Police in Canada and the United States are searching for a middle-aged couple from British Columbia who vanished during a business trip to Las Vegas.
Albert Chretien, 59, and his 56-year-old wife, Rita, were supposed to return home by Wednesday. When that didn't happen, their family called police, saying the disappearance was totally out of character.
"They're not like the type to just flit off and decide ‘oh we're not going to do this, we're going to do something else without telling anybody,'" said Jennifer Chretien, the couple's daughter. "They wouldn't make anyone worry that way."
The Chretiens run an excavation business in Penticton and were driving to a trade show in Las Vegas when they went missing.
They entered the United States at the Osoyoos-Oroville border crossing on the morning of March 19. Their credit card was used at a gas station in Baker City, Ore., that afternoon. Then they disappeared.
The Mounties in B.C. and police south of the border are investigating.
"Once we establish in fact that it was them that used the credit card, we can then look at a more concentrated physical search of this main corridor of highways that they would have perhaps utilized to get to Las Vegas," said RCMP Cpl. Dan Moskaluk.
Police are reviewing surveillance video from the gas station. The couple's cell phone and bank account haven't been used since they left home.
"They got to Oregon. We don't know where they went after that," said Dave Goertzen, a family friend.
Even contractors who do business with the couple are finding their disappearance "very difficult," he said.
Their family is asking anyone who may have seen the couple or their van to call police.
The Chretiens were travelling in a light brown, 2000 Chevrolet Astro minivan with the B.C. licence plate number 212 CAV.
With a report from CTV's Brent Shearer
