Page 23 of Bait and Switch
The flutter of wings outside the window caught Gabriel’s attention. A great blue heron rose into the air and flopped awkwardly across the marshy area before landing on a log overlooking a pool of water. Then the big bird tucked its wings in and hunched its shoulders upward, looking very much like a disgruntled old person caught out in the weather.
“Huh. So. Do we think Peter’s murder has anything to do with what happened in Seattle? Or was he killed because of some ancient history here on Heartstone?”
What was that saying,Something’s rotten in the state of Denmark? It sure seemed to him that Heartstone Island was not the happy-go-lucky place it was advertised as. It also nagged at Gabe that Peter had been related to someone Ranger Man hated. What were the chances? In his line of work, he didn’t trust chance.
He wanted to ask Elton if he thought Casey could possibly have had something to do with Peter’s murder. An eye for an eye sort of thing. He opened his mouth, intending to ask. But as luck would have it, Livia returned with two plates piled with scrambled eggs, pancakes, and thick slices of bacon. Gabe set the question aside for later—or never. He was fairly sure he knew what Elton’s answer would be.
And Gabe would have to agree with him, even if it meant admitting Lundin was a power for good. Ranger Man was not the type to resort to murder.
TEN
Casey
Tuesday
In spiteof the high-quality winter gear he was bundled up in, the cold was starting to get to Casey. His nose, fingers, and toes were feeling the windchill, and his voice was getting hoarse from calling Carlos’s name again and again.
They’d been searching for much longer than two hours and so far, nothing. There was no sign of the missing man. The top-of-the-hour check-ins with Tor were depressing and short as the other search teams were also coming up empty.
The radio crackled right on time.
“Lundin here.”
“Anything?” Tor asked.
“Nope,” Casey replied. “We found a couple of footprints in a clear area underneath a tree, but they disappeared.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
The likelihood of Carlos’s survival—if he was still alive—was plummeting with every passing minute.
“Keep on, touch base in forty-five minutes. There’s not much daylight left and it’s getting too cold to stay out much longer.”
Yes, thank you, Tor. Casey was well aware of how much time they didn’t have.
There’d been that glimmer of hope half an hour ago when Greta had spotted a set of footprints off the narrow path they’d been following. But if there had been more, they’d been washed away or perhaps covered up by the slushy half-rain half-snow that was falling.
“What do you think, keep heading this way?” Casey asked, pausing next to Greta under the protective branches of a Sitka spruce that had planted itself against the banks of a steep, rocky hillside and managed to not only survive but flourish.
Thankfully, the wind had died down to almost nothing, which was good, but the mercury still lingered around freezing and would drop below that overnight. He did not envy anyone who spent the night without proper gear.
Greta nodded, staring intently out at the landscape, as if Carlos might abruptly appear. “That’s my instinct. We haven’t seen any other signs of a human being coming through here. If it is him, he’s heading downhill. We’ll find him.”
Greta always talked about rescues in the present tense. She said that it helped her stay positive, that negative energy didn’t help search efforts. Was it a bit woo-woo for Casey? Yes. But there was no arguing with Greta’s success record.
“All right, let’s break for a few more minutes, then keep heading in the same direction until the next check-in.” He glanced through the branches to the darkening sky overhead. “I think Tor wants us to hike out to the road.”
Greta nodded but wasn’t looking at him. Her attention was aimed outward, on the faint path most likely created by creatures of the forest, not humans.
While being equally watchful for signs of the missing man, Casey tugged off his pack and pulled his Yeti travel thermos out to take a long sip of the still molten coffee, then groaned with pleasure. The hot liquid began to work its magic, thawing him from his insides out.
“Ahhhh,” he groaned.
After shooting him a raised-eyebrow glance, Greta took a sip but did not groan.
“I think you need to get laid.”
