by Mary Stone
“We’re going on our twentieth hour right now. It’s been over forty-eight that Amy Cooper’s been missing.” She reached back and grabbed hold of another man’s leather motorcycle jacket sheathed arm. He whirled, along with a platinum blonde with a deep tan. “Jaxon Mott and Crystal Sinclair, meet one of Asheville’s best. Linc Coulter.”
Linc shook their hands, admiring their dogs. One was a German Shepherd, the other a Boxer. Storm approached the other pups, cautiously getting to know them as she usually did. “Good to be working with you,” Linc said to their handlers.
Crystal let out a bubbly hello, but Jaxon just grunted in apparent disinterest.
“That’s everyone. Oh!” Dina said, snapping her fingers and looking around the people. “Not everyone. You have to meet Will.”
She cupped her hands over her mouth and shouted to a man who was sipping coffee and slouching against a tree trunk, dark sunglasses covering a great deal of his face.
Linc grinned as he walked into the sunlight. He’d bet anything that those sunglasses were there to ward off a hard night of partying. That’s just who Will Santos was—the life of the party.
“Well, look who turned up,” Linc said with a wry smile, shaking his hand. “Nice to have you gracing us with your royal presence, slick.”
“So, you two know each other?” Dina asked, looking back and forth between the two men.
“You could say that,” Will Santos said as they separated from the rest of the rescuers. “How the hell you been? Heard you had quite a set-up there in Asheville. You still high in the mountaintops?”
“The highest I could get.” Linc crouched to ruffle the fur of Will’s golden retriever, Star. If he’d been given the opportunity to hand-pick a search team, Will would’ve been his first choice. They’d worked together countless times before. “Heard you’re not doing so bad yourself. Down South of Atlanta, right?”
“That’s right. Things are good. Bought a house. Still living the good life.”
Linc grinned. Knowing Will, that meant going to bars every night, picking up hot women. When Linc had been single and just discharged from the army, he’d done his best to keep up with Will at the clubs, but it’d been a stretch. The man liked to have a good time.
“No kidding.” He spied Kylie walking through the crowd and motioned her over. “Will, meet Kylie, my fiancée.”
Will shook her hand. “What the hell a pretty thing like you doing with this broken thing,” he said with a wink, pouring on his Latin charm. Will was like a Hispanic version of Linc’s best friend, Jacob. Jacob had loved playing the field; that is, until he reconnected with Linc’s ex, Faith. Now, he barely saw Jacob anymore. Knowing how much Kylie loved Jacob, he figured she’d probably get on famously with Will.
Linc nudged him. “Don’t give her any ideas. She’s already having second thoughts as it is.”
He waited for Kylie to object, but she didn’t. She just said how lovely it was to meet Will, ignoring Linc’s comment. He’d meant it as a joke.
Wait. Was she having second thoughts?
They really hadn’t been talking about the wedding much, not as much as he’d expected they would be. And Linc had gotten the feeling that when they’d been called down to Georgia, she might have been glad to escape that dress-shopping trip with her mom. He’d have to ask her about it later, because now was not the time.
Dina climbed to the top of a picnic bench and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Okay, guys, thank you for coming out today. We’re going to get started.”
Will nudged him. “At least we’re not on the search for escaped prison inmates this time.”
“Yeah,” Linc agreed. That had been brutal. Hours on the trail, and the prisoners in question obviously hadn’t wanted to be found. He shrugged the hopelessness of that night off and smiled. This was a piece of cake in comparison.
Kylie leaned over, eyes wide. “Prison inmates?”
He whispered, “I’ll tell you later,” and leaned in to focus on what Dina was saying. The SARs got separated into two teams, with Kylie and Linc part of the team looking for Amy on the Sliding Rock Trail.
Oh, Kylie would really get a kick out of this one. This trail could make even hardcore hikers rethink the hobby.
Well, at least it was sunny.
