Before I left the hospital, I stopped by the cardiac care unit and checked on Chaney. John Trent was in the corridor outside, pacing. He said the docs were once again worried about his daughter’s pulmonary function. If the trend continued, it would be a sign of the beginning of the deterioration that everyone knew was inevitable.
I used the nursing station phone to call Lauren at the hospital in Washington where she was camped out with her mother. The frozen section of her mom’s breast biopsy had come back negative. Most of the family had gathered and were celebrating in the room.
I was thrilled for them. But the background joy sounded peculiar and foreign.
Dinner with Adrienne could be anything, one of life’s most certain rolls of the dice. Since the day we became friends, she had maintained an elliptical orbit around my life. At any time she could be as distant as the most distant comet, or as close as a meteor on a collision course with my planet. With Lauren gone and Sam so consumed with Merritt and Chaney, I was hoping for a close encounter with Adrienne.
On the way home from the hospital in Denver, I stopped and picked up pud Thai and chicken satay and a bottle of Gewürztraminer. When I arrived at Adrienne’s door with Emily by my side, it was almost ten and Adrienne had just managed to get Jonas to bed.
We ate in the kitchen. I wasn’t certain her dining room had ever been soiled by food.
I filled her in on Lauren’s mom’s condition and on the situation with Merritt. I told her more than I should have about Madison’s disappearance. She asked me about Chaney’s condition.
I told her what I knew, and added, “Ren, you ever think about, you know, donating money to help a sick kid?”
She didn’t look up. She smiled at her plate and used her don’t-tell-me voice. “How far are you in?”
“Lauren and I? A hair over thirty thousand.”
“What do they need?”
“Total? The hospital requires a deposit of about three hundred and fifty thousand.”
“And what has the family raised?”
“Not much. Without us, under fifty.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Great, thanks.”
I expected to be cross-examined more about my motives. I wasn’t.
She said, “Friend time, okay? When you hear what’s going on, it may sound like I want you to play shrink, but I don’t. Okay? Are we clear?”
My mouth was full. After I swallowed, I said, “These days, Adrienne, I’m always grateful for the opportunity not to play shrink.”
“Good. I’ve been dating Cozy for what, like months already, right?”
I nodded. It had been months. I was there the night they met.
“I like him.”
She seemed to want me to say something. I said, “Yes? That’s good, right? He’s a good man, Ren.”
“He is. And yes, it’s been…it’s been good. But lately I’ve gotten”-she smiled coyly-“confused about something. See, a couple of weeks ago he introduced me to his ex-wife. He really wanted me to meet her twin girls, whom he adores. The twins aren’t his; she’s been married twice. His ex-wife’s name is-”
“Erin, I met her last fall. She’s an investigator. She’s nice. I know their situation.”
“Yes, Erin’s…nice.” Adrienne coughed. At first I thought it might be the spiciness of the satay. “Real nice,” she said, coughing again. “The thing is, well, the thing is that I think we’ve started dating.”
It wasn’t the satay.
“You and…?”
“Erin.”
“Erin. You’re dating?”
“Well, we’re going out. And it doesn’t feel like a girlfriend thing. The going out.”
My brain cramped. I asked, “Have you, um-?”
“Not yet, but I think we might be getting close to, um…you know.”
“And you’re okay with-?”
“Sure, I guess. I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“Well,” I said, “it sounds to me like you’re a willing volunteer on this expedition into the wilderness. What’s the trouble?”
Adrienne had scoffed at my choice of wines and poured herself a Miller Lite. She drained half a glass of beer and belched a little bit before she continued. “I’m a little confused here, can’t you tell? I’m still seeing Cozy-I mean I saw him last night-and believe me, he and I, we’re way past ‘close,’ if you know what I mean. So I don’t know exactly what to do with this little sexual preference problem that I’m experiencing.”
“Is this…attraction to women something new, Ren? I mean, have you ever-”
“No, I’ve never. Of course, it’s something new. I mean, sure, I’ve…you absolutely promise you’re not going to go judgmental on me here? You promise? I’ll kill you, I swear I will.”
I knew her threat wasn’t idle. My physical well-being was at stake. I said, “I promise.”
“Peter and I always used to like the same pornography. Girl-on-girl stuff. I thought that was weird. But, you know, I just ended up thinking that it was another sign of how compatible we were. That’s ironic, right?”
It was also denial, but it was certainly ironic. I said, “Sure, Ren.”
“Are you patronizing me?”
I stood up and walked across the counter and hugged her. “This is a little more complicated than dating two different guys, isn’t it?”
“Tell me about it. How do I know what the hell I should be doing?”
“I don’t know. Just pay attention to how it all feels. Sometimes the best way to get off the fence is just to get off the fence.”
She almost coughed up some beer through her nose. “Jesus. People pay you for this? I can’t even decide between AT amp;T and MCI and you’re telling me to decide who to sleep with by jumping off a goddamn fence?”
I couldn’t help but smile.
“Adrienne, I don’t care who you sleep with or who you love.” I pulled back and put my hands on her cheeks and looked her in the eyes. “You’ve stood by me through some pretty questionable romantic choices. If Erin makes you happy, I’m thrilled. If she mistreats you, don’t worry, I know where she lives.”
