She glanced back at Lark Bunting, like a car-crash gawker on the freeway unable to tear her gaze away. And then a realization struck her. The vet wore a black quilted winter jacket.
Neve scrambled to her knees and got to work removing the coat, ignoring the spongy feel where blood had soaked in. Between the pain in her useless arm and wrestling with the half-frozen corpse, the process was slow and excruciating. But her blood got pumping and raised her body temperature, and soon beads of perspiration dotted her forehead. By the time she wrangled off the jacket and had it cinched around herself, she was able to trap a decent amount of heat. Her one good arm was in the sleeve while her bad arm remained tucked against her body, zipped inside the coat. Her final acts of defiling the vet’s corpse included turning out every pocket, removing her socks, and plucking the knit cap from her head.
Back at the vehicle, she nearly jumped for joy when she found more treasures—a bottle of water, gloves, and the car’s shiny tailpipe. She could use it as a weapon, though she prayed she wouldn’t need to. The one item she really needed—a cell phone with a GPS beacon—was nowhere in sight. Hell, she’d take the cell phone without the beacon. Or a flare. Or anything that would alert people she was out here. If Lark Bunting had brought along a phone, it could be wedged in the car somewhere or was lying in the woods beyond the crash site where it had been flung.
After a short debate with herself, Neve went against Reece’s advice and began walking around the scene, expanding the perimeter as she went, which led her away from the ravine wall and deeper into the woods. Yes, she was supposed to stay with the car, but if it was stuck at the bottom of a gully, hidden by a heavy canopy, how would anyone ever see it? She would become one of those sad footnotes in the summer when some unfortunate hiker stumbled across the scene and her decaying body.
She shored up her resolve. She would do everything in her power to not wind up a one-liner in the local paper.
Reece edged off thehighway at the mile marker Shane had given him. His cell service was gone, but last time he checked in with the deputy, Bunting’s phone was still pinging from the same tower, which narrowed its general location down to a five-to-ten-mile radius. Shane had sent Reece the coordinates, and they were now programmed into Reece’s Garmin GPS. Instead of searching for a needle in a haystack, he would conduct a hasty search—looking for that needle in a hay bale.
On the west side of the road lay a ravine wall that dropped a good twelve feet. Flanking its far side, the gully gave way to Colorado’s dark timber, a tangle of towering evergreens, dark as a storm rolling over the Rockies. The locals called the place Lost Horse Gulch, and it stretched for miles, getting steeper as it went. He prayed the phone wasn’t lying at the bottom of it.
Overhead, the night sky glowered, an angry ceiling of clouds ready to unleash its snow load. He stuffed down his dampening hopes, strapped onhis pack and headlamp, and snapped on his handheld spotlight before releasing Pearl from the cab.
“Hunt ’em up,” he told the dog—which was stupid because she was no hunting dog trained to look for pheasants, but hey, talking to her calmed his nerves. She was his searching companion now, and he was grateful for her company.
He began by methodically sweeping the road from side to side with the bright beam, looking for any sign a car had recently left the blacktop. Pearl trotted next to him, her head on a swivel. Checking his GPS as he walked along the side of the road, his mind locked into the familiarity of the task.
“We’re coming for you, Neve.”
I just hope like hell you’re still alive.
Whatever Lark Bunting hadinjected into Neve’s neck was taking its toll. Adrenaline had ebbed a while ago, and she sank against the rough bark of a pine, utterly spent. Her plan to hike out, if she could even call it a plan, was proving futile, and a frisson of panic threaded through her. Exactly where was she hikingto? What if her route only took her deeper into the rugged wilderness where humans didn’t roam? What if she’d made a huge mistake by striking out? The chill December air had settled in her body, and her limbs were heavy, seeming to weigh her down with each stumbling step. She could no longer feel her feet or her fingers, her lips or her nose. Her legs couldn’t carry her much farther, and the pain in her arm further drained her meager energy reserves.
She took a sip of water and rested her weary bones. “You only get one minute,” she warned herself. “Then you need to get up and move.” She began counting to sixty, lost track, and started over again.
Pearl took off ata gallop down the road, with Reece in pursuit the entire way, cursing as he went.
“Damn it, dog! Come back here.” This was exactly what Reece had feared when he’d brought her along. Nothing like finding your wife and having to break the news you’d lost her dog.
