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Wednesday
“I just want to go home!” Darcy whined. She turned to her mother. “Mom, can’t we just go home? I’m so tired. And I’m so dirty, I’m disgusting. And I’m still hungry and thirsty. Dad?” She twisted around to her father. “We could just go home, couldn’t we?”
Finn hated to be the bad guy, but someone needed to be. “I’m sorry, Darcy, but I need you to tell me everything you remember. We need to know everything so we can find Mia.”
“I’m so tired.” The teenager crossed her arms on the table in front of her and then pressed her forehead down on them. “And I already told you everything,” she mumbled through her crossed arms.
Robin leaned close to the girl. “There’s got to be something you remember, Darcy, that could help Mia. Please, Darcy.”
Agent Foster raised her gaze from her notes and said in a no-nonsense voice, “Darcy. Sit up.”
The teen reluctantly did as she was told, scowling at the FBI agent.
Foster put her hand on top of Darcy’s. “I realize we’ve been at this for hours. I know you’ve been through hell, I know you’re exhausted, and I think you’re a hero to find your way back. You’ve been incredibly brave. But now, we really need your help, Darcy. I know you want to help Mia.”
Darcy nodded, the tears in her eyes threatening to spill over at any moment.
Agent Foster turned to Finn. “You said you knew the caretakers here, Detective Finn? Do you think you could get them to open up the concession stand, maybe come up with a cold soda or two—” She looked toward Darcy.
“Dr. Pepper, please,” Darcy said. And maybe some chips?”
Agent Foster continued. “And Mom”—she glanced at Andrea—“do you think you could come up with some clean clothes for Darcy? Maybe there are some in her car? We need to take the clothes she has on.”
Finn pulled out his cell and stood up to step outside and call the Bradys. As Andrea preceded him through the door, he heard Alice Foster say, “When everything’s arranged, we’ll take a little break, but until then, we’ll just keep talking, okay?”
He made the call as short as possible and then ducked back in before he missed much.
“How did you first meet Comet and Dusty?” Foster was asking.
“They rode their motorcycles up to us in the campground and asked us if we wanted to go for a ride.” Darcy shot a glance at her father. “I didn’t think that was a good idea, but Mia was, like, ‘Oh yeah, that’ll be an adventure!’” The girl’s eyes flicked briefly toward Robin and Keith Valdez and then back to Agent Foster.
“You said they took you on a picnic? How long did you ride before you stopped?”
“Ummm—maybe forty minutes? I didn’t look at my cell.”
Finn rubbed a finger across his chin. The kid’s reliance on her cell phone for every shred of information was grating on his nerves. Could teenagers not know what day it was or not add two plus two without a cell phone now? When the electromagnetic burst took out the electrical network, would everyone under thirty just stagger around like zombies with blank expressions on their faces, completely clueless? It was an unsettling image.
He struggled to bring his thoughts back to the present.
“ . . . all twisty and loopy and up and down, and we finally ended up on top of this hill where you could see, like, forever.” Darcy held her hands wide to demonstrate vast distances. “Well, for miles, anyway.”
This description might be useful to pinpoint an area. He leaned in toward the girl. “Sounds like a cool place, Darcy. What could you see?”
“All these fields. All different colors, like a patchwork quilt.”
“Any buildings? Houses, barns?”
Darcy thought for a moment. “I guess there could have been one or two, but I don’t remember.”
Finn thought longingly of Neema, who would probably have noticed a barn or least some sort of pattern. His thoughts flashed back to the purple swoosh the gorilla had noticed that helped to crack the Ivy Morgan case. “Were there any special shapes?”
The teen’s dark eyebrows knit together. “Shapes?”
All heads turned to focus on him. Finn waved a hand in the air. “You know, how sometimes roads make S-shapes, or the plowing of a field is a spiral, or a patch of trees is a triangle?”
Darcy shook her head. “No, I don’t remember anything like that. It was just squares, brown, gold, and green. But there was one tree I remember, because it was the only one, and it was right in the middle of this gold square.”
“That’s good, Darcy.” He made a note. Maybe the drone club could do aerial photography that would help. Maybe Google Earth would show the gold square and the tree. Otherwise, he might have to drive to the top of every hill within fifty miles of the Columbia Gorge.
Foster took over, asking about what the boys had brought to the picnic, whether the containers had any markings, if they had a cooler for the beer. She was good, realizing that any small detail might be helpful. But Darcy had clearly been more focused on Comet’s blue eyes than on anything else.
Then Brynne Brady arrived with keys to the concession stand, Andrea Ireland trailing her, bearing a stack of clothes she’d rummaged from the Ford Edge.
“You’re doing great, Darcy,” Agent Foster praised. She stood up from her chair and stretched. “Take a break, wash up, change your clothes, have a cold drink.”
Darcy stood up and walked toward the restroom door, following her mother.
“I’m coming, too,” Alice Foster announced, trailing the mother and daughter into the tiny restroom.
Finn knew it was a good idea to stay with the witness. If anything significant happened, if the girl had visible bruises, or if any words of importance passed between Darcy and her mother, the FBI agent wanted to be there. Before she vanished through the door, Foster tossed a look at Finn and said, “And then we’ll start all over again.”
Finn stood up and stretched his arms over his head. The Valdezes were watching him expectantly, so he suppressed the groan that nearly escaped his lips. Their daughter was still out there somewhere. It was going to be another long, long evening.
“We’re making progress here,” he told them.
He hoped it was true.
