When a kid goes missing, there’s really no possible way to justify the importance of a seventy thousand dollar car sale. I was elbow-deep in 240Z engine grease, replacing the ignition switch for the umpteenth time, when my sister, Renée, called to test my resolve on this matter. 

The Nokia bounced and rattled its joyous Spanish dance on the cowl panel of the little red coupe. The cellphone’s green screen revealed nothing about the caller. Odors of automotive fluids and antique rubber calmed the flutter in my chest. But the song played on.

I muttered an expletive.  

“Probably won’t answer itself,” Akira said from the next bay. His ancient Japanese frame held a Chilton manual against the fender of a 1998 Acura. 

“Just bad news trying to interrupt a perfectly good day,” I countered, irritation clipping my words. “Johnny’s due any second.” 

“You think he’s going to buy a Lexus.” Akira didn’t ask questions. He stated fears out loud and let them soak in. The old man had been with Dad since the early ‘80s—our resident voice of virtue. 

The Nokia ended its chorus. 

“I think if he bites on an LX400 for his wife, the deal for six Tundras is a lock.” I lifted my wrench, poised to dash the little phone to bits if it rejoined with another jubilation. “Might even save us from bankruptcy.” 

“Just don’t bet your whole heart on it,” Akira said.

I scowled and shook my confused head before turning attention towards the sales lot.

Smoke-colored skies, visible through the bay door windows, reminded me of the dry Montana summer that followed the false threat of Y2K. Hundreds of thousands of acres burned. Johnny Martin would be a reluctant shopper, banking on next year’s wheat and corn yields. A starving herd of cattle had a way of turning a rancher stingy. 

But clouds promised snow. I hoped Johnny’s mind was on a white Christmas with a new car under the tree for his beloved wife. 

The phantom smell of ash tightened my chest. A brief reminder of the firestorm. 

I grabbed the Nokia. “It’s just Mother trying to trick me into answering. How does she know when something important is about to happen?” 

“I don’t think she’s psychic,” Akira said.

“Bet me.” Vile language tickled my throat and threatened to spill onto the polished concrete like vomit. 

“She’s calling from a phone booth or the diner so I won’t recognize the caller I.D.”

Akira chuckled. “You give her a lot of unearned credit for deception. Might be overstated.” 

I groaned, trapping the little beast between a pinky and the crook in my thumb. If this call was meant to disrupt my internal sales process, the mess I called a car dealership would come apart like the 2000 presidential election. 

A deep inhale pulled the scent of well-used oil and broken down rubber into my soul, soothing those jagged nerves. I poked one more blackened smear onto the keypad.

“This is Connor,” I answered.

“I need your help,” Renée blurted in scratchy tones. 

Relief flooded in… for a tenth of a second. Then my sphincter tightened. “I’m sorry, this number is out of service.”

“Seriously, Connor.” Her refuge high in the Montana Rockies, trapped between the panhandle of Idaho and the Canadian border, snatched bits of her inevitable plea for rescue. 

“Oh! Now it’s coming back online.” I put little effort into hiding my sarcasm. 

“You’re not funny.”

“I’m not joking.”

“You have to help.”

“Well, Sis, finally come to your senses? Need someone to drive you home?”

“No, Connor!” Her insolence boosted the signal strength a full bar. “I need you to find a little girl.”

“Cool beans,” I said, contemplating effective phrases to put her off as quickly as possible. “So happens I have one at home. Not sure her mother’s going to want you anywhere near her, though.”

“This is for reals, Connor.” Her anger kicked at me through the modulation. 

“Always is, Renée. It was for reals when you left me holding the financial paperwork for Jerry Parker and it’s gotten more serious by the day.”

“I’m sorry, Connor. But this time I really do need your help. This girl, this child, she’s missing. No older than Penny.”

I clenched my teeth. “Shit, Renée. How do you do that? Use my sweet baby girl to leverage sympathy.” Pinching my eyes shut spawned flashes of Renée loading her car before her taillights winked thanklessly as she drove off. “You feel the need to call every three months and stick a knife in? Give it a little twist?” 

“That’s not it, Connor.” Behind the crackle of the poor connection, a whimper. “I shouldn’t have left you like that. I just couldn’t….”

Every word Renée spoke needed caution tape around it. She’d mastered the exploitation of sympathy, conjuring help whenever she cried Wolfenstein.

“I’ve got a life here, Sister run-for-the-hills.” A cruel tag meant to hurt. “Can’t drop it all to play your games or calm your jitters.”

“This is not a game and it’s not jitters, Connor. Vicky didn’t even want me to ask.” She paused for a breath. “I’m calling for her little sister. You’re the only detective I know who can find her.” 

Aw, of course. Vicky at the center. Convinced my sister to bolt for the mountains with a conveniently pocketed baby sister to raise the stakes. Pure catnip for a wounded soul like Renée.

