Author's Note: This is a sequel to my Non-TG Novel, Missing Without A Trace: A Kelly Mitchell Mystery by Charles Schiman.
This is also a non-tg novel. However, I am a male writing the novel first-person as a female. And I created Kelly as the female person I thought I could have become--my alter ego, if you will--had I been born a girl.

The first novel, Missing Without A Trace: A Kelly Mitchell Mystery, is available for purchase online as a Nook Book at the Barnes and Noble Nook Store.

By four o’clock I was pacing the floor of my office. Why hadn’t Dean made his radio call yet? Had there been an accident? Had something happened to his transceiver? Had something terrible happened? I chewed my lower lip between my teeth. I would give Dean until five o’clock. No longer.

I walked quickly into the hangar and started checking the amphibian. I checked all the control surfaces of the aircraft and then climbed inside and sat in the pilot seat and methodically checked all the controls, looking out through the side windows at the bottoms of the wings to make certain the ailerons, rudder, flaps, and tail elevator were all functioning properly.

At a quarter to five, I couldn’t wait any longer. I picked up my phone and called the North Liberty Police Department and asked for the sheriff, my life-long friend, Hank Wallace. After an interminable wait, which was probably only a couple of moments, he came on the line.

“Kelly,” he said. “How are you?”

“There’s some sort of trouble at Spirit Lake,” I said without small talk or preamble. “I’ve got a family of tourists spending a week out there with Dean as their guide. He’s missed his radio check.”

“You are about to go check on them, right?” Hank said. Before I could answer, he went on. “Spirit Lake’s pretty tame, as I remember. Isolated, but no rough terrain or danger areas. Maybe something just went wrong with his transceiver.”

“I still need to go check on them. They’re the first tourist charter of the season, Hank. As far as I know, they’re the only camp out there right now. It’s too early in the season.”

“Do you want me to fly out there with you?”

“Um—no,” I said, after a moment of hesitation. “There’s no need for that. It’s probably just a broken wire or a burnt transistor or diode or something. I just wanted to let you know that something was up.”

“Okay then,” Hank replied. “You be careful out there and let me know what you find when you get there.” He paused and then added, “And take a breath and calm down a little. You sound nervous as hell.”

“I’m just fine,” I snapped into the phone. The nerve of that man! “If something is really wrong, I’ll call you on the radio and have North Liberty tower patch me through to your police radio center.”

“Okay,” he replied. “Keep me informed.”

“I will,” I said and hung up the phone.

I grabbed my leather flight jacket from its hook since it would probably be a little chilly at the lake. Then I opened the hangar doors and wheeled the amphibian outside before closing the doors and locking up. I climbed inside the amphibian and went forward and settled into the pilot seat. I belted in and then switched on all the plane’s electrical systems. I started and warmed up the engines, then I radioed the tower, giving them my destination and asking for clearance to takeoff. By the time I reached the runway, they had given me clearance. I pushed the throttles forward, accelerated down the runway and surged into the air.

The flight to Spirit Lake was swift and fast. I didn’t buzz the camp or do anything dramatic. I just landed the amphibian as quick as I could and raced in to the shore, nose up, twin geysers of spray arching high along the sides of the aircraft as the deep “vee” of the bow of the boat-hull cut the surface of the water. I chopped the throttles about five yards out from the shore and felt the nose of the amphibian drop precipitously as the forward speed suddenly dropped as though brakes had been applied and the carrier wave of water of our wake overtook us and lifted the rear of the plane.

The amphibian leveled itself as our wake wave passed under us and then we grounded, nose cutting a groove in the soft sand of the lake’s shore. Before the plane had really stopped moving, I was slapping off switches and shutting down the engines and everything else with one hand while yanking on the release buckles of my seat harness with my other hand. I hurried aft and swung the rear door all the way open, letting it bang against its stops as it locked into position against the outer skin of the aircraft’s fuselage. I hopped down from the open door into the water, which was about knee-deep.

I turned and scanned the shoreline, then moved my focus to the open clearing and the camp itself. As I did so, I was hit with a small gust of wind which swept over me as though the camp itself was expelling a breath outward into the lake. A disquieting sense of déjà vu hit me and I shivered. The camp seemed empty. Oh no! This can’t be happening again! I swallowed, my throat dry.
Then I waded ashore and stopped as I stepped onto the beach. I forced myself to just stand still and look around. Just stand still and look at everything. Don’t start running around and messing everything up. I took a deep breath. Had anybody landed at the beach besides myself? I didn’t think so. I could still see a depression in the sand which was all that was left of the imprint made by the amphibian three days earlier, when I had beached her the first time, bringing Dean and the Olsens to the clearing.

