Page 20 of Canyon Killer
Bethany watched her leave, then stared at the half-eaten plate of nachos they hadn’t really shared. If things had worked out with Justin, she could have offered advice and maybe a few funny anecdotes for her friend. She would be moving ahead with exciting plans for her own life instead of just being…stuck.
She wasn’t stuck, she scolded herself. She was moving, if not very fast. She had a new job offer. And an interesting new man in her life. Possibilities. The trick was to keep from screwing things up.
* * *
Ian spent Sundaysetting pins in the canyon walls to mark where the various features of the via ferrata would go. He didn’t have to do this himself, but it felt good to get out his climbing gear and stretch his limbs. He scouted interesting routes up the face of the cliff, stretching for hand- and footholds, the familiar smell of sun-warmed rock flooding him with memories of so many other climbs, from the first scrambles in the White Mountains of New Hampshire to his summit of El Capitan in Yosemite on his twenty-first birthday.
He had gone on to establish new routes and lead climbing expeditions all over the world, but even the most extensive expedition was reduced to the simple act of the next move and then the next, relying on his body to carry him up and up, testing his nerve and his limits, believing he would always reach the top.
Late afternoon, he was resting on a ledge halfway up the cliff after driving in a pin to mark the beginning of a walkway that would jut from the canyon wall when a Rayford County Sheriff’s Department SUV crawled down the road into the canyon and parked in front of the trailer. A deputy exited.
“Up here!” Ian shouted and waved, catching the deputy’s attention. “I’ll be right down.”
He was down in a matter of minutes and walked over to meet Aaron Ames.
“I heard you were a big-time mountain climber,” Aaron said by way of greeting.
“It’s been my focus the last few years.”
“So why come to Eagle Mountain and do this?” He gestured toward the wall Ian had just descended.
“I saw my first via ferrata in France. I was struck by how it brought so many different people to challenge themselves in the mountains. I wanted to recreate that kind of community.”
“I see that banner is still up there.”
Ian looked over his shoulder at the sheet the protesters had hung. Only two sides remained fastened, so the cloth draped, a limp flag. “I thought I’d see how long it would stay up there,” he said. “Not much longer, I don’t think.” He turned back to Aaron. “What brings you here?”
“We’ve identified the remains found here.”
“Come in and let’s sit down.”
Inside the trailer, Ian filled a glass with water from a pitcher in the refrigerator and drank it down. “Would you like some?” he asked Aaron. “Or I could make coffee.”
“Nothing for me, thanks.”
Ian sat at his desk, and Aaron took the chair opposite. “The couple in your cave were Abby and Gerald Boston,” Aaron said. “They were a newly married couple who disappeared from Eagle Mountain almost fifty years ago. Their families thought they had left town and cut ties with everyone. If they were planning to leave, they didn’t get very far.”
“How were you able to identify them so quickly?” Ian asked.
“We got lucky. Gerald’s driver’s license was in a rotting billfold beneath the body. Since he was from Eagle Mountain, we contacted the local dentist. He’s the son of the dentist who cared for the Bostons,” he said. “We were able to get his dental records from storage and confirm the identity. From there, we obtained his wife’s records and confirmed the second skeleton belonged to her.”
“Fifty years. And no one knew what happened to them?”
“We found a relative still living in town—a nephew. And we talked to the nephew’s dad, who lives in Phoenix. They all said Gerald had talked of making a fresh start someplace new. When he and Abby disappeared, the relatives assumed that’s what they had done.”
“Any idea who killed them?”
“None. We recovered the bullets that killed them, but it was a common caliber. Any other evidence like DNA rotted away a long time ago. We’ll probably never know what happened to them.”
Ian nodded. “It’s strange to think they were up there all those years and no one knew it.”
“Bethany says you offered her a job.”
The abrupt shift in conversation didn’t surprise Ian. He had been expecting it ever since he’d seen it was Aaron in the sheriff’s cruiser. “I did.”
“Why her?”
“She’s smart, friendly and calm in a crisis. She’s dependable. I need someone like that.”
