Crash & Burn Read Free Page A

her away before she hurt anyone.”
    â€œBut she mentioned a daughter?”
    â€œVero. She couldn’t find her. She’s just a little girl. Please help.”
    Wyatt frowned, not liking this. “Approximate age?”
    â€œDidn’t find a car seat or booster in the rear seat of the vehicle. Neither was the passenger side airbag deployed in the front. Put that together, and we’re talking about a kid too old for safety seats, but too young to call shotgun.”
    â€œSo probably between the ages of nine and thirteen. One of those so-called tweens.”
    â€œYou’d know more about that than me, my friend.”
    Wyatt rolled his eyes, didn’t take the bait. “Blood trail?” he asked.
    â€œPlease. Inside of the vehicle looks like a slaughterhouse. Female driver suffered a number of lacerations, before the accident, afterward, who knows. But by the time she untangled herself from the wreckage, then crawled through shattered glass to the rear of the vehicle . . . It’s a miracle she had enough strength left to hike back up the ravine, let alone flag down a passing motorist—”
    â€œHike back up the ravine?” Wyatt stopped walking.
    Kevin did as well. Both of them cast looks to the roadway, now very high above them. “How else would she have been found?” Kevin asked in a reasonable voice. “Nobody was going to notice a car smashed into a ravine in the middle of the night. Hell, you and I could barely see the vehicle in daylight, peering directly down at it.”
    â€œShit,” Wyatt said quietly, because . . . Well, because. He was an able-bodied man, reasonably physically fit, he liked to think, and not just due to being a cop, but because his other passion was carpentry and there was nothing like a few hours with a hammer every week to keep the bis and tris solid. But even with all that, he wasfinding
descending
the ravine, fighting his way through sucking mud while combating dense, prickling bushes, hard enough. He couldn’t imagine coming
up
all that distance, let alone in the pouring rain, let alone after having just survived what was obviously a serious accident.
    â€œShe flagged down a man by the name of Daniel Ledo,” Kevin said now. “Guy said she never spoke a word. He’s a vet, spent some time in Korea. According to him, she looked shell-shocked, as in the literal definition of the word. Didn’t really snap to it until the EMTs were loading her up. Then she spotted Todd, and boom, she’s off and running about this girl, Vero, she couldn’t find Vero, we gotta help Vero.”
    â€œShe couldn’t find Vero, seems to imply she’d been looking.”
    â€œSure,” Kevin said.
    â€œPlowing her way through the mud and muck. It’s why she tore herself out of the car. Why she made it up to the road. Because she was trying to find help for her missing child.”
    â€œFair enough.”
    â€œAnd we . . . ?”
    â€œStill got nothing. Two hours of solid searching later by over a dozen uniformed patrol officers, not to mention our even more qualified friends from Fish and Game. I got here thirty minutes before you, Wyatt. Guys were already on site, on task. Started with a search grid of fifty feet out from the wreckage. Are now working a five-mile radius. I have no issues with our search efforts thus far.”
    Wyatt understood what his detective was trying to say. A body thrown from the vehicle should’ve been easy to recover. A scared girl hunkered down for the night, waiting for help, should’ve responded to the coaxing calls. Which left them with . . .
    Wyatt gazed around him at the tangle of underbrush an injured, disoriented kid could roam for hours. He looked ahead of him, tothe former brook, now fast-flowing stream, that could carry away an unconscious form.
    â€œDogs,” he said again.
    They moved on to the car.
    The Audi Q5