EIGHT
Senora reached up, taking the hand that Ty offered and pulling herself up a steep portion of the trail. She was winded and secretly grateful that Ty had decided to carry her backpack. She hadn’t counted on the terrain being so challenging, especially now that they’d left the area designated as public land. After watching the video with Senora, Ty had pointed out that the direction Jessica had fled in was directly into the part of the vast wilderness that was for permitted hikers only. Beyond that, the maintained trails ended, and whatever narrow path Jessica would have stumbled upon would lead her directly to the restricted area. Battered, bleeding and weak, this was the worst possible area for her to end up in, but at the same time, the varied landscape would offer her more places to hide and to get out of the cold. If she was smart and didn’t panic, she could find some semblance of safety where she’d headed, and that meant that they had a chance of finding Jessica alive.
Senora held onto that fact as she pushed herself harder than she ever had. As tired as she was, and as sore as her muscles were after a few hours in the woods, it was nothing compared to what Jessica had endured and was likely enduring in that very moment. She needed them, and Senora wasn’t going to let sore muscles stop her.
“Do you need to rest?” Ty asked when they stopped on a flat portion of the trail to take a few sips of water.
Senora shook her head.
“I’m fine,” she lied.
“It’s been a few hours; we should sit down for a minute and eat something.”
She rolled her eyes. He wasn’t tired, and she doubted he needed to sit down and rest. He was doing it for her benefit, and that got under her skin. She didn’t need to be coddled, even if she was a bit out of shape after six months on desk duty.
She started walking, but he reached out and grabbed her hand, forcing her to stop. She turned to look at him, her breath catching at the sight of herself reflected in his dark brown eyes. It was like he was staring into the very depths of her soul, and as always, the feeling was a little unsettling. But she knew that he’d seen right through her, and lying to Ty was pointless.
“We’re no good to Jessica if we’re too exhausted to help her when we do find her,” he pressed, taking away the last of her resolve.
“You’re right,” she said, plopping down on a nearby boulder and making herself as comfortable as she could.
Ty’s crooked grin tugged at her heart, but she didn’t dwell on the feeling. She’d spent the last couple hours watching him walk in front of her, his muscles bunching beneath the fabric of his jeans. It was all she could do to keep her thoughts away from the night they’d spent together and stay focused. Her mind had wandered, and who could blame her? They’d walked for miles, yet everything looked exactly the same to her. If Ty left her right now where they stood, she would never find her way back to the cabin. She’d scanned the forest surrounding them for any sign of Jessica or wild animals hiding in the shadows, but only birds and the occasional rabbit had shared the trail with them.
Senora took the protein bar that Ty offered her, eating it quickly and washing it down with the still cool water from her backpack. It was still half full, but she decided to point it out to Ty so they could keep their eye out for water to refill the self-filtering bottles with.
“We’re almost to the falls, and there will be running water there.”
“We don’t have to go through the falls, I hope.”
“No,” he laughed. “There’s nothing behind the falls; at least, nothing that I’m aware of. We do have to make our way up to the top, but there’s a trail on the side that we can take.”
She let out an exaggerated sigh of relief.
“Good. I didn’t want to scale a sheer wall again.”
He laughed.
“Don’t get too cocky. The trail is almost vertical. It’s going to be a rough hike.”
“You sure know how to make a girl feel good,” she teased.
His face darkened, and she felt her body tighten in response.
Crap choice of words, Senora, she thought. But it was too late. She’d said what she’d said, and the double meaning hadn’t been lost on Ty. She hadn’t meant it that way, but once she’d said the words, she wondered if her slip of the tongue had been intentional on some level.
Ty held her gaze for a moment longer, then he gathered up their things and packed them in the bag.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand and helping her up. “We have a lot more ground to cover, and I don’t want to run out of daylight.”
He’s going to ignore what I said, she thought with relief and a fair amount of disappointment. Now was not the time, but she was disappointed that he’d let the subject matter drop so easily. A little flirting would have helped the time pass more quickly, and she’d missed the easy banter they’d shared months ago. Now, it was almost as if there was some unspoken tension between them, and she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Yes, she was irritated that he’d been on his way to join her on her vacation tomorrow without her asking, and she was sure that he was upset that she hadn’t told him. But it felt like more than that, and it was bothering her. It was going to have to wait until they found Jessica. Until then, whatever it was would hang between them, forcing the overly cordial banter and the awkward glances until it came to the surface.
Senora couldn’t wait.
