Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
ZACH
Henry hurries back to the truck to call Barb, leaving me alone with Sofie. A gust blasts through the treetops, the hardy branches like flailing arms. Snow swirls around us, the clouds low and thick. What visibility we have is deteriorating quickly.
“What kind of bike is it?” I ask over the wind. She has yet to look at me. I’m still confused. Why is Linnie out in this weather? Did something happen? But I don’t have a right to answers. Maybe I never did. My choices have made me an outsider. Again.
“A Honda 250F.”
A powerful bike like that could cover ten-plus miles an hour. If Linnea’s thirty minutes ahead of us, she could be in the next basin by now.
I stuff my hands in my pockets to warm them, my fingertips jabbing the burner phone that’s accompanied me every minute since that terrifying encounter in the larch grove.
Yesterday, I went to Stu’s office with The Limelight’s faded flyer I stole from the utility pole and lied about where I found it, with one edit—a circle around tonight’s date, when Buckshot Love will play to a sold-out crowd .
“Could they be using The Limelight?” I asked, secretly praying for him to take the bait.
Stu stared at the faded paper, frowning. “Damn. I’m calling the sheriff.”
I sat listening to Stu and Sheriff Olson formulate a plan while my gut churned. Because I knew the instant the bust they orchestrated turned up nothing, they’d come at me with pitchforks, demanding answers.
The YouTube clips of that arrest Sawyer told me about don’t reveal the second guy’s identity well enough for me to determine if Kristov is behind bars. Until I get better intel, I have to err on the side of caution.
Which is why I’m packed and ready to go.
Tomorrow morning, after The Limelight bust, when the cops are still chasing their tails and wondering what the hell went wrong. My meager savings are parceled out and stashed like before. My spare clothes rolled up inside, my water bottle filled. Though it goes against the planning Sawyer and I have maintained since I left, I haven’t told him yet. If anything goes wrong, he won’t have to lie for me.
As much as I want to leave Barb and Henry a note, no words could possibly describe my gratitude. I just hope they can forgive me someday.
My sketchbook will stay behind. It contains too many memories of my time here. The sharp mountains, Galaxy’s silly antics, Barb’s warm smile.
Too many of Sofie. I don’t want a reminder of her gorgeous face, of her inquisitive eyes. Her laugh.
Fuck, it hurts.
“Her track disappears over that first ridge.” Sofie’s voice is tense and cold.
It shouldn’t make me feel wounded. She’s stressed, and rightly so. Her little sister is out here somewhere in a breaking storm, alone.
But it reminds me of what a mess I’ve made.
Rowdy returns. The snow is sticking to his shoulders and the wool hat he’s pulled on.
“The team will be here in thirty,” he says.
“We need to go up there. Before the snow covers her tracks.” Sofie climbs down but one of her gloved hands slips on the post now slick with a layer of snow. I rush to steady her, but she glares at me. I slip the binoculars from her so she’s not trying to climb down with one hand.
“I’ll go too,” I say.
“No.” Rowdy’s loaded gaze flicks between the two of us. “It’s too dangerous. You aren’t equipped for a search in these conditions.”
“Give us a radio,” Sofie says as she stares her father down. “I’ll check in every thirty minutes. I’ll only go as far as I can track her. It’ll give the search team a head start. You can’t tell me that won’t be helpful.”
“She’s right,” I say because I’ve been up here. The trail splits after that first ridge, heading in two very different directions.
Rowdy grimaces. “I don’t like this.”
“We’ll stay together,” I promise him. I can at least do this for the Whittakers. Find Linnie and bring her back. It’s not enough to repair the damage my deception is going to cause them, but maybe it’ll atone for some of the hurt.
Henry hurries over. “Barb’s on her way with Leo and Bea.”
“You don’t need to do this,” Rowdy says, shaking his head.
Henry clamps a hand on Rowdy’s shoulder. The two men lock eyes.
“I know,” Henry says.
Rowdy huffs a hard sigh and turns back to me and Sofie. “If the storm gets worse, you come back. I’ll be right behind you just as soon as our SAR team arrives.”
He hands Sofie the radio, then slips off his gloves and passes them to me. Our hands brush, the contact fusing a quick, heated connection between us. I silently promise to him to protect Sofie. To bring her and Linnie back safely.
Sofie shoots me an impatient glance. “Let’s go.”
I slip on Rowdy’s gloves and hurry to catch up with her. I wish I had a map and a few other essentials with me, but we’re both dressed warmly and Sofie has the radio.
The snowflakes sting my cheeks and the cold seeps into the gaps in my coat, freezing the back of my neck and my wrists. I clench my fingers in Rowdy’s gloves to keep the blood moving.
