6. Chapter 6
Riley
The bison herd retreated into the grasslands like a receding tide. My skin still buzzed from the confrontation with Langston, but the sensation was distant. Conall held me, his body heat pushing back the chill.
“What do you need?” he murmured.
I wanted to feel warm again and for our bond to thrive. But I was the one who had to figure it out. “Gunnar and I need to go to Yellowstone Lake to check Viggo’s truck.”
Ash walked over and handed me my things. “We can’t leave you alone for ten minutes,” he teased, though his energy was threaded with worry.
Conall searched my face. “You were just detained at gunpoint by federal agents. Do you want to take a moment?”
“For what? We have a missing person to find.”
Gunnar answered on the first ring. “You still alive, or do I have to train another partner?”
“I’m alive and about two miles down the road from the Lodge. There was a traffic jam, and Langston released me.”
“A what?” Freda asked in the background. Shifters were horrible eavesdroppers.
“A herd of bison blocked traffic for a few hours. I still want to check out Viggo’s truck before they move it, and Conall and Ash are here and can give me a ride. Meet me at the lake in forty minutes.”
I could hear Freda’s long sigh of relief, and guilt pinched at me.
“Until your interrogation with the FBCI is done, tell Freda I’m sticking close,” Conall informed me. “She and Bennion are off duty today. I don’t trust those FBCI assholes.”
Ash grinned, his teeth white against his tan skin. “I hate to remind you, but you’re a contract agent, so technically you are one of those assholes.”
Conall rolled his eyes as Beau walked over, his energy still humming. “I’ll drive. My SUV has more room.” He turned to Conall. “You and I need to talk.”
After Conall said goodbye to the two Betas who’d driven him from the airport, we piled into Beau’s truck and headed to the lake. The road curved through stands of lodgepole pines and open meadows dotted with wildflowers.
Once we were on the road, Beau glanced back at Conall. “What Langston pulled today isn’t an isolated incident. The rangers have noticed an uptick in agents and operatives over the past six months or so coming into the Park.”
Conall’s expression hardened. “You think it’s connected to Apex Mentis?”
Beau rubbed a hand down his face. “Yeah, I do.”
Conall stared out the window. “What happened in Roswell wasn’t just about experimentation. They were building an army.”
“They still are,” I corrected quietly. The men went silent, a heavy weight settling in the vehicle.
“There have been other disappearances in the last year,” Beau went on. “All from different Parks and all with minimal investigation from the Feds. When I pushed for a full-blown investigation, I was told to back off.”
I leaned forward. “Even from Fergus?”
Beau glanced back at me in the rearview mirror. “Not directly. I don’t think he’s compromised… yet anyway. Our funding is drying up, and the ISB is stretched thin, like every other department.” Fergus was mine and Gunnar’s boss, and the area director for the Investigative Services Branch.
Gunnar nodded. “He’s right. Something’s happening.” My father’s journal from sixteen years ago seemed to corroborate what they were saying.
My gaze drifted out the window and onto the lake as we passed the Fishing Bridge. Yellowstone Lake stretched before us, its cold surface sparkling under the afternoon sun.
We pulled into a parking area marked “Park Service Only.” An old, dusty pickup truck sat in the lot. It was the iconic seafoam green of almost every other NPS vehicle. Evidence tags hung from the door handles.
“That’s Viggo’s truck,” Beau confirmed as we parked beside it. “Forensics already went through it, but they didn’t find much. Just blood on the door handle.” If I could touch the truck, maybe I could read something from it.
Conall’s worry seeped through our bond, and he grabbed my arm. “Riley—”
“I’m fine,” I cut him off, knowing he was concerned about me gathering energy, or worse, Spooling, in front of Beau. “This is why I’m here.”
He held my gaze, then reluctantly let me go. As I approached the truck, the implant shifted into another gear, as if in anticipation. It was a new sensation, and I paused to analyze it.
“What’s wrong?” Ash asked.
“Nothing.” I shook my head and pulled thin rubber gloves out of my jacket.
My skin tingled from the faint energy signature that lingered around the vehicle. The blood on the driver’s side door handle had dried to a dark rust color, but the emotional residue remained, like the last notes of a song lingering after the music stops. I steadied myself and sent a tendril out.
Gunnar lumbered up beside me, sniffing up mucus before spitting it out. I hardly cringed anymore. “What’re you picking up?”
“I’m not sure yet, but I need a little space.”