She looked at me plaintively. “What about Cozy? What do I tell him?”
“Don’t be too concerned about him. He’s a big boy, Ren.”
“He certainly is. And believe me, given my line of work, I’ve seen the competition, so I know what I’m talking about.”
Her phone rang.
Adrienne answered. “What?” She listened for a few agitated seconds and handed it to me. I was dumbstruck to learn I was being invited to go for a helicopter ride.
After I hung up, I explained the situation to Adrienne. She astonished me by being understanding. She said, “Thanks for the advice.”
I said, “That wasn’t advice. I don’t give advice.”
“Whatever. Thanks for making me feel like I’m not totally crazy.”
“Ren, this feels like the first time in days that someone has wanted my counsel on something where someone’s life wasn’t in danger. It’s actually refreshing.” I paused. “And I didn’t say you weren’t crazy. I merely said that it was just fine that you felt like dating Erin.”
She laughed and said, “Go, you have things to do.” And before I had a chance to ask, she added, “Don’t worry about Emily. She’s sleeping over here tonight.”
The call had been from Lucy Tanner, Sam’s partner. I didn’t know how she had tracked me down at Adrienne’s house and wasn’t sure I was eager to.
But she wanted me at the Boulder airport in twenty minutes, which gave me barely enough time to change my clothes and grab a heavy jacket and some gloves and get to my car.
She and I were, apparently, going to be crossing the Continental Divide in a helicopter in the dark, something far down on the list of things I’ve always wanted to do.
But the sheriff’s office in Routt County thought they had found Ed Robilio’s Holiday Rambler near Steamboat Springs.
Lucy was waiting for me in the parking lot at Boulder Aviation, dressed in black jeans, heavy ankle boots, a black turtleneck, and a leather bomber jacket.
“You know Sam can’t go. He’s not supposed to be anywhere near this case. But it was his idea that I take you along. I sold my sergeant on it and I told the locals that you were a psychological consultant to the department and that you just happened to know both of the kids and that you might help us end this peacefully. The local cops seemed grateful for the help. And Sam told me to tell you-as a matter of fact, he told me twice to tell you-that his conversation with his sister-in-law was fruitful. He actually said, ‘Fruitful.’ He surprises me sometimes. He surprises you, too?”
“Constantly.”
She led me through a gate in a chain-link fence. The helicopter was parked on the side of the tarmac. I’d expected a police helicopter borrowed from another jurisdiction. Instead, we were about to board the news helicopter owned by Channel 7.
“What’s the deal?” I asked.
“The department doesn’t have a helicopter and we needed a quick trip. The TV stations provide help sometimes on searches and things. We asked Channel 7. They declined. We told them it might relate to the Brenda Strait story. They balked. We told them nobody else would have the story. They said okay.”
“Just us?”
“Pilot’s coming. We all thought that would be a good idea. And I expect they’ll send a cameraman.”
“Person.”
“Whatever. I probably should have asked you this already. You don’t get airsick, do you?”
“Never have before. But then I’ve never crossed the Divide in a helicopter before. Certainly not in the dark.”
“That’s okay. Neither has the pilot.”
She watched my face turn ashen before she said, “Kidding. Says he does it all the time. Come on.”
The pilot was walking toward us. He was a little older than me and had the easygoing been-there-done-that manner of Marty Klein, my ER doc friend. He was dressed in corduroys and a polo shirt covered with a jean jacket and a down vest.
He introduced himself and said, “We’re ready. You know the rules?”
I looked at Lucy. She was impassive. I said, “No.”
“Do what I tell you. If for any reason you need to quickly exit, do so toward the front. If you can see me, you’re okay. Got it?”
I said, “Yes.” But I was thinking, Why might I need to quickly exit?
“She’s fueled. Let’s go.”
The cameraman and the pilot took the front seats and Lucy and I climbed into the back and buckled up. I asked her if she did this sort of thing often.
“I dated a guy who flew in the Air National Guard. But that was a while ago.”
I discerned her last few words by lipreading. The pilot had started the engine of his Bell Jet Ranger and was pantomiming to us to put our headphone/microphone units on.
The engine noise disappeared and the Bose headphones offered the clear voice of the pilot. “Any questions?”
“How do you know where you’re going?”
He laughed. “I know the way. I also have a GPS-Global Positioning Satellite-system. The thing can guide me to a specific elk during hunting season if I ask it to. The people we’re meeting have a portable GPS, they’re going to call in the coordinates to me. We’ll hit them like a hammer hits a nail.”
I wasn’t fond of the analogy.
A moment later we lifted off gently, and I was immediately mesmerized by Boulder’s lights as we headed northwest.
Lucy asked, “Tim, is there a way you can separate out our headphones from the ones you guys are using up front? There are some things we need to talk about privately.”
“No problem.” He touched a button on the control panel and raised his fingers in an okay sign.
Lucy touched me on the knee to get my attention. The lights had disappeared below, and I wondered how close we were flying to the ridge tops I was seeing so clearly.
“Yes?”
