Chapter 4 #2
“I don’t know them,” she said. “I personally know your skills. You showed me that today. I’d like to hire you, if you’d consider taking me just this once.”
He gave an incredulous chuckle. “You’re not here for a simple guided tour for a travel magazine or to get close to nature.”
“You don’t know that.”
True, but he had a strong suspicion, and he didn’t like where that suspicious thought took him. He might as well put that thought out there. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those treasure hunters.”
“What? Of course not.”
But she had a look in her eyes—she was definitely after . . . something. So, yeah, a treasure hunter.
He didn’t believe her. Just to be clear, he added, “There’s no treasure. Nothing. Nada. That was just a myth. A rumor. Decades ago, a few searched and some even died on the mountain. The mountain can be merciless, despite the name of the town. Save your time, your breath. Save your life.”
Approaching the downtown grocery store, he pulled next to the curb and parallel parked his monster truck between two cars.
“Expertly done. I’m impressed,” she said.
Trying to butter him up. “There’s no treasure, Sarah.”
“Do you know the mountain?”
“Even if I do, that doesn’t make me the right guy for the job.”
“So I should talk to Dean, then?”
That didn’t sit well with him, but she was playing him now.
“And if you’re lucky, Dean’s mother will invite you to dinner so you can work your magical powers of persuasion on him.
” He regretted the words. Maybe he was reacting too strongly.
Pushing too far. But she’d pressed his buttons, and he’d just let her know.
Dean Rourke had once worked at Good Adventures, and he’d been there when Ryder’s father died. Ryder . . . he couldn’t get over his dislike of the guy.
Instead of getting out to go into the grocery store, Sarah shifted toward him.
“Look. I came to Good Adventures to book a private guided tour, but your mother was locking up. I didn’t know she was your mother, of course.
I thought I could catch you. And then I explained I wanted to thank you.
It wasn’t my plan to get invited to dinner.
Regardless, you can see how it all ended.
But this is your job. Was your job. You conducted wilderness training, and you used to take people out for guided hiking, and there’s even a little small print that talks about how Good Adventures assists in guiding SAR teams.”
He thought he’d asked for that information to be removed from their website. He didn’t want the reminders of that complete and utter failure. Reminders of that headline.
Hero Navy SEAL Returns Home to Fail to Save His Father.
“You seem like a nice girl, Sarah. But I think there’s more to why you’re here.
Tell me one thing. If you’re not a treasure hunter, then what do you want on the mountain?
” This wasn’t the usual way they treated clients who wanted to hike.
Sarah wasn’t the usual client. The usual clients called and booked ahead.
They didn’t show up in a mudslide then later at his mother’s dinner table.
“I can’t tell you unless you agree to guide me.”
Seriously? “Like I would agree to that.”
She heaved a sigh, so her shoulders deflated.
She looked so very small. Trim. Athletic.
But small. The mountain would eat her alive.
He thought back to the moment when he’d grabbed onto her and somehow gotten her out of the mudslide and almost crushed her beneath his much-heavier form. She couldn’t have pulled herself out.
Sarah stared out the window as if considering her next words. “I need someone . . . like you.”
What more did she know about him? “Like me?”
“Yes. In 1944, a World War II bomber flew over the Cascades and was lost forever.”
She hadn’t answered his question and instead had pivoted to something entirely more intriguing and to his point. “Lost in the Pacific,” he said. “End of story.”
“That’s what we’re told. But it crashed in the mountains.”
“Treasure hunter. I knew it.”
“It crashed somewhere in these mountains, likely the volcano Blackspire Mountain.”
“Let me repeat myself, that was just a rumor. None of that is true. I should know. As already mentioned, there is no airplane on the mountain filled with Nazi gold that somehow made it to the state of Washington. It was just a decades-old rumor.”
“All you have to do is guide me and protect me. I’m not asking you to take me to the bomber crash location, as if you know where it is.”
