Sara (3 page)

Driving his blue 2000 Ford Taurus north on Interstate 25, Mike had already constructed over one hundred different scenarios to explain what may have happened to his daughter. The interchange between the two major highways in Denver, commonly referred to as “the mouse trap” could have confused Sara and caused her to become disoriented. She may be in New Mexico, or Kansas right now, too embarrassed to call for help. She may have stopped to photograph something along the road and lost track of time. That was definitely something Sara was capable of, but she would have certainly called to keep her parents from worrying. Mike passed a semi-truck with Indiana tags. The headlights from his Taurus illuminated two photos of missing children, posted on the back of the refrigerated trailer.

“
No,” he told himself, “Something is wrong. Something is very wrong!”

Arriving in Laramie, Wyoming an hour before daylight, Mike Haller drove to the University of Wyoming
and parked in front of the eight story high Orr Hall, where his daughter was planning to live during her freshman year at college. A quick survey of the parking lot failed to turn up Sara’s Honda Civic. The large double doors to the hall were locked but a note was taped to the inside, giving a contact number in case of emergency. Mike called the number and was transferred to campus security. An officer was dispatched immediately.

             
“Hello, Mr. Haller.” The security officer noticed Mike’s uniform and corrected himself. “I’m sorry, uh, Deputy Haller. My name is Ken, how can we help you this morning?”

They shook hands.
Mike was all business. “I need to find out if my daughter, Sara Jean Haller, has checked in yet.”

             
“Absolutely, sir. If I can see your identification and if you have your daughter’s student I.D. number, I will get you an answer real quick.”

             
Mike pulled his wallet from his back pocket and removed his government issued I.D. along with a piece of paper containing all of his daughter’s information and a recent photo. The security officer took the information, returned to his pickup, and radioed into his office.

             
Ken stepped out of his truck shaking his head before returning the items to Mike.

“I’m sorry, sir, we have no record of your daughter checking in to college housing yet
. I will admit that this time of year, things are a little hectic and we sometimes miss a student or two. Is she staying here at Orr Hall?”

             
“Yes.” Mike looked at the folded paper in his hand, “Room 611B.”

             
The security guard, eager to help a fellow officer, pulled his radio from his belt.

“Dispatch, can you contact
the student advisor at Orr Hall and have her check room 611B. I have a worried father here looking for his daughter. Her name is Sara Haller, and she was scheduled to check in yesterday.”

             
After several minutes of waiting, Mike looked up when a light came on in a room on the sixth floor. Silently, he willed his daughter’s sleepy face to appear between the slightly parted curtains. Inside, he pleaded for her sleepy voice to come over the security officer’s radio, “What is it, Daddy?”

The radio crackled and for a moment his heart actually stopped. The scratchy voice informed the two men that room 611 was empty. Mike
slouched then looked up again as the room returned to darkness.

“
Sara,” he whispered.

             
Without acknowledging the officer, Mike returned to his Taurus and collapsed into the front seat. For the first time in twenty years, he cried.

three

Gray light faded slowly in and out of focus as persistent drops of water dripped against an exposed elbow. Consciousness came slowly to Sara Jean Haller while pain and numbing chill coaxed her from her mental cocoon. The wound in her chest screamed with agony, demanding a voice be given to its suffering. Her left wrist throbbed in painful weakness and shards of dried blood tried to complete the task of opening her throat to the world. Under the mattress, the cold and humid air hung heavily with odors of cologne and semen and urine soaked batting.

             
Sara opened her eyes and was overcome by the realization that she was still alive. Questions assaulted her foggy awareness.

“Did the two men leave me alive so they could return and continue this nightmare?
”

             
She listened carefully for sounds outside the shallow grave. Echoes of dripping water and soft distant thunder were all she could identify. She began to shake uncontrollably with chill and the shock of her brutal wounds.

             
Using her right hand, Sara moved the mattress to one side, just a little, and peeked out into the gray morning air, looking for signs of her attackers. The forest was quiet, except for a slow descending rain tasked to cleanse this place of the abomination that transpired here.

