Cold as Hell (Haven’s Rock #3)

Chapter Twelve

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dalton doesn’t need to worry about me being out here for long. The storm is coming fast. The sky seems to darken with every step we take, and the wind whips around us even once we’re in the forest.

I can’t use the sled now. This is work, for us and for Storm. I’ve set my watch timer for forty-five minutes, in hopes I can get back not long after my allotted hour.

Earlier, I’d retrieved a scent marker for Storm. She knows who she’s looking for. But there’s no real chance of finding a trail heading into the woods. Not unless Lynn went in this morning, breaking through the fallen snow. We’d checked for that earlier, and the only trail we’d seen going in had been accompanied by paw prints.

Even those only went about ten feet in. Just enough to get any doggie business done out of town, which almost certainly means it was Sebastian—Mathias would have let Raoul take a crap on the main street.

We circle again now, in case we missed something. We didn’t. It’s unbroken snow. Newly fallen snow, too, but we can still see where Sebastian went in, snow-filled divots indicating his boot prints.

Next we take the perimeter trail. It’s just past the edge of the forest and encircles the town. It’s used for patrolling but also for strolling. We’ve deemed it close enough to town to be safe even without escorts. No one could step off it and be unable to find their way back.

Unless it’s during a snowstorm.

We walk that path and, again, find nothing. Then it’s on to the second perimeter path. Yes, we have multiples. Having lived in Rockton means we have a long list of things we wanted to do in Haven’s Rock. One perimeter path close enough for residents to safely use. Another one deeper in, both for patrols and a slightly better walk, for staff and for short guided hikes.

This path also meets up with the lake and skirts along the edge closest to town. We start there and go clockwise. Keeping this path clear is extra labor, but right now we’re running efficiently enough to have a shortage of work, especially in the winter, when hunting, fishing, and logging are at a minimum.

What we don’t have a shortage of? People happy to do this particular job, because of the method we employ—a narrow-bodied ATV with a snow blade. Gunnar, Kendra, and Sebastian draw straws to see who gets to do it. This means that the path had been cleared down to a few inches before the storm, and it’s only ankle-deep. That should also mean that we’d see tracks if anyone came out here last night. We don’t… until we do.

Other trails intersect with this one, trails that head deeper into the forest, and we find footprints at one of those intersections, where trees do an excellent job of sheltering the path. There are deep divots, like the ones we saw from Sebastian.

“Storm?” I say, pointing at the tracks.

She side-eyes me.

“What’s that look for?” I say as I tap one print. “Is this Lynn?” I shake the bag containing the scent samples. “Is it this?”

Storm lowers her head and whines.

Dalton starts toward us. Then he stops and shakes his head. “You’re trying to decide whether this is a joke, huh, pup? And if it’s not, you really don’t want to insult our intelligence.”

“Huh?”

The word barely leaves my mouth before I see what he means. There are other, much smaller divots near the first ones. And one reason those divots show up? Something had been dragged along the path, compressing the snow around them.

“Shit,” I say, rocking back. “These are our prints, from yesterday.”

“Yep. From us heading back. Storm and me walking, and you on the sled.”

I ruffle Storm’s fur. “Sorry about that. Okay, let’s keep going.”

We continue along the path until Storm goes rigid, head swinging up. She sniffs the air. Then she practically bounds off the path into snow up to her belly. Dalton waves for me to stay where I am, in the much shallower snow. While the recent warm temperatures started melting snow in town, it’s different here in the thick woods, where we’ll find patches clear into June.

When my alarm vibrates, I discreetly turn it off. Dr. Kapoor said the one-hour limit was out of an abundance of caution. I’ll take another half hour and then get home.

Dalton steps off the path and sinks past his boots. That doesn’t seem so bad… until you try walking in it. I’ve had to go off trail and accidentally stepped in almost to my waist. Try lifting your foot when you’re thigh-deep in snow. I’d had to practically swim out, all the while imagining myself falling face-first and being unable to rise, trapped under snow.

