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Wednesday
The Irelands and the Valdezes were tired, rumpled, and irritated that Finn arrived forty minutes later than he’d promised. He introduced Agent Foster and summarized everything he’d done since he’d seen them last evening. Although he’d made dozens of phone calls, he hadn’t located Cooper Trigg, and he knew that none of his activities would satisfy the anxious parents. Still, he felt compelled to tell the parents about the girls riding off on motorcycles. They were understandably horrified.
Neither he nor Agent Foster mentioned the skeleton in Melendez’s burned barn or the list of missing girls. They had no reason yet to believe any of those cases were related to the disappearance of Darcy and Mia.
Finn was describing how searchers were combing the area on horseback and that the Civil Air Patrol was using their drone club to search the area from the air, when a loud rap on the trailer door startled them all.
The door opened. It was the deputy who had been manning the entrance this morning.
“Knew you’d want to see this.” He glanced back over his shoulder. A dark-haired girl in dirt-stained jeans and a ripped denim jacket ducked under his arm and slunk into the trailer. Her demeanor reminded Finn of Cargo’s posture after the dog ate Finn’s best leather belt.
Andrea Ireland stood up so fast that her chair tipped over, hitting the floor with a bang. She rushed to the girl. “Darcy! Oh my God, Darcy!” She enfolded her daughter in her arms.
“I’m sorry, Mom,” the girl mumbled into her mother’s neck. Her face was red from sunburn or exposure, her lips were chapped, and she was missing an earring from her left ear. Peering over Andrea’s shoulder, the teen added, “Sorry, Dad.”
Paul Ireland walked to them and wrapped his arms around the two women. The three of them rocked in a huddle for a long moment, as Darcy and Andrea sobbed and Paul sighed, “Thank God. Thank you, Jesus.”
The Valdezes were also on their feet, frozen in position, breathless as they stared at the door. The deputy stepped back out, closed the door behind him. When the latch clicked into place, Robin’s face collapsed, and she and Keith surged toward the other family. The wave of emotion that preceded them crashed over Finn as they demanded, “Where’s Mia?”
Darcy struggled in her parents’ arms, and Paul and Andrea released her. The teen stared at the Valdezes. “What do you—?” Her eyes glistened with sudden tears. “Oh shit, you mean Mia’s not here?”
Finn gestured at the table. “Let’s all sit down.”
The teen eyed the furnishings. “Can we go someplace with food? I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since Sunday night.”
Agent Foster asked, “This is Wednesday. Do you mean you left here on Sunday evening?”
“That’s what I said. Jeez! I need food!” Darcy staggered forward, and her father grabbed her arms to steady her.
“I brought lunch,” Andrea told Finn. “I’ll go get it.” She headed out the door toward the parking lot.
Finn and Paul Ireland maneuvered the girl into a seat at the table. Agent Foster poured her a glass of water, which Darcy drank thirstily while Finn fixed her a cup of coffee thick with cream and sugar. She sipped it and then clutched her hands around the Styrofoam cup, staring into it.
Finn slid into his seat. “Where have you been, Darcy?”
She shook her head, then squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t know exactly. I woke up in this field. Some kind of grain field, as far as you could see. No, I think it was hay. Anyhow, it went on forever. The bastard just dumped me there.”
“What bastard?”
“And I was so sick, so dizzy I could hardly stand up. I practically had to crawl to the road. And there was a rattlesnake.”
Robin gasped and raised a hand to her face. “A rattlesnake?”
Darcy waved off the woman’s concern. “I handled it. The snake didn’t bite me. But then I didn’t know where I was and I didn’t know what time it was, and there were just gravel roads and I didn’t even know which direction I was walking because I didn’t have my cell phone!”
She burst into tears again. “And then there was a pickup full of these shithead boys. They tried to grab me. I barely got away. And then the sun went down, and I had to stay out there, all by myself, all night. I was sort of afraid to walk by the road when the sun came up again. But I kept going and I finally found a paved road, but the cars still kept passing me like I wasn’t even there. Like I was invisible or something! One woman actually gave me the finger!”
“And then it got dark again before I got anywhere, so I just sat against this old shed all night. At least it had a water faucet outside. Then, this morning, finally, this old man stopped. He said his son was a highway patrolman and he’d seen the posters of these missing girls from the Gorge, and was I one? I was afraid to get in because he was, like, kinda creepy with ear hairs and eyebrows like white caterpillars, and I was afraid he might kill me.”
She swiped at a tear, leaving a dark streak of dirt across her cheek. “I couldn’t believe that nobody else would pick me up!”
Paul laid a hand on his daughter’s forearm. “You’re here now. You’re okay, Darcy.”
Across the table, Robin Valdez made a squeaking sound, and she pressed a fist against her lips. Finn knew the woman was wondering where her daughter was, if Mia was okay.
“What bastard, Darcy?” Finn asked again.
The girl flicked a hand in the air as if he was an annoyance. “The bastard who gave me a ride on his bike. And I thought he was cute.” She slapped her palm against her forehead. “Majorly stupid.”
“The bastard’s name?” He held his pen above his notebook. “Cooper Trigg?”
