Total pages in book: 193
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 920(@200wpm)___ 736(@250wpm)___ 613(@300wpm)
“Ah, this is Deputy Green. Brought him on two weeks ago after Plocher decided on an early retirement. His first week was nothing to write home about, but I’d say he’s had an exciting second week, wouldn’t you, Green?”
“Definitely, sir.”
Fascinating. I roll my eyes.
“Listen,” the sheriff says. “I know you boys are getting ready to hightail it out of town, and this is highly inconvenient, but I have a favor to ask.”
“What’s up?” Khalil’s friendly ass asks.
“We got some out-of-towners who went camping, and a couple of them got separated from their group last night. No one’s seen or heard from them since. I’ve got the new SAR team out there looking, but they aren’t familiar with the terrain and haven’t found diddly-squat. With this nasty squall coming, I don’t want to waste any more time. You three know those mountains better than anyone. Maybe you’ll see something they can’t. What do you say? Help this old man out one last time?”
Frowning, I sit back and cross my arms, choosing to keep my thoughts to myself.
The search could only take a few hours, or it could take a few days. It’s been a month since we decided to go after Isaac, and it feels like now or never. A delay could make us all lose our nerve, not to mention search and rescue is a dangerous job. If one of us gets hurt, we’re fucked. We’re already wildly outnumbered, but that’s okay because we only have one target. Anyone who gets in our way will simply be collateral damage, but we have a way around that too.
I watch Khalil and Thorin glance at each other, and then they both look in the back seat at me, and I raise my brows because we’re obviously going to do it. Why? Because Aurelia told the sheriff where to find us, which means she thinks we should. So we will.
Our girl’s got a sharp tongue but a soft heart. She knows what it’s like to be lost out there and wouldn’t be able to live with herself if she allowed us to ignore someone else in need.
“We’ll do it,” Khalil says. “We just need time to grab our gear.”
“No need,” the sheriff states. “Your young lady already took care of that. She packed your gear, and we put it in my truck.”
Thorin blows out a breath and then waves a hand. “Lead the way.”
It’s fucking snowing. And worse, it’s late enough in the season that the shit is actually sticking and being a goddamn nuisance. I shiver in my leather jacket for the third time and pull the fur-lined collar up to protect my nape and ears.
It’s just my luck that this shit show landed on my day instead of Zeke’s.
I’m tempted to force the fucker awake so he can deal with this cold instead of me. I’m already grouchy that I won’t be able to hold Sunshine’s hand during the plane ride tomorrow. Zeke gets to. It’s not fucking fair.
A helicopter flies overheard and I glare at it as it goes.
We’ve been searching for hours and haven’t caught a single lead yet. For one, the dickheads who radioed for help can’t seem to keep their story straight about the last time they saw their friends or where they were going when they disappeared, which makes it harder to establish a searchable grid.
And two, their camp doesn’t look lived in. It looks more like it was staged to give the impression of camping, which also doesn’t make any sense. I get lying about your friends going missing if you murdered them. But why would anyone drag all of this shit out here just to pretend to camp?
Nothing about this makes any sense, and I can tell by the matching scowls on Thorin and Khalil’s faces that they’re thinking the same thing. We have no reason not to trust the sheriff though, so we stay and hope that the alarm bells that have been going off in our minds for the past hour are wrong.
And then there’s Aurelia.
We still can’t get ahold of her, but it’s probably the storm interfering with the signal. Nevertheless, I’m getting ready to bow out and head back to the cabin to check on her when the sheriff walks over to where the three of us are searching an abandoned wolf den.
“So the witnesses now think their friends might have gone to explore a system of caves near Maia. I’d send some volunteers out there, but they’re all pretty weary and spread out checking the other leads. You boys think you’re up for it?”
“Sheriff, how sure are you that this is legit?” Khalil barks. “It doesn’t seem off to you that their story keeps changing? I mean, what the fuck?”
“I’ve had those thoughts myself, but we can’t take that chance. Either a terrible accident occurred or a terrible crime. Either way, I’m not leaving until those hikers are found.”