I looked down at the screen. A single message glowed:SWITCHBACK. MIDNIGHT. COME ALONE.
Her eyes met mine. “Guess the mountain’s not done with us.”
“No,” I said, thumb brushing her cheek. “But it picked the wrong people to play with.”
9
Zoe
Midnight on the mountain tastes like metal and secrets. The animals were either sleeping or hiding.
I park Forest’s truck a quarter mile below the Timberline switchback, turn off the lights, and let the darkness settle in. My breath forms a ghost in front of me. The trees are black cutouts against a star-filled sky, and every sound feels too loud, as if the night is holding its breath to see if I’ll mess this up. I should give Lane a call, she is, after all, the Sheriff on Fraiser mountain.
“Check,” Forest’s voice murmurs in my ear. Throat mic. Low. Steady. “Comms good?”
“Loud and handsome,” I whisper back. “How’s the nest?”
“Fifteen yards upslope. Net’s rigged. Your ‘come alone’ line is live.”
I pull my hood up, shove my hands into my pockets to look small and cold, and start up the trail. We spent the last hour turning their tricks into ours—Forest stringing the net we stole across a narrow pinch in the path, blending it as if it grew there. He set a rattle-can alarm forty feet back to give us a head start if someone came from behind. He left me a small talisman at myhip: a tiny vial of pepper gel he called “city bear spray.” I told him I didn’t need it. I took it anyway.
The switchback sign floats out of the dark like a ghost. I stop beside it, deliberately in the open. My phone’s dead on purpose. The burner in my pocket buzzes once—silent vibration against my thigh—and then again. I let it buzz a third time before I answer.
“Hello?” I make my voice flat, bored. A cop who has no idea she’s walking into a trap.
“You came,” a man says, smooth, confident, and utterly sure I’ll follow his dots wherever he paints them. Not Harris. Older. Colder. “Alone?”
“Like the text said.” I tip my head back. The stars don’t blink. A gust of wind brings me pine and something faint and chemical—machine oil. “Where’s the part where you monologue and confess everything?”
A soft laugh. “You brought a friend last time. The pier? The man with the hateful hoodie.”
“Yeah,” I say, casually. “He has strong opinions about brine.”
Leaves whisper uphill. Not wind. Feet. Two sets. Maybe three. “You like games,” I add. “You left me an unlogged phone. Cute.”
“Consider it a professional courtesy,” the voice says. He’s close enough that he should be fogging the air. He doesn’t. He’s on a relay, talking from somewhere else while his people do the dirty work. “Step forward ten paces. Set the bag down.”
“What bag?”
A pause. He hadn’t liked that. Good.
Another sound joins the night—a faint buzz I now recognize on instinct. A drone. I keep my face lazy and my body loose and tilt my head like I’m hearing crickets.
“Detective,” the voice purrs, “we’re going to keep this simple. Hands up.”
I lift my hands. I’m not stupid; I want to live long enough to be annoying in a courtroom.
A figure emerges from the trees to my right, gray jacket, forgettable face—Ravine Guy—with two more ghosts behind him. One aims a net gun at my legs. The other has a stance that suggests he’s been paid to stand in doorways and get in the way since high school.
“Alone,” Gray Jacket remarks, eyes sliding past me into the dark where he can’t quite see Forest. “How brave.”
“Brave is showing up to a first date with mustard stains,” I say. “This is just Tuesday.”
He smiles, small and mean. The drone dips closer, red light winking. My skin tries to crawl off my bones. Forest’s breath is a warm shadow in my ear, not words, just presence. Waiting for my mark.
“Turn around,” Gray Jacket says. “Hands behind—”
“Actually,” I say sweetly, “how about you go first?”
