Wildfire Omens (Wildwood #1)

Chapter 36

Chapter Thirty-Six

Cheyenne

As I changed into my SAR gear and double-checked my pack, my respect for the team members who regularly left their families behind to do this work skyrocketed. It had always felt so easy for me to compartmentalize and focus completely on a callout—until now. I felt torn between two worlds, knowing that this child deserved one hundred percent of my attention but also worried about everything I was leaving behind. Rhett was more than capable of protecting my home— our home now, I realized with a happy jolt. But leaving him felt like leaving half of my heart. At a time when we faced a very real threat, it went against everything in my body to leave instead of staying to stand beside him.

I closed my eyes, forcing myself to picture this child lost and alone in the woods. My place was with Rhett, but it was also on the team I’d dedicated my life to. Thomas might be miles away by now, content with the destruction he’d wrought. But this kid was in a life-or-death situation. It had to be my priority.

I kissed Rhett goodbye when Claire pulled up in her truck to get me. Even though this search location called for a horse team, Wildfire wouldn’t be coming—my tack had burned along with my barn. But Claire had loaded up Stormy for me, so we were set.

“You made good time,” I said, swinging into the passenger seat of her truck and shoving my backpack onto the floorboard.

“It’s a kid,” she said, frowning. “Any other call and I might resent having to leave this morning, but…”

“I totally get it. I have a whole new appreciation for some of our teammates. It’s so much harder to do this when you’re leaving someone behind who needs you too.”

“Rhett will be fine,” she said, her voice softening. “No sign of trouble here last night after you left. I think Thomas did what he set out to do and is laying low now. Sheriff McGrath has everyone out looking for him though. They’ll get him.”

“Yeah,” I said, though I realized I didn’t really believe it despite having told myself the same thing earlier.

Something in my gut didn’t feel right. A little whisper that I couldn’t pay too much attention to or else I wouldn’t be able to force myself to go on this call. But I knew, if I didn’t go and this child died, I would never forgive myself. So I shoved my misgivings down deep and tried hard to focus on the job ahead of me.

“Tell me about this callout,” I said, propping an elbow on the door.

“Dispatch said the dad called nine-one-one about an hour ago, frantic. Cell service is pretty bad up there, so some of it was garbled and patchy. But it sounded like he took the kid on an overnight turkey-hunting trip. Dad thinks the kid left the tent to relieve himself in the night, but the dad slept right through it. Woke up because the tent flap was open and he got cold. Realized the kid was missing. Looked around the site briefly and couldn’t find him.”

“Kid’s name?”

She grabbed the notepad sitting in her dash and checked it quickly before handing it to me. “Dispatch said it sounded like Tim or Timmy, but it wasn’t clear and she couldn’t get the last name. She’s confident on the age though.”

“Do we know what he’s wearing?”

“Blue pajamas.”

“Do we have a GPS location?”

Claire nodded. “Dispatch traced the phone. It’s off the beaten path. Looks like they skipped the designated campsites and set up in the backwoods.”

A fresh trickle of unease floated through me, but Claire’s phone rang before I could voice it. She answered, responding in short tones, then hung up.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

She let out a frustrated growl. “Yeah. But that was Sheriff McGrath. He said that, under the circumstances, he wants me to stay at base camp with Hank instead of going out with the team.”

“Why?” I was surprised.

“They’ve got a lead on Thomas’s location and are hoping to bring him in. The sheriff wants me to stay close to my vehicle in case I’m needed. Two crises in one day is a stretch for our small team.”

“Good point,” I admitted, hiding a sigh. The entire SAR team was a family, but Claire and I had known each other so well for so long that we practically worked as one. All it took was a head signal or a hand gesture for us to be on the same page, and our skills meshed perfectly together. A search for a missing five-year-old was already potentially difficult, and I hated that I wouldn’t have her by my side.

We got to the trailhead that would act as our base camp, where Hank was already setting up a command station. Sam was waiting, and at least three other responders were on the way but hadn’t arrived yet.

“You made good time,” Claire said to Sam, grinning as she hopped out of her truck.

He nodded and gave us a small smile. “I was close by.”