“Linn accidentally found out Jesse’s leaving. Probably overheard him,” Sofie says as we race up a bare slope rough with the frozen ruts made by dirt bikes in muddier times. The single-track heads straight up, but the accumulating snow is making it harder to trace. At least in this part of the trail, there’s nowhere else for Linnie to go unless she’s traveling cross-country. I swallow the prick of fear in the back of my throat. That would open up too many possibilities.
“Wouldn’t she think to turn around by now?” I squint against the snow.
“Jesse’s news set her off.” Sofie’s breathing faster but it’s not breaking her stride. “I think she might be stuck in the past right now.”
Like when their mom left. Linnie would have been what, seven years old? I grimace. Too young.
“Mom and I were fighting a lot before she left.” Her face twists. “At the hospital this morning, Dad and Jesse got into it a few times.”
I grunt. Set off sounds about right. “How long will it last?”
“I don’t know.” Her words get snatched by another firm gust. The cold licks down my spine, making me shiver. I pull my collar tighter.
“Why were you at the hospital?”
“Jesse’s girlfriend overdosed. She stopped breathing.”
“Shit.” Guilt trickles through me. Though I’m not the one dealing drugs, I am now in partnership with the people who are. “Is she okay?”
“She’s alive.”
“That’s good.” I take a quick look ahead just as the clouds shift and a beam of sunlight filters through, brightening the landscape.
I lift the binoculars to my eyes for a scan. The basin is like a giant dish rising to a rocky pass, flanked by trees slowly turning white in the storm.
“No tracks in the basin,” I say over the wind.
Squinting against the brightness lighting up the snow and the whirling flakes, I give the forest a quick pass, but I discard the possibility that Linnie is in there somewhere. The trees are too tightly spaced for a dirt bike, and the slope is too steep. I’m about to lower the binoculars when a flash of something bright catches my attention. I try to trace it, but there’s only thick forest and swirling snow.
The clouds close in again, turning the colors gray and flat.
“Let’s look for tracks at the junction.” Sofie takes off.
The back of my neck prickles. What did I see? The was something familiar about it, yet that makes no sense .
I shake it off. Whatever I saw, it wasn’t a dirt bike, or Linnie.
We run the rest of the way to the top of the rise, where the trail splits. A faded sign warns riders to stay on designated trails to protect the fragile alpine soil and how to stay safe in black bear country.
Let’s hope all the bears are safely tucked away for the winter by now.
Sofie squints in the direction of the tracks, but the path is obscured by the snow and lowering clouds. The wind has picked up, too, roaring down from the pass.
“I’m going to call in.” Sofie brings the radio to her mouth, breathing fast.
While Sofie relays, my gaze strays to the forest and that familiar flash. I try to picture the map of this area in my mind but everything looks different in the snow, and the one time I was here, I came from a different trailhead, closer to the ranch’s border. I lift the binoculars to my eyes but all I see is white flakes dancing and the faint blur of the forest.
“Henry and Barb are heading up,” Rowdy says over the static.
Relief buzzes beneath my skin, but there’s anguish, too. In case you haven’t noticed, we specialize in getting caught in the middle.
Why don’t we hear Linnie’s bike? Is the wind too loud, or are we in the wrong place? Linnie may not be riding it any longer. Bikes don’t do well in fluffy snow like this. Could she be stuck? Or hurt?
“Jesse, Gabe, and Hutch are heading out from Taylor Creek Trailhead,” Rowdy adds. “I don’t think she’d get that far, but at least it’ll form a barrier from that side.”
“She’d likely go to that high meadow,” Sofie says. “Remember what Lyle said?”
“Didn’t you guys pull fence up there last summer?” Rowdy says.
“Yep,” Sofie says, her mouth a hard line.
A crack like thunder splits the air. It’s distant, but the hair prickles on my neck.
“What the fuck was that?” Rowdy barks.
“Gunshot,” I say, my gut tensing. What if some trigger-happy hunter is out here stalking in the snow and thinks Linnie is some sort of prey?
“I need you two to come back,” Rowdy commands, his voice firm.
Sofie glances at me with that steely determination I’ve grown to love.
I nod my acknowledgment—we’re staying.
“We’re heading into the basin,” she tells her dad, then silences Rowdy’s flustered curse and tucks the radio back into her pocket.
Our shoes leave crisp prints in the fluffy snow. There’s no sign of Linnie’s tracks here, but I’m not sure we would see them, given how quickly the snow is accumulating.
“Should we call for her?” I ask.
Sofie glances back, her brows knitted together in worry. “Would we hear her in this wind?”
“Even if it’s more for her than us. She’d know she’s not alone. That we’re coming. Maybe those hunters would hear us too.”
