Chapter Twelve
CHAPTER TWELVE
Aidan dropped to his knees on the ground and peered over the edge of the cliff. Relief swept through him when he saw Ortiz standing on the rock overhang below, clinging to a sapling growing out of the side of the mountain. Another foot and he’d have tumbled down to the ravine.
“Did I or did I not tell you to stop?” Aidan laughed when Ortiz made a rude gesture.
“I tried to, but the dang rocks were like ice, sliding out from under me. Whatever you paid for this piece of property, you paid too much,” Ortiz complained. “It’s a nightmare of cliffs and rock and vegetation so thick you can hardly see twenty feet in front of you.”
“The cabin and flat land around it are nice enough to make up for that. And it’s the views I paid for, and great hunting. Those rocks and cliffs you’re complaining about are a bonus. They make it secure and hard for people to trespass. Well, usually, anyway.”
“Maybe the shooter decided the same thing and went somewhere else. Or better yet, maybe he’s at the bottom of one of these ravines and we’ll find his skeleton after the buzzards pick it clean. You gonna haul me up, or talk me to death?”
“I was thinking of taking a picture first to show Dawson when we rendezvous with the rest of the search party.”
Ortiz swore and tried to climb up the cliff wall on his own.
“Stop, stop,” Aidan said, laughing. “Give me a minute. I need leverage.” He looked around, then chose two trees close to the edge to brace his legs. After taking off his belt, he made a loop, then held it down toward Ortiz. “Loop your belt through mine and around your wrists. Then use your legs to push against the rock and climb up while I pull.”
Ortiz did as he’d said, then warned, “If you drop me, I’m going to come back and haunt you.”
“Would you rather I call your boss and have him pull you up?”
“Hell, no. If you even hint that I needed rescuing, I’ll swear you’re lying.”
Aidan snorted and pulled the belt tight. “Let’s do this.”
A minute later, they were both lying on their backs above the drop-off, trying to catch their breath.
“That was fun,” Ortiz said between taking gulps of air. “Particularly the part where you said uh-oh as if you were going to drop me.”
Aidan sat up. “Consider it karma, payback for handcuffing me to the conference room table. It’s nice having law enforcement at my mercy for a change instead of the other way around.”
Ortiz grunted and sat up, too, taking his belt from Aidan. Once they were both standing and well away from the edge, Aidan motioned toward a slight incline on their right. “That’s the last part of our grid to search. This time, stay beside or behind me. Don’t get impatient and speed ahead. Slow and steady means staying safe.”
“I get it. Trust me, I get it.” A moment later he called out, “O’Brien? Aidan? Wait.”
Aidan turned in question.
Ortiz seemed uncomfortable, looking off in the distance before finally dragging in a deep breath. “I, uh, I don’t pretend to know much about what happened in your past, the reasons behind what you did and exactly what took place.” He held up his hands. “And I’m not asking you to explain. It’s just, I may have misjudged you this past year. I lumped you in with all the other, well, criminals I’ve known through the years and assumed you were as bad as, or worse than, them. But none of those others would have done what you’ve done. I—”
“Forget it,” Aidan said. “You probably could have climbed up that drop-off without my help. It just would have taken longer.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, yeah, maybe I could have. But then again, maybe I would have fallen.” He grimaced. “I appreciate your help, and that you helped the chief when he had a close call. And a lot of other things, like you running into the woods at the festival to try to get the shooter, with no thought for your own safety.”
“Ortiz, we need to finish searching our grid and—”
“Just give me a second, man. I’m eating crow here. Let me finish.”
Aidan sighed. “The sun will set soon. Let’s search while you eat crow.”
Ortiz followed him up the incline. “I’m just saying there’s more to you than your past. Not that what you did was okay or anything. But I honestly believe people can change. And the man I’ve seen these past couple of days isn’t the man I always thought you were.”
Aidan stopped and pushed some small branches aside to peer underneath a bush.
“I’ll try to give you the benefit of the doubt from now on,” Ortiz said, stopping beside him. “And I’ll make an effort to not always assume you’re behind every little bad thing that happens around here. That’s what I’m trying to say.”
Aidan pointed beneath the bush. “Is that what I think it is?”
Ortiz leaned down to look at the plastic bag Aidan had found. “Well, I’ll be. Look at all these feathers. At least now we know where they came from. It isn’t his hunting prowess, unless you call going to a costume store hunting. I wonder if that shopping bag has a receipt in it. Or fingerprints.” He pulled some latex gloves out of his pocket and pulled them on. “No receipt, but I recognize the bag. Comes from a party store in town. Not Mystic Lake—Chattanooga. I take my daughter there to shop for Halloween every year.”
“The paint on the feathers looks fresh.” Aidan bent down to check for a discarded paint can or brush, but didn’t find any.
“Why would he leave the feathers behind after going to all that trouble?” Ortiz asked.
Aidan glanced back in the direction of the cliff that Ortiz had slid down. It wasn’t far, maybe twenty yards. He located shoe prints near the bush, then backtracked, following them to see where else the shooter had been.
When he and Ortiz reached the cliff’s edge, the officer’s face went pale.
“He was here,” Ortiz said. “He was standing right here, maybe trying to see where all the searchers were.”
Aidan nodded. “He must have heard us coming and ran and hid in those bushes. That bag crinkles, makes noise. Most likely he ditched it because he was worried we’d hear him. He must not have had his bow and arrows with him or he’d have shot at us.”
“Lord have mercy,” Ortiz said, his face still pale.
“He’s on the run. I doubt he’s gotten very far. This is the most treacherous terrain on my property. It’s slow going. There are only two ways out: the way we came, or off to the left over there, northeast.”
Ortiz pulled out his cell phone. “I’ll warn the others.”