Chuck ran to Glen’s body. He scanned the surrounding trees and brush for any sign of Sanford, but the chief ranger was nowhere to be seen.
Elsie fell to her knees in the sand beside her son’s broken form. She caressed his pallid cheeks and stroked his matted hair.
Chuck said, “Sanford told me he would meet you here. Do you have any idea where he went?”
She shook her head.
Chuck whirled, his eyes searching. Nothing.
Why, knowing Elsie was on her way, would Sanford have left his son’s side? After the three deaths in Devil’s Garden, was the chief ranger in some sort of danger, too?
Or—Chuck’s blood ran cold—was Sanford a threat himself?
The chief ranger had hidden the fact that Glen was his son. What more might he be hiding? What might he know about the circumstances surrounding Glen’s death that he hadn’t told Chuck—and what, of those unknown circumstances, might have driven him to leave Glen’s body, knowing Elsie was on her way?
Chuck bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to draw blood. “I have to find Sanford.”
“Go. Find him,” Elsie replied, kneeling over Glen with her head bowed. Slender wrinkles mapped the back of her neck, like the thin lines of the pictograph in the cavern. “I will stay here with my son.”
Chuck pulled his phone from his pocket. When he’d looked down at Sanford from the top of the cliff, the chief ranger had been tapping the face of his phone beside Glen’s body, attempting to call Elsie.
Chuck checked his phone screen. Only a single wavering bar of service appeared.
He had his answer.
When Sanford had failed to get an adequate signal for his phone here, close against the base of the bluff, he no doubt had followed Chuck toward the campground, where a repeater tower bathed the campsites in strong coverage. Chuck and Elsie would have bypassed Sanford’s route to the campground when they’d hiked to Glen’s body from the trailhead.
But Sanford should have returned to Glen’s body after completing his call to Elsie.
Chuck peered past the base of the bluff.
In Martha’s motor home a few minutes ago, Martha and Nora had held hands around the candle with Sheila, their seer—and the common thread connecting all three deaths in Devil’s Garden. If anyone knew Sanford’s whereabouts right now, it was Chuck’s mother.
Spinning away from Elsie, Chuck set out for Martha’s RV at a sprint. The swath of desert through which he ran was dark with shadow. He tripped and sprawled to the ground, skinning his palms.
He shoved himself to his feet and kept running, slowing only when he neared the campground. He put a hand to his chest and drew gulping breaths while he took long strides through the trees. Lights glowed from the windows of the motor homes. Two people were speaking outside one of the coaches. Chuck angled toward the sound.
One of the two speakers was Sheila. “… will get you nowhere,” she said. “You, of all people, should know that.”
Chuck dropped to a crouch, listening.
Sanford’s voice came next, hoarse with grief. “We trusted you. Elsie and I trusted you.”
“It was you who sent him away,” Sheila said.
“Only on your recommendation. Tough love, that’s what you said he needed.”
Chuck crept forward.
“You have to help Elsie,” Sanford begged. “You have to come with me. She’ll be there by now.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” Sheila replied. “He was your problem to begin with, and he’s your problem now.”
“How can you do this to her?”
“I bear no responsibility. None whatsoever. You do—you and Elsie. It was your decision. There’s no reason for you to deny it.”
Chuck slipped through the shadows. A motor home loomed above him. Lights shone from the coach’s side windows. The voices of Sheila and Sanford came from the campground driveway in front of the RV.
“Look at me,” Sheila demanded. “You know full well what I’m talking about.”
“I … I refuse to—”
“Don’t lie to yourself, Sanford,” she said, cutting him off. “Or to me. There’s nothing further I can do for you. You need to leave me alone and get back to your son.”
“To my son’s body,” Sanford said mournfully.
“Go to him. Leave me be,” Sheila said, her voice sharp. “I’ve got more than enough to deal with here, with Frank.”
Chuck stiffened. Frank?
He peered around the corner of the motor home in time to see Sheila walk up the campground drive, leaving Sanford standing alone in the near darkness. A few sites up the drive, a door opened and clicked shut.
Chuck scampered past the RV, ducking beneath its glowing windows. He straightened and strode to Sanford in the middle of the drive.
“I listened to you talking with Sheila,” Chuck said, confronting the chief ranger. “It sounds like you disagree with her about who’s responsible for Glen’s death.”
“No, Sheila’s right,” Sanford said. “Elsie and I are ultimately responsible. But your mother bears some responsibility, too. So does Megan.”
Chuck’s eyes widened. “Megan?”