By 4:00 a.m., he’d rustled Kacey Fairing out of bed and convinced her to take the chopper into the park. Now, six hours later, Pete paced the office, clearly edgy and frustrated as he debriefed Miles on their cursory airborne early morning search.
Jess finished pouring herself a cup of coffee, set the pot back, and picked up the other cup before heading back to the huddle of her teammates listening to Pete.
Country singer Ben King leaned against the wall, looking every inch a PEAK team member in his baseball cap and his blue jacket. Next to him, reading the weather report, stood Kacey. Gage and Ty had just walked in, both holding coffee from the Summit Cafe. And Miles stood at the center table, laying out a map.
Jess cast an eye toward Pete.
He’d changed into his fleece SAR jacket for their flight over Huckleberry Mountain, wore a wool hat, his blond hair sneaking out the back. He hadn’t shaved, and behind that tight jaw, she knew he was working out the scenarios.
If Sam was truly lost, Jess had no doubt Pete would find him.
More, he had incident commander written all over him. He simply needed the chance to prove himself. And with Sam in need of rescue, well, it just might be Pete’s opportunity to heal old wounds and start over again.
Not that he’d said that, but after the fight Friday night, the bruise still healing on his cheek, she didn’t have to be a doctor to diagnose the situation.
Even if she did, actually, have the degree to back it up.
“You’re sure the van isn’t in the lot?” Miles was saying.
“We flew over it a few times, but of course, we were in the air . . .” Pete stepped up to the map. “We really need to get better eyes on Huckleberry Mountain.”
It seemed as if the youth group had simply vanished from the planet. When a cursory search of the trail—and the parking lot—came up empty, Kacey agreed to Pete’s urging to head farther into the park, along the inside North Fork Road, nearly to Quartz Creek. But as the sun hit midmorning and their fuel reserves dropped below the halfway point, Kacey turned them around.
Besides, the snow cover and ice suggested a road untraveled.
They returned to the PEAK ranch only to be met by a congregation of worried parents jamming the front porch. Senator Wolfgang Starr appointed himself spokesman, holding coffee and wearing an expression not unlike Pete’s.
None of them had heard from their kids since the moment they’d left the church parking lot, under the care of Willow and Josh.
“We have no PLS,” Miles said. Point last seen. As in, no way to start their search grid. They needed clues—a discarded wrapper or a sighting from a fellow hiker. But with the lack of traffic in the park this late in the season and Willow’s history as a park guide, finding a PLS might be akin to locating the Holy Grail. “We’ll need to follow our gut here. Right now, we’re searching for anything that might help us establish a search grid.”
Outside, Sierra talked with the parents, getting descriptions of the kids, their clothing, as well as any other information that might be useful.
But they all knew the same thing.
They’d headed for Huckleberry Mountain, dressed for a day hike.
The temperatures in the park had dropped below freezing, and a layer of sleet and ice covered the roads, at least to the north. With no sign of the van in the parking lot, it could be that they’d slid off the road.
Which was why Miles was running his finger along Camas Road, to Huckleberry Mountain. “Kacey, get back up in the chopper, take Ben and follow along the road,” Miles said. He looked over at Ty, who’d shown up shortly after Gage. “You take the truck, drive the road. It’s possible they slid off and are hidden from overhead.”
Miles looked over at Pete. “You’re right. Somebody needs to rule out Huckleberry Mountain as a possibility. Even if the van is missing, we don’t know what happened. Could be someone got hurt and others hiked back to get help. They could still be on the mountain.”
“You want us to hike the trail,” Pete said. “Look for clues.” He glanced at Jess when he said it, clearly choosing her as his partner.
“Yeah. And get a move on.” Miles picked up a piece of paper Chet had handed him. “According to the weather report, we have about a twenty-four-hour window before another storm hits us. And this time, it’s an actual winter storm warning. We need to find these kids and get them off the mountain, because they won’t survive another storm like last night.”
Miles had always seemed to Jess like a man who should have been in the military—maybe he had been, she didn’t know. But with his short dark-brown hair, his piercing pale gray-green eyes, and unshaven face over a firm jaw, he reminded her of a cop or an FBI agent.