Chapter 54 Dex
DEX
Yeti shoved her head out the window, a look of pure glee on her face.
I chuckled, making the turn that would take me toward Three Creeks Canyon trailhead. “Enjoy that good hair day. And let me tell you, you smell a hell of a lot better.”
Yeti let out a howl of happiness, chattering away into the wind.
A ring came through my SUV’s speakers, and I took in the name on my vehicle’s screen. I hit a button on my steering wheel. “Hey, Kol.”
“Hey—what is that sound?”
“Yeti has her head out the car window, and she’s very happy about it.”
Kol grunted. “Are you some sort of over-the-top dog dad now?”
“Hey, Yeti and I have bonded.” That bond might be comprised of her trying to crush my skull by sleeping on my head every night and suffocating me with her one-hundred-forty-two-pound love, but it was a bond nonetheless.
“Jesus,” Kol muttered.
“You needed something?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m heading to the Three Creeks Canyon trailhead to meet Brae and Aster.”
I swore I could feel the alertness through the phone. “What’s going on?” Kol demanded.
I shifted in my seat, a little of the humor at Yeti’s antics fleeing. “Something has been eating at Brae. She doesn’t think Vincent killed Nova.”
“Thank fuck,” Kol muttered.
“I told you,” Mav said in the background.
That same alertness that had found Kol settled into my muscles. “You don’t either?”
“It just doesn’t add up to me. Vincent was obsessed with Brae, some twisted need to think she was still under his thumb. And it got kicked up with all the interviews about Nova. But if he was jealous of Nova or wanted her out of the picture, why then? She’d been in Brae’s life forever.”
A sick feeling settled in my gut. Because if it wasn’t Vincent…
“I’m about two minutes out. You want to meet us there?”
“We’re about five minutes away,” Kol said by way of answer.
I wasn’t shocked. When Kol was on a case, he’d drive or walk the area over and over.
He said the process was like looking at a puzzle from different angles.
You never knew what might get kicked free.
And he occasionally brought Maverick because while Kol knew tracking like no one else, Mav knew things the forest could tell you.
“See you in a few.” I clicked off the call and took the final turn a little faster than I should’ve. Yeti pulled her head back into the SUV and gave me a dirty look. “Sorry, girl. Gotta get us to your mama.”
The trailhead came into view, and a prickle of unease settled deep. There was no flash of blond hair. The only color came from Brae’s maroon SUV and Aster’s navy pickup.
I pulled in two spaces down from Brae’s vehicle and was out of my vehicle in a flash. “Brae,” I called, lifting my voice in something just short of a yell. The only answer was the wind whistling through the trees and the river in the distance.
Stalking toward the vehicle, I peeked inside. Nothing. I tested a door. Locked up tight.
Fear turned my blood colder with every step, every breath. My heart rate should’ve been ratcheting up with panic. But not me. Mine turned slower, frigid. Maybe it was the DNA that flowed through me.
But as I rounded the back bumper and caught sight of Brae’s familiar pack, the one with the patch that read Bigfoot Patrol, my heart stopped altogether. Her brightly colored water bottle was shoved into a side pocket. And Brae was nowhere.
Blood pulsed in my ears in slow, brutal waves like ocean water crashing against rock, yet somehow my heart stopped at the same time.
A body. Blond hair spilled over a woman’s face. Aster. Not Brae. And God, I was going to hell for the relief that coursed through me at that.
But I was already on the move, dropping to my knees as I brushed the hair out of Aster’s face.
I pressed my fingers to her neck, hoping for a pulse.
Another wave of relief found me as I felt the flutter against my fingertips.
I bent over her and felt soft breaths against my cheek. Unconscious but breathing.
Two doors slammed, and I whirled. I would’ve reached for my gun, but it was still in my damned SUV. My muscles unlocked at the sight of Kol and Maverick striding toward me.
“What happened?” Kol demanded.
“I don’t know. Aster was on the ground. Brae’s… She’s…she’s gone.” The words cost me. Just speaking them out loud hurt—a brutal pain like knives being shoved under fingernails or an uppercut so vicious it splintered ribs and sent the shards into your heart.
Kol’s expression went thunderous. But Maverick? He was frozen. He didn’t blink. I didn’t think he even breathed.
“Mav,” I said, my voice low. “You got your bag?”
He still didn’t move.
“Aster needs you, man,” I pressed. He was the one with real medical training.
At my words, Maverick jolted like he’d been shocked. But it was only a matter of seconds before he was back with a kit.
I was instantly on my feet because I couldn’t do anything else for Aster. It was Brae who needed me now. Just thinking her name was a physical blow, and I nearly staggered under its weight. “Kol,” I croaked.
“Called for backup,” he growled. “Now, get out of the damn scene.”
I normally would’ve hit back at the order, but not now. Not when I knew why he’d issued it. I instantly moved back to where Kol was standing.
“Get our brothers,” he muttered, but his gaze was already locked on the area around Brae’s vehicle, tracing footprints and reading them as if they were a foreign language only he could translate. And maybe they were.
I was only partly aware of the text I sent to our chain. My phone buzzed in my hand.