Gunnar nodded and stepped back, then held out his arms to keep everyone back. I closed my eyes and placed my hand near the blood. A signature pulsed.
“What exactly is she doing?” I heard Beau ask Conall.
“Reading the residual energy,” Conall explained quietly. “She’s a level eight Resonant and can pick up complex emotions from objects and even places.”
Conall knew full well that I was an extreme outlier on the Resonance scale and could also pull energy signatures from objects, or Spool them. It was a highly controversial and coveted skill that could get me killed. Or worse.
I tuned them out and focused on the truck. What I didn’t find was more telling. There was no spike of terror or surge of panic, just determination tinged with what felt like resignation.
I frowned, then moved my hand to the door handle. Shifting my body so it blocked Beau’s view, I took off a glove and rested my hand on the metal.
“What’s you get?” Gunnar asked when I stepped back.
“He wasn’t afraid, and he knew something was coming.”
Gunnar grunted. “Did he disappear voluntarily or was he coerced?”
“Neither. Both? It’s complicated.” I shrugged and pulled the door open, sliding into the driver’s seat.
The interior smelled of pine air freshener, tobacco, and something earthy—like damp soil after rain.
The bench seat was worn smooth from years of use, the steering wheel polished to a shine where Viggo’s hands had gripped it thousands of times.
I ran my hands over the dashboard, searching for anything that might offer insight. The truck was meticulously clean and organized. No wrappers or coffee cups, no scattered receipts or loose change. Even the floor mats looked recently vacuumed.
A light tap on the window startled me. Conall stood outside, his expression concerned. I stepped out to join him, and he leaned in next to my ear.
“Are you feeling anything that needs to be Spooled?”
I shook my head. “No. There’s no fear signature, no violence. Just... determination. Like he knew what he was doing.”
“You haven’t been using your energy much since Roswell. Are you worried?”
“Whatever’s happening to me, it minimizes emotion and enhances my analytical abilities. Which isn’t always a good thing, is it?”
This close, his warmth bled into my skin. I fleetingly wondered if I could keep the cold at bay just by standing next to him.
“Your abilities are changing, and we don’t know how or why.”
I leaned into him for a moment, allowing myself that small comfort. “Let me finish with the truck, and we’ll talk tonight.”
Gunnar straightened from examining the pickup bed and the toolbox. “Nothing back here except about what you’d expect.”
I returned to the cab and began methodically working through the interior. As I leaned down to check under the seats, a tingle moved through my fingers. The energy drew me to a spot under the speedometer and gauges on the dashboard.
A small compartment popped open when I pressed it, probably meant for loose change. Inside were a few quarters, a dime, and a crumpled piece of paper wedged in the back corner.
Determined, intentional energy bled off the paper, and I smoothed it out on my thigh. It was a torn receipt, only partially intact, from Emma’s Café in Afton, Wyoming. The date was a few days before Viggo went missing.
The partial receipt showed printed food items and a total, but there were also numbers written on the back. It was a series of numbers and dots, but with a portion of the sequence missing where the receipt had been torn in two.
Two fours with a dot, then six three nine eight, and what looked like a zero, but the rest was gone.
I put the receipt in a small evidence baggie and pocketed it. Apex Mentes had compromised one of the Rangers in Carlsbad. I’d learned my lesson. We finished searching the truck, then expanded out to the parking area, but didn’t pick up anything new.
Later that evening, when Freda and Bennion went for a grocery run, and Ash and Conall were in the living room discussing the upcoming talks in Washington, I pulled the baggie from my pocket and set it on the table.
“I think I found something in Viggo’s truck.”
“Looks like trash,” Gunnar grunted, glancing up from his computer and over his tiny bifocals.
“It doesn’t feel like trash, though.”
His eyes shot back to me. “What’s it feel like?”
“Like Viggo wanted me to find it.” I held the baggie up. “It’s a receipt from a diner in Afton, about two hours south of here, near the Idaho border. But what’s written on the back is what I’m really interested in.”
Gunnar pushed his bifocals up to get a better look. “Is it a phone number?”
Conall walked up behind him and shook his head, pointing to the first two numbers, then to the decimal point. “It’s part of a GPS coordinate, but you’re missing the longitude.”
“Can we try to narrow down the area with just this section?” I asked.
Ash came up on Gunnar’s other side and studied the numbers. “It’s not enough. It could be a thousand different places between Greenwich and the equator. This only tells us how far north or south of the equator this location would be.”
Gunnar grunted. “This could also be a fucking fishin’ hole.”