CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Wednesday, June 21
11:01 a.m.
Maggie paced around the open area that encompassed Fifty Mountain. “Okay, so let’s say that the three trails our people found were intentionally made into paths, for lack of a better word, by our unsub.”
“I think we can both agree that that isn’t stretching the realm of possibility.”
No, it wasn’t. Not when there were newly felled trees that had led their latest victim to his death. It was still a theory until they could find more evidence, but that’s what they were here to do. She’d already taken pictures of those trees. Now it was a matter of finding more. “Joshua’s trail was to the southeast. Lauren ran down the actual trail. I don’t see how the unsub could anticipate that, but it’s possible that he herded them to where he wanted them on the first night. He would have been there to make sure they scattered like good little sheep, so he wouldn’t have left anything to chance. Which means her trail won’t fit the pattern.”
“Agreed.”
She knew they were on the same page, and he was letting her work her way through it aloud. “Joshua didn’t make it very far in the amount of time he had. If he was as experienced a hiker as everyone claims, he should have been miles past the point where his body was found.”
Vic had been thinking about that, too. They’d just spent an hour walking a distance that had apparently taken Joshua days. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, picturing the body. “Hard to say with the water—Dr. Huxley will be able to tell us for sure—but could be that he got hurt sometime in the initial panic. That would slow him down.”
“True. Okay, let me think.” She propped her hands on her hips. “Wyatt has two teams combing either side of the trail south, so whoever is on it will be found soon—hopefully. And hopefully alive.”
“Then west it is.”
“That’s where Bill Haglund’s body was found.” She headed in that direction. “So how did he guarantee that the right people found the body and bolted west?”
“If he is part of the group, he could have guided conversation or asked someone to go check something out.” He hesitated. “Timeline is kind of tight. Killing Bill, killing Jennifer, and then hiking out of the park and back in again. All of it takes time.”
“Yes, but the unsub is obviously an experienced hiker. If Jennifer was killed roughly twelve to eighteen hours before the hikers came through on the ferry. If he hiked north from Kootenai Lakes and bypassed the ferry, he could have made it to the Waterton trailhead in Canada and driven down to Kalispell—and come back—in the window of time. Rangers on the Canadian side wouldn’t have thought to worry about him if he had the correct paperwork.”
“Which explains that timeline, but not what happened once they made camp here.”
She nodded. “The place to stash food is in the opposite direction from the body—and they weren’t there yet anyway, from the look of how we found the camp. There are some views this way, but nothing that should draw them so soon after setting up.” Maggie turned another circle. “I guess it doesn’t matter, but I think finding Bill’s body was what caused the panic to begin with.”
“So we start there.”
As easy as that. She didn’t know if she’d ever get used to Vic trusting her judgment on this case. Probably not. When they were partners, he’d been firmly in mentor mode. Every scene was a potential lesson, and every theory was one she had to walk through to show how she thought.
Now they felt like equals.
She pushed the thought away. There were more pressing issues.
They walked to where the body had been found. The storm yesterday had wiped away most of the evidence that anything had happened here. They’d helped remove the rope used to string up Bill Haglund, but it was climbing rope that could be found in nearly any store in this state. The unsub sure as hell knew how to cover his tracks, both literally and with his purchases.
“You know what I don’t understand?” She caught sight of a fallen tree directly to the west and headed there. “Well, I guess you could make a long list of the things I don’t understand when it comes to this case, but two things right this second. One, how did he know they’d go west instead of back to camp? Personally, I get startled by a dead body hanging from a tree, and the first thing I’m going to do is get back to my friends. Even someone without our training is going to recognize safety in numbers. Running into the forest in the dark seems seven different kinds of stupid.”
She checked the tree—it looked identical to the ones they’d found near the head of Josh’s trail. “And number two—why not lure these kids out here one at a time? Or in pairs, even. This whole ‘having a group of five’ blows my mind. It’s risky to the point of stupidity, and that’s not our guy.”
“I don’t know that anyone can answer that first question except the person or people who found the body.” Vic pointed to another tree. This one was smaller and angled as if it had been brought down in a storm, but when she got closer, she saw hatchet marks.
She frowned. There were half a dozen other ones that she could see, though the unsub had been subtler this time. There was something . . . Maggie closed her eyes and brought up her mental map of the park. “He’s herding them to Kootenai Creek.”
“Another creek.”
“We have a significant number of them in the park.” She picked up her pace, keeping an eye on the trees. “But remember how I said that even inexperienced hikers instinctively head to water and follow it? A creek or river—or lake, even—is a guaranteed water source, which is something a person who’s lost will be hesitant to leave behind.” She shook her head. “He drove them to creeks so he could find them more easily again when he was ready.”
