Chapter Fifty
Isla had been hoodwinked.
“How about you experience another side of Victor Corrigan?” Victor had passed through a message from his executive assistant when Isla made it back to the estate.
“A different environment. A fun side.” It was supposed to be an apology for the job shadowing gone wrong, though Isla had found her time at the downtown office enlightening and very satisfying.
She should have questioned then what fun meant to Victor Corrigan. She thought maybe lunching on cucumber sandwiches at the country club and sitting poolside. Instead, she was trudging through mountains, wearing camo gear and boots, and smelling like Bug Away.
She tried to mask her displeasure, reminding herself that this was for a bigger cause. But every tree branch that smacked her in the face and every errant spiderweb she walked into chipped away at her resolve.
At least she’d remembered to send a quick text to Charli, letting her know she was fine and was on a job for Rey she couldn’t talk about.
It wasn’t answer enough to appease the always-suspicious Charli, who thought everyone was as greedy, suspicious, and scheming as she was.
She and Brooke would have gotten along great.
She stumbled over an exposed root, cursing Victor and this damned mountain under her breath.
She followed the hunting party deeper into the hunting grounds, deeper into the woods off the Corrigan property.
The woods were a burgeoning mix of trees: oak, maple, and poplar mixed with pines and cedars; the rolling hills and valleys that stretched for miles, with the Blue Ridge Mountains serving as backdrop, were breathtaking.
At their current high altitude, there was a different feel to traipsing through the dense forest and lush ground cover compared to driving along the tiny roads swirling along these same hills, valleys, and mountains.
Walking through the rugged terrain now held a quality she was able to appreciate.
Thick branches filled with lush leaves blotted out much of the clear blue sky, while Isla clumsily tripped along the thick carpet undergrowth in the new boots she hadn’t broken in yet and that made her arches hurt.
She decided that while their surroundings were beautiful, she preferred the carefully manicured landscapes, sidewalks, and air-conditioning to the literal wilderness as her nerves strained at every mention of signs of recent wildlife movement.
Isla decided if she came out of these woods without seeing anything shot, killed, or wanting to eat her, she’d be okay with that.
Isla’s discomfort grew with every step as she observed their group, which consisted of Bennett, his friends Danny and Roger—no James, she noted—Victor and Dixon, and Jackson, a last-minute addition who’d managed to pry himself from Brooke’s side for the afternoon.
There was a smattering of guards, a couple of Corrigan employees, and associates of Victor’s she did not know.
Isla didn’t bother getting to know them all, and they soon forgot she was around.
The only person remaining relatively close was the person she thought wanted to be around her the least, Myles.
He was a last-minute addition as well. He was originally not going to participate, but when he learned that she’d be tagging along and that Bennett would be there too, Myles’s jam-packed schedule suddenly became free, much to Victor’s amusement, which he’d conveyed to Isla on their drive there.
Isla had learned Victor wasn’t above gossip and speculation.
“Keep up, Miss LA,” Bennett teased from ahead of her when she paused, again, to catch her breath. “You’ll get lost if you don’t. This isn’t the place you want to do that.”
Isla didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response.
The fact that he and Danny were here after the news break and after Victor had made them step down surprised her.
They joked around, like they were cool and had no worries, but they had to be angry and to need to vent that anger on the easiest prey they could find.
Bennett was acting cockier than usual, surrounded by his Neanderthal friends. She was no longer the topic of conversation when he, Roger, and Danny began reminiscing about their high school days, still mindful enough not to be too loud and scare off any game.
“You remember your first ride?” Bennett asked. “The Jeep that you backed into a tree stump that one time, making that dent in the bumper?”
Roger said ruefully, “She was my first love.”
“Cops ever find it?” Danny asked, laughing.
“Hell no,” Roger replied, sounding wistful. “She was a magnet for the girls too. This is supposed to be safe, small-town Virginia, and look what happens. Someone steals her right from our driveway. Damn, I loved that ride.”
Isla fell behind, slipping from the middle of the group to the back, as each step exhausted her.
She considered plopping herself on the trunk of an uprooted tree and telling them to pick her up on their way back down, but she wouldn’t give Bennett that satisfaction either.
Whatever initial interest and intrigue he’d had with her had dissipated, and in their place were contempt and plain annoyance since he’d realized she had wormed her way into his father’s good graces and wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon.
Myles, who’d been relatively close by, had disappeared upon hearing someone had spotted a deer, the thrill of the hunt drawing him away.
They moved farther up and into the woods, the terrain growing more uneven and treacherous to Isla’s pavement-conditioned feet.
