“I’ll have it for you soon as I can … And what about Mr. Foley …?”
Hauck paused. He could simply take Brooke off the hook and just speak with him. “Tell Tom it’s nice out here if he’d like to meet me for a drink at the Ajax Tavern …”
“Oh, I’m sure he’ll appreciate the humor. I’ll be back with the information you’re looking for as soon as I have it,” Brooke said. “In the meantime, try and stay out of trouble. The mountains are beautiful out there. How are you spending your day?”
“On the water.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Dani took him whitewater rafting. She took her normal shift on the afternoon run. There were seven people on board, a myriad of ages, and Hauck went along.
“I want to introduce my favorite godfather sitting up in front,” she said, as they coasted toward Entrance Exam. “Just want everyone to know, no special treatment for him … You gotta earn your place up there and paddle like everyone else …”
“Not a problem,” Hauck called back.
“Well, he’s just used to a desk job these days. So we’ll see. The rest of you are gonna have to make up for him. And by the way, that’s our first challenge up there.”
Hauck loved it. The reckless feeling of speed and that you might careen over at any point. The bumps, like doing the moguls on the slopes. The feel of icy whitewater against him. He even went in for a plunge at some point, at the end of the course when the water was calm.
“How’s that water feel, Uncle Ty? Not exactly like the Caribbean, huh? Funny how the jet stream doesn’t quite make it up here … The ol’ Arctic vortex does, though …”
Everyone laughed.
Hauck saw what it was that spoke so personally to her out here.
On the ride back, he sat next to Dani on the bus and they talked about her life out here. She was pretty and funny, and seemed to cater to the younger kids, who no doubt thought she was about the coolest, sexiest counselor they’d ever had.
And she was sharp, pointing out some geological details—how the river was formed, the sturdy characteristics of the aspen trees that are always the first to come back after a forest fire and are all connected by the roots. The massive avalanche fields, and how they occur. Nothing like the brash, obstinate gal he had met in jail.
When they got back to the company headquarters, she introduced him to Geoff, the owner, who was behind the counter showing videos of the raft going over the falls, which his crew had already put on a disk. Hauck noticed how he looked at Dani in a certain way, and how he said, “Nice to meet you, mate,” in that likable Aussie manner, and how maybe they would run into each other later on. Outside, as Hauck and Dani went to get in her wagon, he asked leadingly, “So is that the ‘no one special’ …?”
Dani shrugged. “Geoff’s okay, really. Though it’s probably not the best thing in the world to take up with the boss, right?” She opened the door and stepped in, without giving him his answer.
He shrugged as he got in. “Seemed nice to me.”
Inside, Hauck dug into his jacket and took out his cell. He kept it there while they were on the river. He saw that an email had come in from Brooke with a note: “I think this is what you’re looking for. No worries about the trail.”
He opened the attachment.
“You know anyone named Colin Adrian?” he said to Dani.
She shook her head. “Who’s that?”
“The white Jeep you’re so interested in seems to be registered to him.” He looked at her.
“Adrian?” She leaned over and took a look. It was just a registration. No driver’s license. Nothing else. “We could ask Allie. But I think she’s already up in Trey’s hometown with their son. The funeral’s on Wednesday.” Dani handed the phone back to him. “I don’t know anyone named that around here.”
“No reason you would. It says his address is on Tuttle Road. In Greeley.”
“Greeley?” Dani’s eyes looked over at his.
“That mean something?” he asked.
“I don’t know …” But her face took on a pallor that suggested that it did. “But Greeley’s where Trey was from, Uncle Ty.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“It doesn’t prove a thing,” he told her, over a venison steak and a long-overdue beer at Allegria on Main Street that night. Dani was clearly excited about what they’d found. “I looked it up. Greeley’s got a hundred thousand people in it. There’s even a university there. It’s not exactly much of a coincidence that someone else might have come from there.”
“I’ll give you that,” Dani said, over salmon in a tamarind glaze, “if you tell me what that someone is doing at the river for literally only forty-five minutes. He pretty much followed Trey in. He probably had no idea his car was being recorded. And he didn’t stick around any longer than it would have taken to drive down ahead of him and head down to the river. He could have been waiting for Trey there. Not to mention everything else that doesn’t make sense: the spot where he was killed; the missing helmet, the path I found.”
“It could have been for any reason.” Hauck cut a slice of his steak. “He could have just been driving around. He could have been taking nature shots for National Geographic for all I know.”
“You’re starting to sound like Wade,” Dani said.
“Speaking of whom, it’s my intention to hand this information over to him in the morning, just so you know.”
“You’re kidding?” She put down her fork. “Why?”