It was always harder on the trip back, your muscles straining to keep balance with gravity working against you. I cut my normal stride in half, making sure she didn’t feel rushed.
Beside us, the stream trickled, growing wider, deeper the farther we worked down the mountain.
It wasn’t a river, not something you’d find on a map. But it was larger than I’d expected to find today. Maybe a good place for me to start tomorrow.
I was about to change course, head toward the trees and hike until we reached the path that would take us to the trailhead, when a yelp echoed behind me. I spun just in time to see Lyla’s feet sweep into the air.
And her land in the dirt with a thud.
“Lyla,” I gasped, rushing to her side and crouching down, my hands roaming over her body, searching for injury. “Are you hurt?”
“Ouch. No. I’m fine.” She tipped her head to the sky, drawing in a long breath, then surveyed the damage. “Shit.”
One side of her jeans was coated in the mud she’d slipped on.
She wiped at it but the only way that was coming out was in the wash. “I hate mud.”
“I’ve got a blanket in the truck. We’ll get back and peel you out of those wet jeans.”
“Why, Mr. Sutter.” Lyla fluttered her lashes. “Are you flirting with me?”
I chuckled, my heart sinking back down my throat.
It felt good to laugh, and Lyla had a way of coaxing it free. I’d laughed more in Quincy than I had in, well . . . four years.
I stood, offering her a hand to help her to her feet. “Come on.”
When she was standing, Lyla twisted to inspect the seat of her jeans—also coated in mud—then let out a string of curses that would make most guys on the force blush. When she looked to my face, she cocked her head to the side. “What?”
Except I wasn’t looking at her.
I was staring at the stream, just over her shoulder.
“Vance?” She followed my gaze to the water. “What? What are we looking at?”
“Stay here.” I passed her, taking slow, deliberate steps toward the water. I made sure every step was on a rock so my footprints wouldn’t show. Then I dropped to my haunches, peering through the clear stream.
And there, in its center, was a woven cone of willow branches.
A fish trap.
“Fuck me.” I looked around, scanning the trees. My pulse thudded in my ears.
Not a fish trap anyone would buy, but one made.
“Vance?” Lyla’s voice wobbled.
“Don’t move, Blue.”
“Is it a bear?”
“You see that?” I pointed to the water. “It’s a fish trap.”
The outer cone had a wide end that tapered to a smaller hole. At the wide opening, another cone fit inside, shorter, with the same smaller hole. Fish could swim inside the cone—I couldn’t tell if there was bait inside without pulling it from the water—and once they were in the cone, they’d get trapped, unable to find their way out of the smaller holes.
It was empty at the moment. Either because there weren’t any fish in this stream, or because someone had stopped by recently to put it in place.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, then stood and stepped away, taking as much care as I had earlier to step only on rocks as I made my way to Lyla.
There were footprints everywhere around where she’d slipped. Damn.
“Do you think Cormac made that trap?” Lyla asked.
“Maybe.” I turned, looking up the mountain from where we’d come.
Part of me didn’t want to hope. The other part didn’t want to even consider this could be possible.
But that trap . . .
It had Cormac’s name written all over it. Whenever we’d go camping, he’d spend a night by the fire, weaving branches and reeds together for fun while the girls would roast marshmallows and make s’mores.
Maybe he had made this trap. Maybe he hadn’t left the area yet.
Maybe I’d find that bastard after all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LYLA
My heart seized as Vance walked into the coffee shop, his face unreadable.
“Hi,” I breathed when he reached the counter.
“Hey.” He’d spent the past two days in the mountains, searching for signs of whoever had made that fish trap.
As much as I’d wanted to go with him, Crystal was off and I needed to be at the shop. That, and I’d only slow Vance down.
Except left behind, I’d had nothing to do but worry and wait. Today, I’d been so rattled that I’d dropped a coffee mug. The shattered ceramic remains were now in the trash can beside my feet. But one lost cup was better than my mishap yesterday—an entire double batch of cookie dough had gone splat on the kitchen floor when I’d been so distracted that I’d knocked over my mixing bowl.
