
“Well, do you want to meet us for dinner?”
“I’m…um…following them. Not sure exactly when I’ll be back.”
“Following them? When were you going to tell me this?”
“Sorry. Had to move quickly. Didn’t have time.”
“Still not an excuse.”
“You’re right.”
Harp said nothing for a moment. “What about the letter?”
Logan cringed. “I said I’d give it to you the next time I saw you. I haven’t seen you yet.”
“It’s still with you?”
Logan could tell his father’s anxiety level was rising. “It’s still in the glove compartment. No one’s touched it.”
“It’s just…okay, the next time I see you.”
Logan hesitated, then said, “Do you want to talk about what’s inside it?”
“You didn’t look, did you?” Harp said quickly. “That’s my property. You shouldn’t look. You didn’t, did you?”
Out of reflex, Logan said, “No, of course not.”
Harp took a couple of loud breaths. “All right. Sorry. Um, if you need our help, you know where we are.”
“Thanks.”
An hour later Dev called.
“How far does this thing go when the needle’s on empty?” he asked.
“I try not to let it get there,” Logan said.
“Well, I’m about a hair’s width away from it. Kept hoping they’d pull over, but their car doesn’t eat as much gas as this one.”
“Where are you?”
“Almost to Flagstaff.”
“You still have them in sight?”
“At the moment, but I’m going to have to stop soon.”
Logan frowned. “You’ve got probably about twenty miles. Will that get you to Flagstaff?”
“Yeah.”
“Stay with them until you know if they’re stopping there, or heading farther east, then fill up.”
“Got it.”
Logan inched the rental’s speed up a few miles an hour, knowing it would never be enough to catch up with Dev in time.
Fifteen minutes passed before Dev called back.
“They got off in Flagstaff.”
Logan could feel some of the tension in his shoulders easing. “You know which way they went?”
“Yeah, not that it’ll do us much good. This place isn’t huge, but it’s big enough to get lost in. I’m filling up now. When I’m done, I’ll see if I can spot them, but I’m not holding my breath.”
“Don’t waste your time,” Logan said. “Turns out Diana used to work in Flagstaff. I have the address where she used to live. Give it a drive-by and see if there’s anything interesting.”
“You think that might be where she is?”
“I doubt our luck is that good, but we have to check.”
“Want me to knock on the door?”
“No. Not until I get there. If you have time, try to get an address for Harkin Services. That was her employer. I should be there in forty minutes or so.”
__________
AS THE LIGHTS of Flagstaff came into view, Logan checked in again with Dev, who suggested they meet at Diana’s old address.
“It’s not exactly what you’re expecting,” Dev said.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
The first thing Logan spotted as he turned onto Diana’s old street was the El Camino parked at the curb with Dev standing next to it on the sidewalk. As Logan got out of his rental, he checked the addresses on the buildings until he found the one Diana had used.
It wasn’t a house. It wasn’t even an apartment building.
It was a business called Burrage Copy Box.
He walked over and looked through the window.
“Told you it wasn’t what you’d expect,” Dev said, coming up behind him.
Though Copy Box was closed for the night, there were enough security lights on to see inside. The place’s main features were half a dozen photocopy machines, several racks of shipping supplies, and a wall of private mailboxes, one of which had undoubtedly been used by Diana at one point.
“Just great,” Logan said.
“I’ve got something else you’ll want to see.”
“What?”
Dev tossed the El Camino’s keys to Logan. “Come on. I’ll show you.”
Following Dev’s instructions, Logan drove to the end of the block, turned right, and went two more blocks.
“Park anywhere,” Dev said.
“Where are we?”
As soon as they were stopped, Dev pointed at the office building beside them. In bold, white letters affixed to the brick exterior were the words HARKIN SERVICES.
“Checked out their website when I looked up their address,” Dev said. “They’re a contractor for the National Park Service.”
“Doing what?”
“Basically running some of the parks-concessions, tours, in-park motels, that kind of thing. El Portal is right outside Yosemite. And Flagstaff is only an hour or so from-”