The answer is snowshoes. We didn’t bring them on this walk, which means Dalton’s left doing a lot of grunting and grabbing for trees to lever himself along. Meanwhile, our dog has nearly disappeared through the swirling snow.

“Stay there,” Dalton says, and I’m not sure which of us he’s speaking to. Probably both.

A gust whips the snow thick enough that I lose sight of them both for a moment. Then it dies down, and I spot Dalton’s jacket with his bright orange scarf. Yes, we kept the high-visibility staff scarves I instituted back in Rockton. Dalton’s wearing one and so is Storm, with a kerchief around her neck. With this weather, though, I’m starting to think we need full high-visibility vests, too. For both of them.

“Got something!” Dalton shouts back. “Stay there!”

My heart pounds. “Is it Lynn?”

A fresh gust of wind—and accompanying whine—cuts off his next words, and I need to ask him to repeat himself.

“It’s a glove,” he shouts back. “Storm says it’s hers.”

I lift one foot, ready to barrel over there until common sense kicks in. I grit my teeth against a surge of frustration.

“Can you keep searching?” I say. “In that area?”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“What’s Storm indicating?”

A pause, and I know I’m being a pain in the ass. Dalton is trying to work, and I’m that annoying supervisor asking for a running commentary.

“Nothing,” he says. “She’s snuffling around, but she doesn’t smell anything. I don’t see any sign of passage either. It’s thick brush.”

“Where was the glove?”

“Caught on a tree. As if it blew there.”

Shit. Not helpful.

“Okay,” I call back. “I’ll shut up now.”

I swear I hear a chuckle, even over the sound of the trees groaning in the wind.

I rock back on my heels and look around. The glove suggests Lynn was out here.

She could have crossed the first perimeter trail and had her prints fill in. Being so close to town, if she’d happened to cross in a more open spot, snow would have fallen thick enough to hide her tracks. Also, we’re only two-thirds of the way around this outer perimeter trail—maybe her tracks are just up ahead.

I tap my boot as I wait for Dalton. I want to get moving, but I also need him to be thorough. To temper my impatience, I sit on a nearby fallen log. At least I’ll be off my feet for a few minutes.

It’s at least ten minutes before Dalton finally comes out, and when he does, I don’t even see him until Storm thrusts her snowy head in my face, checking to be sure I’m okay. I glance up to realize I can barely see Dalton, even though he’s only a few feet away. I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed how bad it’d gotten.

Seeing Storm’s alarm, he crosses those last two steps at a run.

“I’m fine!” I say, shouting to be heard over the wind. “Just sat down to rest.”

I put out my arms, and he pulls me to my feet.

“Nothing?” I say.

He shakes his head and waves toward town.

I motion for him to bend down. When he does, I say in his ear, “Can we finish the trail? Go back to town that way? I want to be sure, and we only have a few hundred feet left.”

He nods and motions that he’ll move in front. The wind is coming from that direction. He puts Storm in front of him so she can keep sniffing. Then he ties his scarf around his arm and hands me the end.

I do not roll my eyes. Oh, I want to, and I doubt he’d notice with the snow blasting between us, but I still don’t. I take the end and try not to feel like a toddler on a day-care expedition. Then he sets out, and I must admit—with my belly and my snowsuit—I do toddle along behind him.

I’m soon grateful for the scarf. If I get even a step behind Dalton, a gust of snow swallows his dark figure. More than once I feel a tug and realize I’ve started veering off the path.

Thick conifers should line the trail, but I can’t see them even when I squint. When a snow-laden branch appears at my shoulder, I jump as if it sprang at me. Wind blasts my face, and I duck my head down to focus on my boots, as if I can see them between my stomach and the snow.

I truly am a child in those moments, trundling along with that scarf in my hand. I said I wanted to watch for spots where Lynn might have crossed the trail, but I wouldn’t see blazing neon footprints.

