Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Abell chimed over the door announcing our entrance to the bar and grill.
It was busy, with most of the tables and booths already occupied by a sea of bright pink shirts. It seemed the search party had called it a night and retired for dinner.
“Reece!”
Heads turned toward me at the call out, the steady murmur of conversation momentarily hushed. I felt their eyes take me in, cautiously assessing before flicking away.
It always took a few days to readjust to that small-town gaze, now compounded by the simmering unease of those pink shirts.
The joys of coming home.
Despite feeling exposed, the heaviness that hung in the air evaporated at the sight of Bobby, my best and oldest friend, waving us over from across the room.
“Hey man,” I said after we weaved our way between tables. “Good to see you.”
“Ditto,” Bobby replied as he pulled me into a hug. “I’m stoked you’ll be around for the season.” He clapped me on the shoulder and went to hug Dad.
Bobby and I’d been friends since Cub Scouts. Our dads were leaders together in the local troop, their friendship dating back to Dad’s Forest Service days.
“Is Leonard coming?” Dad asked as Bobby and I slid into the booth across from him.
“He’s meeting us here in a few minutes. He stayed late to finish up a few things at the ranger station.”
Now seated, I was finally able to look closer at the pink shirts without outright staring. Along with a large picture of a young, beautiful, blonde woman, they read:
MISSING: Haley Thomas
AGE: 27
Height: 5’7”
LAST SEEN: Dead Man’s Creek Trailhead, Salmon-Challis National Forest
A tip hotline was printed underneath the photo in big, bold numbers.
“Can I get you boys anything to drink?”
The question pulled my attention back to our table. “Uh, a water, please,” I said when it was my turn to order, smiling at the server.
“What do you think? Mozzarella sticks?” Bobby asked before she left, waggling his eyebrows at me.
Josh’s pinched face flashed through my mind, the very look he’d given the menu the last time we ate there.
He’d pestered me to add more cottage cheese to my meals for weeks afterward.
“And spinach and artichoke dip,” I answered, my stomach growling its very own fuck you to the image of my ex’s carb judgment.
Also, fuck cottage cheese.
Bobby grinned. “God, I missed you. It’s great you’re here without… uh, anyone else. I mean, then too, of course.” He cringed and studied the menu like we hadn’t eaten there once a week for most of our lives.
Like Mom, Bobby never really warmed to Josh.
“All good, man,” I said with a half laugh. The muscles in my face hadn’t stretched like that in a while. It ached in a good way. “And I missed you, too.”
“How’s Jade doing? And the baby?” Dad asked once we’d placed our drink and appetizer order.
Bobby’s eyes twinkled. “They’re good. I never did know how to say no to her mother. I don’t know how I’m gonna learn with Molly.”
Fuck, my friend looked happy. He married the girl he’d loved since high school a few years back, and they’d just had their first child in February.
“Sorry we’re stealing you away,” I said.
Bobby shook his head. “Jade’s mom is watching Molly for the evening, and I was all but pushed out the door after them. She mumbled something about an hour-long shower and chips and queso in bed. I don’t think she’s had a night to herself since the baby came. We both needed a break.”
Dad smiled. “How’re Leonard and Joan taking to grandparenthood?”
Bobby’s smile faltered a bit. “Ok, I think. Dad’s been stressed with work, though. Sounds like it could be a hectic fire season.”
The bell over the front entrance chimed again.
“Speak of the Devil,” Dad said, waving the newcomer over with a smile. “Glad to see you made time for us!” he hollered over the din.
Still clad in his park service uniform, Leonard shot a cocky grin our way. “Not before beer,” he called back, earning a few weary chuckles and a muted ‘cheers!’ from one of the patrons sitting at the circular bar in the center of the room.
I almost missed the man who slipped in just behind him.
He was also wearing a uniform, except his had a distinct law enforcement look, all black with a service weapon on his hip rather than the more relaxed brown and green of the park ranger getup. When I looked past the uniform, though, I realized I recognized him.
“Is that Tate Morris?” I asked Bobby, keeping my voice low and angling my head in his direction.
“Yeah,” he said. “Weird, right?”
Sure is.
I was pretty certain the last time I’d seen Tate, he was a short, scrawny freshman smoking weed in the back of the high school parking lot.
His hair was dyed black, then. Other than his face, the kid I remembered looked nothing like the filled-out, boy-next-door blonde quietly making his way to a corner booth.
