Read Endangered (9781101559017) for Free Online

then.”
    Rafael stood up, adjusted the holster on his belt. “Come get a close look.”
    As they approached, the Fischers glanced up. When the woman raised her head from her husband’s chest, Sam saw that a large red birthmark covered the jawline on the right side of her face and descended down her neck. Jenny twitched her long hair forward to cover it.
    Rafael nodded at Sam. She squatted to be on eye level with the couple. “Mr. Fischer?”
    Weary hazel eyes swiveled to meet hers.
    â€œRemember me?”
    Nothing.
    â€œFrom the path, last night, over by the trailhead. Five fifty or so? Zack ran from me to you?”
    Fred Fischer’s eyebrows came together in a V. “What?”
    Jenny’s hand shot out, and her broken nails clutched at Sam’s jeans. “You saw my baby? You saw Zack?”
    Sam focused on Fred’s face. “Mr. Fischer, remember how you waved to me? I waved back?”
    Jenny examined her husband’s perplexed expression.
    Fred shook his head. “I don’t remember that.”
    Sam swallowed around a sudden constriction in her throat.
    Jenny’s hand still hung on to the baggy denim at Sam’s knee. “I don’t understand. You saw Zack last night?”
    â€œI think so. He never told me his name. Was he wearing a Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirt?”
    Jenny let go of Sam’s jeans and pressed her hand over her own cracked lips. A tear rolled down her cheek.
    â€œThere were scratches on his face.” Sam indicated cross-hatching with a finger raised to her own cheek.
    â€œHe didn’t have those before,” Jenny sobbed. She clutched at the collar of her sweatshirt, wadding the material in her fists.
    â€œMr. Fischer,” Rafael asked, “did you have your hair in a ponytail yesterday evening?”
    â€œWhat?” The father raised a dirty hand to the oily strings that hung loose around his shoulders. “I don’t know.”
    Jenny said, “Yes, you did. I remember it was all coming out when you got here, when I called—” Her voice skipped like a needle on an old scratched record. “I called and called. Oh, my baby!” Twisting her neck, she buried her face in her husband’s shirtfront.
    Fred Fischer wrapped his arms around his wife, but his eyes were fixed on Sam. Tired, cold eyes. “Zack wandered off just as it got dark.” His tone was mechanical, as if he were repeating the information for the hundredth time. “And we never saw him again.”
    It sounded so final. Feeling like she’d been kicked in the stomach, Sam returned to the picnic bench.
    Rafael followed. “You said it was dark,” he theorized. “Maybe Fischer didn’t see you. Maybe you just thought he was waving. But you definitely saw Zack with this man?”
    The boy disappearing down the narrow path, the brambles snagging her vest, holding her back. “Zack ran away from me, toward him. There was shrubbery between us. I just assumed ...” Letting her words trail off, Sam lowered her head into her hands.
    If Fischer hadn’t waved at her, then whom had he been signaling? Could Zack have darted down the left fork, to the river? If the silhouetted man wasn’t Fischer, then who—?
    â€œYou’re back?” a gravelly voice barked in Sam’s ear.
    Kent and Rafael Castillo stiffened. Sam felt her own muscles clench, too. The speaker was an older woman with a severe iron gray bob and a rumpled National Park Service uniform. Meg Tanner, assistant superintendent.
    Sam held out her hand. “Hi, Meg. I’m here writing some articles about how the cougars are doing. How are you?”
    Tanner ignored Sam’s outstretched hand. “Been better.” She leveled a gnarled index finger at Rafael. “Castillo, I need you to take a report from Site 21.”
    His square face brightened. “They see something?”
    Tanner shook her head. “Another