I went straight to Hank. “Have you talked to the dad?” Although dispatch had given us a report, we always preferred talking to whoever had called in ourselves. Information often got lost in translation, and dispatch didn’t always know the questions the search team would find relevant. We also needed the dad to gather items for a scent pack before the canine unit arrived—unless we managed to find the kid first.

Hank frowned and shook his head. “I’ve tried. I’ve called the number dispatch gave me four times, but it’s going straight to voicemail. I’m guessing the guy’s battery died.”

“Maybe.” My concern grew. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s cell battery died after they called in. But if he was out frantically searching for his kid, then we might have two victims to search for instead of one.

“You three good to go ahead and head out?” he asked.

“I’m hanging with you today,” Claire said, shrugging. “Sheriff’s orders.”

“I’m ready,” Sam said, jumping in. He looked at me. “I’ve already got the GPS location plugged in. Looks to be about a twenty-minute ride from here to where the call originated from.” He pointed at the map. “It’s up on a ridge, so good thing we brought the horses. They’ll climb it quicker than we will.”

I looked at the map, my heart sinking. The topography out here was rugged, and it would be so easy for a small child wandering around in the dark to tumble right off the side of one of these ridges. I wanted this to be a quick, successful search. But everything within me said today wasn’t going to go like that.

The sun rose, brightening everything around us as we took our horses single file up the narrow switchbacks toward our destination. I was grateful for the light. My heart nearly stopped every time we came to a sharp corner and I imagined what could have happened to a child in the dark without a flashlight.

Things widened and flattened out as we came to where we supposed the campsite to have been. Sam came up beside me on his horse as I stopped.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I double-checked my GPS. “This clearing makes the most sense for their campsite location. But there are no signs of camping. Not recently anyway. No tent, no fire.”

He looked around, frowning. “The dad searched a bit on his own before calling in. He may not have called from the campsite.”

“Maybe not,” I agreed. But that whisper was turning into a roar. Something wasn’t right here.

I swung down from Stormy’s back. “I’m going to look around for tracks. Maybe we’ll find the dad’s footprints at least—or some indication that we’re in the right area.”

“Good idea.” He swung down too and started following me as I scoped out the ground, using my headlamp to illuminate it. The sun was rising, but the light was still low, and I didn’t want to miss anything.

Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like there was much to miss.

“So, you and Rhett are back together,” Sam said, throwing me an awkward glance.

“Yes.”

“You sure that’s a good idea?”

Irritation flared, but I tried to tamp it down. As upset as I was at Sam for scaring Rhett off years ago, I knew he had my back. He was practically family.

“Yes, I do,” I said, my voice coming out a bit firmer than I meant for it to.

“He broke your heart,” Sam started, but I interrupted him.

“Yes.” I turned and looked at him, wanting him to see the resolve on my face. “He did. But there were pretty big misunderstandings on both sides. Nothing that happened ten years ago matters anymore. We’ve worked it out and we’re good.”

He shook his head. “I think you’re getting swept up in puppy love again, and as your friend, I have to tell you I think it’s a bad idea.”

I choked out a laugh and turned my back to him, scanning the ground. I’d finally located some tracks up here, but they weren’t the boot prints I expected from a hunter—they were horse tracks.

“Puppy love? Me? You’re kidding. I’ll admit there was some of that when I was a teenager, but I’m not a kid anymore, Sam. You know I’m not the kind of person to get swept away in a fantasy.”

“Could have fooled me,” he grumbled, following me again.

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

He grabbed my arm and spun me around. “I know you better than he does, that’s for sure. He’s been gone for a decade. But me? I’ve been here, by your side, day in and day out, waiting for you to notice me. But you’ve never given me a second glance. How is it that someone like him can waltz back into your life and into your bed in no time at all, when I’ve been here all along and you’ve never even noticed?”

I took a shaky step back. “What are you talking about, Sam? You have a girlfriend.”

He shook his head. “Emily? She doesn’t mean anything to me. Isn’t that obvious? I can’t wait for her to get tired of this place and go back home. You matter to me.”

He stepped toward me, his arms outstretched like he wanted to pull me into an embrace.

I saw the danger coming. And I froze.