Chilled (Bone Secrets, #2)(17)

“How’d they spot the tracks?” Alex raised a brow. Kiana had taken up residence at his feet, and he rubbed an occasional hand through her wet fur.

“There’d been a light snowfall the night before.”

“You said it wasn’t snowing.” He glowered.

“It wasn’t snowing during the day. It was sunny. And we were really high up. In the summer there’s usually snow on the ground all the time up there. Anyway, these tracks seemed to lead all over the place, no rhyme or reason to them. They trailed through valleys and around giant rock formations. Up and down and around in circles.”

“Two different people? Or was someone drunk?” Alex cut in.

“Neither.” Brynn raised one arched brow to admonish him for the interruption. “One team followed their set of tracks down to a creek where the hiker had apparently crossed the river within thirty feet of a footbridge.”

“He didn’t take the bridge? Why wouldn’t he cross on the bridge? Was he trying to throw searchers off his tracks?”

She continued as if she hadn’t heard him, enjoying his focused attention. “Then one of the teams heard someone responding to their shouts and whistles. But they were having a hard time locating him. The rough terrain was making it difficult with dead spots and echoes. But they could hear a human voice shouting back replies to their calls. They kept searching, expecting to find him just over a ridge or on the other side of the next peak, but no luck. They’d yell for him to tell them where he was, but he kept saying he didn’t know.”

“What the hell? He was drunk,” Alex stated.

“We had the chopper fly over the area. The lost man would shout that he could hear it and said he was waving his arms, but he couldn’t see the chopper. And no one in the chopper could spot him. Then no one on the ground could hear him anymore because the chopper was so loud. The chopper was nearly out of fuel and ready to turn around when they spotted him.”

“So what was his problem?” The marshal was impatient.

“He couldn’t see,” she said simply.

“What?”

“He’d lost his glasses. He couldn’t see a thing. That was why he didn’t take the bridge over the first creek. He didn’t know it was there. And he couldn’t describe his surroundings to searchers because it was all a big blur.”

“Jesus Christ. Something so simple…And it made your search a dozen times more difficult.” Wonder rattled Alex’s voice.

“But we found him. That’s all that mattered.”

Ryan coughed, giving his opinion of that statement. She saw him exchange a smirk with Alex.

“Let’s move out.” Jim slung on his pack and motioned for Brynn to take the point. Alex lifted her pack, motioned for her to turn around, and held it in place as she slipped in her arms. She nodded her thanks, briefly meeting his gray gaze. His eyes reflected a measure of relaxation she hadn’t seen before. She hid a smile, pleased she’d cracked that cold shell again.

Getting him to loosen up was a challenge. And she liked it.

She stepped out from the shelter of trees and caught a gust of snowy wind in her face. Her lungs shivered, protesting the icy air. At least it looked like the snow was easing up a little. It wasn’t falling nearly as thickly as when they started their break.

Her boots sank into six inches of snow. She glanced back at Ryan to get a heading. He’d already consulted his GPS and pointed toward two o’clock. The men fell into line behind her.

Along the makeshift trail, Ryan continued complaining about the blind hiker, telling Alex more details of the problems the man had created for the search teams. Brynn tried to tune Ryan out but soon glanced over her shoulder in irritation at the weird blowing noises he was making.

The noise wasn’t coming from Ryan. Ryan was looking backward over his own shoulder. Jim and Thomas had pulled out their guns and were pointing them to the left, at a dense area of rhododendrons.

“Brynn.” Jim’s voice was urgent. “Get back here.”

Heart speeding, Brynn spun around and darted the fifteen feet back to the group, her gaze trying to penetrate the dark of the underbrush. She knew that rough sound. It blew harder and louder.

Where is Kiana? She sucked in a breath and scanned for her dog, thankful for the dog’s absence. Hopefully, Kiana was hot on the trail of a rabbit or squirrel.

“What is making that f*cking noise?” Alex’s voice was low, his gun and Ryan’s had joined the other two. Now four men had handguns trained on the bush.

“Bear. Black bear,” Ryan spoke from the side of his mouth.

“I can’t see anything.” Alex’s voice was a forced whisper.

“It’s definitely out there.” Ryan’s trigger finger lifted from the side of his gun.

Brynn grabbed two snow-covered rocks near her feet and hurled them into the brush. “Oh, for God’s sake. Yell, damn it! Don’t shoot the thing. Just make a lot of noise and yell.” She let out a holler that made Alex’s eyebrows jump. The male team members let out piercing whoops, and she was rewarded with the sound of crackling brush and blowing as the bear ran in the opposite direction.

The men let out a collective sigh as their gun barrels drifted down. Except one.

“Fuck.” Alex stared into the brush, arms stiff.