“Look,” he said to her, taking her aside. “This trail is hardcore. It’s steep. So stay with me and step where I—”
“I got it, I got it,” she said with a smile, tightening the drawcord on the bottom of her jacket. “I don’t have Vader pulling me around this time, so it’s not a problem. All it is is walking, right? I’ve been doing that since I was a baby, believe it or not. I’m ready.”
He gave her a look. She really had no clue.
“You still have to be careful,” he warned.
“I’m always careful!” She looked up from her map, gave him a bright smile, then skipped off toward the trailhead.
Right. He thought about mentioning the serial killer she’d unwittingly gotten herself tangled up with, but she was finally in a good mood on the trail. He didn’t know how long that smile of hers would last, but he guessed that if he brought up the Spotlight Killer, it’d probably end a hell of a lot quicker.
Mentally crossing his fingers, he tugged on Storm’s leash and followed her quietly to the South Rim Trail.
11
Kylie had never been so unsure as she was in the moment she stood there, fisting a helpless pine tree branch as she contemplated the next step into the abyss.
She dipped a toe down a little, rethought, picked it up, settled it down again, and then stepped.
No, wrong! Danger, danger! She wouldn’t have balance if she stepped there. She needed to choose a different spot. Wobbling, she gripped the tree branch harder in a strangling fist, which was now sticky with its sap.
It was a wonder Storm wasn’t having more trouble navigating the steep incline. After all, she had four feet and no thumbs to think about, not just two. Kylie hadn’t been particularly afraid of heights until this moment, looking down the drop, wondering where to put her foot next.
The guy behind her, Jaxon, a motorcycle dude with a red handkerchief on his head, groaned and said something under his breath. Kylie would’ve thought he was cute if he hadn’t been breathing down her neck the entire walk, all the while talking to the blonde girl he was with as if she was a piece of meat. Hey, move that hot ass of yours, baby.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he said behind her, louder this time. “You’re holding up the line.”
Kylie whirled to see him staring at her.
Was he calling her sweetheart?
Oh, hell no.
Linc would lay the guy out. Didn’t matter how big his biceps and the pecs he was showing off with his insanely tight t-shirt were. Linc’s were bigger. She had this thing for looking at men and determining whether her fiancé could kick their asses. Usually, the answer was a resounding yes. But Linc was already several yards ahead on the trail, letting Storm sniff the area.
Kylie fisted her hands on her hips and turned back to Mr. Motorcycle. She said, as sweetly as possible, “If you want, go ahead of me.”
He looked back at his blonde girlfriend, who was tottering much the same as Kylie was, except she was only wearing some sneakers. Sneakers…with high heels. Kylie didn’t even know they made those. For what purpose? That, and the most obscenely short-shorts Kylie had ever seen, especially in late November.
The woman was somehow managing to guide a rescue dog, a black boxer, down the hill. Her eyes were glued to the ground as she stepped, but she was far enough away to be out of earshot.
Jaxon looked down at Kylie and grinned, slow and easy. “No, thanks. I kind of like the view right here.”
Kylie bristled. Was he talking about her ass? Good thing she wasn’t wearing shorts. Even in jeans, she felt naked.
Linc noticed she’d stopped and began to backtrack toward her. “What’s the problem?”
She looked back at Jaxon and scow
led. “Nothing.”
In front of her, Linc reached the spot she’d been frozen in for the last minute. He patted a stone step at his hip level. “Step here.” Then he pointed to another, a little farther down. “Then here.”
She did, her knees wobbling in her sturdy hiking boots. She had to let go of the tree branch in order to make the move, and now she felt like she was flying without a net, and she’d soon go rolling all the way to the bottom of the gorge in a cloud of dust, like a cartoon character.
Too bad she couldn’t fall on that idiot Jaxon and flatten his leering face.
When she made it to standing on the landing beside Linc, she let out a breath of relief. “Sweet terra firma. I can’t believe there are people who do this for fun.”
“Come on,” Linc said, letting Storm take the lead.
