Free Search and Rescue by Gail Anderson-Dargatz Page A

“tips” to help them solve their cases.
    I knew the cops thought she was a crackpot. Jim was about the only emergency worker in town who took her seriously. Then again, I think he was still a little in love with her. He’d dated Mom after she divorced Dad.
    â€œBelieve me,” I told him. “I’m nothing like my mother.”
    Jim gave me a look like he knew better. We both turned back to the young man’s blackened car. Smoke and steam still billowed from the engine.
    â€œYou hear about the Miller girl?” Jim asked me.
    â€œHelen Miller? The woman who owns the bakery on Lakeshore Road?”
    â€œNo, her daughter, Amber.” Jim took off his helmet and ran a hand through his hair. “She’s missing. She went for a jog on the wilderness trail and got lost. She never came home.”
    I felt a chill run through me. I knew something about that story wasn’t quite right. “She’s seventeen,” I said, trying to shake off the feeling. “Girls that age forget to phone home. She’s likely just hanging out with her boyfriend.”
    â€œYou mean Doug Conner?” Jim shook his head. “My granddaughter told me they aren’t dating anymore. Amber broke up with him a couple of weeks ago. She had a basketball game scheduled for this afternoon. Her mom and her teammates said she’d never miss it.”
    I hugged myself. “She shouldn’t be out in this weather. We’re getting snow this evening.”
    â€œExactly,” said Jim. “Amber won’t last the night in that forest. Search and Rescue is trying to find her now. They’ve got a camp set up at the foot of Little Mountain.”
    I felt that familiar tug in my stomach again. “I’ve got to get over there,” I said. I turned away from Jim and opened my car door.
    â€œHey, what about Trevor?” Jim asked. “He took the day off for your date. I had to scramble to get a replacement.”
    Trevor was a firefighter, a member of Jim’s team. We’d met at a house fire a couple of months earlier. I was first to arrive that time too.
    â€œI’ll phone him,” I said. When Jim gave me that look, I said, “I will. I promise.”
    Jim knew I’d forgotten to call Trevor when I missed our last date. That time, my gut feeling led me to a car that had just smashed into a power pole. I waited with the driver until the ambulance arrived, then went to the hospital with her. I couldn’t leave her alone in that emergency room. She didn’t have family.
    â€œThere’s no point in going to the search-and-rescue camp now,” Jim told me. “You’ll be one of the first to hear what’s happened.”
    Jim was right. Matt Holden was the search manager for the area. He would send me a press release in the morning. I would use that to write up the story for the paper. Even so, I knew I had to get to that search-and-rescue base. I got in my car.
    â€œMatt won’t want you there,” Jim called through my closed window. “He hates reporters snooping around when they’re searching.”
    I knew that too, but the feeling I had now was stronger than I’d ever had before. I rolled down my window. “I’ve got to get over there,” I told Jim. “If I don’t, that girl won’t leave that forest alive.”

TWO
    A s I drove to the camp I grew even more certain I had to help find Amber. If I didn’t, I knew she would die. I had no idea how I knew. I just did. I had never been surer of anything in my life.
    The search-and-rescue base camp was set up at the foot of Little Mountain. The mobile command unit was an old school bus painted white. From that bus, Matt Holden planned the search and told volunteers what to do.
    I knocked lightly on the bus door, and Matt opened it. He seemed even taller than usual, staring down at me from the top of those stairs. He wore work boots and his orange