She gives me a sharp nod. “Okay.”
We stand back-to-back so our call will expand in more directions. Even through my thick coat, Sofie’s warmth radiates into my back.
“On three,” I say and count down. We cry Linnie’s name to the howling wind, the snow tickling my lips. I close my eyes to channel all of my senses into listening. We stand there, the two of us breathing, waiting, hoping.
But only the wind answers.
“Let’s move a little higher,” Sofie says.
We hurry up the trail, the snowflakes dancing all around us, burning my eyes and fingers. In another hour, we’ll be lucky to find our way out of here.
The radio crackles with Rowdy’s stern tone. “SAR team’s here. They’ll be underway in five.”
Sofie clicks the mike in acknowledgment.
We reach the basin. I swing my arms to get warm blood into my aching fingers. How bad would the cold be without Rowdy’s gloves? “Let’s call for her again.”
Sofie spins and our backs press close. Her warmth pulls at me, makes me want to wrap my arms around her and tell her everything is going to be okay. But I swore not to make promises I can’t keep.
I count down and we cry out Linnie’s name but it gets swallowed by the storm. The seconds stretch, the only sound the wind and my thumping pulse. Sofie’s back presses into mine with each rapid breath.
“Again,” I say, and count down. We call out. I close my eyes and strain for any scrap of sound over the storm.
“Did you hear that?” Sofie asks.
I turn to catch her eye. “What?”
“I don’t know. It came from up there.” She points to the woods flanking the north edge of the basin.
“Let’s try again.” This time, we face the forest. “One, two, three.”
Together, we cry Linnie’s name, the wind blasting down from the pass in an icy gust. I close my eyes and turn my attention to the direction Sofie had pointed. The snow bites at my cheeks and lips.
I hear only the trees swaying and the raging wind. “Maybe it was creaking from one of the trees,” Sofie says, discouragement edging her tone.
That was the same place I thought I saw…
Only a daredevil would try to ride through those trees. “Let’s have a look. Maybe the bike is stuck up there.”
We hurry off the trail, crossing rocky terrain with stunted trees and sections of frozen ground that are slippery in the snow.
The radio crackles, and Rowdy’s voice cuts through the wind and our huffing breaths. “The storm’s getting worse. I need you two to come down.”
A man with a brisk tone interrupts. “We’re at the junction and heading into the basin.”
It must be the SAR team. Where are Henry and Barb?
Rowdy clicks the mike in affirmation, then barks at us. “Sofie and Zach. Turn back. Now.”
We reach the trees. The wind rages in the crowns high above us. There isn’t as much snow in here yet, but the carpet of dead needles and detritus is dry and frozen.
I lift the binoculars to my eyes and scan. What I saw here makes no sense, yet why can’t I forget it? The tree trunks fill the lenses—disorienting until I slow down and refocus on the ground.
Then I see it—so faint that in another hour of snowfall, it would be gone. I race up, using the trunks to help, the bark cutting into my palms .
“Zach!” Sofie calls from behind me. “Wait! What is it?”
The trees thin as I ascend, my heart hammering in my chest. Snow swirls like a kaleidoscope of icy white—more is getting through the higher we climb, and it’s getting colder. The front of my jacket is coated with a frozen layer of snow where my body heat melted the blasts.
When I get to the crest, I study the ground, panting. It’s a tire track crossing a thick deposit of snow, the tread visible because of the mud still in the tires. I follow it to the base of a giant aspen tree, where an area of the ground has been compressed. Like someone stood here. Doing what, though?
Sofie squats down. “This can’t be Linnie. The tread is too narrow.”
“I know,” I say, breathing hard. “It’s from a mountain bike.”
Sofie squints up at me. “Why would someone be out here mountain biking in the snow?”
Several details fall into place at once.
I close my eyes and try to breathe.
My god.
That awkward interaction with Kai that day in the bike shop makes sense now. Had he just come in from a pickup, and I surprised him?
Another gust thunders through the trees, sending a wall of snow at us. I turn my shoulder away for shelter.
How easily Kai can come and go on a mountain bike. He could probably sneak out anytime during his shift. Does he keep the drugs in the rental shop? Fuck, does he deal from the shop?
Was Kai the one who held me at gunpoint by that boulder? I replay those terrifying moments. The man’s voice was rough. A big man’s voice. Kai is tall and lean. The back door of the shop was open, so he could have just come in… but maybe he was heading out.
What about his voice, though? Wouldn’t I have recognized it?
Then, it clicks.
Outside The Limelight that night, I was attacked by two guys. Kai is only one of them.
If he’s the one inside the ranch, who is his partner?
The gust subsides, and I open my eyes. Standing ten feet away is a man.
Sofie cries out in surprise.