Chapter 12 #2
The smile vanished. Lyla’s eyes flooded again, and like before, she dabbed at the corners, stopping any tears before they could fall.
“You okay?” I’d keep asking that question. While I was here, I’d ask every day.
She looked around, her gaze leaving nothing untouched. “Being here feels almost like stepping into a different lifetime. And I feel like an entirely different person than the girl I was when I came here all those years ago.”
I couldn’t even remember who I’d been at that age. Too much had happened. Too much had changed.
“I’m glad we came here,” she whispered.
“But . . .”
She sighed. “But it’s a hard truth to face that the life you’re living, the life you built day after day after day because of the dreams you had when you were young, might not be the life you want. In a way, it feels like the girl who came here so long ago got it wrong.”
“Did she?”
Lyla shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe. Partially. She’d probably argue with me. I miss the confidence I had. I miss the faith that it would all just . . . work out.”
The mental picture of seventeen-year-old Lyla was clear as day. Bright blue eyes, full of dreams.
I’d known another seventeen-year-old girl just like that once.
“I’m thirty,” Lyla said. “Somewhere along the way, I lost that girl. You’re good at finding people, right? Maybe after you catch Cormac, you could teach me your tricks.”
I stepped closer, so close that not even a breath of wind could come between us. Then I laid my hand on the center of her chest. “You don’t need me to find her. She’s right here. Where she’s always been.”
Lyla’s eyes searched mine like she couldn’t quite believe me. Then she fell forward, into my arms, burying her face in my chest. “Thanks.”
“Welcome.” I dropped a kiss to her hair, then let her go.
She took a few steps away, turning to face the waterfall again.
This was my chance to memorize this hidden paradise. To soak it all in. But again, all I could do was look at Lyla.
We were two sides to the same coin. Two people trying to find their way back to center.
Maybe it was too late for me to go back. But for Lyla, I wanted her to find a glimpse of that seventeen-year-old girl. To find the spark.
“We’d better get going,” I said. “I don’t want to get stuck out here in the dark.”
“Neither do I. And I’m starving.”
“Want another granola bar?”
She held up a hand, stopping me from digging one from my backpack. “We’re getting cheeseburgers. Double cheeseburgers.”
I chuckled. “Double cheeseburgers. With fries.”
“Obviously.” She smiled, and when I offered her a hand, she held it tight, letting me guide her down the slippery rocks and back to the forest floor.
“We’ll follow the stream down for a bit,” I told her. “I’m guessing that will be faster. Then we’ll work our way back toward the trail.”
“Okay,” she said, staying close as we hiked.
It was always harder on the trip back, your muscles straining to keep balance with gravity working against you. I cut my normal stride in half, making sure she didn’t feel rushed.
Beside us, the stream trickled, growing wider, deeper the farther we worked down the mountain.
It wasn’t a river, not something you’d find on a map. But it was larger than I’d expected to find today. Maybe a good place for me to start tomorrow.
I was about to change course, head toward the trees and hike until we reached the path that would take us to the trailhead, when a yelp echoed behind me. I spun just in time to see Lyla’s feet sweep into the air.
And her land in the dirt with a thud.
“Lyla,” I gasped, rushing to her side and crouching down, my hands roaming over her body, searching for injury. “Are you hurt?”
“Ouch. No. I’m fine.” She tipped her head to the sky, drawing in a long breath, then surveyed the damage. “Shit.”
One side of her jeans was coated in the mud she’d slipped on.
She wiped at it but the only way that was coming out was in the wash. “I hate mud.”
“I’ve got a blanket in the truck. We’ll get back and peel you out of those wet jeans.”
“Why, Mr. Sutter.” Lyla fluttered her lashes. “Are you flirting with me?”
I chuckled, my heart sinking back down my throat.
It felt good to laugh, and Lyla had a way of coaxing it free. I’d laughed more in Quincy than I had in, well . . . four years.
I stood, offering her a hand to help her to her feet. “Come on.”
When she was standing, Lyla twisted to inspect the seat of her jeans—also coated in mud—then let out a string of curses that would make most guys on the force blush. When she looked to my face, she cocked her head to the side. “What?”
Except I wasn’t looking at her.
I was staring at the stream, just over her shoulder.
“Vance?” She followed my gaze to the water. “What? What are we looking at?”
“Stay here.” I passed her, taking slow, deliberate steps toward the water. I made sure every step was on a rock so my footprints wouldn’t show. Then I dropped to my haunches, peering through the clear stream.
And there, in its center, was a woven cone of willow branches.
A fish trap.
“Fuck me.” I looked around, scanning the trees. My pulse thudded in my ears.
Not a fish trap anyone would buy, but one made.
“Vance?” Lyla’s voice wobbled.
“Don’t move, Blue.”
“Is it a bear?”
“You see that?” I pointed to the water. “It’s a fish trap.”
The outer cone had a wide end that tapered to a smaller hole.
At the wide opening, another cone fit inside, shorter, with the same smaller hole.
Fish could swim inside the cone—I couldn’t tell if there was bait inside without pulling it from the water—and once they were in the cone, they’d get trapped, unable to find their way out of the smaller holes.
It was empty at the moment. Either because there weren’t any fish in this stream, or because someone had stopped by recently to put it in place.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, then stood and stepped away, taking as much care as I had earlier to step only on rocks as I made my way to Lyla.
There were footprints everywhere around where she’d slipped. Damn.
“Do you think Cormac made that trap?” Lyla asked.
“Maybe.” I turned, looking up the mountain from where we’d come.
Part of me didn’t want to hope. The other part didn’t want to even consider this could be possible.
But that trap . . .
It had Cormac’s name written all over it. Whenever we’d go camping, he’d spend a night by the fire, weaving branches and reeds together for fun while the girls would roast marshmallows and make s’mores.
Maybe he had made this trap. Maybe he hadn’t left the area yet.
Maybe I’d find that bastard after all.