I rubbed the palms of my damp hands against the fabric of my jeans and walked up the slight incline into the camp. Conduct the search systematically—don’t wander around checking out everything that catches your eye. I nodded to myself. Yes. That’s what I would do. I would conduct myself like Hank—the sheriff—would.

I angled my path toward the firepit. How recently had it been used? At noon for lunch? Earlier? Maybe as far back as the night before? I remembered that Dean had talked about an evening bonfire in the firepit on the second day check-in call. The day that Annie had told me that they had gone exploring and she’d found some rose-colored quartz crystals. Could that little exploration trip have anything to do with their disappearance? Had someone been lurking in the forest and spotted them? Followed them back to their camp and then done whatever it was which had been done to the family?

I knelt beside the firepit and examined it. Maybe. The charred pieces of wood were all pretty damp—either from morning dew, or from getting doused with a bucket of lake water to kill any leftover embers the evening before. I figured that if they’d had a fire at noon, for hotdogs or something, the burnt wood would be more wet, having gotten soaked only a few hours before they missed their afternoon check-in call.

Not good enough, Kelly. The timeframe is still ‘iffy.’ I made a face and stood up, trying to rub the damp carbon from touching the wood in the firepit from my hands. I looked at each of the tents. There were three of them, all the same size. These were large enough to hold four people comfortably—yes, I know that the manufacturers always say that their tents hold a couple more than they seem to in real life, but that’s probably because the tent makers think in terms of how many people can lie in their tent with maybe an inch or two of space between them. No way are normal people going to pack themselves into a tent like they were a bunch of sardines in a can.

So…one tent for the Olsens. I was pretty sure that they would want their daughter in the same tent as themselves, simply because of the fact that they weren’t used to being in the wilderness and, therefore, would be hyper-aware that there could be wild animals prowling around the tents during the night. Second tent would be Dean’s. It was big enough that he would probably keep his gear and most of her personal equipment in there with him. Third tent was the “cook” tent. Open sides with roll-down netting to keep out the insects. Not for cooking inside the tent, but for eating their food away from the mosquitoes and horseflies and things.

I knew that Dean kept a journal of his guide trips. Plus, there would be a radio log; where he would record check-in calls, transcribe the messages which were sent and received, and make observations of conditions around the area and excursions and trips with guests to sights outside the camp—either around the lake or in the nearby areas of the forest—which he might want to remember so he could repeat them on other hunting or fishing guide trips in the near future.

So, Dean’s tent would be my next stop. I walked over to it and unzipped the flap. Dean had rolled up his sleeping bag and closed-foam ripstop cordura-covered mattress that morning. Or he never unrolled it to go to sleep last night. Um, yes—it could be either one. So much for narrowing the timeline. The transceiver was inside the tent. It was sitting on a table made from using one of the ice chests that the food and beverages had been packed in. I smiled. That was pretty clever. Back in the early days of exploration, the old-time British explorers had been from the gentry class, and they’d thought nothing of bringing along furniture-type tables to hold their equipment. Even today, some campers thought that bring fold-up aluminum tables for their computers and things was standard procedure. I liked Dean’s practical sense more and more. It showed that he probably thought ‘outside the box’ on a number of different things.

I sat down cross-legged in front of the transceiver and studied both it and the top of the case it was sitting on carefully. Both the log book and Dean’s little journal were placed neatly beside the radio. I reached forward and switched on the transceiver. It was one of the newer ones, digital, with a little computer inside and frequency scanning capability. It only took a little while to boot up. I punch up the list of frequencies Dean had been using and then set the transceiver to the one that the two-way headsets used. I picked up the earpiece rig with the little boom mike that the transceiver was equipped with and cleared my throat.

“Testing, testing,” I said. “This is Kelly Mitchell at the Olsen camp on Spirit Lake calling. Anyone hearing my voice, could you please reply?”

My boom mike, which was voice activated, stopped the transmission and the transceiver went to receiving mode.

Nothing. Of course, the two-way headsets only had a range of a mile or two. Less, if the wearer was out of line-of-sight, down in a little valley or had an intervening ridge or hill in the way.

