Chapter 15
Fifteen
Sarah startled awake, surprised she’d fallen asleep in the first place or so fast. If anything, she needed to sleep long and hard.
Recover for tomorrow’s hike. But not tonight.
She might actually lose the battle between her brain and her physical exhaustion because now that she was awake, her mind wouldn’t let go of the thought that had grabbed her.
Her grandfather had probably been sworn to secrecy about whatever the plane was carrying and their mission, and that’s why he waited until he was dying to share.
Sarah understood completely since she, too, had signed all sorts of documents agreeing she wouldn’t share about her previous job and activities.
After enduring a full day of mountain hiking and the resulting screaming muscles, soreness, and mild elevation sickness, she’d forgotten completely about the email Tessa had sent earlier.
But if Tessa had sent the rest of the information about the flash drive, the audio file she’d mentioned, it didn’t matter.
Out here in the wild, beautiful Cascade wilderness, Sarah had no service.
What bad timing. She could talk to Ryder and share about the flash drive and see if he had the ability to download an email with information.
But she wanted to read the email and listen to the audio file alone first because, yes, her training taught her to hold everything close and only feed a morsel at a time, if necessary, and that’s why she’d been slowly hand-feeding Ryder information.
Need-to-know kind of stuff. She wanted to hear that message first in case he didn’t need to know.
Even if she had managed to receive and download the audio file before they were in no-man’s-land, she hadn’t anticipated the one-tent sleeping arrangement.
She’d assumed he’d gotten two. She should have been more observant or stayed on top of her stuff.
But she’d hired him and handed over all the arrangements, trusting he knew what he was doing.
And she trusted him on at least that point.
Worst case, she might have to hear the message for the first time . . . with Ryder.
As for the sleeping arrangement, he was right. She wouldn’t have liked sleeping alone on the ledge overlooking a ridge on their trek up Blackspire Mountain, especially with the threat of someone stalking them, following them.
“Do not go down this path.”
Too late to turn back, Malcolm.
She got that whatever was hidden on the mountain had been buried and kept secret for decades.
“Some things shouldn’t be found.”
If someone was following—did they want to silence her like they did her brother? Or . . . did they want her to lead them to the buried secret? She had better let those thoughts go for now.
The sleeping bag next to her rustled. She had a feeling Ryder was wide awake too.
Silence filled the tent and stretched between them, soft and thick.
They weren’t best friends who would stay up all night giggling and laughing while they caught up on every detail and emotion they’d experienced over the last few hours.
Though if Tessa was in the tent with her, and this wasn’t a Race to Witch Mountain kind of experience, that would be a different story filled with heart-to-hearts and laughter.
The wind picked up, buffeting the tent, raking across every nerve, making it hard to hear if a threat approached.
She couldn’t help noticing the space grew colder now that the two human heaters were tucked away, each in their own heat-capturing bag.
What did Ryder think about that? Still, outside this tent had to be colder, and she hated to admit it, but even though he was inside his sleeping bag, she could feel the heat wafting over from Ryder’s side. He had a fast metabolism.
In between the gusts, the occasional snap of a branch and rustling of pine needles reminded her that the world outside the thin nylon walls wasn’t frozen or blanketed in white.
Not yet. She hoped.
Tomorrow morning, that might all change.
Oh, God, protect us. Help me find what’s buried and expose the truth and get justice for Aaron. Give us freedom to live without fear. Please help us make it off this mountain. Protect us.
Funny. Not too long ago, she’d been begging God to help her get up on the mountain. Now she was praying for the opposite. While she prayed, she lay still, her eyes wide open, staring at nothing in the darkness.
She wasn’t sure why she said it, but words came out low and hoarse in the dark. “My brother wasn’t supposed to be the one to get the letter.”
Ryder said nothing. Maybe he was asleep after all. But she sensed the tension shift and his subtle listening.
Sarah hadn’t intended to mislead Ryder. “I said it was a deathbed confession—the letter, that is. I was supposed to be there with Grandpa. Maybe Aaron would have been there too, but I’m sure Grandpa Walt planned to give this information to me instead.
” Oh, now she was confessing far too much.
And the reasons Grandpa planned to give the letter to her .
. . he must have known, but how could he?
Everyone believed Sarah worked for a humanitarian NGO called International Crisis Aid Network—ICAN—which she did, so it wasn’t a lie, and she could have easily just told that to Ryder, but that would have felt like a lie because it was only a cover.
He would have seen right through her. He’d seen through her avoidance anyway.
“Why would you think that? What am I missing?”
“Complicated family dynamics. I don’t know why I brought it up.”