She took a deep breath and set out again, right behind Ty on the narrow trail that was already starting to head upward again. Grumbling to herself, she pushed onward, carefully picking her way down the trail so she didn’t trip and find herself sliding back down. It wouldn’t do Ty any good to have two damsels in distress on his hands.
She laughed at the mental image, then shrugged her shoulders when Ty glanced over his shoulder to see what she was laughing about.
She heard the waterfall before she saw it, and when they made it to the top of the steep, winding trail they were on, the view did not disappoint.
“I wish we were here for another reason,” she said, taking in the sight of the water that spilled and tripped over stones on the way down rather than falling straight into the water below.
The effect was breathtaking and soothing all at once, and Senora knew that she could spend hours here just absorbing it all.
“Maybe when this is all over, we can come back,” he said. “You can take as much vacation time as you want, right? Maybe after the island-”
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you,” she blurted out, then immediately wished she hadn’t.
His smile was soft as he nodded, and she knew that he understood more than she did herself.
“I get it. Things have been rough the past few months. And it was better, because hearing your voice would have made it harder. I just don’t know where we stand right now, and I’m not trying to come in like some white knight and insert myself into your life again. If you don’t want me to go with you tomorrow night, you can say no. I don’t have to get on that plane.”
“But you bought tickets and upgraded us to first class.”
He smiled.
“Senora, it’s a drop in the bucket, and it’s worth losing that money if it makes you happy. I just missed you, and when Betty called, I wasn’t thinking.”
“What do you mean?”
“I guess I thought that you’d asked her to call. She was on the phone for such a short amount of time, and it wasn’t until you were shocked that I was here that I put two and two together. I should have called you first, but with being followed and all that, I thought that you were using Betty to circumvent all that and make sure that neither of us were followed. It was the perfect plan.”
“Except Betty didn’t even tell me.”
“I figured that out, and I’m sorry.”
They started walking again, going down a little hill and making their way to the base of the waterfall as they talked.
“It’s not your fault. It’s not even Betty’s fault. It makes sense; I’ve been missing you, and she saw an opportunity to contact you without causing me problems. I would do the same for her if I was inclined to be that nosey.”
She was almost laughing now, the craziness of how it had all come about more amusing than her shock at having Ty so close when she needed him. It was almost like a force bigger than the three of them knew that she was going to need his help and made sure it happened. If she thought about it too long, she’d end up going in circles.
“You missed me?” he asked, his smile wide. “I thought I was the only one.”
She felt her face color, but she decided not to lie. What did it matter? Technically, they didn’t work together anymore, so telling him the truth wouldn’t hurt anything, right?
“I have missed you,” she admitted. “It’s been hard, and I know that my caseload at work is Agent Patterson trying to distract me. I don’t know why anyone cares about the two of us working together or more, but we’ve managed to land on someone’s radar, and they don’t like it. And now, J has disappeared, and I just don’t know what’s going on.”
“J disappeared?”
“The story is that he got reassigned to another task force, but I don’t see how that’s possible. And why wouldn’t he tell me that himself? I know we never met, and I don’t really know him with all the software he uses, but he’s been my mentor and my direct supervisor for years, and everything is so different now. I’m not used to being trapped behind a desk and doing most of my work from the office. I don’t know how long I can continue to work this way.”
“Who’s in the field?”
“It varies. It’s not one agent taking my place. And now, instead of me traveling around and following leads in this area to take out the Gate Keeper, they’ve created a think-tank type task force with multiple agents. There’s a small group that travels together, and I provide support in the office. I still question suspects and work with victims to identify their attackers, but I’m doing a little bit of everything, and it’s almost like I’ve been demoted.”
“Wouldn’t they notify you? Or cut your pay?”
“That’s what makes all this so weird. I don’t know why they wouldn’t cut my pay, except then I’d have more questions to ask. Right now, I’m just working out of the office, which is within the scope of my duties. It just hasn’t been so big a part of my duties until now.”
“You know too much,” he said ominously.
“You sound paranoid.”
“It rings true. I can see it in your eyes. You were getting too close to something, and someone doesn’t want you to find the answer.”
She didn’t want to admit it, but he was right. Still defiant, she shook her head.
“I think there’s a logical explanation for it. They could just fire me if I was getting too close. Something is going on, but I’m not going to find that answer here. I’m taking a couple days or more on vacation in the islands, but I’m only doing that to make Patterson think that I’m following orders. I have plans when I get back, and I’m not just going to sit by and let this happen without figuring out what is happening.”
