| "The Other" |
| Part 20 by Chrystal Kay |
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| Disclaimer: Roswell, the characters, and the situations are owned by Regency Television and 20th Century Fox. No infringement intended. Category: Crossover Stories Rating: PG-13 |
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| Jarod asked Luke if he wanted to hear the rest, and Luke nodded eagerly. He continued his explanation. “Since none of the missing men were well connected enough for a big investigation, the closest thing to an investigation was when the first one never returned to his room in a Flagstaff Hotel.” Jarod looked up at his audience and noted the look of concentration on his face. “Now. Each of these men turned up missing at approximately two month intervals. Look here.” He showed Luke a couple printouts from the park service inner files. “This is a report on the search efforts for a man visiting the center, four months prior to the first of the last five. He and a friend checked into the center and bought permits to hike down to the bottom and camp on the other side of the river. His friend was found dead, on the third day of the search, with no visible reason for his death. The first man was never found at all.” He pulled out another report. “This is a report on a man who skipped out on a mule pack trip. At the bottom. He was seen to be talking to a young man outside of the bottom Lodge, and then never took the bunk assigned to him for the night. It was assumed that he had come up by himself, somehow. His room, up at the center, was empty. He had apparently packed his things, and left. All without talking to anyone or being seen. Even though his car was still in the parking lot, there was no search and no missing persons report ever made. That was two months later.” He dropped the notes back on the table and waited for Luke’s reaction. Luke was sitting down, staring at the floor. His brow drawn together in concentration. “Then it’s almost a hundred percent probable that all the men disappeared in the canyon. At the bottom of the canyon.” He was quiet for a moment then asked. “With all this evidence, why hasn’t there been a major investigation into all these disappearances? It’s not likely that all the men stopped eighty miles away at an ATM before coming to the Canyon, so it’s even more probable that someone used the bank cards after their disappearance. That makes murder an even higher probability.” Luke looked up to see Jarod nodding in approval. “You see it because all the evidence is gathered together. No one else has ever pulled all the pieces into one file. I’m going to get to the ‘bottom’ of this and find out who is causing the disappearances.” Jarod looked down and to the side, thinking of people left at home, people who would never know what happened to their loved ones if he didn’t. Then he looked at his wristwatch. “Hey, the coffee shop opened ten minutes ago.” Luke jumped up and ran for the bathroom. “I’ll be out in a jiff!” Five minutes later, scrubbed and dressed, Luke was dragging his feet getting to the coffee shop. “What if this doesn’t work? What if she is scared of me or something? Some people don’t like to be around people with ‘gifts’. It’s not much of an improvement on being a you-know-what.” |
| Part 19 | Index | Part 21 |