Alyssa was already grabbing her phone and keys. ‘Where was this?’

‘At the end of Rainbow in Rio Rancho.’

‘I know where that is. That’s where Trevor’s dad takes the boys to go dirt-biking.’ Before heading out, she asked Hal to contact Hammond. In the car, Cord called the Rio Rancho PD to let them know they were on their way.

Because rush hour traffic was over and Alyssa ignored the speed limit, it took less than thirty minutes to hit Rainbow, another five to convince the rookie cop they needed to be allowed to pass, and another fifteen to bump along the trails to the ravine where they hiked the rest of the way in because the area was clogged with police and rescue workers.

Rushing over to one of the officers she recognized, she said, ‘Manny, what have they found?’

Manny Hernandez swung around and greeted both her and Cord. ‘I heard you were on your way. Saw this car on the news. Looks like someone else did, too, and they decided to dump it.’

‘So, there’s no one inside it?’ She nodded her head to indicate the rescue team now working their way back up the steep, sandy ravine, avoiding the risk of dislodging one of the dozens of other abandoned cars – or the ones that thieves had dumped after stripping them of what they needed.

‘Nope.’

‘Your guys got the VIN, right?’ Cord asked. ‘Because I’m betting our guy wasn’t kind enough to leave his insurance and registration behind.’

Manny laughed. ‘Dude’s dumb enough to dump that beauty, so I wouldn’t put it past him to overlook something minor like leaving an arrow to where he lives. But no. My guys recovered nothing but dirt, fiber, and shattered glass.’

‘We’re going to need to get a tow truck out here to drag it up,’ Alyssa said, observing the workers scaling the ravine. ‘We need to inspect that trunk.’

Manny nodded. ‘So, that’s why my boys reported such a strong smell of ammonia coming from that area.’ Still watching the crew work, he said, ‘I don’t think you’re going to find much. My guess is your suspect scraped that car clean before dumping it. And just so you know, there’s not a tow truck company out there who’s gonna have a lift big enough, long enough, or strong enough to drag that thing out of there. It’ll topple over on top of it if it even tried.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. But it never hurts to ask, right?’

‘Never hurts,’ Manny agreed.

A few minutes later, several officers and rescue workers strolled their way, their faces streaked with sweat and grime and red from the exertion of climbing out of the ravine. One of the guys reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper. ‘Here’s the VIN.’

Manny took it and handed it over to Alyssa. ‘We’ll want a copy of that, but I think your department needs this more than we do right now.’