“I’m listening.”
Well, maybe they were going to talk late into the night after all. But time to redirect. “Aaron was a geospatial analyst.”
“What is that, exactly?”
“Environmental scientist, basically. GIS mapping and environmental impact assessments.”
“So . . . he was good with maps. I don’t know, Sarah, it sounds like your grandfather talked to the right person. I’m guessing he would have shared with you both. Who did Aaron work for?” Ryder asked.
“Pinnacle Environmental Group—he used his skills to assess old mining sites, military test grounds, and national forests. Maybe you’re right.” But Ryder didn’t know about Sarah’s full background.
“Sounds like your brother would be able to decipher that map about as well as I can, with the right knowledge and experience, and in his case, he probably used tools I don’t have.”
“Lidar scans, satellite imagery, contaminant-runoff models—you name it. He could visualize what no one else could see. Grandpa may have been pointing at a location on that map, but Aaron knew what to look for beneath the surface.”
“Did he find something?” Ryder asked.
“If he did, he didn’t share that vital detail.
But whatever he did got him killed. PEG was a government contractor.
So really, he worked for the government.
His job sounded boring. Soil samples. Terrain surveys.
But Aaron had a way of looking at data and uncovering things that no one else could see.
He was thinking about going out on his own and consulting.
He’d taken time off, and now I get it. He was digging into this. ”
Sarah rolled to her side. In the dark, she couldn’t see Ryder but sensed he was looking her way. Listening intently.
“But he didn’t tell you.”
“No.”
“You said he was murdered. What happened?”
“Aaron was the trustee for our grandfather’s estate and had to take care of some things. When we were kids, Aaron nearly drowned in the lake behind Grandpa’s house. He never went near it again. Said the place was cursed.”
“And he was found in the lake,” Ryder added.
“Yes. His lungs filled with water. Police ruled it an accident.”
“But you didn’t believe it.”
“Aaron would never have gone near the lake.”
“Not even to face a childhood fear?”
“Not fully dressed. No. Absolutely not.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say he wasn’t suicidal.”
“No. He didn’t commit suicide by walking into that lake.
” She huffed out her frustration, then settled her heart.
“Grandpa kept a hidden safe in his home. When we were older, Aaron and I were told about it and to look there once Grandpa died. I figured Aaron would have emptied it and it would all go into the estate, but considering how he was found, I decided to look. Because . . . why? Why was he murdered, you know? I found a key inside the safe. A key to a bank safety-deposit box. I now believe that Aaron left it there for me, if something happened to him. So that I would know what he was looking into.”
“Seriously, Sarah . . . how can you know this is connected to his death?”
“We’re here on this mountain. Someone went after Tessa. Someone tried to take me. We’re being followed. Seriously, Ryder, how can you not know?”
“Fair point.”
“But I hear you, and the real reason is that inside the bank safety-deposit box, in addition to the letter and map from Grandpa, Aaron left a note addressed to me that said ‘For your eyes only.’ I opened it and read the note first—‘If you find this, I’m in trouble or dead. Trust no one and protect my family.’” Sarah’s throat thickened.
She couldn’t swallow. “Now do you get it?”
Next to her, the sleeping bag crinkled, shifting with Ryder’s movements. “I understand more than you know. You think you could have stopped the trajectory of events that ended in his death.”
“Maybe. I think if he would have shared this information with me—and he should have—that I would have been hiking up this mountain earlier instead of now when it’s going to snow.
And who knows, Aaron might be with me, alive and well.
” She exhaled a shaky breath. “I owe him. I owe our family closure and answers. This haunted Grandpa, killed my brother, and now it’s closing in on what little family I have left. ” I owe it to Tessa and Jeremy.
The wind whipped the tent and startled her. Ryder said nothing. Sarah continued.
“I don’t know what we’ll find up here, Ryder,” she whispered. “But I can’t walk away until I know what my grandfather was trying to tell us. What he died trying to say. What my brother died trying to learn.”
She would find out before anyone else what her grandfather had been involved in that scared him enough to change his name.
To let everyone believe he was dead. She could have an entire other family out there, if he had siblings.
She couldn’t imagine he would have left a wife and child to believe he was dead. But one thing at a time.
After a moment, Ryder’s voice came out smooth and reassuring. “We’ll find answers.”
She expected him to press her for more information. Or ask why she hadn’t told him this before. Suspected he knew that she was holding back. Or maybe that was her imagination.
There’s one more thing, Ryder . . .
Tomorrow. She’d said enough tonight. But for the first time in weeks, she let her eyes drift shut.
And that’s when she heard it.