Natalie pushed her aching thighs faster as she hiked up the side of the mountain, following the trail that the Colorado State Park map called, “High-ho”. The day was hot. The afternoon sun was bright. And even though she was at a much higher altitude than Denver and the breeze should be cooling her off, her temper and the climb had her sweating.

Her head of steam hadn’t dissipated one bit since her noon-time trip to the local police of Wolf’s Peak, Colorado, population just over two thousand.

“Stupid sheriff. Thinks he knows everything. Thinks I don’t know he’s hiding something. Thinks that, just because I’m not important, or a local, he can blow me off. Well I’ll show him!”

She was used to the authorities not listening to her and trying to ignore her. She was used to having to speak louder to be heard. She was even used to spending hours working to get what she wanted—no one who had grown up in the foster system left it without learning a few skills.

But what she wasn’t used to was the absolute shut-down that had happened at this podunk police department, where the police officer receptionist was also the head coffee brewer and dispatcher, and because she wasn’t a local, everyone had stared at her as if she had two heads.

The trail she was following paralleled a barbed wire fence nearly littered with NO TRESPASSING signs, but neither the trail or the fence were important. They were only a ways to a means. No, the important things were the GPS coordinates that Yvette had sent her in her very last text.

Yvette.

Tears clouded Natalie’s eyes and she stopped, pulled off her backpack and dug out her water bottle from her pack.

She and Yvette had found each other in that last foster home, the Clarks. It wasn’t bad, for a foster home. Sally Clark was decent, she tried. But her husband, Ned, was a grabber. The girls had kept an eye out for each other, and from the very first day Natalie had known—Yvette was going to be her friend for life.

But now here she stood, only twenty-two years old, the hot July sun beating down on top of her head, her tears making the water hard to swallow. All because Yvette was gone.

Dead or kidnapped, no one knew.

But what she did know was that no one cared about a girl with no money and no connections. No one but her. And every instinct she had—honed from years of avoiding grabbers like Ned, and surviving much worse foster homes than the Clark’s—told her that the sheriff of Wolf’s Peak was hiding something.

Why the disappearance of one young woman was worth covering up, Natalie had no idea, but it wasn’t just anyone who had disappeared over a month ago—it was Yvette. Her best friend and soul sister. And Natalie wasn’t going to let one red neck sheriff with an attitude, or a little red tape stop her.

She’d sworn she’d find out the truth—even if it took her the rest of her life.

She wiped her tears on the skinny shoulder of her tank top and put the water bottle back, pulling out her phone and checking her location on the geocaching app.

About the only thing the Clarks had given her and Yvette, besides good instincts, was a love for rock-climbing and geocaching. With no money to spare and too many foster kids, taking a GPS and a picnic to the mountains for a day was cheap entertainment. They’d hike for hours, knowing that once they reached the coordinates there would be some kind of prize hidden away in a small pile of rocks.

Sometimes someone had gotten there first and the plastic box would be empty. But then Sally Clark would pull out stickers or candy, and they’d sit around and chow down on Jolly Ranchers and Skittles and fill a baggie with some treats for the next person.

It had been fun.

And one of the first things both she and Yvette had sprung for, once they were out on their own and sharing their tiny Denver apartment, was a good phone and the free app that helped them discover their buried treasures.

Natalie checked her location. She was too far north. Close, but definitely heading in the wrong direction. She pulled out the map she’d picked up at the ranger’s station and looked at the trail.

“Shit.” “High-ho” didn’t go north at all from here. In fact it meandered south-west back into the park well away from Yvette’s last GPS coordinates.

Natalie stared at the vicious barbed wire fence and the grass-covered slope beyond. “Damn it, Yvette. What the hell were you into?” She thumbed back to Yvette’s last series of texts.

Hey cutie pie! I met someone. I’m calling him, Mr. Mysterious. Gotta keep you guessing! It’s your punishment for letting me come up here by myself. He’s way too old for me, but he’s totally hot!

And guess what? MM is into treasure too. :) We’re heading out tomorrow and I’ll let you know what we dig up. Oh, and just in case your mean old boss let’s you go, here’s the loco.

Most geocaches were left close to public trails, but this one was apparently on the other side of the fence that every few hundred feet read NO TRESPASSING.

Well, there was no choice. Yvette was missing and the text she’d sent had been clear, this was the way to go.

Natalie pushed the backpack through the barbed wire and made sure her wild curly hair was safely tucked away in its band. Her brown curls were like Velcro—if there was something to stick to, she’d be stuck.

Then she pinched the middle strand of wire to the top one, placed her sneaker on the bottom wire, and slithered through, careful not to get scraped. She’d had all her shots when she was under the government’s careful eye, but since leaving the system she hadn’t done much more than the basic yearly visit for birth control. She was sure she was due for a tetanus shot.