I repeated my call twice with no reply. I sighed. Why did I never get into easy situations? I always seemed to land in crappy head-scratcher situations with no light at the end of the tunnel. I switched the transceiver to the airport tower frequency.

“This is Kelly Mitchell from Cooper Air calling North Liberty Tower,” I said. I made my voice firm and matter-of-fact. Didn’t want the tower guys to think for a minute that there were any scaredy-cats out here. No siree! “I am calling from the Olsen Camp at Spirit Lake. I need you to patch me through to Sheriff Hank Wallace. We have a situation here.”

“Roger that, Kelly,” the tower replied. “Are you declaring an emergency?”

“Not yet,” I replied. “The camp missed its radio check-in earlier this afternoon and flew out here to check on them. I found the camp deserted, but no signs of foul play. I need to talk to Hank so he can get a team together and fly out to the camp and decided what to do next.” I paused. Then I added, “I’ll stay here and keep an eye on things until he arrives with re-enforcements.”

“We will relay the message,” the tower guy responded. “Unless, that is, you wanted to talk to him personally, Kelly.”

“Nope,” I replied. "That will work, just fine.” I signed off.

I switched the transceiver back to the two-way frequency. The I picked up the radio log and look at the last couple of entries. Nothing. Just last check-in call he made to me the day before. I put the radio log down and grabbed his journal. Hmm. A creative writer Dean was not. Simple sentences. Not much description. Heaven forbid he ever told you what he was feeling. I did, however, get the impression that Annie had made a real impression on him. I smiled to myself. Yes, the kid was a charmer—that was for sure. And if I wasn’t mistaken, the little girl had developed a huge little-girl crush on the rugged guide with the deep tan and ready smile. Then I came to the last bit. It was about Annie and Dean’s excursion the day before.

She had wanted to explore one of the deer trails which ran up hill toward the east of camp. Dean tersely noted that the trail ‘did not go anyplace’ and then noted that ‘at the summit’ they had found an outcropping of crystals.

Then there were the words, ‘Also an odd marker. Can’t tell how long it been here. First time I’ve seen it. Small cairn of rocks. Marked with some sort of metal beam. Aluminum or something else. No corrosion. Looks like it might have come from a plane or something.’

There was nothing else to say where, exactly, this “cairn” was located. I sort of half-turned and looked over my shoulder at the opening of the tent. East of the camp? Up near the summit? Summit of what? A hill or something?

I leaned forward and switched off the transceiver. Could this cairn have been the catalyst which started the events which led to Dean and the Olsen family’s disappearance? I got up and peeked out of the tent toward the east side of the camp. There were several hills in sight. I wondered which one Dean had been talking about. I tucked some of my hair which had fallen forward back behind my ear. I really needed to get my hair cut short again. This was a nuisance.

I glanced toward my plane. I suddenly felt very vulnerable, alone here in the camp. Someone could be watching me even now, from the edges of the forest. I didn’t like just standing around. When I didn’t have something to do, I thought too much. I glanced at the plane again. I really shouldn’t leave the camp. Hank would be here soon and he would be really pissed if I wasn't here to meet him. But, I mean, how many deer trails could there be east of the camp? Not that many, I would wager.

Hank would have to get a team together. Get their equipment and hand it out. Call Jack Piper and arrange transport to the camp. Jack would have to get his floatplane ready and Hank and his team would have to drive out to the airport. Then they would have to fly out here.
I headed for the plane. Inside it was my little GPS device. That would keep me from getting lost. I waded out and climbed into my plane. I grabbed my rucksack from a compartment near the cockpit and put the handheld GPS in the pack. Then I unlocked the compartment I’d built to store the lever-action 30-30 I’d picked which nobody but Jack knew I owned. I figured it might come in handy. After all, I had no idea what I might run into up there, south or east of the camp. I pulled out a box of ammunition from the compartment and loaded the rifle. I closed the box and added it to the GPS inside the rucksack. Then I closed and locked the storage compartment for the rifle.

I climbed out of the plane, being careful to hold the rifle up high, so that it wouldn’t get wet, and headed for shore. I stopped in the camp just long enough to grab some bottled water from the cook tent, which I placed inside the rucksack with the ammo and handheld GPS.
I went back to Dean’s tent, where I opened his little journal to the place where he mentioned the crystals and cairn and bent the notebook so that it stayed open to that page. For good measure, I put the transceiver headset on to of the journal, placing it on top of the open pages.

Hank would be able to figure it out.

End of Chapter Two