“Cooper?” The teenager blinked at him. “Why would you think that? I don’t know any Cooper.”
“We saw a boy that Robin knew on a security video, Darcy,” her mother told her. “Cooper Trigg. He was standing behind you and Mia in line at the concession stand. There were two other boys there with you and Mia, too.”
“Oh.” The teen swiped at her eyes. “No, those two guys left early, the creeps, said they had to go pick up their girlfriends. I went for a ride with another guy.”
“Name?” Finn asked again.
She glanced at him from beneath lowered lashes. Mascara was smeared in rings around her eyes, giving her a bruised appearance. No wonder nobody had picked her up. Darcy looked like a homeless druggie who had been sleeping rough.
Finally she said, “Comet.”
“Seriously?” Agent Foster asked as she wrote down the word.
“We were just having fun. We were pretending it was like the Sixties and everyone had these silly nicknames. He said Comet, so I said I was Blackbird.” Darcy tugged at a lock of black hair to demonstrate why.
“And Mia?” Keith Valdez prompted, leaning forward.
“Uh.” She flattened her hands on the table for a moment, thinking. “Sunshine. Mia was Sunshine.”
Keith was fidgeting, his hands clenching and loosening as if he wanted to shake the girl. “Where’s Mia, Darcy?”
Darcy’s eyes darted around the room. “You honestly don’t know where Mia is? You haven’t heard from her? Omigod . . .”
“So you were with Comet, on a motorcycle?” Finn asked.
Darcy nodded. “Omigod, Mia’s really not back?”
“You were with Comet, and Mia was with—?” prompted Agent Foster.
Andrea burst through the door with paper bags in hand. Putting them on the table, she pulled out a sandwich, unwrapped it, and handed it to her daughter. Darcy mashed her dirty fingers into it and tore off a huge chunk, chewing with her mouth open. The motion made her chapped lip bleed, and she touched a fingertip to the split. Then she took a sip of coffee. When she put down the cup, Andrea slid the cup away and replaced it with a bottle of vitamin water.
Finn tapped Darcy gently on the arm. “And Mia was with—?”
The girl thought for another long minute as she chewed. After swallowing, she looked up. “Rusty?”
“Did Rusty have red hair?” Foster asked.
“No. Dusty, that was it.” She took another bite. “Blond.”
Finn thought the tuna salad sandwich smelled pretty good. “Last names?”
Darcy shook her head. “No, that was part of the fun. We just all used made-up names, like we were hippies or something.”
Finn made a conscious effort to relax his jaw. “And Mia was riding with Dusty on his motorcycle?”
Darcy nodded, then pushed the last of the sandwich into her mouth and chewed. Placing her hand on another sandwich, she glanced at her mother. Andrea nodded and Darcy unwrapped it.
Finn slid the printout of the foursome at the concession stand from the envelope and showed the teen. “Is this Dusty and Comet?”
“Jeez, no.” She giggled. “That’s um . . . Daniel and”— she trained her attention on the ceiling as she tried to remember—“Brandon. No, Brendan, that was it. They said they were staying in the campground, too, but I don’t know where, because like I said, they left early.”
Which reminded Finn that he still needed to talk to the rest of the festival attendees who were camping in the area. Maybe one of them was more observant than Darcy or Grant Dekoster. Had this Daniel and Brendan really been staying in the campground, or had they just dropped in to troll the attendees?
“And this guy?” Finn pointed to Cooper Trigg’s face in the photo between Mia and Darcy.
“What about him?” Darcy asked.
“That’s Cooper Trigg.” Andrea touched her daughter’s arm. “He’s kind of a bad guy. Did he seem like he knew Mia?”
Confusion twisted Darcy’s features. “No. Why would he? I don’t think he ever even talked to us. This is a really lame photo. He does look sorta like Dusty, but . . .” She shook her head. “No, I’m sure Dusty didn’t have an earring. I would have noticed that. But why do you care about this guy?” She tapped the photo.
“Well . . .” Robin Valdez began.
“Never mind.” Finn chopped a hand through the air to cut off the discussion of Cooper Trigg’s past history. Trigg still might be involved somehow, but it was clear that Darcy believed he wasn’t one of the boys she and Mia rode off with.
“But maybe he was C,” Darcy suggested.
“What?” her father asked.
“Like the letter C.” The teen drew the letter in the air with a finger. “Someone left a note on the car and signed it ‘C.’” She rolled her eyes. “Like we were supposed to know who that was.”
“What did the note say?” Finn asked.
She took a bite of the second sandwich—another tuna salad, according to Finn’s nose—and chewed for a few seconds. “Well, it was for Mia, actually, and it said something like ‘I knew that was you. What were you doing with that other guy? Here’s my number, let’s hook up.’ And then it just said ‘C.’”
Agent Foster stopped scribbling on her notepad. “Did you keep the note?”
Darcy shook her head. “No. Mia didn’t have clue who ‘C’ was, so she threw the note away.”
Now Finn wanted to strangle the teenager. But of course she couldn’t have known what was coming.