Thorny brambles clawed at her jeans, and the thick undergrowth of vines caught her toes, and she stumbled forward, catching herself on a tree, its rough bark scratching her palms. Up ahead, Victor called for them to stop, and the group fanned out to check their surroundings and look for the markings that showed where they were permitted to hunt.
As she battled with a patch of muddied ground for one of her boots and fought the beginnings of panic at feeling enclosed with no way out, Myles materialized beside her. “Don’t wander off,” he warned softly, his gaze serious.
Isla nodded but felt suffocated by everyone’s closeness and being able to see nothing but trees as far as she could tell.
She stepped a few paces away to catch her breath, bringing her anxiety down to a manageable level by closing her eyes and imagining what Rey and Nat were doing at the moment.
She calculated. They were three hours behind, which meant 9 a.m. their time.
Nat was still asleep, and Rey was running security scans or whatever he was supposed to be doing for his clients.
There was a faint rustle, and though she knew better, curiosity got the better of her, and Isla started toward it, debating whether to call out that she’d found something someone could shoot or shoo the thing away to hopeful freedom.
She took a step, and her ankle turned horribly when she stepped on a hidden rock or root, and the world tilted before she realized she was falling.
She’d fallen down an incline, and when the shock and pain subsided, she looked around, trying to get her bearings. Nothing looked familiar, and everything looked the same. Woods, trees, leaves, green. She couldn’t tell where she’d been or where she should go.
“Hey,” she called out, first shakily, but louder the second time. The only response she got back was bubbling water from a nearby creek or stream, and birds. And . . . something else. There was no one around.
Isla’s breath came out in hitches as she tried to still her rapidly beating heart.
She tried to stand, then cried out when bolts of electric pain radiated from her twisted ankle.
She sucked in a long, painful breath to steady herself against a pine tree, trying to listen for sounds of human life.
The woods, once alive with crunching leaves and the distant voices of the people she’d trudged up with, had now swallowed all noise, leaving nothing but her ragged breathing, which sounded way too loud and terrified as panic clawed at her chest and she thought her heart would explode through her orange-and-neon-green vest.
“Hello?” she called out again, her voice thin and reedy, sounding like someone else.
She limped forward, grimacing against the pain. Tried retracing her steps as she thought about what had happened. She’d fallen, rolled down an incline that was hidden somewhere in the dense foliage.
A loud crack behind sent her heart to her throat. She spun around, bracing herself to see a bear or bobcat or hopefully a person, but there was nothing—just more trees and bushes and shadows. Even in the bright of day, the woods looked darker and more foreboding, especially when one was alone.
“Get it together, girl,” Isla chastised. “Find them, or you won’t hear the end of it.”
She gritted her teeth with each agonizing step, wishing she had a compass—not that she’d know which way to go.
She had nothing of substance except her bottle of water hanging from her wrist and a couple of Kind bars in her jacket pockets.
She hadn’t planned to actually hunt, so more gear than that wasn’t needed . . . until it was.
“Bennett?” she called out, her head on a swivel. “Myles? Anyone?”
Nothing.
Every tree looked the same, and time seemed to stretch endlessly.
Confusion and fear scratched at the edges of her.
She hadn’t fallen far, or long, she thought.
So where had everyone gone so quickly? Why couldn’t she hear them or they her?
The sameness of her surroundings and having no actual path to follow made it impossible to discern the way she’d come.
She thought about stuff she’d heard on the news back home.
How first responders suggested that hikers in the forests in the California hills and on trails in the canyons should stay where they were and not venture any farther, making it harder for search teams to find them.
Isla was about to do just that. Sit her ass down and go nowhere until someone found her.
She’d decided to hell with finding them—she was Miss LA, right?
They knew this place better than she did.
The rustling started again. Closer this time.
It was heavy, deliberate. Not a skittering squirrel, a bird taking flight, or the soft tread of deer.
It didn’t sound like what a bear would sound like either, not that she’d know.
But she imagined bears would sound bigger and would make more sound, even if they were stalking prey.
No, this noise sounded much more deliberate.
It stopped when she paused to listen and started back up again when she took a few steps backward.
A twig snapped beneath heavy feet, sending Isla’s senses into overdrive.
Whatever—whoever—it was was after her! Isla’s pulse thundered in her ears as blood rushed through and she stumbled forward, using her hands to push away the reaching branches that whapped her in her face and upper body.
She ignored the shooting pains in her ankle, though she still limped hard as she pushed through to put space between her and the noise behind her.
Another snap—a branch breaking.
Isla turned sharply, catching fleeting movement out of the corner of her eye. A shadow darting between the trees, not low like an animal would be. Higher. Like a person. Someone was near her, someone who hadn’t replied when she’d called for help. Someone who wasn’t a friendly, but a foe.