Second Chance Summer(22)

There’d been plenty of June snowstorms over the years, and it was definitely cold enough for one today, but there was no precip in the forecast.

Small favors.

Two hours into the search, the sun had come up and they’d found the girl’s bandanna hanging off a branch. She’d gotten as far as the base of North Peak.

Problem was, this sat at a crossroad and they had no way of knowing which way she’d gone. Alone in the dark, frightened, she could’ve chosen any of three options.

The team split into pairs, each taking a different direction, with Aidan and Hudson continuing north. A quarter of a mile later they found a torn piece of sweatshirt material snagged on another branch.

“Shit,” Hudson muttered, and they both looked up farther north—to Dead Man’s Cliff.

Had the girl left the trail and tried to climb the rocks down? The trail did vanish into nothing in a few spots, it was entirely feasible to get turned around and completely lost in less time than it took to blink.

“This is no place for a novice,” Hudson said.

Hell, it wasn’t a place for an expert. Dead Man’s Cliff had claimed far too many lives, and yet people still ignored the warning signs posted everywhere and purposely left the trail and risked their lives.

Aidan had seen far too many deaths in this area, but the one that always stuck with him, and in fact still gave him nightmares, was Ashley Danville’s. He had to shove that thought aside or he wouldn’t be able to do his job. They radioed in their new information and kept going.

An hour later they found another breadcrumb—the missing girl’s shoe.

“Not a good sign,” Hudson said, the master of understatements.

“She was moving fast,” Aidan said. “Probably scared out of her mind.”

Hudson pointed to yet another STAY OUT OF THIS AREA sign. “Why do we bother with these?” He shook his head. “Maybe she hasn’t seen any of the Scream movies, the ones where the girl who runs off on her own dies a horrible death.”

They kept going. An hour later, Aidan stopped again. Shoving his sunglasses up on top of his head, he crouched down next to a low-lying manzanita bush and stared at the shoe that matched the one they’d already found, this one dotted with some blood. “Shit.”

Hudson echoed the sentiment and radioed it in.

A few minutes later they heard the thumping beat of the search chopper flying overhead.

Their radios crackled in stereo as the report came in from the helo. The missing girl had just been spotted one hundred yards north of Aidan and Hudson’s position, off the side of the trail, where she’d apparently fallen and was clinging to some undergrowth.

Aidan and Hudson raced to the spot and peered over the side.

Yep, there she was, twenty feet down, conscious and hyperventilating by the looks of things. “Shannon,” Aidan called down while Hudson prepared the rope, harness, and attachment point. “How you doing?”

She burst into loud sobs while simultaneously cussing out her coed sisters with enviable creativity.

“It’s okay, we’ve got you now,” Aidan told her. “Just hang tight, we’ll be right there.” He looked at Hudson. “Hit it.”

“Not me,” Hudson said, nudging the harness at Aidan. “You know I don’t do criers. This one has your name all over it.”

Aidan snatched the harness. “What makes you think I do criers?”

“Have you met the women you date? Teri, Breanne, Molly, Shelly—” Hudson ticked off Adrian’s exes on his fingers.

“I never dated Shelly,” Aidan said, slapping Hudson’s helping hands away.

“Banged then,” Hudson said.

Aidan straightened the harness and narrowed his eyes at Hudson. “And how is it you get to escape all the crazy?”

“It’s a talent I picked up by watching you and doing the opposite,” Hudson said.

The rest of the team arrived. As Hudson belayed him down, Aidan kept his eyes on the girl. “Keep your head down,” he told her. “Don’t look up or you’ll get rock dust in your eyes.”

So of course she promptly looked up and got rock dust in her eyes. She screamed and slid down another few feet. “Omigod, I’m losing my grip! I—”

Aidan snatched her just as she let go. “Got ya.”

Still screaming, she managed to climb his body, gripping him with both arms and legs like a monkey.

Déjà vu …

“Shannon,” he said firmly while keeping his voice purposely low so that she’d have to strain to hear, theoretically shutting up in the process. “I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

She stopped screaming. With a noisy sniff, she met his gaze, her face puffy and mascara ravaged, as the team pulled them up. “Are you married?” she asked.

“No.”

“Do you want to be?”

By the time they got Shannon down to the base of the mountain, a rather large crowd had gathered. Any rescue on Dead Man’s Cliff was always big news in Cedar Ridge. Other than that time the Housewives of Beverly Hills had come through town complete with their television camera crews, Cedar Ridge’s biggest claim to fame was the cliff and the lives it claimed.

The group of Shannon’s sorority sisters looked worried, and for good reason. They were probably about to get their asses handed to them in a sling.