Page 9 of Seeking Evil

He was such an idiot. He should never have let her go.

“Brother, you screwed up.” Hannah’s comment drove the truth home. He had screwed up.

“Wait, where did you say she was?” Jack Montgomery, the team’s commander, had overheard their conversation. He and his wife, Megan, exchanged a strange look.

“Pinedale, Wyoming. Why?” Zeke had a feeling he wasn’t going to like the answer. He ran his hand through his hair.

Hannah placed her hand on his shoulder. Zeke looked up at green eyes flecked with gold, matching his and filled with sympathy.

“I received an alert earlier from the sheriff’s office in Pinedale. Sounds like they have a missing woman there.”

Zeke jumped to his feet. “You have a photo?”

“I do, and it’s not Sierra,” Jack told him. He turned the phone around so that they could see the young woman’s features. “Her name is Dawn Collins. She went missing about a week ago.”

“Why is the sheriff reaching out to us?” Zeke tried to glean something from Jack’s expression.

Jack turned to Megan.

“Dawn’s disappearance matches another set of disappearances from twenty-five years earlier.” Megan brought something up on her laptop while Zeke’s bad feeling doubled.

“There were six women who disappeared from the area in 2000. None were from Pinedale. All were climbers who came to the area for the challenge the Wind River Mountain Range offers.”

“That’s where Sierra is. She’s climbing those mountains. And she’s not answering her phone. Something’s wrong.”

Megan’s frown deepened. “We don’t know that for certain.” She hesitated as if choosing her next words carefully. “Sierra told Jack and me she wanted to take a break. She’s had a tough year with her mother’s death and the case that almost destroyed her.”

And Zeke’s own dumb mistakes. Yet he couldn’t accept that Sierra would turn her phone off as the straight to voicemail seemed to indicate.

“Call her. She may not be taking my call, but she sure will yours.”

Megan set her laptop down and tried Sierra’s number. “Straight to voicemail.” She turned to her husband. “He’s right. That isn’t usual.”

“Let me give the sheriff a call.” Jack headed back to his office with Zeke on his heels.

Zeke almost slammed into him before Jack could close the door.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Coming with you. I want to hear what he has to say.”

“Zeke . . .”

“Jack, I need to know what’s going on.”

“Alright, but let me handle the call.”

Zeke held up his hands. “I won’t say a word.”

“Yeah, right.” Jack pulled up the message from the sheriff and hit the number. Two rings and Sheriff Taylor answered.

“This is Jack Montgomery from the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit. I got your message about Dawn Collins.” Jack put the call on speaker.

“Yes. I’m guessing you know the reason why I’m reaching out to your unit.”

Jack confirmed he did. “You’re talking about the women’s disappearances from twenty-five years earlier.”

“Yes. Dawn’s disappearance matches those women’s abductor’s MO. I think our kidnapper,” he hesitated over the words as if not wanting to voice something much darker than kidnapping, “is back again.”

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