Page 34 of Beneath the Mountain Sky
I slam the head into the tree as if it were responsible for all this instead of myself.
Only the sounds of hurried footsteps and voices floating down the trail finally stop my violent outburst.
Liam, Connor, and Sheriff Briggs emerge from the treeline, all eyes immediately landing on me and the gouge I made in the trunk beside me.
Liam raises a brow. “You good?”
My chest heaves from the exertion. All my muscles twitch. My palm flexes around the axe handle, tightening my grip. “Fucking wonderful.”
Connor steps out farther into the meadow and turns, scanning three-sixty around us. “Where the hell was she coming from?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know. There’s nothing up here.”
Tony nods—if anyone knows the mountain as well as us, it’s him. It’s literally his job to know it and all the people on it. “There isn’t.”
But there has to be…
Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been any reason for Willow to be this high on the mountain.
Running the back of my hand across my sweaty forehead, I scan the clearing. “Can we get dogs up here?”
Dark brows rise under his sheriff’s hat. “Why?”
I pull the scrap of fabric from my pocket and hold it up. “Maybe they can scent her. Follow the trail deeper into the mountain, figure out where the hell she came from.”
He scrubs his hand along his stubbled cheek. “I can try to get a few up from Asheville, but?—”
“Do it.”
“It could be expensive.”
I tighten my hand around the axe again. “You think I give a fuck about the money? You know I’m good for it.”
One thing the McBrides are never short of is money—though, we don’t let it control our lives. Don’t go around spending it the way the tourists do when they come through town, as if their entire worth somehow depends on what car they drive, what phone they have in their hand, and what other material possessions they can accumulate.
That’s not what this has ever been about.The money we’ve made through McBride Timber over the generations came from the place of wanting to help everyone find a place to call home, the way we did here. Establishing a town, a safe place. It was born of necessity, not of greed, and we got lucky to have expanded over the generations to supply lumber to a large swath of the East Coast.
“I’ll pay for whatever we need, just get someone up here. You still have the clothes she was wearing when she was brought into the hospital?”
Sheriff Briggs nods. “In the evidence locker.”
“And we have this.” I hold up the scrap. “It wasn’t in the water, so that should help, right?”
“I guess.” He offers a slight shrug, rubbing his jaw again. “But I’ll be honest, I don’t know a whole lot about using the search dogs.”
“Me, neither. But at least it’s a clue.”
Liam looks to the sky. “Sun’s about to go down, and we’ve got at least five hours to get back to the homestead.”
“Fuck.”
I scan the meadow, seeing the true vastness of what we’re facing as the sun starts to settle behind the treetops, drawing long shadows. Frustration twists deep in my gut, and I turn to meet Connor’s gaze.
Without even having to say it, I know he understands.
He inclines his head. “You want to stay.”
I nod. “Just another hour or so. Check the perimeter of the meadow to see if she came across it from another direction and left any visible evidence.”