He quickened his pace, but the damn pit bull lengthened the distance between them anyway. Who knew a meatloaf with stubby legs could move that quickly? Should he run after her or fall back, focus on his search, and pray the knucklehead survived on her own? The answer was a no-brainer, and he didn’t like it.
Despite the floodlight’s lumens, Pearl transformed into a pale blob way out of ahead of him, and he pulled back. His entire focus had to stay on finding Neve. He was mid-spin, heading back to cover the ground he’d missed by running over it to catch Pearl, when an eerie sort of baying echoed off the trees. He changed direction and sped up his steps. Pearl, seated on her haunches, came into sharper view. A mournful wail rose from deep in her chest. He called to her, and she hopped up and began turning in frantic circles, whimpering and whining.
When he reached her, he patted her head. “Good girl. I’m sorry for what I was just thinking about you. Now sit.” Instead of sitting, though, she made a move to launch herself off the road and into the gully. Reece yanked her collar back just in time.
“Jesus, that’s a twelve-foot drop! Sit!” he commanded. Her body quivered, so he straddled her to keep her in place while he clipped on a leash. Then he checked his coordinates. “Still within range,” he muttered.
He stared down at the pit bull. “You’re trying to tell me something, aren’t you, girl?” She answered with a growly “Woof!”
“Okay. Let’s do this. We’re a team.” He illuminated the edge of the gully where asphalt met vegetation. A crease in the mat of dead needles and leaves caught his attention. Could have been a tire track or nothing at all. Then he pointed the light into the ravine. Dark timber ate light like ablack hole, and he took his time shining it on every square inch between the trees.
He was on the verge of moving on, sure the dog had alerted on some critter, when his eye snagged on something out of place. He swept the beam over it, then changed the angle to catch a different view. There! The faint glimmer of silver. Had the sky been clear and the moon high, it might have been a reflection off of the forest floor, but the thick clouds were obscuring the light from the moon and stars. His pulse rocketed, and he reminded himself it could have been anything. Creeping closer to the edge, he aimed the beam at the same spot. Another glint appeared on the outer edge of the pool of light, and he directed the light that way. Squinting, he nearly let out a whoop.
“I think that’s part of a car, Pearl.” Her mouth broadened in a dog smile. “Yeah, you’re a smart girl. We need to find out if it’s the one we’re looking for.” He began a series of calculations.
In the end, he decided to lower himself down the ravine wall with a simple rope rappel. Quick, easy, and the technique didn’t require a harness. He anchored his line on a sturdy ponderosa pine, Neve’s teasing words about him being a mountain goat “rappelling all over the place” dancing in his brain. It wasn’t really rappelling—he was simply walking down the face of the ravine wall. First he donned thick leather gloves and lowered his pack. Next, he looped the rope around his hip, through his legs, and over his shoulder. Now came the tricky part: cradling Pearl against his body in a sling. He had debated locking her in his truck, but he was working against the clock. Besides, he never would have discovered this scene if not for her. What—or who—else might she lead him to? Yeah, he wasnotleaving her behind.
Finally, he left a signal marker, so Shane or any other SAR member could locate the point where he’d gone over the edge, and lowered himself and the dog, the friction of the rope around his body slowing their descent. Less than a minute later, they were at the bottom of the gully.
Drifting in and out,Neve counted and recounted, her body relaxing withevery number. Something sharp poked her ear, and she shot up to her feet, remembering her injured arm too late. A yelp escaped her. When she bent down to feel what had pricked her, she discovered a tiny branch with a sprinkling of pine needles sticking out from the trunk she’d chosen as her armchair.
“That was a warning,” she told herself. “Move.” She picked up her feet and stomped them on the ground, trying to get feeling back into them so she could continue her march through the black-barked sentinels looming all around her. With Reece’s warning about leaving the scene floating through her brain, her foreboding grew. But what choice did she have? Waiting for rescue equaled death, and with every fiber in her being, she longed to live.
Reece crouched down besidethe body of a woman he presumed was Dr. Lark Bunting. A slurry of emotions tightened in his chest. Horror at the discovery, relief at not having found Neve in the same condition, and amplified worry at finding no trace of Neve, period.
He took in the vet’s hiking boots on the ground and her sockless feet. Maybe, just maybe, Neve had been in good enough shape that she’d removed them. And if she had, then maybe, just maybe, she’d also taken crucial pieces of winter garb to help her survive the cold.