“There’s one exception.”
“Yeah, there is.” Whoever had made it onto the trail. The problem was that if they were on the trail, they should have made it to a ranger station or the road by now. It was only a single day’s hike, and even though they’d closed the majority of this trail, someone would have seen them by now. Which meant they were either dead or they’d veered off the trail.
Or been driven off.
“I’m going to radio it in.” She didn’t wait for him to confirm before she pulled out her radio. For once, Wyatt wasn’t waiting on the other end. It was Ava. “I have information that is hopefully going to be useful for the SAR people.” If she was right. Maggie shut that doubt down real fast. It was a good theory, and all the evidence they’d found supported it.
“Girl, don’t you ever sleep?”
Maggie laughed softly. “I had two glorious nights in my own bed.”
“Lucky bitch,” Ava said without heat. “Though I doubt you were sleeping last night, if you took my advice.”
Vic raised his eyebrows, and Maggie blushed. “Shut up.”
“Yeah, yeah. I kicked Wyatt out so he could snatch a few hours before he goes after that bear. What’s up?”
“I think the hikers who headed west might be sticking close to Kootenai Creek.”
“That’s fine and dandy, but they’ve searched up and down that creek already.”
Her optimism faltered. Damn, she’d thought for sure that would be a game changer. Maggie caught Vic’s expectant look and tried to force herself to think. “It’s been three days. They would have kept going, so they could have made it to the Waterton River by now. Honestly, I’d be surprised if they hadn’t.” The only problem with that realization was that the Waterton River formed a T with Kootenai Creek, so they could have gone either way.
But she was betting on south.
Natural ending points are Nahsukin Lake and Bench Lake,” Ava said. Bench Lake had less cover if someone was hiding, but they didn’t know if the lost hikers even knew they were being hunted.
Frustration rose, hot and thick in her throat, and it was all Maggie could do to speak past it. “Where do you want us?” They could hike north along the trail and veer west to hit Bench Lake today without a problem, even with the late start. But this wasn’t her rodeo, and she’d do well to remember that.
“I have two SAR teams close to Nahsukin Lake, but you’re my closest team to Bench Lake at this point. I can call in someone else from farther west, but it will take time for them to get there—that isn’t me pressuring you, by the way. Let me know what your plan is.”
Vic’s stillness was of the predatory sort, so Maggie let go of the “Talk” button before responding to Ava. “What?”
He considered the campground around them. “Of the group, only Ashleigh is relatively inexperienced, so let’s pretend for a second that she’d paired up. Logically, with only two trails, that means there’s a group out there. Knowing what we know of the hikers, I’d lay money on Ashleigh and Madison being together, and Ethan Conlon being the other trail.”
Maggie nodded. “That makes as much sense as anything.” The theory that the simplest explanation was probably the most accurate likely held true here as well. Even if Madison and Ethan were dating, there was no guarantee that they’d be together—and if Ashleigh was alone, it was entirely possible that she’d fallen victim to the park before the unsub could get to her.
The unsub wouldn’t want to be cheated out of his revenge.
If she isn’t the unsub.
No matter which way she looked at it, it didn’t overly affect their ability to search as well as they could. “What are you thinking?” Maggie asked.
“An experienced hiker might stick with water, but they’re going to know that heading farther west into the park spells trouble. The closest ranger station is Goat Haunt. If they’re being herded west and north, they’re going to try to go back there,” Vic said.
It made sense. It made a whole hell of a lot of sense. She nodded and pushed the “Call” button on the radio. “Ava, you there?”
“Ready and waiting.”
“We’re going to Bench Lake—or at least heading in that direction. I’ll keep you updated if something changes.”
“Okay. Stay safe, friend.”
“You, too.” Maggie packed away the radio and turned back toward Fifty Mountain. “We can get there faster by sticking to the trail. You up for a hike?”
“Always.”
The same answer Vic had given her last night. She blushed just thinking about it and then called herself an idiot for blushing. She obviously wasn’t above being stupid when it came to Vic. They had several hours’ hiking in front of them, and she spent the first mile debating if she should bring up last night or the case again, or just let them both muse in silence.
Vic beat her to it, saving her from having to decide how she was going to break the silence. “You like being a park ranger.”
It wasn’t exactly a question, but she answered all the same. “I love it. Or, well, let me rephrase. I love the park. So much. After how things fell out with the BAU, I took some time off and ended up hiking the Loop through Glacier. It was the first time in months that I felt truly at peace, so becoming a park ranger seemed the next logical step.”
“As easy as that.”
She laughed. “Not that easy at all. There are a limited number of ranger jobs, and the competition is fierce. I worked my ass off to get a permanent position here.” She made a face. “That said, I’m pretty sure the reason I got in so fast is because I’m a woman.”
