She crouched, tracing one groove with her fingertips. Deep tread, wide wheelbase. “Pickup,” she murmured to herself. “Probably the same one the suspect mentioned.”
She stood and scanned the tree line, her eyes following the tracks until they disappeared into the woods.
Behind her, she heard the back door open and close — Isabel heading for her side of the search.
Victoria set off toward the trees on the front left, the ones the suspect had called a “blind spot.” Every step crunched on pine needles and brittle twigs. She kept her weapon low but ready,sweeping her gaze for signs — a footprint, a cigarette butt, a candy wrapper — anything.
Instead, what she found was her own rising irritation.
It seemed as if every single thing she’d said in the cabin had been met with pushback from Isabel. Every theory, every interpretation — countered. Disputed. The woman could argue with a wall, and lately, it felt like that was exactly what Victoria had become to her.
She told herself it was just the stress of the case. The pressure. The fact that they were chasing shadows and running out of time. But the truth was, Isabel had a way of getting under her skin, of making her feel…off-balance. And she hated it.
She pushed farther into the trees and stopped short at a patch of ground where the leaves were disturbed. Squatting, she brushed them aside and found the faint impression of a boot tread, partially obscured but sharp enough to be recent.
Her pulse ticked up. They’d been here. And not long ago.
Victoria straightened from the boot print, scanning the tree line — and then the sky split open.
Not just rain this time.
Lightning ripped across the ridge, so bright it bleached the world in white for half a second, followed almost instantly by a thunderclap that rolled through the ground under her boots. The wind surged, bending the trees, driving the rain sideways in sheets so thick she could barely see two feet ahead.
The sudden force of it hit like a wall. The drops stung against her skin and plastered her hair to her forehead in seconds.
“Shit!” she barked, throwing an arm up against the sting of the rain. There was no way they were tracking anything in this — hell, she could barely see Isabel.
She turned and bolted for the cabin, her boots churning through the mud, the wind clawing at her jacket. Behind her,she caught the sound of Isabel’s heavier footsteps pounding after her, splashing through the deepening puddles.
They hit the porch at almost the same time, Victoria wrenching open the door and shoving inside. The slam of it behind them was almost drowned out by the battering rain on the roof and the rattling of the warped windowpanes.
Water dripped steadily from her jacket and hair onto the dusty floorboards. She peeled off the jacket with a sharp tug, tossing it onto one of the overturned chairs.
“Well,” she said, breathless and irritated, “looks like we’re not going anywhere until this blows over.” She gestured toward the window, where the view had been reduced to a solid gray sheet. “Roads’ll be a damned river in ten minutes. We’d get stuck before we hit the mill road.”
The storm was all-consuming. Rain slammed into the roof so hard it was almost a roar, the wind battering the warped walls, making the windows rattle in their frames. The broken front door shuddered in its hinges, the occasional gust forcing it open a few inches before slamming shut again. Lightning strobed white through the windows, followed almost instantly by the bone-shaking crack of thunder.
“This was a waste,” Isabel said over the din, her arms crossed and her wet hair plastered to her temples.
“We don’t know that,” Victoria snapped before she could stop herself.
“Oh, please. You saw the tracks. Fresh, sure — but by now they could be twenty miles from here.”
Victoria’s retort was ready —We’re not giving up— but she cut herself off, her jaw tightening. The fight wasn’t worth it. Not about this. She turned away and dropped into one of the chairs, reaching down to work the laces of her boots loose. Water squelched inside with every shift of her foot.
Across from her, Isabel bent to do the same, tugging hers off and tipping one upside down over the floor. A stream of water poured out, splashing onto the dusty boards. She didn’t say anything for a long moment, just set the boot down and started on the other.
When she did speak, her voice was quieter — but sharper. “You know what else I hate? Waking up alone.”
Victoria froze, her fingers still on the damp leather of her boot. She kept her gaze low. “We’re really doing this now?”
“You left without a word,” Isabel said, peeling her soaked jacket from her arms with deliberate care. She shook out the sleeves and draped it over the back of a chair as if it mattered that it would dry evenly. “Not even a note.”
“I left a note,” Victoria said, her voice cooler than she’d intended.
Isabel’s hands stilled. She turned her head just enough for Victoria to catch the flicker of confusion across her face before she looked away again.
The silence stretched. Victoria sat there, her boots half-off and her pulse loud in her ears. She was suddenly, irrationally breathless — waiting for Isabel to say something, anything.