“Two new developments that I think you should know about. First, I think you should know that MedExcel contacted the Arapahoe County DA’s office this morning about an extortion attempt that was phoned in to Ed Robilio’s secretary late yesterday.”
“What kind of extortion attempt?”
Lucy shrugged. “There’s no tape of the call. But the secretary thought the voice was of a young female. She threatened to, quote, ‘bring the company down’ if ‘their’ demands weren’t met. Said it was about Dr. Robilio. Something that the company wouldn’t want made public.”
“Do you think it’s related to these kids? What are the demands?”
“Don’t know. And no demands yet. A voice in the background, a young male, was screaming at the caller to hang up. The secretary thinks he sounded angry, agitated. We think maybe he was timing the call, afraid of a trace. Silly, how would MedExcel have the capacity to trace a call that they didn’t know was coming?”
“Caller ID on the phone?”
“No such luck.”
“You think it has to do with these kids, Lucy? Did they find something at Robilio’s cabin? Or is it a bluff because they know half the cops in the state are looking for them?”
“I don’t know what to think, Alan.”
“What could they have found?”
She turned her palms up.
“What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“What else should I know? You said there were two things you thought I should know.”
“Oh, yeah. The missing girl’s mother, hell, what’s her name?”
“Madison’s mother? Miggy Monroe?”
“Yes, good. Miggy Monroe. She called us at five-fifteen this evening, feels certain her daughter came home while she was at work today.”
“Really?”
“She says a couple of things are moved around and that some heavy boots and gloves are missing that she was sure were there before.”
“That’s it? Madison would risk coming home for some boots? Do you guys give much credence to this? It doesn’t make sense.”
“We’re not sure what to think. Her daughter has a key, of course. The place wasn’t a crime scene, so we didn’t work the place for physical evidence before, and the mom’s living there, so it’s hard to tell whether or not the story has merit. She’s the kid’s mom, so it could just be wishful thinking on her part. On the other hand, she could be right on. Maybe Madison is still in Boulder.”
“Anybody see anything?”
“Wits? Are you kidding?” She tapped the pilot on the shoulder and indicated that she wanted the communications opened again.
We listened in as Tim made radio contact with the local authorities and had the Routt County Sheriff provide wind speed and direction information for their location. He asked them to check for wires and other obstructions near the landing site.
They asked him how he wanted the site marked. He requested a fifty-foot square of highway flares.
I surmised from their conversation that we were supposed to land in a corral at the Somersby Ranch, about a mile from the location of the suspect motor home. A while later, I looked down as we were dropping from the sky toward the corral, which was lit with the requested highway flares in a square that seemed to be about the size of a king-size bed. I felt as though we were trying to land on a postage stamp in an ocean of black water. I didn’t like our odds.
The touchdown was uneventful.
On the ground we were met by eight deputies of the Routt County Sheriff’s Office, the entire Oak Creek Police Department, four deputies from Summit County, a firefighter from Steamboat Springs, and a few troopers from the Colorado State Patrol.
So far the authorities had surrounded the site but had made no contact with the kids and had seen no signs that they were even in the RV.
After introductions were made, Lucy said, “You probably know that they had a motorcycle yesterday. Is it there?”
“We know about the bike. We haven’t seen any sign of it.”
“Okay, what’s the plan?”
The kids had selected a pretty good spot to stash the huge motor coach. At this time in the spring, the backcountry in Routt County, outside Steamboat Springs, was relatively untraveled.
Haldeman, the RV, was cloaked in a tight clearing in a thick grove of denuded aspen and lush ponderosa pine. A dirt road climbed straight up the hill toward the clearing. Madison and Brad had cut branches from the pines and covered the entire top and front of the vehicle with foliage.
A maintenance man for the nearby Somersby Ranch had been checking the perimeter of the property for fence problems and had spotted the camouflage. He had reported the suspicious vehicle to the Routt County Sheriff. The Routt County cops knew that the Summit County Sheriff was looking for a big, fancy RV and within minutes the Boulder Police Department had been notified, too, and was negotiating to send an observer to the scene.
The plan was organic. Surround Haldeman. Assess the situation. Rouse the kids from a distance. Negotiate their surrender.
The firefighter from Steamboat was fitting a headset and camera rig over his head. Lucy asked him what it was.
“It’s called IRIS. We just got it. It’s a remote infrared imaging system. Helps us see through smoke inside buildings. Thought we might be able to use it tonight to locate your suspects.” He scanned us and pronounced the device operable. Then he focused the headset on the Holiday Rambler for about two minutes, scanning in narrow bands. Finally he said, “I don’t think anyone is in there. I’m not picking up anything hot. Not even anything warm.”
The surrounding-the-hilltop part of the plan seemed to go without a hitch. All the cops checked in from their positions with military precision.
The rousing-the-kids part was less successful. A combination of halogen lights, megaphones, and the helicopter hovering above with spotlights trained on the clearing earned no response from the RV. No lights came on in the bus, the door didn’t open.
None of the police reported seeing any movement. The firefighter still reported no positives on his infrared unit.
My role during this phase seemed to be limited to staying out of the line of potential fire and trying to keep warm.
I was significantly better at the former than I was at the latter.