Once through the fence, she put the pack back on and headed north. A few feet in she crossed another trail that ran inside the fence, but it didn’t head north, and north was where she had to go. She broke away from the trail and headed out across the rough terrain, side stepping on the hill as she hiked through tufts of summer dried grass and sharp strands of yucca.

This time she left the phone out.

She was close, so close to the coordinates she could almost see Yvette, black eyes sparkling saying, “Come on, girl!” Black braids piled high on her head, nails sparkling with tiny embedded crystals, hot pink lipstick curved up in a grin as she worked her way across the steep slope.

Yvette had always loved a challenge and she’d pushed Natalie to love one too. A study in opposites, that was her soul sister, cruising on over the rugged terrain in her PINK t-shirt and booty-call cut-offs.

They’d compete over who was the fastest on the rock wall at the rec, and who could kiss the most boys at a party. They’d competed and celebrated and laughed their way through the last seven years and now—Natalie wiped back more tears—now this was the last challenge.

Her phone beeped, making the happy sounds of geocaching discovery. She was here.

The slope flattened out a bit, running north to a steep edge that dropped down twenty feet to a grassy creek bed. She put a hand up to block the sun and scanned the area. The cairn of rocks had to be up here but she didn’t see it, just grass, the occasional scrubby tree, and some bushes where it might be hiding. Time to get to work.

She crisscrossed the area from the edge of the ravine, out about forty feet, and back. Each sweep had her stomach clenching tighter and tighter until she was sure she was going to throw up.

There was no cairn. No rocks. No treasure. Just a scraped section of grass where the color of the dirt was a darker, patchy shade of reddish brown that reminded her of dried blood and made her stomach churn.

She wasn’t an expert, but the grass in the Rocky Mountains took a long time to grow back, and this area right next to the steep edge of the drop-off, had been definitely disturbed.

This had been a crime scene, she was sure of it. And someone had cleaned it up, down to the blood-soaked earth. That sheriff had definitely lied. This had to be it—the place where Yvette had disappeared.

She went to the ravine and peered over the edge. Would there be something to find down there? Had Yvette gone over? Had someone pushed her? Had it been Mr. Mysterious, or had someone else found them on the private land and taken care of both of them?

The bright mid-afternoon sun lit up the side of the drop-off. Natalie stared at a tiny winking light almost hidden under a bush. Something was down there. Something bright and flashing and calling to her, just as if it were Yvette sending her a message in Morse code. She had to get down there.

A sense of urgency propelled her to walk the edge of the ravine in both directions, but there was no spot to descend any better than the one she’d been at. She came back and stared at the drop. The sun had moved overhead and the brush at the base of the cliff, where she’d seen the sparkle, was almost in shadow.

The reflection would be gone soon. And harder to find. If she went to town and tried to find someone to come up here and spot her, she’d be wasting time. She was on her own here, no spotting partner. She’d have to find some guy in one of the rock climber bars, flirt with him and get him excited over what she might give him, then talk him into coming up here onto private property.

Her churning stomach gave an extra twist.

That was almost exactly what had happened to Yvette with Mr. Mysterious.

This was Friday. She only had the weekend before she had to drive back to Denver or her boss would be livid. She was supposed to have come up here with Yvette last month. Supposed to be here, chasing treasure troves through the state park. But instead her sucky boss had given her extra hours and she’d had to stay and work. And Yvette had come up here alone.

Where she’d met some guy who also had a love for finding treasure. And who had enticed her up here and done...what? Something that had left a spot on the ground that looked exactly like dried blood.

Natalie looked over the open slope of the mountain. This wasn’t a place you took someone to kidnap them into a car. There was only one thing you would do to a young woman out here.

Hurt her. Rape her. And leave her for dead.

If there was a clue to Yvette’s disappearance she needed to get down there now, before she lost it.

She lightened up her pack, leaving only one water bottle, a candy bar, her phone and the bear spray, just in case. She’d stuffed her climbing shoes and helmet in her pack—good thing—and some chalk. All the essentials. Just not a rope or an extra pair of hands to make sure she was safe. She changed shoes. Put on her helmet, crushing down her hair. And then she got down on her belly, took a good grip on a rock, and swung her feet out over the edge.

The part of her brain that always took over when she was on a hard climb, took over. Grip with your toes, find a good handhold. Search for the next foothold. And—go!

Swing if you have to. Test for weight. And always, go at a steady pace. Not too slow or you’d get tired. Move from rock to rock, toe-hold to toe-hold, and work your way on down. She was about ten feet from the ground when she glanced at the bottom, caught by the flash of light.

It was a phone. The light glinted up at her from the crystal-studded case of Yvette’s phone.

Natalie’s breath caught and she got lightheaded. She had to get down there.

She reached down for the next handhold, shoved her fingers in and wedged them tight. Moved her foot, reaching for the next small bulb of rock. Tested it. Went for it.

And then she was sailing out into space. She twisted her body away from the wall, tried to relax, and hit the ground. Everything went black.