             
Sara shoved aside her grave’s cover and sat up slowly, exposing her pallid and naked skin to the clinging droplets of rain. Searching one last time for movement among the trees, she finally raised her face to heaven and let the beads of water wash the dried blood from her neck. Sara Jean Haller was alive!

four

Mike Haller cruised slowly through the Best Western parking lot outside Cheyenne, Wyoming, searching for Sara’s Civic. He was tired and emotionally drained from the long night of searching and worrying. Pulling into the last empty parking space, he punched the call button on his cell phone to redial his daughter’s number. It immediately forwarded to her voice mail.

“Don’t hang up, silly. Leave me a message and I’ll call you back. I promise!”

              Mike hung his head and waited for the beep. “Sara, honey, this is your dad again.” After a long pause, he continued, “I just need to know that you are safe, Squeaky. Your mother and I are pretty worried. We’re not mad at you at all, so please call one of us as soon as you get this message.” He wiped his eyes and ran his wet fingers through his hair. “I love you, baby doll.”

             
Mike pressed the end key on his phone before unlocking and opening his door. He climbed slowly from the seat, like a man twice his age, and stood stretching. The cool morning air of Cheyenne filled his lungs and chased away a few of the cobwebs clogging his brain. Pulling Sara’s photo from his shirt pocket, he found the entrance to the lobby and walked up to an empty front desk.

             
A tall, curly haired woman in her mid-thirties emerged from a small office. Her bubbling personality was completely out of sync with Mike Haller’s mood. “Howdy, Sheriff, what can I do for you?”

             
Mike looked down at his crumpled uniform. He should have brought a change of clothes. “It’s Deputy, and I’m afraid that I’m a little out of my jurisdiction.”

             
The woman winked and offered a friendly smile.“I won’t tell, Deputy. You look awful tired. Do you need a room?”

             
Mike leaned against the desk and gently placed Sara’s photo in front of the woman. “This is my daughter, Sara Haller. She was on her way to Laramie yesterday, but she didn’t make it. Do you remember seeing her, or can you check your register to see if maybe she stopped here?”

             
The clerk pulled the photo a little closer and whistled. “She is a pretty one all right.”

After studying the
photo for a bit, she continued, “I pulled a double shift last night; can’t find anyone willing to work nights anymore. Anyway, I’ve been here since four, yesterday afternoon, and I didn’t rent a room to her.”

The woman began typing on her computer. “Sara Haller
, you said?”

             
Mike nodded. “Yes. No
h
in Sara, two
L
’s in Haller.”

             
The clerk searched the computer screen, hitting the enter key every few seconds while shaking her head. A frown finally crossed her face. “No, I’m really sorry, Deputy. I wish I had better news for you.”

Finally looking up, she offered, “Can I get you a cup of coffee or something? You look bone tired.”

              Already thinking past this dead end, Mike declined the coffee. “Thank you,” he said quietly before retrieving the photo and walking back to his car.

Driving south on the interstate, toward Colorado, Mike’s mind finally opened up to the possibilities of what may have happened to his daughter. He glanced at his watch and noted that 8 o’clock had finally rolled past. If Sara were in control of her situation, she would have checked in
with someone by now. She had never been a rebellious child, and without fail had always considered the feelings of others before her own. He tried to wrap his mind around the likelihood that she had been kidnapped. Being in law enforcement for six years, he was well aware of the crimes that may have been committed against her. Hell, she may not have made it out of the mountains of Colorado. Mike shook his head. She could also be a thousand miles away by now.

             
The cell phone in his shirt pocket chirped loudly as Mike crossed the state line into Colorado. He pulled the phone from his pocket, hoping his daughter’s name would flash across the caller I.D. It was his wife.

             
“Hi, honey. Has Sara called home yet?” Mike knew the answer before asking.

             
“No,” Jean said quietly.

Mike could tell that
she had been crying. He stayed silent and waited for her to continue.

             
“Mike, Sheriff Casey is with me. He wants to talk to you.”

             
“Okay, honey. Put him on.”

             
A gruff voice, sandpapered with time and dust, came on the line.

“Mike, this is Ben Casey.”

Without waiting for a reply, the sheriff continued, “I got Judge Weiss out of bed this morning and convinced him to provide us with a search warrant for Sara’s phone records.”

             
Ben Casey had been Sheriff of Eagle County, Colorado, nearly three months now. After the death of Sheriff Danny Blum in the spring, a special election was held and Ben Casey ran unopposed. A long-time rancher in the community, Casey came to the job with a respected family name and a reputation for getting things done.