Actually, she could. People like the man she was about to be eternally wed to did this for fun. Linc wasn’t smiling due to the seriousness of their situation, but he was clearly in his element. He kept taking those big, bracing I love fresh air! breaths, the ones that moved his whole chest. He might as well have been smiling, he was so thrilled by all of this.
Kylie removed her sunglasses and squinted in the sun dappling down through the trees. Supposedly, Amy had been wearing a hunter green windbreaker. She was slightly overweight, with long, curly strawberry-blonde hair that fell almost to her waist. A real sensitive child, Kylie recalled Amy’s mother saying in the news clip she’d seen on the ride down. She was going for her Masters in Literature. She wrote the most beautiful poetry.
Kylie swallowed, thinking of the lost look in that mother’s eyes. She couldn’t imagine what that felt like, not knowing where her daughter was. And then Kevin Friedman. He had four young kids. Were they at home right now, crying for their daddy?
She gritted her teeth and tried to remember what Linc had said. No, don’t think of it. Think of the search, not the subject.
She peeked around, looking for a flash of a green windbreaker. It should be easier to find now, since most of the leaves had fallen. Then again, the thick layer of leaves could be covering up any signs of the girl.
Craning her neck to see in every direction, Kylie took a step and accidentally stubbed her toe on a rock. She went flying, right into Linc’s broad back.
He whirled and caught her by the arm, steadying her. “Watch it.”
“Watching it,” she mumbled, clinging to his perfectly shaped bicep. Clearly, she could not search for Amy and walk this trail at the same time. She’d have to do one or the other.
“Whoa, sweetheart,” Jaxon hissed into her ear as soon as Linc walked away. “You want something to hold on to? I’ll give you something real hard and sturdy.”
If she’d had enough balance, she’d have kicked him in his hard and sturdy nuts. “Funny,” she deadpanned.
“You game? It’ll feel real good, trust me. Because, if you want, you and I can lose the ball and chains and go off somewhere private. I’ll really make those knees of yours weak.”
She held up a hand. “Seriously. Fuck off.”
“Or what?” he taunted, a big, sick smile on his face. “You’ll sic your boyfriend on me?”
“No. I’ll just knee you in the balls,” she told him, turning away to see Linc nearly disappearing from view. He easily traversed the next obstacles, flying down the trail, stepping in all the right places as if he’d practiced this a million times before. Well, he had been to the gorge before, so naturally, he knew it better.
“How many times have you been on this trail?” she asked, calling out to Linc.
“First time,” he called back, stopping and waiting for her to catch up.
Hmm. Sometimes he was just so athletically perfect she both wanted to do him and punch him at the same time.
She took a mouse step as she tried to straddle a massive boulder. Her foot slipped and almost got caught, but she managed to drag it out just in time. Once that obstacle was crossed, she jogged the rest of the way to him, out of breath, wayward locks of hair plastered to her forehead with sweat.
After this, they’d get to go back up the trail. Great. What fun.
She wondered if it was possible to just lay down in the gorge and let it swallow her up. Then she remembered that this gorge practically did swallow people up and decided she’d keep picking her way downward, thanks very much.
A few minutes later, she heard it: the sound of rushing water. Her spirits lifted. Maybe they were almost at the end of the trail.
“We almost there?” she asked Linc hopefully.
“Think so,” he said as Storm kept her nose close to the ground, her mind on the job. “Storm hasn’t scented a thing, though.”
Kylie stopped and looked around, bracing herself against a boulder for balance. After all, it was her eagle eye that had found Beez in the first place. Maybe she could do it again. Though she wasn’t sure if she could stomach it. Didn’t want to stomach it.
Why couldn’t these things always have a happy ending? Why couldn’t they find Amy, in a grotto somewhere, toasting marshmallows for s’mores over an open fire, completely unaware that she’d been reported missing?
Fat chance.
No wonder Greg was so grim. No wonder Linc hadn’t been much better the first time she’d met him. This world could be so awful sometimes.
So so so awful.