Wylder
I’m on my way.
One brother down.
Orion
Working the map.
It was Orion-speak for saying he was following his own sort of lead.
“Aster’s stable,” Maverick said, his voice trembling slightly. “She’s got a wound on the back of her head. Someone hit her with something. Rounded. Not sharp.” With each new piece of information, his voice hardened.
A soft moan of pain sounded.
“Easy, Ice Queen. I’ve got you.” Mav’s voice had gone gentle again.
Kol gave the vehicle a wide berth as he circled it. “I see her. Moving around the SUV. She stops here.” He pointed to a cluster of footprints in the dirt. “Someone else comes. Size indicates male. They move this way.” He traced a path in the distance.
“Toward the trail,” I growled.
Kol nodded. “The trail.” His gaze flicked to my SUV. “You think you can work with the dog?”
My gaze moved to Yeti, watching us through the open window of my 4Runner, on alert. I wasn’t sure, but I could try. “I need something with Brae’s scent.” I was already moving back to my SUV. “Evidence bag?”
Kol was moving then, too, grabbing something from his truck.
The coldness in me intensified as I took the bag from him, registering the word EVIDENCE in block letters, the orange seal. I didn’t want to put anything of Brae’s in a bag like this. But I didn’t have a choice.
Opening her pack, I pulled out a sweatshirt, using the bag so I didn’t touch it. The sweatshirt was a burst of color, with rainbow stripes so opposite to the darkness swirling inside me.
I moved to my SUV and let Yeti out. I didn’t know all the fancy French commands, but I tried for English. “Come.”
Yeti answered instantly, happily panting away. She had no idea what was wrong. That someone had Brae. My lungs constricted, but I bent down, trying to remember how my hellion had done it.
“Find Brae, Yeti. Find.”
Yeti sniffed the open bag and let out a happy bark. Her nose dropped to the dirt as she ambled around. Finally, she caught the trail near the SUV. She circled it and then took off toward the trail.
“We’ll keep you updated,” Kol called to Maverick and then turned to me. “Let’s go.”
But I was already there.
Yeti moved quickly down the trail, her nose ghosting over the dirt path. Brae had explained to me once that Yeti was trained in trailing, a specific type of tracking. But she was starting to work with the dog on air tracking, where she didn’t just follow a footstep path but scents in the air.
Yeti’s progress faltered for a moment, and as I looked over her head, I saw why. That coldness in me turned to icy shards. Something had fallen across the path. Someone.
I was running before I consciously gave myself the command. As I did, I took in things in snapshots: a tan uniform, a male form—long and lean. A familiar face.
“Fucking hell,” Kol muttered.
I crouched, pressing two fingers to Sheriff Miller’s neck. I shook my head. “Gone.”
There was no pulse, and his eyes were wide and unblinking. Emotions warred within me. Relief that it wasn’t Brae. Fear that whoever likely had her was capable of cold-blooded murder.
Kol pulled out his phone, barking out information, likely to the sheriff’s department and his own Forest Service agency contacts. But Yeti was still moving. She circled the area and then started off the trail, heading into the woods.
Her nose moved from the forest floor into the air, and she sniffed as if struggling, ambled a bit.
“Someone’s carrying her,” Kol clipped. “There are signs of a struggle, maybe someone falling on the path.”
I locked down the fear that wanted to take hold and welcomed the fury instead. They wouldn’t hurt her. I would tear them apart before they could.
Yeti caught something moving deeper into the trees. The brush grew thicker, the pines closer together, but the dog kept leading us on. Then she stopped, confused. But I saw it.
ATV tracks.
“Goddammit,” Kol muttered, pulling out his phone again.
Mine let out a ding. A text flashed.
Orion
I think I see her. Through my binoculars. I’m a good three miles away. Between the ranch and where Three Creeks trail meets West Ridge trail. Cabin. Male suspect. She doesn’t look conscious. Sending coordinates.
It was the longest text I’d gotten from Orion in years. But I could only focus on one thing. She doesn’t look conscious. Which meant she might not be breathing, alive.
I shoved the fear down again, harder this time, and locked it away. Then, I let the darkness free.
Kol looked up from his phone, clearly having read the same text. “We’re about a mile from these coordinates. You and I move out? Or wait for backup?”
There was a reason to wait for our area’s SWAT team or some kind of backup. But I couldn’t. There was no way I would risk something happening to Brae while we sat around.
My gaze locked with my brother’s. I knew what kind of risk I’d be putting Kol in, and I couldn’t. “I’ll go alone.”
“The hell you will,” Kol snarled. “You go with me, or you wait for SWAT.”
I muttered a curse. “You and me. But I take point.”
Kol jerked his head in a nod, then bent, pulling his backup weapon from an ankle holster. “You need it.”
Everything in me recoiled. But this was for Brae.
I took the weapon, feeling the weight of it in my hand. The XD Sub-Compact 9mm was light but, at the same time, incredibly heavy. I checked the safety, the grip. I let myself feel the weight of something that could end a life. And then, I let the darkness take over. For Brae.
“Let’s go.”