Full Tilt. Rick Mofina

      Was this an unfinished message from one of the victims?

      Kate immediately searched the name online.

      In seconds, the results matching her query appeared, offering pages of headlines and excerpts that stunned her:

      Canada’s Cold Case files...

      Tara Dawn Mae was last seen at a truck stop...never seen again...

      Royal Canadian Mounted Police—MISSING...

      Tara Dawn Mae was 10 years old when she vanished from...

      Brooks Prairie Journal—Mystery Disappearance Haunts...

      It has been twelve years since the disappearance of Tara Dawn Mae, and neighbors in the tiny farming community try to remember...

      FIND THE MISSING KIDS

      Tara Dawn Mae. Age at time of disappearance: 10. Eyes: Brown...

      Kate continued searching, finding a police summary of the case.

      Tara Dawn MAE Cold Case Files

      Location: Brooks, Alberta, Canada

      On July 7, 2000, Tara Dawn MAE was ten years of age and living with her parents, Barton Mae and Fiona Mae, on their farm near Brooks, Alberta. After shopping for groceries in Brooks, the family stopped at the Grand Horizon Plaza, a large and busy truck stop along the Trans-Canada Highway.

      While Barton purchased gas for the family pickup truck, Fiona and Tara entered the facility to use the restroom. While browsing the food court and gift shop, Tara got separated from her mother and was never seen again.

      An exhaustive investigation has failed to yield any leads as to Tara Dawn MAE’s location or details as to her disappearance.

      Kate then found a webpage showing several photographs of Tara. There she was smiling in a full-face shot. Next, a formal head-and-shoulders school portrait, and then Tara with a puppy and laughing.

       Tara looks so much like Vanessa.

      Deep in a corner of Kate’s heart, something cracked, a thin ray of hope emerged and she blinked back her tears. She needed to know more about this case and how it was connected to Rampart.

      Kate reached for her phone and called Anne Kelly, with the New York office of the Children’s Searchlight Network. Anne alerted Fred Byfield, one of the group’s investigators.

      “I’ll get in touch with our sister networks in Canada,” Fred said after listening to Kate. “I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

      Kate continued researching. Again and again she came back to the pictures, haunted by the little girl’s sweet, shy smile, her dark eyes, shining like falling stars.

       Could this be Vanessa?

      Kate used maps and made some calculations. Their accident happened about ten miles east of Golden, British Columbia, when their car left the highway and crashed into the Kicking Horse River. That was some 270 miles west of Brooks, Alberta, a five-hour drive across the prairie and through the Rocky Mountains.

      Vanessa would have been twenty-six now. If Tara Dawn Mae is still alive, as the message in Rampart suggests, she’d be around twenty-five or twenty-six now, as well.

       Was it all coincidence?

      Kate went back to the crime scene photos.

       My name used to be—

      What was her other name?

      Was Tara Dawn the Maes’ biological child or an adopted child? Kate couldn’t find any divorce records on public sites. Maybe Tara Dawn was a street kid who’d run away and changed her name? It was not uncommon. Kate knew that, from her time on the street. Kids were always running from something.

      As she continued working throughout the day she came across an in-depth article done on the third anniversary of the case that stopped her cold. It said that Barton and Fiona Mae had adopted Tara Dawn about three or four years before her disappearance.

       Adopted?

      Kate’s mind raced.

      She tried searching for court records, knowing that they weren’t usually made public, a fact confirmed when she called the clerk’s office for Alberta’s family courts in Edmonton, the capital. Kate was thinking of hiring a Canadian private investigator to help her dig deeper into the case when she realized the time.

      She had to pick up Grace from school.

      * * *

      They’d passed the remainder of the afternoon with Grace coloring a project about the world’s oceans and chatting about her day while Kate got supper ready. Whenever she could, Kate thought about the case. That evening while they were watching The Wizard of Oz, Fred Byfield called.

      “Kate, I talked with our people in Calgary affiliated with our network and I don’t have a lot more to add.”

      “I’ll take anything, even advice.”

      Kate patted Grace’s leg and left the sofa to take the call in the kitchen.

      “Canadian police still have it listed as a cold case.”

      “Yes.”

      “No real leads, nothing at all, and both of the parents have since passed away.”

      “I didn’t know that about the parents. How’d they die?”

      “Accidents, maybe, we’re not sure but did you know that Tara Dawn was adopted?”

      “Yeah, I found a magazine piece that mentioned it. Any details on that?”

      “I don’t know, and our source in Calgary didn’t know.”

      Kate considered the information.

      “So what do you make of these factors? Is it Vanessa, Fred?”

      “When you add them up—the necklace at the scene, the carved message from Tara Dawn Mae, the dates, ages and the fact they never found Vanessa’s body—they do present a compelling argument that your sister was at the Rampart crime scene.”

      “But? I detect a ‘but’ in your tone.”

      “But, you know as well as anyone, real life is not like mystery books and thriller movies where it all ties together nicely. Real life is complicated and missing persons cases can be complex. Simple factors that appear to be connected often have explanations proving there is no link whatsoever.”

      “Yes, I know.”

      “And there’s no DNA from Tara Dawn’s case to compare to yours, at least none that we know of. And we don’t know what Rampart police know, or what they may be telling the RCMP in Alberta about their case. Now you’ve got to decide what you’re going to do next. I think this warrants further investigation and we’ll help you as much as we can.”

      “Thanks, Fred.”

      Kate returned to the movie, sitting next to Grace. As Dorothy followed the yellow brick road in her quest to get back to Kansas, Kate searched for the right path she needed to take.

      “You were talking about Aunt Vanessa on the phone,” Grace said. “I could hear you say her name.”

      “Yes, I was.”

      “Is that why you went away the other day, to look for her again?”

      Kate looked at her and smiled. Grace was a smart little girl. Last year when she’d turned six, the same age as Vanessa at the time she went missing, Kate had told Grace about the crash, how she’d lost her hold of Vanessa’s hand, how they’d never found her and how she still looked for her everywhere. Grace understood, or seemed to, and Kate was okay talking about it with