“On it,” Aggie called back.

“Sure as hell, it’s going to snow tonight.” That was Zeke.

Rob glanced at Adam. He was surprised at how bleak he looked. Adam sounded unemotional as he said, “If the girl is involved, there’s a strong possibility that she had help. Which means there’s a good chance she’ll have food and shelter tonight.”

Rob said, “And if she isn’t involved, there’s a good chance she’s going to freeze to death.”

Frankie said, “You don’t have kids do you, Agent Darling?”

“No,” Adam said.

“I didn’t think so. There’s no way in hell that girl had anything to do with her mother’s death. I’d stake my badge on it.”

Adam seemed strangely at a loss for words, and Rob surprised himself by saying, “In the interests of accuracy, you don’t have kids either, Frankie. So nobody better stake their badge on anything till we find Tiffany and hear what she has to say.”

Adam threw him a strange look, and Rob wished he was better at reading emotion in another guy’s eyes because he had no idea what that dark, almost uncertain glance meant. It gave him a funny feeling in his solar plexus.

Adam had already turned his attention to Frankie. “Why are you so sure the Joseph girl isn’t involved?”

“A cop’s instinct. I just am.”

“No,” Adam said slowly. “It’s more than that. Why did you feel that you needed the FBI’s support for a simple homicide?”

“It’s a homicide on federal land, for one thing.”

“That’s not the reason though,” Adam said. Patient and persistent. He was probably very good at his job. The thought hadn’t occurred to Rob before. Maybe because it hadn’t mattered to him before.

Though he still couldn’t decipher Adam’s expression, he knew Frankie well enough to know when she was lying. Well, prevaricating, she’d have said.

“Why us?” Adam pressed.

Frankie seemed to struggle internally before bursting out, “Because I don’t think she’s the first.”

“Not this again,” Zeke groaned. It was all Rob could do not to echo the sentiment. When it came to this, he and Zeke were in total agreement.

“The first what?” Adam asked.

Zeke was shaking his head. Frankie looked at Rob.

Adam said, “Somebody ought to bring me up to speed.”

Once again Frankie nodded to Rob, only more forcefully.

Rob sighed. “Back in December, a college student staying with friends at one of the forest ski chalets claimed that a man tried to abduct her.”

“Abduct or assault?”

“Abduct.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Adam said.

“It was a house party. These were kids on winter break. They were all drinking. A lot. I think it’s possible one of the guys took a joke too far.”

“A joke?” There it was, that look of disapproval.

“Or maybe it was a genuine attempt at sexual assault. It’s impossible to know for sure. The girl was frightened but unharmed. And largely incoherent.”

Adam said, “You checked the alibi of everyone in the house for the time of the alleged abduction?”

“Gee, I never thought of that,” Rob drawled. “Too bad you weren’t here.”

Adam’s face tightened.

“Haskell,” Frankie said in warning. If she was using his last name, she was genuinely irked. So was he. Maybe they weren’t the FBI, but they did understand basic police work.

“Yes,” Rob said. “We checked the alibi of everyone in the house. And since everyone in the house was blitzed, it doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot.”

“And in January?” Frankie prompted.

Rob sighed and said, “And on New Year’s Eve a couple of girls walking back to their lake cabin claimed that a man jumped out of the trees and tried to grab them. Or one of them. Again, alcohol was involved.”

“If you get over one hundred thousand people here during vacation season, sexual assault can’t be a rarity.”

“Well, as a matter of fact, it is a rarity,” Frankie said. “Between us, the park rangers, and the state police, we do a good job of keeping our community safe and secure.”

They did. Still, in the interests of fairness, Rob felt compelled to say, “Yeah, we do deal with the occasional assault, sexual and otherwise. We’ve even had to handle an attempted murder. These two incidents were maybe different.”

Zeke groaned.

“How so?” Adam asked.

Frankie was watching him with that go on! look. Rob said reluctantly, “In both cases the girls described their assailant as wearing war paint.”

In the silence that followed he could hear the fax machine spitting out paper in the next room, and Aggie’s muted voice still speaking on the phone.

Adam said at last, “Is it possible these women mistook mud or an attempt at disguise for something else?”

“Camo face paint,” Rob agreed. “I thought that was one possibility.” And he had a most likely suspect in mind too. He hadn’t been able to prove anything against Gibbs Sandy—and in any case, he’d never been convinced that the girls were reliable witnesses.

“In both cases those girls described Indian war paint,” Frankie said. “Those were their exact words. Indian war paint.”

Adam raised his brows. Maybe at the political incorrectness of the word “Indian.”

Zeke said, “Three drunk-off-their-asses chicks, two who, we know for a fact, had been to the museum—”

“Two possible attempted abductions during the past two months,” Adam said thoughtfully. “And now the Joseph girl is missing.”

“Hold up,” Rob protested. “We were both agreed that there were no signs of struggle at the Joseph house.” He thought of the unlocked window. “Maybe she saw something and fled. There’s no indication that Tiffany was abducted. She may not have even been on the premises when her mother was attacked. For all we know, she skipped out on one friend for a ski weekend with another. Kids do that stuff. But even if that’s not what happened, even if Tiffany’s disappearance is related to Cynthia’s death, it’s still a stretch to claim that this is part of a larger pattern of half-assed attempts at abduction.”

“True,” Adam said to his surprise. “The house needs to be processed. Until any—”

“Sheriff Clark on line one!” hollered Aggie.

Frankie gestured to them to be quiet and picked up the phone. “John? You heard? Well, I need some help.”

Rob looked at Adam. Adam offered an odd, self-conscious half smile.

“Was that all Agent Russell had to say?” Rob asked, for lack of any better topic.

“It was all he had to say pertinent to the investigation.”

There were unspoken volumes behind those precise, clipped syllables, and Rob repressed a snort.

In the background, Frankie was crisp and to the point. When she disconnected nine minutes later, she said, “Here comes the cavalry. And there goes any chance of keeping the media out of this.”

“There was never any chance of keeping them out,” Adam said. “Anyway, we can use the media to our advantage.”

Zeke said, “Yeah? Then you can be our press secretary.”

“State Police!” screeched Aggie. “Line two.”

Frankie reached for the phone, pausing to say, “Rob, you and Zeke need to round up every available body to help with this search. We don’t have time to wait for reinforcements. Anyway, what we really need are locals, people who know the area. We don’t have many hours of daylight left.”

“Roger,” Rob said.

“We’ll do what we can tonight and, if we don’t find her, we’ll start all over in the morning. But let’s find her.” Frankie reached again for the phone.

* * * * *

They did not find her.

They did not find any trace of Tiffany Joseph.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. Everybody who could walk was out searching for the girl even before the state police and Klamath Falls reinforcements arrived.

Bert Berkle brought his dogs and began to work the woods around the museum and the Joseph house. There was a lot of snuffling and baying and running in circles, however, the dogs did not pick up a hot track. They did not pick up any track at all.