It wasn’t until just before dusk that Dya came charging down the stairs inside the tower. The way her feet rang on the rickety stairs caught Talina’s attention long before the woman came panting and leaping down the last flight.
“What’s up, Dya?” Talina called, straightening from where she’d been packing tools at Rebecca’s request.
“You seen Kylee?” Dya was panting, frantic, eyes a glazed blue.
“No.”
“She’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
Dya swallowed hard. “She’s not in her room. Not anywhere in the dome. Did you see her come down the stairs?”
“No. Not that I’ve been here the entire time. People have been in and out.”
“Help me. I’ve got to find her!”
Talina put a soothing hand on the woman’s shoulder. “It’s all right. We’ll find her. Were her crutches still in her room?”
Dya nodded, forcing a panicked swallow down her throat.
“Well, in her condition, she can’t have gone far,” Talina told her. “Let’s alert the others. It’s still an hour before dark. We’ll find her.”
But even with everyone looking, by the time night fell, Kylee might have vanished into thin air.
And even worse, Rebecca and Shantaya, who’d volunteered to search the fields to the south, hadn’t come back either.
Just to be sure, Talina had used the shuttle’s speakers to call out, ordering Kylee, Rebecca, and Shantaya back to the shuttle. Then she’d gone out on her own, using night vision, as she searched for the missing woman and girls.
Several times she thought she caught flashes of images at the edge of the trees. Moving fast, the things had looked suspiciously like quetzals, which made the one in her gut hiss with delight.
In the end, she’d returned. Buttoned up the ramp, and called it a night.
But damn it, it didn’t make any sense. Why would Rebecca, of all women, take silly chances?
And what would have possessed Kylee to leave the dome in the first place?
Talina had been on Donovan too long, been involved in too many missing persons searches, to think this was going to end well.