“Unfortunately, sexism runs rampant in most law-enforcement jobs.”
It was one place where both the park ranger and the FBI were equal—how unequal the percentage of men to women were. “I do the job better than most, but Wyatt knows how much I hate the guided tours and dealing with people, so I tend toward the backcountry work.”
“Until now.”
“Until now.” She didn’t mind Vic’s presence, though. If she was going to be honest with herself, she actually craved it. He didn’t make the world feel like it was closing in on her until she couldn’t breathe. With him at her side, the sky extended and the park sprawled out around them, still beautiful beyond belief.
If anything, Vic being here made it more beautiful.
Wednesday, June 21
1:12 p.m.
Bench Lake wasn’t much to look at. It was beautiful in the same way that everything about Glacier seemed to be, but a small part of Vic had been hoping against hope that they’d find at least a few of the missing hikers here—alive. Apparently that wasn’t to be the case.
If there were people here, they weren’t in sight. He shrugged out of his pack, following Maggie’s lead and stretching out muscles that had been tense for the entire hike. He’d never once stopped searching the surrounding area for signs of other people. No, not people—for the unsub.
The truth was, the unsub would see them long before they’d see him.
“What do you think?” He looked at Maggie, just like he’d been looking at her all day. The current situation might be holding the majority of his attention, but all it took was the line of her neck or the curve of her smile and he was right back there in her bed. It was distracting as hell. He didn’t want to stop.
She pulled her hair off the back of her neck and fanned herself. The day had grown warm enough to actually fit the time of year. It might be nice if he wasn’t so keenly aware of the cold night that was to follow—another night without the hikers found.
Maggie lifted a hand to shield her eyes from the sun. “No real way to tell if they’ve been here.”
He’d never realized how much of search and rescue was guesswork. It was different than searching for a person in an urban setting—there were people to talk to in towns and cities, technology to rely upon. In the park, there wasn’t a damn thing to draw on. “Don’t you have some kind of tech to help with this?”
“Well, sure.” She sighed. “There’s this neat thing called a FLIR—forward-looking infrared tech—but it’s nowhere near foolproof. They’ve tried it. They’ll keep trying it.”
“Forward-looking infrared tech.” He’d never heard of it, which didn’t mean a damn thing. “How is that different from normal infrared?”
“It has to do with the range, I think. I’m not exactly techy, but they used it with the helicopters to pick up heat signatures to help narrow down the search areas.” Maggie rubbed a hand over her face. “Trust me, this isn’t the SAR team’s first rodeo. They know what they’re doing, and they know Glacier.” She hesitated. “But there are a lot of places a person can disappear to in here. It’s happened before, and despite everyone’s best efforts, they were never actually found.”
It defied comprehension that a person could disappear so thoroughly. He’d never thought he was particularly married to technology. It was a tool like any other. But for it to so thoroughly fail them now was aggravating in the extreme. “So we just wander around and hope to stumble over them.”
“They’ll bring dogs in, if they haven’t already.” She made a face. “I’m not the one in charge of the search—Wyatt is. We’re here for the unsub.”
Which was a problem, because they needed the hikers to track down the unsub.
Frustration had him gritting his teeth, and he held up a hand. “I need a second.”
“Sure.” She picked a spot and sat. “Take a few.”
Vic strode to the edge of the lake. He was so damn full of furious energy, and there wasn’t a good place to burn it off. The lake was prettier up close, the water crystal clear in a way that made the whole thing look about two inches deep. He crouched and ran his fingers through the water. Ice-cold like all the water in Glacier seemed to be.
They would get through this. It wasn’t the end. He’d had plenty of cases that had been filled to the brim with frustration without him losing his shit, and Maggie’s presence here was no excuse. He rubbed a hand over his face to regain his train of thought. The lake sat in a natural valley surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the incline they’d just hiked down was the fourth side. It was a good place for an ambush, though it’d require the ability to shoot over long distances, because the tree line didn’t extend anywhere close to the end of the lake. The small hairs on the back of his neck rose, the SEAL instincts that had never quite left him kicking to the forefront.
Someone is watching us.
Or something.
He searched the area for what felt like the twelfth time, trying to be casual about it. There was nothing readily apparent to cause the bells of alarm clanging inside his head. He stood slowly, still scanning. “Maggie.”
“Yes, Vic?” She sounded exasperated.
He turned and froze. She still sat in the spot where he’d left her, but about twenty yards behind her, nearly blending in with the shadows cast between two trees, was a figure in a black jacket, the hood pulled up to shield his face.
And the compound bow in his hands was pointed directly at Maggie’s back.