Chapter Thirty-Eight
SETH
I think this is it,” I say as I haul the last of the plywood out of the hardware store.
I place it into the truck bed with the others, and Khalil begins tying them down for the journey.
It’s the day before we leave Canada, and we, minus Aurelia, made a last-minute stop in town to grab wood to board up the cabin.
“All set.” Khalil hops down and joins me on the sidewalk.
“Good,” Thorin says as he slams the tailgate closed. “Let’s hurry up and get back. It looks like it’s going to storm, and Aurelia isn’t answering the damn radio.”
“She probably fell asleep. She’s been doing that a lot lately.
” Probably storing up her energy for all the murder.
Or maybe she just doesn’t want to think about it.
The three of us hop in the truck with Thorin in the driver’s seat.
“Do you think she’ll really do it?” I ask from the back seat as Thorin starts the truck.
Khalil peers at me over his shoulder. “Do what?”
“Get on a plane again after what happened. I wouldn’t blame her if she couldn’t. I don’t think I would either.”
“I don’t know,” Khalil answers after considering it for a moment. “I guess we’ll see.”
Thorin takes off toward home, but we don’t get more than half a mile before the red and blue lights of the sheriff’s truck in our rearview stop us. Thorin swears and pulls over, and moments later, Sheriff Kelly is standing at his open window.
“I’m glad I caught you boys,” he greets as he removes his hat. “She said I’d find you near here.”
Thorin frowns. “Who?”
“Your gal. Aurelia.”
“You talked to her?” I lean forward to get a good look at the sheriff who looks even more haggard than the last time I saw him, and notice a deputy I don’t recognize standing a few feet behind him. Must be new. “When?”
“’Bout an hour ago, I’d say. I went looking for you boys at the cabin first, and she answered the door. Said I’d find you here.” I think the three of us breathe a collective sigh of relief at the confirmation that our girl’s fine and probably fell asleep like I’d guessed.
“Who’s he?” I ask, referring to the silent deputy.
“Ah, this is Deputy Green. Brought him on two weeks ago after Plocher decided on an early retirement. His first week was nothing to write home about, but I’d say he’s had an exciting second week, wouldn’t you, Green?”
“Definitely, sir.”
Fascinating. I roll my eyes.
“Listen,” the sheriff says. “I know you boys are getting ready to hightail it out of town, and this is highly inconvenient, but I have a favor to ask.”
“What’s up?” Khalil’s friendly ass asks.
“We got some out-of-towners who went camping, and a couple of them got separated from their group last night. No one’s seen or heard from them since.
I’ve got the new SAR team out there looking, but they aren’t familiar with the terrain and haven’t found diddly-squat.
With this nasty squall coming, I don’t want to waste any more time.
You three know those mountains better than anyone.
Maybe you’ll see something they can’t. What do you say? Help this old man out one last time?”
Frowning, I sit back and cross my arms, choosing to keep my thoughts to myself.
The search could only take a few hours, or it could take a few days.
It’s been a month since we decided to go after Isaac, and it feels like now or never.
A delay could make us all lose our nerve, not to mention search and rescue is a dangerous job.
If one of us gets hurt, we’re fucked. We’re already wildly outnumbered, but that’s okay because we only have one target.
Anyone who gets in our way will simply be collateral damage, but we have a way around that too.
I watch Khalil and Thorin glance at each other, and then they both look in the back seat at me, and I raise my brows because we’re obviously going to do it. Why? Because Aurelia told the sheriff where to find us, which means she thinks we should. So we will.
Our girl’s got a sharp tongue but a soft heart. She knows what it’s like to be lost out there and wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she allowed us to ignore someone else in need.
“We’ll do it,” Khalil says. “We just need time to grab our gear.”
“No need,” the sheriff states. “Your young lady already took care of that. She packed your gear, and we put it in my truck.”
Thorin blows out a breath and then waves a hand. “Lead the way.”
It’s fucking snowing. And worse, it’s late enough in the season that the shit is actually sticking and being a goddamn nuisance. I shiver in my leather jacket for the third time and pull the fur-lined collar up to protect my nape and ears.
It’s just my luck that this shit show landed on my day instead of Zeke’s.