Wasn’t she? “Good, because it’s not there.
Since you’re being honest with me . . . to a point .
. . I’ll be honest with you. The mountain is not for the faint of heart.
” He lifted his hands as if to shield himself from the expected angry retorts.
“Not saying you couldn’t do it, but I wouldn’t want to be complicit in you getting hurt.
Go home, Sarah Ellison. There’s nothing here for you. ”
She could just hire someone else. But Ryder knew this mountain better than anyone, and he should have protested when his mother made sure that small detail had been put in his bio on the About section of the website.
Sarah opened the door and stepped out, then shut it and walked away.
She didn’t look at him. She said nothing else.
What did he expect? In fact, what did she expect?
She entered the grocery store. He watched her and even thought about following her, but she wouldn’t appreciate his stalking.
He’d wait, all the same, in case she decided to get back in his truck and let him take her home, wherever she made her home for however long she stayed in Mercy Ridge.
Dean Rourke strolled into the store, and Ryder sat up. She’d mentioned meeting him earlier. The guy wasn’t stalking her, was he? Trying to weasel his way into being the one to take her to look for treasure? That ignited fire in Ryder’s chest.
Stay out of it, Dean. You’ve done enough already.
Ryder’s breaths quickened as frustration coiled in his gut.
Why did he care if Dean took her? He shouldn’t care.
Finally, through the window, he saw Sarah paying for her food.
Dean had moved to the back of the store, disappearing from Ryder’s view.
Sarah exited and headed south on Main Street without giving him another look.
She had to know he was still there and waiting—just in case.
But he was relieved she didn’t return because she would only try to convince him again.
Then again, he wanted to know if she was hiring Dean instead.
He slammed his hands on the steering wheel. Started listing all the reasons taking her was a bad idea.
He’d lost Dad on that mountain and refused to go back.
Well, until recently. The sheriff had wanted him to work with at-risk teens, leading day hikes and conducting survival workshops.
His father’s dream, really. But in order to do that, Ryder had to go back up the mountain and face the dread and heartache. So he had.
Three weeks ago.
What he’d found left him more than disturbed, and he was waiting to learn more. The weather was going to turn, and adding to that, the increased seismic activity left him unsettled. Even one of those reasons was enough for him to say no.
He navigated the truck away from the curb, steered through town, and spotted Sarah walking through the parking lot of the Trailhead Motor Lodge.
He idled at a stoplight and watched her enter a room there.
She was safe for now. He headed to his house on the other end of town from Mom’s and called her on the way.
She was settling in to watch old episodes of Gunsmoke, and Timber was resting at her feet. Everything was fine.
At home, he headed to his shop behind the house.
Pulled out the box and stared at the remnant he’d found on the mountain.
All the years he’d grown up here and hiked the mountain, he’d never come across it before, but that was because he’d never hiked that way.
He’d been finding his way back, overcoming his fears and the memories by carving out a new path.
He raked a hand across his unshaven jaw.
Opening the box, he stared at the rectangular piece of metal the size of a playing card.
Dull and pitted, the surface had been scored by time and weather, and one corner of it curled from heat exposure.
The faded lettering once again stunned him.
Much of the information was missing, blackened, or scratched so he couldn’t read it all.
U. S. Army Air Forces
Contract No. AC-1942
Type: B-24
Serial: 41-
The rest was unreadable.
He’d told one person—the local Mercy Ridge historian, Vivian Knox.
She’d said she would research and get back to him.
Well, he could do that but had hoped she would know something.
Part of the plane that was supposed to have crashed in the Pacific was here on Blackspire Mountain.
Everything his grandfather had told him, everything he’d learned in school, was a lie.
And out of the blue, this woman—Sarah Ellison—showed up wanting to hire him to find the rest of the story. He suspected she was working for someone, but then why would they send her?
Who was she to hire Ryder for this?
The possible answer to that question set him on edge.