             
Sheriff Casey cleared his throat.

“Dennis is talking to a supervisor wi
th the cell phone company now.”

Dennis
Shepard was Chief of Police for the small town of Eagle. Since the Hallers lived within the city limits of Eagle, the missing person case would be handled through his department.

             
“Thanks, Ben,” was all Mike could think to say.

             
“Did you get any sleep last night, Mike? You sound like shit.”

             
“No,” Mike admitted, “I’ve been driving the highway, looking for any sign of Sara’s car.”

             
Sheriff Casey huffed into the phone, then adopted a fatherly tone.

“Pull over as soon as you can, son. Catch a twenty minute nap. You won’t do your daughter any good if you’re twisted into a pile of wreckage under a
semi on the side of the road.”

             
At the mention of sleep, fatigue washed over Mike. Maybe a twenty minute nap behind the wheel would help clear his mind.

             
“Yes, sir,” he said. “I’ll pull over shortly and take your advice.”

             
“Good,” came the graveled voice of the sheriff. “Let’s get you and Sara home safely. This county needs more folks like you.”

             
Mike heard a commotion in the background and Jean came back on the line. This time there was a hint of encouragement in her voice.

             
“Mike, Sara made a call to our roadside service yesterday just after two o’clock in the afternoon. Chief Shepard is on the phone with them right now.”

Jean seemed to be struggling with the new information.

“She broke down or something, Mike. That means she’s okay, right?”

             
For the first time in twelve hours, he felt a shot of excitement surge through his chest.

“It’s good information, Jean. It doesn’t answer why she hasn’t called though.”

              Jean replied curtly, “Her cell phone battery probably died, Mike. Why do you always have to be so damn negative? I swear to God you can never see the good in things. Here, Chief Shepard wants to speak with you.”

             
Mike was stung by his wife’s admonition and was trying to reply when the Chief of Police came on the line.

“Mike, where are you at?”

              Mike looked out the side window, then over his shoulder. Nothing but brown prairie grass and Yucca plants filled his sight.

“I’m not sure,
Chief. On the interstate just south of Cheyenne.”

             
“Good,” he replied. “Your daughter called for a tow truck on Highway 287 yesterday afternoon. She said that she was north of a little town called Ranch Springs. Mile marker 369. That puts her about twenty miles north of Fort Collins, forty-five miles south of Laramie, Wyoming.”

             
“Damn it!” Mike said. “She was supposed to stick to the interstate just for this reason.”

             
“Well,” Chief Shepard responded, “she didn’t. She’s a big girl now and damned if big girls don’t stop listening to their daddy’s advice. I could strangle my daughter sometimes.”

             
Mike let out a short laugh. “Sara will feel lucky if I only strangle her.”

             
Dennis Shepard cautioned, “Go easy on her, Mike. She made a simple decision on her own, got a flat tire, and was too embarrassed to call home to tell her father.”

             
A ton of weight lifted from Mike’s shoulders. That was exactly what his daughter would do. The flat tire probably damaged something on her car, so Sara was sitting in some cheap motel waiting for it to be repaired, determined to see this through without her parent’s help. That was Sara in a nutshell.

             
“Thank God!” Mike said. The relief was obvious in his voice. “And thank you, Chief. I owe you.”

             
Dennis Shepard scoffed, “It’s my job, Deputy. The roadside service dispatched a tow truck from Duncan Towing there in Ranch Springs. Do you want me to call them?”

             
Mike smiled to himself. “No thanks, Chief. I’ll surprise Sara and take her out to breakfast.”

             
“You’re a good man, Deputy Haller. Now, here’s your wife.”

             
Jean was back on the phone immediately. The scolding she had given Mike earlier apparently forgotten.

“How long will it take you to get there, sweetie?”

              Mike looked at his watch. “I’ll be there within the hour, Jean. I’ll call you as soon as I finish tanning her hide.”

             
Jean knew her husband was kidding.

“Just don’t leave her side until you have her settled into her dorm room, okay?”

              Mike laughed, “I just might stay and walk her to class next week. I’ll call you soon.”

             
Mike tossed the phone onto the dash and picked up his map. A shortcut, named Owl Canyon Road, would cut at least thirty minutes from his drive. A smile crossed his face as he took the exit from the interstate highway. Things finally made sense and that was usually a good thing. Usually!