Chapter 17
Seventeen
Sarah’s early morning energy had faded too fast with Ryder’s insane pace.
He hiked with an urgency that he hadn’t had yesterday, and even then he’d claimed to be moving fast. If only the stupid backpack didn’t feel heavier this morning than it had yesterday as they increased the climb into higher elevations.
They’d both donned the heavier coats because the wind gusted harder and the temperature had dropped with their rise.
Who knew it could be so cold up on the mountain?
Well, probably everyone. She’d been so determined to do this—against all odds, maybe.
And she was too breathless to start up a conversation and ask Ryder what was up with him.
Tension radiated off him as though he knew something that she didn’t know.
Had he gotten some new revelation or received a secret text or call in the night with information?
And if so, why hadn’t he shared? They were in this together, weren’t they?
She couldn’t really cast any blame, considering her burner phone—pressed against her thigh in her pocket—held Tessa’s email that informed her of possible new information to come.
But it wasn’t like she could actually get the message yet anyway, so she’d bide her time for an opportunity to check messages or download an email in this precarious landscape.
Caution and wariness had been trained into her bones, and she might be taking that too far when it came to her transparency about all of the intrigue surrounding this plane.
After all, she had to trust the man with her life, and he already knew as much as she did—well, almost. She held back very little.
She stumbled and fell forward, hitting the rocky ground hard enough to jolt her.
Ryder was there at her side before she even dragged in a breath. “Sarah . . .” The way he said her name, breathless and concerned, she jerked her face up and looked into his eyes. He was gasping, white clouds puffing out.
This guy could undo her. “I’m okay. I was just . . . stupid. Why are you pushing us so hard today?”
“The weather. I told you.”
“The weather has always been a threat.” She let him help her up. “Lead the way.” Her head was swimming, actually, but she refused to let him know she might have reached her limit.
She noticed him looking behind them again.
Concerned about possible followers? Not just anyone could follow them or track them up a mountain.
A person needed a specific set of skills, and she’d secured the person best suited for this endeavor on this specific mountain.
He was taking her places only he knew. Only he had been. At least, that’s how she understood it.
She searched the ridge above, and a knot tightened low in her belly.
Blackspire Mountain wasn’t just any mountain.
She hadn’t realized—not really—until she was here doing what she’d bravely told herself she could.
The mountain was a maze of stone and ice, a sprawl of jagged and broken ridges and deep ravines.
The whole thing was so massive, and she and Ryder were tiny ants in this ecosystem.
The fact was—it terrified her. Even with her training, even with Ryder’s skills and experience, if someone followed them up here, they would never hear them coming.
The terrain swallowed the noise, masked movement, or turned every echo into danger closing in when it was nothing at all—just the landscape deceiving them.
Ryder may be one of two people who could find this location, but .
. . someone could follow them for miles in the shadows, skirting along a parallel ridge, maybe, or weaving through the dense forest below.
And there was nothing either of them could do. Except keep going and maybe . . . disappear.
She had a feeling that Ryder sensed the danger tracking them and pressed forward almost as a challenge to whoever might accept. Sarah would let him worry about that, for now, because she had her own pressing matters to think through as she watched every step she took.
Tonight. After they set up base camp, she’d tell him about the email and that she needed to check messages and possibly download information.
He was in it this far with her. They were in it together.
She had to put aside the notion that she was alone and should hold everything, or even anything, close.
She’d invited him into the danger with her, and he’d accepted that invitation.
She wasn’t throwing caution to the wind because she liked Ryder and he’d gotten under her skin, was she?
One bigger question kept her preoccupied enough that she didn’t think about the ache in her feet and her legs or the pure exhaustion weighing on her.
What would she do with the information—whatever she found at the crash site—once she found it? If she found it?
Ryder kept glancing over his shoulder to check on her.
She didn’t miss the continued concern in his expression.
A look that hadn’t been there yesterday or last night, or even at breakfast this morning.
Sarah wouldn’t ask him about it. She didn’t have the energy to spare.
His concern probably had to do with her fall.
He wanted to make sure she was still behind him.
She laughed quietly to herself.
A couple of hours in, they finally topped a rise. At the sight, Sarah couldn’t breathe. The most magnificent view spread before them. To keep moving, she forced her lungs to work and took one quick step onto a boulder, fearing if she stopped now, she might not be able to start again.
But she wouldn’t tell Ryder. He dropped his pack, then assisted her out of hers. Okay, so they were stopping after all.
“What are we doing? This can’t be base camp yet.”
“It’s not. It’s not the original one I had in mind. We would have made that already.” He seemed to struggle with . . . what?
“Are you . . . are you lost?” Her knees shook, even though she was sitting down.
“No. I took us on a different route, winding around.”
“You took the long way around? Ryder, what’s going on? Is someone still behind us?”
He didn’t answer, but his expression told her enough.
“I knew it. I knew you were trying to lose them. Why didn’t you tell me?” She’d hoped no one would follow. But she’d been hoping for the impossible. Fooling herself in the meantime. “Still . . . how do you know it’s not other hikers?”
“I thought I made that clear yesterday. Other hikers use the well-trodden paths. Guides use the well-trodden paths. I’m creating my own.”
Her shoulders dropped. Yeah, she’d known but held on to the hope he could be wrong. She could be wrong. “So we are being followed.”
“We were being followed. I hope I lost them.”
Up here, someone could kill them, and no one would ever find their bodies—at least until next summer, if then.
