Читать книгу Avalanche Of Trouble онлайн | страница 17

She looked out into the darkness again. “Do you really think she’s all right?”

“We haven’t found evidence to the contrary,” he said. “No signs of struggle, no other signs of blood at the scene. I think she got away from the killers.” Whoever shot Angela and Greg Hood might have taken the child with them, but that didn’t make sense to him. The parents’ deaths had been cold and efficient—for whatever reason, someone had wanted them eliminated. Why then burden yourself with a five-year-old child? “I think Casey saw what was happening, became frightened and ran away. Tomorrow, we’re going to find her.” He touched her shoulder again. “Come on. I’ll take you back to your hotel.”

“I don’t have a hotel room. I mean, I didn’t call and make a reservation. I didn’t even think of it.”

“Then we’ll find you one. Come on.”

She made one last glance into the darkness beyond the camp, then followed Gage to his SUV. “I’m going to speak to the sheriff,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

He found Travis with a group of search and rescue volunteers who were packing up to head back to town. “I got some more information about the little girl we’re looking for,” Gage told them. “Seems she’s deaf. So shouting her name isn’t going to do any good. We’ll need to make eye contact.”

“I know a little American Sign Language,” one of the SAR volunteers, a middle-aged woman, said.

“That might come in handy,” Gage said. “Can you come back to help with the search tomorrow?”

“I’ll be here.”

They said good-night. Travis waited until he and Gage were alone before he spoke. “Does the sister have any idea what the Hoods were doing up here that got them killed?” he asked.

Gage glanced back toward his SUV. He could see the shadowed figure of Maya as she sat in the passenger seat. “Greg Hood was an engineer who had developed some new equipment he thought could make these old mines profitable. He purchased these old claims to create a kind of demonstration project. He and his wife and the kid were camping up here, checking out their new acquisition.”