Happy St Patrick’s Day, the one day of the year when we all wear green, eat stew or corned beef and cabbage, drink green beer, and pretend that we all have Irish roots.
Spring arrives on Friday! Yes. I’ll just pretend the dirty snow is sand and take it from there.
This week, the authors of Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt SILLY. I know how much you all love cliffhangers! I’m continuing with The Case of the Missing Prince, my newest Evie Chambers mystery. Enjoy.
That evening, after a sumptuous steak dinner with all the trimmings, Al and I made a list of everything we needed to do before our early morning flight on Friday. Then, after cleaning up the kitchen, we went to bed. Al was a skilled lover, and when I finally drifted off, I was as sated as any human being could possibly be, and as in love as any silly sixteen-year-old schoolgirl.
The next morning, I sent Hallie a message that we would be working from home and asked her to send whatever she’d found to my personal laptop. Within a matter of seconds, there were copious files about the four missing people Al had flagged yesterday and the efforts that had been made to find them. There were transcripts of interviews for the missing children and a detailed list of the areas searched and the means by which it had been done. For the young skier, in addition to all of that, there was video footage of him on the slopes, eating in restaurants, and drinking at a bar. Finally, there were images of him moving throughout the village of Tremblant heading toward his hotel the night he disappeared. His wallet, minus the cash he’d had, was discovered after the snow melted six weeks later, but that was all that had been found despite a detailed and well-documented search. There was even a video tape of a French program that had been made about his disappearance. Finally, while there wasn’t as much information on the sixteen-year-old, that area of Saskatchewan had experienced severe forest fires, and the reserve had been evacuated. Apparently, he’d left with the indigenous people, but there was nothing after that.
Hallie had also managed to locate the information about the steps taken to locate Leo Sanders after the quake. Like the others, there were transcripts of interviews from everyone from the rescue workers, paramedics, hospital staff, and police, as well as hundreds of images collected from cell phones. I found the report that claimed someone had seen a climber follow someone off site, going toward the latrines. Maybe my comment about him having to relieve himself hadn’t been that far off-base.
I got coffee while Al continued to look at transcripts. Hallie had promised the information on Popa and the others by noon. I was on my way to my room to start packing when Al called out to me.
“I think I’ve found him.”
“What? Where? Are you sure?”
Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.
Living the Dream 