Agent Foster refocused. “Darcy, please describe Comet and Dusty.”
The teen twisted the cap off the water bottle. “Hmm. They both looked like farm boys, I guess.”
Finn raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean by that?”
“Their hair was, like, pretty short, and they were both really tan, and their hair was, like, bleached by the sun. Comet had the bluest eyes.” Darcy sounded dreamy about that for a minute, then frowned, probably at the memory of being dumped by Mr. Blue Eyes. “And they didn’t have beards or mustaches or anything.”
“Earrings? Studs? Jewelry?” Foster asked.
“Umm.” The girl studied the ceiling. “No earrings or studs.”
“Tattoos?”
“None that I saw. I think Dusty had a watch, which is a little weird.”
Finn glanced at his own watch. Was it really only 12:55?
“The kids mostly use their cell phones to tell time now,” Andrea explained.
Robin Valdez clutched the sleeve of the girl’s jacket. “Darcy, where’s Mia?”
The girl shook her head. “I don’t know. She was on the bike with Dusty, and after we had this picnic, they were bringing us back to the concert and—”
A tear spilled down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of her hand, leaving another trail of dirt across her face. “And that’s the last thing I remember, being on the bike with Comet, and Mia riding with Dusty. Then I woke up in that damn field. And I couldn’t find my cell. It must have fallen out of my pocket. Or Comet stole it, along with my backpack.”
Robin removed the hand she had clamped across her mouth. “They drugged you.”
Foster nodded. “Sounds like maybe Rohypnol.”
“They roofied us?” Darcy glanced at her parents. “I’m so sorry. And I’m so stupid.”
“Oh, Dar,” Andrea began. “Did they—“
Her daughter slashed her hand through the air between them to cut off her mother’s question. “I didn’t get raped. At least, I don’t think so.”
Robin bit down on a knuckle, her eyes shining with tears.
Finn wanted to ask why Darcy seemed unsure, but he felt like Foster needed to do that. Or maybe he could broach the subject later with Andrea Ireland. “Back to describing the boys,” he urged. “Tall, short? Skinny, fat? Moles, tattoos? Hair color? Eye color?”
“They were, like, nondescript,” the teen told him. “Comet was the tallest—that’s why he was mine. Maybe five ten or so. Blue eyes, like I said. Dusty was a couple of inches shorter, and I don’t have a clue what color his eyes were. They weren’t fat or skinny, and like I already said, they both had tan skin and bleached-out hair—you know, brown underneath but almost white on top. And they had muscles—you know, like farm boys. But they weren’t exactly boys.” She flashed a worried glance at her parents. “They were probably more like twenty-five.”
“Oh, Darcy,” Paul Ireland groaned. “What—”
Finn held up a hand to halt the fatherly criticism. “What were they wearing?”
“Blue jeans. Black boots. T-shirts—Comet’s was blue and Dusty’s was orange. Helmets, of course. And they had helmets for us, too,” she quickly added, glancing at her parents before turning back to Finn. “They both had these cool black leather jackets with a dead possum on the back.”
That confirmed what Dekoster had told him. Roadkill Riders.
Andrea made a face. “A dead possum?”
“Or maybe it was an armadillo, but on its back, legs in the air, like it was dead.” The girl threw back her head, stuck out her tongue, and lifted her arms up to demonstrate. She seemed to be recovering quickly from her trauma.
“Any words or letters on their clothes?” Finn asked.
Darcy shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Did their jackets say Roadkill Riders?” Finn asked.
Foster glared at him. He was leading the witness, so to speak. But this was all going way too slowly.
“Oh.” Darcy picked up the water bottle. “Maybe they did. I was distracted by the dead possum.”
“Roadkill Riders was the Meetup site I mentioned,” Finn told Agent Foster. “I’m waiting for email from the owner.”
Foster nodded at him, then leaned close and touched the girl’s arm. “Can you describe the motorcycles?”
“Um.” Darcy took a swallow of water. “The one I was on was red. I think Mia’s was blue.” She shook her head. “Omigod, Mia!”
“The motorcycles,” Foster pressed.
Darcy sniffed and swallowed. “They had black leather seats and silver trim. And they both had these upright things in back to keep the passengers on or tie stuff to or something.”
Finn made notes, but had to work hard to keep his expression impassive at the generally useless information. “Do you remember any brand names, like Honda or Harley Davidson or Kawasaki or—? Do you remember any words or numbers or letters on the bikes?”
Darcy pressed her lips together for a moment, then said, “Uh, no. I don’t really know motorcycles.”
“Do you think you’d recognize photos of those motorcycle types if you saw them?” Agent Foster asked.
Darcy blinked, gave the agent a slight smile. “Maybe.”
She studied the tabletop for a moment, and then said, “Dad, the car door got scratched somehow in the campground.”
“I saw,” Paul said. “Don’t worry about it. The important thing is that you’re safe.”
“But what about Mia?” Darcy swiveled to face Robin Valdez. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Valdez.”
Robin clapped a hand over her mouth, but still burst into loud sobs. Keith said nothing as he put his arms around his wife, but his cheeks were wet, too.