She’d always been optimistic, like her mom. Even though her life growing up had been far from perfect, Kylie’d always harbored the belief that everything would work out, that people were mostly good, and that a smile could make all the difference in the world.
Now, she wasn’t so sure.
“Hey. You okay?” Linc asked. He was snapping his fingers in front of her.
“Yeah. Just thinking.”
He tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Don’t think so much that you forget what you’re doing. I don’t want them to have to send a rescue crew out for you next.”
She rolled her eyes, put a hand on his strong back, and gave him a gentle shove forward. “Ha. Just keep moving, dude. Let’s get this over with.”
They descended for another ten minutes until the ground finally leveled out, and they found themselves at the bottom of the gorge. Hallelujah.
The river nearby was flowing fairly smoothly, so that hadn’t been making the noise that Kylie heard. They walked a little farther, parallel to the riverbank. When they came around a bend, they saw it.
“Now don’t tell me nature isn’t an absolutely glorious thing,” Linc said smugly, staring up at it.
She followed the spray of the waterway, way up, to a beautiful waterfall. It was most definitely majestic, but the fact that so many people had disappeared here recently gave even this beauty a sinister air. She most definitely had the heebie-jeebies, thinking of it. “It’s beautiful. What falls are these?”
“Bridal Veil.”
She gazed up in awe, until the name hit her, pitting a sick feeling in her stomach. Nature was clearly fond of taunting her. Her mother had definitely not been happy when she called to take a raincheck on their dress shopping. She’d explained that it was for a good reason, but she’d been dragging her feet too long. Eventually, people were going to get suspicious.
Linc was already there. He’d tried to ask her about it on the ride down, but she’d changed the subject.
“Oh. It’s…lovely,” she muttered, kicking a stone at her feet, the sense of awe all but gone.
The rest of the searchers that had accompanied them on the trail began to spread out, walking downriver to search. Now that the terrain was more level, Kylie tried to use her eagle eye to spot something, anything, out of the ordinary. Nothing struck her.
Amy, where are you? she thought in her head, as if she might have a psychic connection to the girl.
She stepped down to the edge of the bank, where there were several flat stones sticking out of the shallow water. Stopping on a wide stone, she crouched, dipping a finger into the water as it swirled around her. It was
icy cold. Muddy, but farther along, there was an almost perfectly circular pool of clear water. It looked like a mermaid lagoon.
A sharp bark split the quiet like thunder, and Kylie snapped her head around to see Storm in alert mode.
She’d known the German Shepherd long enough to know the look she got in her eyes when she’d found something. As Kylie watched, Storm jumped and bumped her paws on Linc’s chest before focusing again on the river.
Oh, no.
Kylie straightened and backed away as Linc let Storm off the leash. The big dog rushed forward, heading straight into the calm, clear water of the beautiful mermaid lagoon, and began to swim out.
Linc scraped a hand over his face. Kylie knew what his grim expression meant too.
“What’s happening?” she murmured, backing up toward him, scanning the area. “Can she scent a body in the water?”
“Yes. Bodies release gas, which rise to the surface,” he said, exhaling. He lifted up his radio. “This is Linc, at the bottom of Sliding Rock. My dog might have found something.”
Kylie stood on the tips of her toes, trying to get a better look. “What do you think she found?”
Linc didn’t answer. Was he trying to protect her again? She started to speak louder when Jaxon came closer, a smug grin on his face. “Looks like we might be dealing with a drowning, sweetheart,” he hissed in her ear. “Bet the body’s bloated beyond recognition. That’s what happens. Fish probably ate out the eyeballs.”
Kylie’s stomach heaved, and she moved away from the loathsome man, not stopping until she reached a rock close to the water. Taking in a deep breath, she bent over, placing her hands on her knees. She blinked rapidly, willing the tears not to fall. When her eyes cleared, she realized she was staring at a large area that looked like the rock had rusted.
She took a step back, her hair raising on the back of her neck.
“Linc?” The word wasn’t much more than a whisper.