Manhunt On Mystic Mesa. Cindi Myers

he was bragging. He and Jenny had spent the night together and Patterson wanted to make sure Jana knew it. He was letting her know that he had been closer to her sister than she was.

      Patterson turned to Eddleston. “I just came out to let you know I want to do anything I can to help,” he said. “If you think more publicity in the paper would be useful, I’m your man.”

      “We’ll certainly have questions for you,” Ryan said before Eddleston could answer. “And we have a copy of the interview you gave the sheriff’s office. Right now, we’d like to talk to some of the other people Jenny worked with.”

      “Of course.” Eddleston gestured toward the base of the mesa, where half-a-dozen people milled about amid a grid of pink plastic flags. “Talk to anyone you like.”

      Ryan nodded to Jana and touched the brim of his hat. “Ma’am,” he said, then followed Ethan across the rough ground toward the excavation.

      When they were far enough away from the others that they couldn’t be overheard, Ethan said, “Give me your impressions.”

      “The sister doesn’t know as much about Jenny as she thought she did,” Ryan said. “Eddleston is most concerned about making a good impression. The fiancé is too cocky and sure of himself and for some reason he’s going out of his way to goad Jana.”

      “If Jenny was the only woman missing, I’d put him at the top of the suspect list,” Ethan said. “But his name hasn’t come up in our investigation of the first missing woman, Lucia Raton, and it seems unlikely he knew an illegal immigrant from Guatemala who just happened to be passing through.”

      “So he’s a jerk but probably not a killer,” Ryan said.

      “Provided the women are dead,” Ethan said.

      “Right. We don’t have any bodies, but we both know the stats.” When young women went missing for no reason, too often they were eventually found dead.

      “Maybe this case will be an exception to the norm,” Ethan said.

      For the next hour, the two Rangers questioned Jenny’s coworkers, who all professed sadness and shock at her disappearance. They were able to establish a timeline for yesterday. No one had noticed anything unusual before she vanished. They all agreed she hadn’t seemed depressed or afraid or anything like that. “Jenny was one of these really upbeat, look-on-the-bright-side kind of people,” said a twenty-year-old archaeology major, Heidi. “I used to tease her about it sometimes. If she had a flat tire on the way in, she wouldn’t complain about the tire, she’d talk about how amazing it was to be in such a beautiful setting with nothing to do but wait for something to come along and help.”

      “So even if something had happened that might upset most people, she wouldn’t necessarily show any distress,” Ethan said.

      “I guess you could put it that way,” Heidi said.

      “What about her relationship with Eric Patterson?” Ryan asked.

      Heidi slanted him a wary look. “What about it?”

      “Was she happy? Excited about being engaged?”

      “She never actually said anything about being engaged,” Heidi said. “First I heard of it was after she disappeared and he came out with the local cops this morning and told everyone. He said they had agreed to keep it a secret until she had a chance to tell her sister.”

      “Did that strike you as odd—that she wouldn’t have shared something like that?” Ryan asked.

      She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, it surprised me a little. I knew she had gone out with the guy a few times, but I didn’t think it was that serious. I mean, they hadn’t known each other long, but love makes people do crazy things sometimes, I guess.”

      “Tell me a little more about her mood yesterday,” Ryan asked. “Did she mention anything at all about anything that had happened to upset her—an argument with someone, worry over finances, anything like that?”

      Heidi shook her head. “Nothing like that. She was maybe a little quiet. When she took a break at about one, I didn’t think anything of it.”

      “You thought she’d gone to use the restroom,” Ryan said.

      “At first, but then when she didn’t come back, I figured she’d taken a walk. She did that sometimes, when things were slow. She was really interested in wildflowers and plants and stuff, and she liked to photograph the scenery.”

      “What was your first thought when you realized she was missing?”

      She shrugged. “I wondered if she’d gone too far from camp and gotten lost.” She swept her hand to indicate the surrounding landscape. “It’s pretty empty out here. I know I get disoriented all the time. But we spread out and searched and none of us saw any sign of her. I wouldn’t think she could have gone that far.”

      The rest of the students who had worked with Jenny shared Heidi’s puzzlement as to what might have happened to Jenny. Ethan and Ryan finished their questions and headed back to the cruiser. Eric’s Camry was gone and Eddleston had returned to his work, but Ryan was surprised to find Jana Lassiter waiting beside the cruiser.

      “Could I speak with you a moment?” she asked as he approached. She glanced toward Ethan. “Privately?”

      “I’ll start filling out the reports,” Ethan said, opening the driver’s-side door.

      Ryan walked with Jana about fifty yards, to the shade of a pile of boulders. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

      “What do you know about Eric Patterson?” she asked.

      “No more than you do,” he said. “I’ve only been in town a week. I transferred to the Rangers from Grand Junction.”

      She hugged her arms around her stomach, as if she was in pain. “I didn’t know about him—not just that he and Jenny were engaged, but I didn’t even know he existed. That isn’t like Jenny. Not that I expect her to tell me everything, but she always talks to me about the men in her life.”

      “Maybe she didn’t say anything to you about Eric because this relationship was different from those others,” he said. “More serious. Maybe she wanted to be more sure of her feelings before she shared them with you.”

      Jana shook her head. “That isn’t her. And he’s not her type at all. The men she dates are always funny and easygoing. Considerate. He’s so cocky and full of himself. He isn’t worried about her—he’s basking in the attention her disappearance is bringing to him.”

      Ryan couldn’t disagree with anything about her assessment of Eric Patterson. “People react differently to grief,” he said. “Maybe he came off cocky just now because he was nervous about meeting you and trying to impress you.”

      She gave him a sharp look. “Do you always feel the need to play devil’s advocate?”

      “It’s a cop thing. Questioning assumptions is sometimes a good way to find out new information.”

      She sighed and her shoulders slumped. “I suppose being disagreeable doesn’t mean he had anything to do with Jenny’s disappearance.”

      “We don’t have a good enough picture of what happened to have any suspects yet,” Ryan said. “We have more people to interview.”

      “Who?”

      He didn’t see any harm in telling her. “There’s a group camped not far from here. We want to find out if any of them saw or heard anything.”

      “I don’t understand why you don’t have more people out searching for her,” Jana said. “What about using dogs to track her? And what about her phone? Can’t you find someone through their cell phone? Have you issued one of those alerts—an Amber Alert? Isn’t that for missing persons?” With each new suggestion, she grew more agitated.

      Ryan