Chapter 20 #2
“Tessa, my sister-in-law, left me a message right when we started on the trail. She mentioned finding a flash drive with an audio file and that she would send me more information. I can’t get a signal here, so I don’t know what more she would have said.
Plus, I need to check on them. Make sure they’re okay. ”
“I hear you.”
“So, do you have any way for me to get a signal or Wi-Fi so I can read the message or download something?”
“Maybe. But there’s a risk. We connect . . . someone could get a ping on it.”
“I understand. But . . . I need to contact her to make sure she and Jeremy are okay.”
“So, you think it’s worth the risk.”
“For a few minutes anyway, yes. We aren’t going to stay here. We’re going to leave as soon as you say we can.”
A sharp pain ignited between his brows, and he pinched the bridge of his nose. Squeezed his eyes shut. He wanted to contact Holt, too, and could use this moment. This wasn’t a good idea, but it was . . . necessary. Seemed like all the wrong moves were also necessary moves.
“I don’t like this.” He frowned. “I carry it only for emergency situations, and I don’t think I’ve ever had to use it.
I almost didn’t bring it along. It’s an Iridium GO!
, and I can use it to create a small Wi-Fi hotspot.
You can connect your phone, but I warn you, it’s got a very low bandwidth, and in this cabin in these dense woods, I’m not sure I can even connect.
” If she’d told him this up on the mountain, that might have been better.
“There’s no guarantee you can download anything in a reasonable time.
We cannot keep a Wi-Fi hotspot open. Understood? ”
“Sure. It’s worth a try. I’ll . . . just send a text to Tessa and check in. So we can save bandwidth too.”
She shoved her burner phone over. “I’ve kept it off to save the battery.”
“I have a charging bank, too, if we need to use it. Go ahead and type in your text while I get this going, and that will transmit, too, while we’re downloading.
” Blowing out a heavy sigh, he knelt by his pack and pulled out the satellite device, about the size of a thick smartphone.
He set the Iridium GO! on the windowsill, angling it toward the slice of night sky visible through the trees.
Not ideal. With luck, it would catch a signal—just enough to connect.
He flipped up the antenna and powered it on, and a faint green light flickered to life.
“Let’s hope this works,” he muttered, connecting Sarah’s burner phone to the hotspot.
The burner chimed as the connection established.
But the Iridium GO! device signal wavered—one bar, then none . . . then one again. The device blinked green for a heartbeat, then amber. Ryder clenched his jaw.
“Come on . . . just one bar.” The signal flickered, caught, and he hit send on his message to Holt before it could vanish again.
Hovering beside him, after sending a text, Sarah retrieved her email. “There’s something from Tessa like I hoped. It’s the audio file. Will it download?”
“A small file like that?” He sent her a half-hearted smile. “Maybe. But it’s going to take a few minutes and maybe more than we have.”
For what seemed like entirely too long, they both held their breath. Was she silently praying too?
Finally, Sarah let out a shaky breath. “It’s taking forever.”
“What did you expect?” Ryder’s eyes locked on the screen. “We just need—”
The bar froze at twenty-two percent. Great. Of course. He pushed down his own impatience.
Sarah sucked in a breath. “No, no, no . . .”
Ryder smacked the side of the device lightly, as if that ever did any good. Suddenly, the bar jumped to thirty percent.
Forty-five.
“Come on, come on . . .” Yeah, he was impatient too. This could be a very big mistake.
Outside, the wind rattled the cabin walls. Sarah leaned in so close, he imagined he could hear her heart hammering as the final percent clicked into place. Any longer, and he would need to cut the connection.
“Got it.” Ryder exhaled hard.
Her big eyes held his. “Now let’s hope we can actually hear.”
“And that it was worth the risk.” But what was done was done.
“Wait, looks like Tessa responded to my text,” she said, sharing the message.
All is well. Keep safe and come back to us soon.
The relief in Sarah’s eyes was clear, but they still had to listen to the recording. Dread settled on him. Then there was the item he’d found today that still burned in his pocket, and he needed to know more before he shared his thoughts—if he shared them.
“You ready to listen to the file?” Her finger hovered over the file on her phone.
Guilt suffused him at withholding anything from her. They needed to be open and honest and build trust.
“Wait,” he said. “Not yet.” On second thought, Sarah needed to hear this from him, to know this, before they learned more. He should have told her the moment he’d recognized the coin.
“What?”
He tugged the half of the military challenge coin out of the side pocket in his pack and set it on the table.
“What does it mean to you?” she asked. “Don’t think I didn’t notice your reaction to it earlier.”
He thought he’d hidden his shock. “I have the other half. It belongs to my grandfather.”
She stared at him, her eyes narrowed. “Wait . . . you think your grandfather found this coin and left half of it in the cave?”
“I wish it was that simple.”
“Then what are you saying? How can you know this is the other half?” She scooted her chair back as if to put distance between them.
“I was on a hunting trip with him when I saw it and asked about it. I was just a kid.”
“Well, what did he say?”
“He said that it represented a pact between friends. And later, when I was older, not long before he died, he said, ‘If you ever find the other half, you’ll know the truth.’”