Page 71 of Everything She Feared

Jordan Falkner of Miles City was named on the fall Dean’s List at the University in Syracuse, New York.

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS THIS MONTH

Larry Carr

Penny Miner

Nancy St. Dennis

Wanda Simms

Leonard Krieger

Let us know about your events and activities!

The mug was set down.

The cursor highlighted the announcement of the six-year-old girl named Magdalena becoming a new member of the Kurtz family.

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Seattle, Washington

One by one,the Magdalena Kurtz files were closed on the laptop.

Now, Carrie Gardner smiled from the screen in pictures taken at the photo booth at the Westfarms mall near Hartford, Connecticut. She’s sixteen and hugging Ryan, her five-year-old brother, who’s sitting on her lap. They’re sticking out their tongues or laughing with big-eyed expressions in the series taken on a shopping trip with their mom.

Carrie is radiant, the life in her overwhelming.

Ryan can feel her holding him, hear her laughter and smell her Love’s Baby Soft perfume.

It was a perfect day.

Rubbing his eyes now, Ryan scanned the folders towered next to his laptop. His files were growing ever thicker with new information and the records he was continually gathering and studying over and over.

How many years have I been doing this?

Then, as it often did in these lonely hours, the memory came to him:

...with Mom and Dad, seeing Carrie off with a flurry of hugs and kisses at the Hartford airport. She’s returning to Arizona after coming home from college for a brief visit. Mom’s anxious for Carrie’s upcoming trip, driving from Arizona to Alaska. “Call us every day,” Mom says. “Promise.” Carrie with her bright smile says: “I promise, Mom.”

At the last minute, Dad surprises Carrie with a roll of cash. “Fill the tank every chance you get.” Carrie saying, “I’ll be home for Christmas or Thanksgiving.” Telling Ryan, “Watch over Mom and Dad for me and be good. You’re the best little brother in the world.” She crushes him in her arms. After pulling away she turns back, searches his face, hugs him again, harder, whispering, “I love you.”

Like she knew.

Like she knew it was the last time they would see each other.

He was eleven years old.

Carrie had flown back to ASU, then left Tempe for Alaska with her friend Willow Walker in Willow’s van. Their long journey would be a vacation, an adventure, before they started summer jobs in Fairbanks.

On the first day of their trip, Carrie called home from Orderville, Utah. On the second day she called from Idaho Falls, Idaho. But she didn’t call on the third day, the fourth or the fifth. Ryan remembered how the air began tightening at home, his mom and dad sensing something was wrong. How in those first days, concern rolled through them in small waves until his mom called Willow’s family. The Walkers hadn’t heard from Willow either and, yes, they were worried.

With each day the fear grew, leading to calls to police in Idaho, police in Arizona, Montana and Canada.

Ryan’s dad and Willow’s dad, who was a Baltimore cop, flew to Arizona to search for their daughters, renting a car, following their route into Idaho, then continuing into Montana. ASU student friends put up posters, held candlelight vigils, and a collection was started for a reward for information about the girls. Every day Ryan’s mother prayed for them.

All of it was futile.

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