“Maybe she left already,” Bodie offered.
Silas nodded to Raven’s stuff on the counter. “Her purse is still here.”
Also, the team usually congregated outside before leaving in succession.
“She was in my last rappelling class of the day. I definitely saw her while we were walking back from the site,” Halo said before tapping her daughter’s shoulder.
“What?” the teen asked, peeling her headphone from an ear.
“You walked in with Raven after my class, right?”
“No,” Libby said, straightening in her seat. “I forgot the first aid kit, and she went back to the cliff to get it.”
“Did you see her come back?” Silas asked as something slow but persistent began to press at his chest.
“I thought she did,” the teen said, pointing to a first aid kit sitting on the counter.
“That one’s mine,” Doc said, and the atmosphere shifted with those words.
Something was wrong.
“I’ll check the shed,” Bodie said, leaving the room.
Silas pulled out his phone and called Raven’s number while he retrieved the search-and-rescue packs from a low cupboard. Meanwhile, Doc and Halo opened a map on the table.
“What site did you rappel at today?” Doc asked.
“Site A,” Halo replied, running her hands through her short hair.
Bodie returned from searching the shed and simply shook his head. Panic wanted to tear through the surface of Silas’s skin, but he slammed it down, not letting himself think further than the next steps.
“All right,” Silas said to the team. “Her phone is going straight to voicemail. She’s probably still out there with no service.” He swallowed hard before continuing. “Doc and I will go search the site. If she returns, radio us. And if we’re still gone when the sun sets, call the constable.”
With everyone briefed on their roles, Silas left the cabin with Doc for Site A.
Most people got lost at the beginning or at the end of a trail, so Silas had to force himself to slow down, look, and listen. There was no wisdom in racing; he’d risk missing her. Every few minutes, he’d called out her name.
When the men arrived at the site, they didn’t see a first aid kit.
“We know she got the kit, so she must’ve gotten lost on the way back,” Doc said.
It was helpful, but it didn’t ease his heart palpitations.
“Raven!” Silas called out once and stilled to listen for a response that did not come.
And when Doc walked to the edge of the cliff and looked over, Silas stopped breathing until Doc turned around and shook his head. A dizzying relief flooded him, but shit wasn’t over.
“Okay, we take a four-quadrant approach and meet back here,” Silas said before they split up to execute the search strategy. He looked for classic signs of disruption. Broken branches, trampled foliage. Anything that could indicate where Raven had trodden.
But his search yielded nothing, and time passed quicker than he could make ground. The sun was dipping, and the forest was getting darker.
“Where are you, Raven?” he whispered anxiously, struggling with the fear stabbing him. But then, from deep in the woods, Doc shouted, “I found something!”
* * *
“I am grateful for the sun. And I’m grateful for the double-stuffed Oreos in my motel room that I’ll eat when I definitely get out of here alive. I have flint, so I can make fire if I need to,” Raven said aloud.
She was sitting up against a boulder and doing her best to keep her mind occupied so it wouldn’t roam to the bleakest of places.
