Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
COLE
Focus. Focus. Keep your fucking act together.
I narrow my eyes on the warehouse. Everything inside of me is crackling like there’s a downed electric wire loose in my chest.
Where the hell is Sierra?
I fight the urge to check the phone that’s been dead quiet in my pocket.
Fuck, this day is never gonna end.
When I get to steal a glance, the small hand on my tactical watch points to ten. My heart all but stops.
“Did she call?” One of my teammates asks.
I shake my head.
He says, “I heard there was a cellular outage in the region.”
I shift my position, but keep my eyes glued on the target. “Sierra hasn’t returned a text since before eight last night. Fuck. Fourteen hours of nothing.”
He moves to another hide and leaves me with my racing mind.
At first, it was no big deal. I figured she fell asleep early. But fourteen flippin’ hours is no longer a worry, it’s a situation.
Jesus. I should have texted someone and had them go by.
Larson’s the closest person to the house and is only a few miles away. But that’s got to wait. At the moment, I have to focus on the extraction training we’re working through.
“Going in.” Marshall’s voice crackles over the coms gear speaker in my ear. I move forward as he and Simona duck into the abandoned warehouse, guns raised.
Focus, Cole.
Pressing against the wall, I wait for my signal, forcing all thoughts of Sierra out of my head.
The team gets my full attention.
The next time I check my watch, it’s three pm. An hour later. Sierra doesn’t answer or respond to the text I send.
While the team loads gear in the rented SUV, I dial Larson. “Hey, I need a favor. Can you head over to the house to check on the friend who’s staying with me?”
“Sure—” The wail of a fire siren drowns out his voice. When the sound fades, he says, “You know what that means. As soon as I can, I’ll head over there.”
I’d call my father but I don’t want him to stress out unnecessarily.
By four pm, I’m a total disaster inside.
No call.
No check in from Sierra. But I’m on my way to Eden, at least, on a helicopter that’s flying into the setting sun. But it’s too damned far for my taste.
Marshall shoves a boot against my shin. He speaks into the mic on his headset. “You got something dark on your mind, bro?”
I huff and stretch my knotted up neck. “Sierra. I’m about to call the sheriff. She hasn’t returned my messages or calls since before eight last night.”
Simona quirks a brow like she always does at me. Through the intercom, she says, “Maybe she wanted some alone time.”
I give her my narrowed eyes in return. “She was supposed to check in with me.”
Marshall cuts her a look before speaking. “I’d be damned worried too. Liam would go check in.”
“I think all four of my brothers are on fire duty. But I’ll text him.”
Pulling out my phone, I send my older brother a message. Can you go to the house to check on Sierra? I’m out for work for another couple hours.
Three dots scroll across the screen.
Roger. Will take me thirty minutes to finish up with this patient. Getting ready to go set a dislocated elbow. I’ll go as soon as I can.
I cringe. I’ve set a few of those in the field. Never pretty. Thanks, man.
The helicopter rotors whomp as I drop my head back on my seat. I never remember feeling this tortured. Caring about someone is hell on your mental health.
As I look out the window of the chopper, thinking about the fact that I’m not cut out for relationship crap, an idea hits me.
I sit up in my seat and tap Marshall’s arm before I speak through the communication system. “Any chance you can get the pilot to let me fast rope down to the cabin?”
He smirks, a dangerous gleam lights his eyes. “I like the way you think. I knew I hired the right guy.”
He gives the pilot the command to fly to the GPS coordinates I provide.
The sky is pitch black when we reach near my cabin.
“You’re a crazy motherfucker. I like you,” Simona says as she helps Marshall drop the gigantic rope that I’ll slide down out the side of the chopper.
Lights from the bird flash off the swirl of snow that the chopper’s rotor wash is stirring up. It’s my first time fast roping into snow. Gonna be interesting to say the least.
Reaching for the rope, I catch it with one hand and loop my foot into it. “Thanks, man. Catch ya on the flip side.”
“Clear to drop. Over,” the pilot says over the intercom.
Without looking back, I step onto the skid and then drop from the chopper, zipping down the rope into the swirling white tornado. I count the seconds of the descent and crush my gloved hands and feet against the rope to stop myself at just the right time.
Exactly as planned, I reach the solid earth in one piece.