“Not much I can do, sis.” Spoken even as the dangerous urge bubbled to life. 

A gut impulse to solve riddles designed to get me into trouble. My mind spun webs of intrigue and adventure around the mystery of her missing child. 

“Got to close this deal. Johnny Martin’s buying seven brand new Tundras.” 

She whinnied into the mouthpiece. “Cars? What is the poor child going to do, Connor?”

I trapped the Nokia in the crook of my neck. Filth from the Datsun’s engine covered my hands. I scrubbed with the shop rag, fighting a memory of the last time I put off the urge for sleuthing. Hesitation in that case resulted in a dead horse and one enraged client. 

“How long?” I asked.

“What?”

“How long has the child been missing?”

“Oh.” She fumbled the phone. “Sorry. Since last night I guess. We were out—me and Vicky. Her mother says Kayla’s bed was made when she got up this morning at six.” Her voice shook.

“Anyone call the cops?”

“They won’t do anything.” 

That didn’t sound right. “Since when does law enforcement ignore missing children, Renée?”

She shrieked. “I don’t know but they aren’t doing anything to find her!”

“Well, dammit girl, I can’t be there and here at the same time. I need to close this deal.” 

“A couple of days, Connor. That’s all I’m asking.”

“It’s a day’s drive one way, Sis!” The puny shop rag wasn’t taking the grease off. “What are you selling me? This kid’s just going to bob to the surface because I drove six hundred miles?”

Another ear-piercing screech. “My God, Connor! What if she’s drowned in a lake?”

The image of a girl floated across my mind’s eye, one as young as my own precious angel, face down in a lake…. Oh, my gawd! Why would Renée do this to me? I scoured grime until a burning itch covered my fingers, scraping away the horrifying mental picture. 

“What are her parents doing about it?”

“Her mother’s turned inside out with fear, pacing and calling friends. The child’s father is just plain crazy.” 

“Not helpful, Renée. Your father was crazy and you turned out just fine.” A total fabrication evidenced by this phone call. My sister was as neurotic as a rodeo clown. 

“This guy is ten times the crazy Dixon ever was!” she yelled. I swear her spit hit me in the ear.

“Tell the cops, Renée. Cops are there in the mountains with you. I’m not. I’m six hundred miles away, in the middle of the biggest sale we’ve ever had. You need someone right next door to help you, not some patsy on the other side of the state.” Examination of my pinky revealed a patch missing skin. I shook it vigorously to ease the sting. “I’ve got no time for PI work. Nansi’d smack me with a frying pan for even talking to you. I’d be homeless if I jumped into a missing person case in the mountains days before Thanksgiving.” 

A small breeze through the cracks in the bay doors tickled the hair on my neck. Crime solving ops stirred me to a froth, and traipsing the untamed Rockies in search of a missing child or stray horse or lost dog had my heart pumping. Hard. Add a dose of redemption for the dead horse? Renée had definitely found the nerve to pluck. 

Except I had work to do here, at ground zero.

I inhaled deeply, pressing my heels against the floor. “I can’t help you, sis. You left me to manage the business alone. You deserted, expected me to handle the load. I’m handling it. If I lock this sale, Pierce Toyota avoids bankruptcy. You get that, right?” Splash blame and shame all over her, end this argument with a hard stop. 

She released a wail that deadened the line.

I waited, half hopeful we’d lost the connection. Vivid images of a small child stumbling through a forest with tears streaming down her dirty face filled the vacuum. I tightened my grip  on the cellphone.

“Renée?” 

“I’m here.” She said at last, wispy.

“I’d help if I could,” I said, squeezing my eyes tight against the unsettling mental pictures.

“Then help,” she replied, steam running low. The gears of her mind ground with virtually audible gnawing. “These local yokels aren’t even looking, Connor. The mother believes the father is hiding Kayla, but the cops….” Her words faded, and then rose in volume to end with a bang. “The father is a blatant liar!”

Concentrate on the deal in front of me, the voice of reason cried. Renée always got facts and dramatic tension confused. Yet, the grain of truth that seeds a rumor niggled. 

“You talked to the father?”

“He’s a liar, Connor!” Her voice ramped toward outrage. “He won’t admit to anything, talks in circles. Nobody knows what’s going on with him. You have to come and prove he’s lying and find the girl before something bad happens to her.”

The irrational accusations confused me. Her demanding tone pushed my resentment buttons. I didn’t want to help her. “Let me think on it. Got to close this deal.”

“There’s no time,” she shouted. Crackles of tiny lightning singed my ear. “How many hours does a five-year-old have before she’s… I can’t even say it. What if it was Penelope?” 

The line went flat.

“Renée?” I thought I heard a horse snort. “Renée!” 

Nothing. Only the desolate sound of a preschool child in a shadowy mountain forest, snowfall fluttering down around her.