I’m tempted to force the fucker awake so he can deal with this cold instead of me. I’m already grouchy that I won’t be able to hold Sunshine’s hand during the plane ride tomorrow. Zeke gets to. It’s not fucking fair.
A helicopter flies overheard and I glare at it as it goes.
We’ve been searching for hours and haven’t caught a single lead yet. For one, the dickheads who radioed for help can’t seem to keep their story straight about the last time they saw their friends or where they were going when they disappeared, which makes it harder to establish a searchable grid.
And two, their camp doesn’t look lived in. It looks more like it was staged to give the impression of camping, which also doesn’t make any sense. I get lying about your friends going missing if you murdered them. But why would anyone drag all of this shit out here just to pretend to camp?
Nothing about this makes any sense, and I can tell by the matching scowls on Thorin and Khalil’s faces that they’re thinking the same thing. We have no reason not to trust the sheriff though, so we stay and hope that the alarm bells that have been going off in our minds for the past hour are wrong.
And then there’s Aurelia.
We still can’t get ahold of her, but it’s probably the storm interfering with the signal. Nevertheless, I’m getting ready to bow out and head back to the cabin to check on her when the sheriff walks over to where the three of us are searching an abandoned wolf den.
“So the witnesses now think their friends might have gone to explore a system of caves near Maia. I’d send some volunteers out there, but they’re all pretty weary and spread out checking the other leads. You boys think you’re up for it?”
“Sheriff, how sure are you that this is legit?” Khalil barks. “It doesn’t seem off to you that their story keeps changing? I mean, what the fuck?”
“I’ve had those thoughts myself, but we can’t take that chance. Either a terrible accident occurred or a terrible crime. Either way, I’m not leaving until those hikers are found.”
“Fine,” Thorin says. “We’ll go and let you know if we find anything.”
“Take Deputy Green with you, will you? Show the new kid the ropes?”
I glare over at the creepy fucking deputy who keeps staring at me like he has an eye problem. I can’t actually see his eyes behind those dark shades, but I know he’s watching me and has been ever since we arrived.
“Nah,” I snarl. “I don’t like him.”
The sheriff’s brows raise at the unprovoked hostility in my tone, but I ignore him and walk off to stand near the ATVs. I hear Thorin murmur something to the sheriff, and then he and Khalil join me with deputy fucking Green.
I straddle my ATV and try again to radio Aurelia.
To my immense fucking relief, she finally answers, sounding like she was asleep. “Seth?”
“Sunshine,” I greet with an exhale. “Where were you? We’ve been calling you.”
“Sorry. I fell asleep. How’s the search going?”
I press on the receiver. “Shitty. We haven’t found a thing. Not even a set of footprints.”
“Really?” Aurelia sounds surprised. “Why?”
“My theory? We’ve been using the wrong M. I’m thinking murdered, not missing.” I release the receiver, and Aurelia’s tone changes.
“That’s…disturbing.”
I grin and press the receiver. “Aren’t you glad you told us to come?”
“Be careful, Seth. I don’t like this.”
“Is that Goldilocks? What’s she saying?” Khalil asks before I can reply to her.
I turn my head toward where he’s sitting next to me on his own ATV and smirk. “She wants us to come home.”
Thorin snorts and shoves his helmet over his head.
“Seth?” Aurelia calls over the radio when I take too long to reply.
“I’m here, baby.” The deputy walks by, and I watch him climb into one of the pickups. “We’ll be careful,” I promise her. “Gotta go, but we’ll be checking in. Don’t fall asleep.”
Her response comes through immediately. “I won’t.”
The snow is coming down even harder by the time we reach the caves on the far east side of Maia.
We’re so far away from the rest of the search team that even the helicopters searching from the air are a distant thump-thump-thump.
They’ll have to give up the aerial search soon once the visibility becomes too limited and to avoid the blades from icing over.
The knowledge soothes some of the agitation that’s been riding me since we started and injects some urgency in its place.
Before we head inside though, I radio Aurelia one last time to check on her, since we’ll probably lose signal.
Once I’m satisfied she’s safe, the four of us head inside the first of the caves.
I make sure to keep the deputy within my sight at all times as we search high and low for the missing and possibly dead campers.