“On the ground. Over,” I report. The bird lifts into the sky and disappears into the night. The thump of the rotors soon replaced with quiet.
I’ve nearly crossed the field of hip deep snow when a call hits my phone. Please let it be Sierra.
Dammit, it’s Liam. I bite out my demand. “Tell me she’s okay.”
“I wish I could. She’s not here.”
“Fuck!” I bellow into the night sky. “What the hell? I’m almost to the house. It’s going to take me another ten minutes to get through the snow. Are you there?”
“Yeah. I’m in your kitchen. There’s a flannel shirt on the floor. A book laying by the couch. The lights on the tree are lit. Nothing else.”
“Is there a backpack on the stool in the kitchen?”
“Negative.”
“Jesus. She’s taken off. Is there a blue coat on the hook by the mudroom door?”
“Negative.”
The snow around my legs makes it nearly impossible to run. My heart is pounding harder than it ever has. “She left on foot.”
The screen door slams shut on the other end of the line. A truck engine growls to life. Liam says, “Call the sheriff, I’ll start searching.”
The faces of my four brothers are grim.
With the five of us, my parents, and Agile team jammed in the kitchen, I’m starting to feel claustrophobic.
Marshall’s got his nose in his phone, texting his connections, as Mom passes each of us a cup of coffee. Liam confirms what I already saw with my own eyes. “There’s no trace of her in the snow around the house, the wind probably covered her movement.”
Caleb scrubs a hand across his beard shadow as he reaches for a cup of coffee. “There were faint boot prints along the main road, but there’s been so much traffic, you can’t tell what kind of boot or shoe they really are. It could be anyone.”
The front door of my house creaks as it closes, all eyes flip toward the sound. A few seconds later, Sheriff Harris sticks his head in the kitchen.
He looks tired. Shit, we all look tired. It’s three-thirty in the morning. “We have a lead.”
I bolt off the stool. “Where? What kind of lead?”
He tosses a notepad on the kitchen table.
“The details are there. Red-haired woman wearing a blue parka entered the corner store in Eden at approximately ten last night. She got out of a red GMC truck. About thirty minutes later, a white Subaru car pulled up and she left in it. Before she got in the vehicle, she shoved the blue coat she was wearing in the trash can outside the store.”
The boulder in my throat threatens to suffocate me. “She’s running. This is not good.”
The sheriff gives me a sympathetic look. “The blue coat is in my car, but it’s evidence. I can’t give it to you right now. The pockets are empty, except for—get this—a kitchen paring knife. There’s some red hair caught in the velcro near the neck.”
Larson clasps a hand on my shoulder. “She’s probably okay. We just need to find her. I’m sure that was an Uber or a Lyft that picked her up at the store.”
The sheriff nods. “We have a call into both companies to get the transaction records for last night. The local taxi-cab company already confirmed it wasn’t them.
The clerk on duty at the store said that Sierra did not seem to be in physical distress.
She used cash to purchase some granola bars and a bottle of water. ”
“There was cash in her passport and a credit card. We picked them up in Virginia. Her purse was never recovered from her accident.”
Marshall sets his phone on the counter. His hard eyes rise to mine. “I just got more details. Sierra Owens used a Lyft to get to the Salt Lake airport last night. She purchased a one way ticket to Virginia on a redeye with her credit card and boarded the plane on time.”
I’m stunned speechless. She remembered…
It’s the only explanation.
“Are you okay, honey?” My mom’s hand touches my shaking arm.
“I’ll feel a lot better when I know she’s okay.”
Beside me, Simona furiously taps on the laptop keyboard she’s been using for the last ten minutes. “I just chartered Agile a plane.”
I toss back the cup of coffee. It scalds its way down my throat as I take the steps two at a time to my bedroom. In less than four minutes, I’m loaded and bounding back down the stairs.
My mother and father are the only ones left in the house when I return to the kitchen. It looks like someone pulled a fire alarm.
Mom throws her arms around me. “I’m sorry, hun. You be careful. I hope you can find her and bring her home.”
Over my mother’s shoulder, I see the tree that Sierra and I decorated. Pain lances through my chest.
I want her back.
If she left because she remembered what happened that night seven months ago, the chances of hell freezing over are better.