“Are you hungry?” It took everything in my power not to ask him the question I was dying to voice.
Did you find Cormac?
I guess him being here was answer enough. If Vance had found Cormac, he’d likely be at the police station. Or possibly packing his hotel room.
“Yes,” he said. “I pushed hard today. Scarfed a granola bar on the drive back to town, but if you had a sandwich or something, that would be great.”
“I’ll bring it over.” I nodded, already going to work on a plate.
Vance headed toward the window, taking his usual seat. He hadn’t brought in his backpack today. Was that a good thing?
He pulled off his beanie, his hair disheveled, much like it had been this morning when I’d left him in my bed to come to work at four.
I usually chased after guys who styled their hair with combs, not fingers. I’d never, ever be able to look at a nice, clean-cut man again without wishing he had Vance’s messy hair.
Thick and soft, nothing had ever felt better threaded in my grip.
How many days, how many nights, did we have left?
Two days and everything had changed. It was like we’d started this, whatever this was, at a slow, unhurried pace. Like the way my dad drove through pastures at the ranch, slow enough to feel each bump in the dirt lanes.
Now the pedal was to the floor and we were driving a hundred miles per hour, headed straight for a brick wall.
The end was coming.
With every passing day, Vance was one step closer to leaving Quincy.
When?
I wanted him to find Cormac. More than anything, I wanted Vance to get his answers. To gain closure. To put his demons to rest. At the same time . . .
I didn’t want him to find Cormac.
How ridiculous was that? That asshole was a criminal. He’d turned me inside out and deserved to spend the rest of his life rotting in prison, not just for what he’d done to me but to his family.
Vance had to find Cormac.
But when this mess was over, Vance would return to Idaho. And me?
Maybe I’d go back to normal.
Normal sounded . . . horrible.
I poured Vance a cup of steaming coffee, taking it and a turkey sandwich to his table. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” His smile was weak. Weary.
More than anything, I wanted to slide into his lap, wrap my arms around those broad shoulders and bury my nose in the crook of his neck.
That would have to wait until tonight when we were safe behind my closed doors.
There weren’t many customers in the shop at the moment, but Emily Nelsen was across the room and five tables away.
She was a reporter at the Quincy Gazette, the local newspaper owned by her parents. Emily and I had graduated high school together, and besides a few incidents of minor teen-girl drama, we’d mostly gotten along.
She used to come in and kiss my ass because of her crush on Griffin. But since he’d married Winn, the ass-kissing had stopped. Now she came into the shop because she loved gossip. And Eden Coffee was one of her regular stops for fodder.
Emily’s blond hair was pulled up, revealing the white earbuds she’d put in earlier when she’d started working on her laptop. Maybe she was listening to music or a podcast. Maybe it was a ruse to make people think she wasn’t eavesdropping.
So I stayed on my feet. If Emily was watching, I was simply making nice with a customer.
“How’d it go today?” I asked, keeping my voice low.
“Nothing.” He frowned, then took a bite of his sandwich, his strong jaw flexing as he chewed. When he swallowed, his shoulders sagged, like his body was finally relaxing now that he was giving it some decent food.
“Do you think he saw our footprints?”
“Maybe,” he murmured.
We’d done our best to conceal them, taking a few branches to scratch them from the mud and dirt. Vance had hoped that with the fall rain we’d been getting each night, our tracks would wash away. But there was no guarantee.
“Or maybe it’s not him.” Vance sighed.
“It’s him.” It had to be him.
“I set up a few game cameras today in the area. One is aimed right at the stream.”
“Smart.”
“We’ll see.” His voice was so flat. Two days ago, he’d been keyed up after finding that trap. But the roller coaster that was Cormac Gallagher was now at the bottom of the track, along with Vance’s spirits.
Up and down. Down and up.
He ate another bite of his sandwich, doing what Vance did when the topic was getting too heavy. He changed the subject. “This is really good.”
“Thank you.”
He winked, forcing a half smile. “How’s your day going?”
“Other than the broken mug in the trash can, it’s been fine.”
“You okay?”
“Are you?”