“I guess we all grow up,” I commented, taking a drink of water.
“Wonder if he still has a crush on you,” Bobby teased, elbowing me.
I shot him a deadpan look. “Yeah, that’s likely.” A freshman mooning over the only out senior in a teeny, tiny mountain town was hardly groundbreaking. I wasn't interested then, and I certainly wasn’t interested now.
Not in anyone.
As if he’d heard our whispered conversation, Tate peered up, eyes immediately finding mine and widening in surprise. Before I could react, though, the waitress arrived with our appetizers, followed by Leonard scooting in next to Dad with a sigh, a pint glass of whatever was on tap in hand.
Just as he settled in, a grim-faced man wearing a pink shirt approached our table. “Hey, Mike. Leonard,” he greeted. I vaguely recognized him from around town. “Just wanted to say thanks for your help the other day. It means a lot.”
Dad nodded. “No problem, Ray. Wish we could’ve helped more. How’d the search go today?”
“Nothing yet,” he said with a shake of his head. “But we’ll keep looking. They deserve to be found.”
Found. Not saved.
The man thanked Dad and Leonard again and left, rejoining his group.
“What was that about?” I asked.
“Somehow, Leonard swung it so I could fly out a couple of people to do an aerial search using the Forest Service helicopter a few days ago, after that last hiker went missing,” Dad said lowly, aware of how many people might be listening in.
“What about the others? Weren’t there two more before her?” I asked, confused.
Dad grimaced. “There wasn’t as much attention before her. You know how these things go.”
“That’s fucked up,” Bobby commented through a mouthful of fried mozzarella.
“There are a lot of people out looking for the three of them, now,” Leonard said. “If it was foul play, they’ll find something. Hopefully, they were just caught in bad weather and will come stumbling down the trail in a few days.”
I was skeptical of his optimism.
The wilderness surrounding Ponderosa boasted the largest stretch of uninterrupted forest in the lower forty-eight—and the most remote.
On its own, the national park was massive, and it was only a piece of the vast expanse of Nowhere that stretched for millions and millions of acres.
Whatever—or whoever—had happened to those poor people, the chances of finding them were slim to none.
Unfortunately, that was already proven by the other six missing hikers who’d never been found nearly forty years ago.
Bobby and I dove into the chip basket while they were still hot and fresh, practically elbowing each other out of the way for that first steaming scoop of cheesy goodness. I’d always thought calling it spinach and artichoke dip was sort of like saying pizza was a salad.
“Well,” Leonard said, smiling and shaking off the weight of the previous topic, “it’s great to see you, Reece. I’ll admit I was relieved when you agreed to help us out for the summer. I know your Dad’ll be glad to have you nearby, too.”
I nodded. “No problem. I’m taking a sabbatical for the academic year anyway, so it’s good timing. The truck’s all packed and ready to drive up to the lookout on Sunday.”
He blinked at me and then swore. “I’m so sorry, I forgot to tell you.”
Dad frowned. “Forgot to tell him what?”
“I’ve had a hell of a time lining everything up for this season, and it completely slipped my mind.
We’ve got double the amount of volunteer firefighters on call in case we need them—scheduling the training alone has been a nightmare—and all of the towers in our district are in service, even the ones usually on standby. ”
“What does that mean?” I asked, eyebrows creased.
Had he forgotten about me? Or realized I wasn’t needed, after all?
I didn’t have a house to go back to in Missoula.
I’d sold off quite a few things—whatever was left after Josh gutted the place of his belongings—and put the rest into storage.
My realtor had hired landscapers to add a little curb appeal before I put it on the market later this summer.
I depended on the next few months to figure out my future living situation.
There was nowhere else to go.
“You’re in a different lookout than we first discussed,” Leonard said, grimacing.
“Oh,” I said, relieved. “But there’s still somewhere for me to stay, yeah?”
“Yes,” he said emphatically. “We’ve hired a few new people who weren’t comfortable with such a remote posting, so I’ve assigned them to the drive-up towers. Yours is a hike-in only. I should’ve told you sooner.”
“Wait, how’s he getting all of his stuff out there, then?” Bobby asked through another mouthful of mozzarella.
I joined him, first dipping the breaded cheese into the marinara sauce before taking a bite.
Fucking delightful.