This Fallen Prey (Rockton #3)(66)

Yet I keep hearing him in the clinic, telling me not to test him, not to underestimate his desperation.

Desperate enough to take a hostage. Desperate enough to threaten to kill me. Desperate enough to waylay Brent in hopes of finding Jacob.

And Val?

When I realized she’d been in the water for a while, I jumped to the conclusion this proved Brady killed her. Of course it doesn’t. In fact, if I’m being brutally honest, the location of her corpse suggests he might not be the culprit. While it’s possible that Brady led her up the mountainside and then killed her, I don’t see the point of that. My theory was that her body had been dragged upstream by a large predator.

Yet is it not equally likely that Val herself fled in the wrong direction? That she escaped Brady, or he let her go, and she ran toward the nearest landmark? Climbed the mountain hoping for a good vantage point and then slipped into the gorge?

I don’t want to think that. I need the simple answer for now—that Brady murdered her and therefore, if I see him, I am free to shoot.

He killed Brent. He killed Val. He is a killer. The end.





35





Dalton returns at dinner hour. They didn’t find Val. The stream is too narrow and shallow to miss her body, but there are several pools along the way. We have no equipment for diving, and the glacial water is still too cold for sustained searching. So they return, tired, frustrated, and empty-handed.

Dalton finds me in our house. I’m taking a shower with Storm—kind of—having trained her to lie with her head inside the partially open door so she can enjoy the spray without actually getting in with me.

Afterward, I’m dressing while packing a bag. He’s too preoccupied to notice the latter.

“I’ve decided you’re right,” he says as he lounges on the bed, watching me scurry about in my bra and panties.

“Am I?”

“About Jacob, that is. There are other reasons he might abandon camp temporarily. Bears for one. And I didn’t see his bow. He might have been out with that, got led off by good hunting.”

“Uh-huh.” I tuck one of his shirts into the bag.

“Even if Brady did get the jump on him, that doesn’t mean he kept him. Jacob isn’t some kid wandering the forest. He knows how to take care of himself.”

“He does.” I grab toothbrushes and paste from the bathroom. Then I start pulling on my jeans and shirt.

“But if it wasn’t easy—or safe—to escape, Jacob would do the smart thing and give Brady what he wants. Lead him in the general direction of the nearest community. It’d take a fucking week to walk there. But that’s a week for Jacob to escape.”

“True.” I heft the bag. “Needs marshmallows.”

“Marshmallows?”

“For the bonfire,” I say, as I head downstairs.

I’m on the first level by the time he calls down, “What bonfire?”

“The one we’ll have when we stop to camp. We should get going, though, while we still have light. You grab the marshmallows and bring Storm. I’ll meet you at the stables.”



Dalton doesn’t argue with my plan, which is that we’re going hunting for Jacob—immediately. All the self-talk in the world won’t keep us from worrying. At least searching eases the tension, making us feel as if we are accomplishing something productive.

First, we check the marked tree and find the flag to tell Jacob we want to talk. Next we travel to a spot he sometimes uses for a temporary camp. There’s no sign he’s been there. He has a more permanent site where he hides his gear, but Dalton has no idea where it is.

He grumbles about that tonight, like he always does. Usually, that’s just hurt feelings, and I tease that it’s like when the brothers were little and Dalton had hiding spots to escape Jacob. Now Dalton knows what that feels like. It’s a good analogy, too. Jacob avoids questions about his main camp because he doesn’t particularly want his brother there. Part of it might be privacy, but I think more is fear of being judged.

Dalton is physically incapable of keeping his opinions to himself, particularly when those opinions relate to how others are living their lives. We occasionally need that blunt honesty and hard push toward what we secretly know is the right path. But there’s a limit to how much honesty—and pushing—anyone wants, and Dalton struggles to find that line. I think Jacob imagines his brother seeing his permanent camp and finding all the faults with it, all the reasons he should make Rockton his base camp. Better to just firmly draw that line for Dalton. I love you, brother, but this is my space, and thou shalt not pass.

Now, though, not knowing where to find that permanent camp gives Dalton a real reason to complain.

We return to the abandoned camp to search it better. We confirm that, yes, Jacob’s bow is missing. While he has the rifle, that’s mostly for protection. It’s the bow he keeps strung across his back in case he spots dinner.

We set Storm to work here. I pull a sweater from inside the tent and let her sniff, and she does a little dance of joy. On the long list of people she adores, Jacob is near the top, and she’s been racing about camp already, sniffing and looking for him. Now realizing that he is her target makes her far happier than when we gave her Val and Brady.

The moment I let her sniff Jacob’s sweater, she’s off like a flash. Fortunately, I learned my lesson with the cougar. She’s on a lead now, and Dalton is holding it—she can’t take him butt-surfing, no matter how hard she pulls. She snuffles around the campsite for about three seconds and then zooms into the forest. She doesn’t go far. Apparently, she’s found the path Jacob uses for his latrine, which means it’s well traveled . . . and goes nowhere useful.