“I mean, couldn’t they just zip around in a helicopter until they spot us?
Land close and take whatever we find? Come to think of it, maybe we should have done that.
” She knew better after seeing this spread of mountain wilderness.
But she pressed on with her questions, covering every angle and every base.
“That sounds easier than it is.” Ryder lifted binoculars and peered through them. “Hiking boots on the ground is the best way.”
“I think I can guess why, but maybe you can explain it since you’re a guide and all. Helicopters dumping people where they want to go on the mountain could interfere with your business.”
“And helicopters do dump people on the mountain, over on the other side with the ski resort—it’s called heli-skiing. But to your point, first, the canopy’s too thick—old growth, dense firs and pines. You’d never spot anything through all that from the air.”
“I imagine landing could be hard too,” she said.
“Now you’re getting it. Flat ridges are best, but they’re hard to find from above in a range of peaks, and there’s just no safe place to land this high.
Heli-skiing—the choppers set down on established pads to drop skiers off.
But this terrain?” He lowered the binoculars a fraction.
“Too steep, too tight, too much timber. You try it and you’re flirting with disaster. ”
“As for someone following me and chasing me down with a helicopter, I guess we could hear the bird from miles away. We could just disappear and hide.”
“Yep.” He lowered the binoculars and gave her a look. “Obviously, Blackspire Mountain has protected this secret for decades. You want answers? You hike.”
“All right, already. You convinced me. So where is base camp? How long until we’re there?” She wished she hadn’t asked because she sounded as exhausted as she was. She didn’t want to give him a reason to turn them back before she finished.
“Not far.”
“You said that about two hours ago.”
“And I explained about that.”
I get it. “I knew I picked the right guide but doesn’t mean I have to like the new plan.”
He gave her a look but said nothing more to her complaint. He did that a lot lately, and she’d gotten used to it, so she didn’t press him to answer. That was his answer. Without words. She knew the answer was simply a look. He was training her to read his mind.
Yeah, she wouldn’t say that out loud.
“You ready?” He lifted her pack and assisted her into it.
Can I say no? She shrugged it on. They pushed on, Ryder setting a steady pace while Sarah matched him step for step, forcing her tired legs to cooperate.
She hoped and prayed by the end of this she wouldn’t be crushed by her own determination to find answers that maybe weren’t meant to be found.
Her own determination to get justice that might be better left to God.
After all, hadn’t he said that vengeance was his? Vengeance, yes, and he was the final judge, sure. But Sarah could at least start the wheels of justice for her brother.
Finally . . . Ryder dropped his pack. “Base camp.”
Sarah released a heavy sigh. She couldn’t have been more relieved. I just want this to be over.
“You rest,” he said. “I’ll set up the camp.”
“I can help,” she said. And she would.
“You can, but honestly, you’ll slow me down. We want to head up that ridge today, and at the top should be the spot marked on your grandfather’s map.
“Why not just build our base camp there, at the place marked on the map?”
“Reasons.” He started pulling gear from his pack.
“Load management. We’re going even higher.
It’s exhausting and potentially dangerous.
We’ll take essentials with us but have a cache here.
Add to that, if the weather turns, having this lower-elevation camp waiting and ready is safer than being trapped up high. ”
This likely had to do with his training too, but she wouldn’t bring that up. “And if for some reason we get separated from each other, I can find my way back to the base camp.”
From where he crouched to set up the tent, he stared up at her. That look. No words.
Right. “I hear you loud and clear. You aren’t going to get separated from me.” But what if you do?
He finished setting up their shelter. And yeah, she felt a little bit better knowing they had a place to return to, but she wasn’t sure why this flimsy tent would reassure her up in this cold, unfamiliar—unforgiving—setting. Gorgeous, but terrifying.
He grabbed his pack and pulled it back on. “We’re leaving your pack but taking mine in case we don’t make it back.”
Seriously? “Why wouldn’t we make it back?”
That look again. Only, this time she wanted an answer.
And he knew to respond. “Out here, you always have survival gear with you.”
“Then why set up the camp at all?” The altitude must have been getting to her. That was the only answer she had for asking so many questions. They were here and he was the guide, and she would trust him to know his business.
“Let’s go,” he said.
She followed him up yet another incline, only this one was at a much steeper angle, leaving her breathless after they’d finally topped the rise.
“It’s a good thing you got a map. If all we had was where I found that shred of metal, that wouldn’t tell us much. The plane could have crashed far from where I found that piece.”
“And to be honest, someone else could have found it and dropped it there.” She lifted a shoulder.
“True.”
Ryder stared at his cell—presumably at the photo of the hand-drawn map. Uncertainty creased his brow. He looked up, scanning the jagged hundred-foot escarpment and, beneath it, a natural terrace spanning fifty yards across.
“We’re here,” he said.
“What do you mean here?”
“We’re at the spot marked on this map.” He held up his cell for her to look at the image of faded lines and smudges.
She couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “There’s nothing here. No trace of wreckage.” Her heart sank. “Please tell me we didn’t make this climb for nothing.”
But she kept the full weight of her disappointment to herself.
And searched Ryder’s striking gray eyes for some flicker of reassurance, a glacier-covered peak at his back.
His hair was tousled by the wind, which had grown stronger now, as if to sweep them off balance and over the edge.
She’d already put too much hope into this guide.
She saw it then, though, in his eyes. Not uncertainty, not even hope. Something steadier . . . resolve.