CHAPTER ELEVEN LYLA #2
We continued along the trail, walking in silence as the terrain steepened. When Vance stopped, digging out my water, sweat was beading at my temples beneath my hat.
Meanwhile, he barely looked winded. Was this how he kept that magnificent body in shape? How he had such stamina to play with mine for hours and hours each night? Hooray for hiking.
“Let’s take a break.” He walked to a fallen tree, using his boot to kick off a piece of decaying bark. Beneath it, the wood was smooth and tan.
“I can keep going.”
“Sit,” he ordered. “I need you to save some energy for later.”
“Why? What’s later?” I turned in a circle. A rock cliff loomed in the distance. We weren’t climbing that today, were we?
“Later, I’m fucking you on that fancy couch in your living room.”
“Oh.” My face flamed. “Later.”
Vance winked. It was so playfully sexy my heart tumbled, so I took my seat, catching my breath as he leaned against a neighboring tree trunk.
“Hungry?” he asked.
I lifted a shoulder.
He rifled through his pack, taking out two granola bars, tossing one to me before he tore at the wrapper of his own. He didn’t wolf it down or seem to be in any hurry to move along.
Today wasn’t really about the search, was it?
Today, he was humoring me. Bringing me out here because maybe he knew I needed a break from the coffee shop. Or maybe he knew I needed more days in these mountains to reclaim them for myself.
“How long were you and Cormac partners?” I asked.
“Seven years.” The lightness in Vance’s eyes faded.
“We don’t have to talk about him.”
“No, it’s all right.” He stared into the forest, his gaze losing focus. “I haven’t talked about him in a long time. Kind of made it a point not to.”
“We really don’t need to.”
He balled up his now-empty wrapper and leaned deeper into the tree.
“After the academy, I spent a couple years as a deputy doing fairly routine work. Mostly putting my time in, proving myself. I met Cormac at a department holiday party. We got to talking, and I told him I was interested in working for the backcountry unit. He took me out hiking the next week. Snow to our waists. Cold as hell. He pushed me to the extreme, but I kept pace with him to the summit. Views for days. Worth the work.”
His voice quieted as he spoke, almost like he was tiptoeing around those memories, careful not to disturb them.
“I didn’t realize until we got back to town it was a test,” he said. “Cormac pulled some strings, and by that summer, I’d been transferred. He became my mentor. Partner. Friend.”
Until Cormac had snapped and murdered his family.
“I spent a lot of time with him and his family,” Vance said. “I told you he was the coach for his daughter’s softball team?”
“Yeah.”
“I was the assistant coach. I taught his twins how to whittle wooden spoons. When Cormac was working, I’d shuttle his oldest to swim team practice. Those girls were the closest thing to my own daughters as I’ve ever had.”
And he’d lost them. My heart cracked. “I’m sorry.”
“He was a good dad.” Vance shook his head, his eyebrows coming together. “He was a great dad. He loved those girls.”
Then why? Why had he killed them? Unless . . .
“Do you think he really did it?” I hated even asking that question. After what Cormac had done to me, I had no trouble thinking of him as a murderer. But the doubt written on Vance’s face crept into my mind.
“In my head”—he tapped his temple—“he killed them. He strangled Norah.”
Norah. A pretty name. I pitied her already for the way she’d died. I hoped, for her sake, that she hadn’t known that he’d killed their children.
“There’s no question,” Vance continued. “I’ve gone through the evidence countless times. It all points to Cormac. And the fact that he ran.”
“Innocent men don’t run.”
“No, they don’t.” He sighed. “In my head, all the pieces fit. But in my heart, I can’t make sense of it.”
Because to Vance, Cormac had been a friend and mentor too. Not a cold-blooded killer. “That’s why you need to find him. You want answers.”
Vance went quiet again, his gaze roving the nearby trees. “Starting to think I might not get them.”
“I hope you do.”
“So do I,” he murmured, swallowing hard.
I stood from my seat, brushing off the seat of my jeans. Then I handed Vance my bottle to put in his backpack with my own granola bar wrapper. “Okay, we’re looking for footprints but we’re not looking for footprints. What else?”
“Cormac was out hunting when you found him. Not for sport, but food. Which means he probably has a shelter in the area. I found no signs of him around the river, so he’s probably been careful to hunt far away from where he’s camped.”
“Then why did he come to the river that day?” That place wasn’t close to the road, but it wasn’t exactly secluded either.
“Hunting season. Maybe he thought he’d blend in as just another bow hunter. Maybe he was tracking the elk and that’s where she led him.”
I guess when you lived off the wilderness for food, you took the opportunities given. “How much distance would he put between his camp and where he was hunting?”
Vance shrugged. “Ten miles? Twenty? Maybe more.”
“Twenty miles?” A mental circle extended in my head, its edge stretching farther and farther into the forest. Twenty miles on a smooth, flat highway would take at least five hours to walk. But through these woods? Days.
The magnitude of this search, the improbability of it being successful, rolled over me like the dense fog clinging to the jagged mountain peaks.
Was this hopeless?
Like he’d plucked the question from my thoughts, Vance reached out, his palm cupping my cheek. In that clear gaze, I saw the truth he’d been hiding for weeks.
This was hopeless, wasn’t it? Yet he was still here, combing through this forest day in and day out.
He hadn’t given up, not yet. So neither would I.
“What else do you look for?”
“Animal snares.” His thumb stroked my skin before he dropped his hand and adjusted his backpack. “Tree stumps that look like they’ve been cut down, not broken. And he’d stay relatively close to a water supply.”
“But not the river?”
“Probably not. There are plenty of mountain streams around. He’ll use one of them as his source instead.”
A stream. Or . . . a waterfall.
I spun in a slow circle, trying to get my bearings. “There are two waterfalls off this trailhead.”
“Two?” Vance asked. “According to the local guidebooks, there’s only one. Are you sure?”
“Positive. This trail leads to the main one.” Hence the reason there was even a trail to begin with and a parking lot at the base.
“But there’s another waterfall up here too.
There’s just no trail leading to it. I don’t know how far we’ve walked and it’s been forever since I came up this way.
But I want to say five miles, maybe? I think I’ll recognize the way to get there? Fingers crossed.”
“All right. Lead the way.”
“Promise not to be mad at me if I get us lost?”
He stepped close and brushed a kiss against my forehead. “You get us lost. I’ll get us found.”