“That’s the Senora I love,” Ty said. “I was starting to think that you were letting this nonsense get you down.”
“I was, but being out here and with you, I feel like I can do something to change all that. If I can find out what they’re hiding, maybe I can blow it all open.”
“Heads are going to roll,” he offered, a little too giddy at the thought of taking down crooked FBI Agents.
“They are, but the truth is more important than whatever they’re hiding. It’s all connected; the trafficking ring in Glen Rose, the kidnapping of the WereDragon changelings. All of it.”
“And what about this case?”
“I don’t think it’s connected. There seems to be a surge in young housewives going missing in the more affluent areas. But I don’t think it’s human trafficking. I think men like Matt Baker are paying to make their wives disappear, and Jessica escaping blew the lid off that.”
“Are you sure they’re not connected, though?”
“Why?”
“They sure did yank you off this case pretty quickly. How often do agents get sent on vacation before the case is solved? You hadn’t even presented Mrs. Baker with a lineup. That seems like odd timing for a vacation, doesn’t it?”
“Agent Patterson said I’d done all that needed done and there is a natural lull in cases while evidence is gathered. It’s not that strange to have the junior agents run through the grunt work.”
“When coupled with everything else, I think it’s suspicious. And why would Agent Patterson have you question a victim if she was going to take you off the case and send you on vacation? Why not have someone else do it?”
“Agent Patterson wasn’t in the office when Jessica was found. A local officer found her on the side of the road, and when he recognized her, he brought her straight to us. I was in the office, and since I’m the agent that interviews victims, I went in and interviewed her.”
“Is that not how it’s normally done?”
“No. A victim like Jessica would be taken to the hospital, and we would meet her there. I don’t know why the cop who picked her up brought her to us instead except that her case got a lot more press than the others.”
“Why?”
“She was well-liked in the community, and when things weren’t happening, one of her neighbors did a newscast on her case. We were trying to keep it hush-hush since Jessica’s case wasn’t an isolated event, and we were trying to get to the bottom of it before the press got ahold of it. Too bad one of her neighbors happened to be an investigative reporter.”
“That’s bad luck,” Ty said. “Or good luck, depending on how you look at it.”
“Bad for Matt Baker, but I guess it was good for Jessica. She’s the only one that got away.”
“Were you on the case before it hit the news?”
“No. I wasn’t on the case at all. She just happened to show up when I was the only female agent to speak with her. After what she went through, there was no way we were going to get a good sketch out of her with just the sketch artist and another male agent in there. I was in the right place at the right time.”
“Or the wrong place,” Ty said.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Something about this entire thing seems so off to me. It’s worth looking into. Maybe Jessica will have some answers when we find her.”
“You’re so confident,” she said, looking up at the trail beside the waterfall and stopping. “Wow. That’s a steep trail.”
“It is. I’m going to have you go up first. That way, if you fall, you fall into me.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” Senora said wryly.
“Safety first,” he said.
“Fine. But I hope we’re able to see what you think we’ll see from up here. We need to find her trail soon. The longer she’s out here, the more likely we won’t find her alive.”
“Be patient. Tracking is a skill that takes some work. I have to rule out the area I showed you so we don’t waste time looking for her when she’s somewhere else. I have my suspicions about where she went, but I can’t be sure.”
“And how is this going to help?”
“People leave signs behind them when they travel through the forest where there are no human trails. If she’s using a deer trail, which I think she is, she’ll disturb trees and bushes along the trail that a deer or another animal wouldn’t. I’ll be able to scan the trails for signs of recent human activity and then go from there.”
“Alright,” she said, going in front of him and starting up the trail. “I hope you’re right.”
“Me too,” Ty said. “Because the only other option is trying to run a search and rescue grid pattern with just the two of us, and it would take days to find her that way.”
“What are we going to do if we don’t find her by nightfall?”
“If we can’t find her by nightfall, then I’ll have no choice but to search for her on four feet. It will be faster that way, but much too risky during the day. But we run the risk of her seeing us coming and hiding. Normally, I wouldn’t worry about that, but Jessica seems to be a little more resourceful than your average trophy wife.”
“I think you’re right,” Senora said, still scanning the areas around them as she made her way up the path slowly. “I hope that Jessica’s tenacity doesn’t end up making it impossible for us to find her. I’d hate to lose her because she played hide-and-seek better than we do.”
“Me too,” Ty said, right behind her on the steep trail. “Me too.”