My nose goes numb, and I use my free hand to pull up my own scarf. That reminds me Dalton doesn’t have his on. His face is exposed to the wind. I want to tell him to put the scarf back on and I’ll hold his coat, but I can’t get his attention. He’s plowing forward, just like me, both of us trudging along, as if there’s a hope in hell of seeing—

I smack into Dalton’s back. He’s standing there with his hand out as he points off the path. I have no idea what he’s indicating. I only see a wall of white.

Dalton motions for me to wait as he takes one step off the path. I can dimly make out him reaching forward. When his hand comes back, it’s holding something bright red.

Something soaked in blood.

My heart picks up speed, and I start toward it, but he’s already moving it my way. I reach one gloved hand out… and realize it’s not blood. It’s red fabric.

No, it’s red knit. A scarf? I take it in both hands, feeling along it as I try to make out what I’m seeing through the damn snow.

Not a scarf. A… sweater?

I hold it up by the shoulders. It’s a woman’s sweater.

In my mind, I see Lynn yesterday in the store. Dressed in dark chinos and…

A red sweater.

My heart hammers. I keep running my hands over the thick wool, as if I’m seeing wrong. I’m not. This is a sweater, and it looks like the one Lynn was wearing yesterday.

Dalton’s gone back to root around where he found it. I hold out the sweater to Storm, who’s come over to see what I have. I lower it, and she takes a deep sniff, as if it’s hard to catch the scent with the wind. Then she signals. Yes, this belongs to her target.

As soon as she signals, she goes still. Then she whips around and dives off the path the other way. When she returns, she has a sock in her mouth, as if she grabbed it flying past.

I stand there, struggling to comprehend what I’m seeing. If Lynn removed a glove, the wind could have stolen it. Even the sweater might be explained. It’d been warm yesterday. She could have taken it off in the shop because she had another shirt on and then left carrying it.

There is no logical explanation for a sock.

I hold it up as Dalton returns. He grimaces and shields his eyes as he peers around. Then he lowers his mouth to my ear.

“We need to get back,” he says.

I nod. Everything in me screams against that. We’ve just found three pieces of clothing belonging to our missing woman. She was out here. She may still be out here. If she is…

All I can think of is Kendra being dragged into the woods.

Why would Lynn’s clothing be off?

Yes, the answer seems obvious. I presume sexual assault had been the motive of Kendra’s attacker. But that makes no sense. It was a freaking snowstorm. Who is going to drag a woman into the forest and assault her during a blizzard?

And if I’m seriously asking that then I learned nothing in my years on the force. I will never be able to put myself in the mind of someone who would do that to another person, and so questioning whether they’d do it in bad weather is ridiculous.

This isn’t about finding a cozy place to have sex. The storm could make things even more exciting for Lynn’s assailant, heightening their victim’s terror.

Still, the logistics make me question that theory.

So what else could it be? Lynn was leaving the store with an armload of dirty laundry, and it went flying into the woods?

I’m behind Dalton again. I’ve had him put his scarf back on, and I’m holding his jacket. I don’t know if he’s going to insist we cut back to town rather than finish the full perimeter path. I don’t know if there’s any point in finishing it. Snow blasts from every direction, and my toes and fingers are numb. So are my cheeks. I think about Storm out in front, with her equally delicate nose. Much more of this, and we’ll be treating frostbite.

When I lift my head, snow coats my lashes, and that’s all I see. I blink hard. Then I stuff my free glove into my pocket and press my semi-warm hand against my cheeks. I go to take the glove out again and fumble it.

I tug on Dalton’s jacket. He looks back and sees me trying to bend. Somehow he manages to spot my glove and scoops it up. Then he goes still. His hand taps something beside the path. My gut chills, and I carefully lower myself on one knee to see what he’s touching, terrified it’ll be Lynn.

It’s not. He’s touching an outcropping of rock.

I frown. Then I realize why that stopped him.

Because there are no outcroppings of rock on the trail.

We’ve lost the path.