Page 18 of Disappearance at Angel's Landing
Lila wasn’t his ex. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to lose her. Not like this.
Branch scoured the site, every cell in his body focused on picking out something—anything—that didn’t belong. He just needed a starting point. A pink kerchief. A manicured hand. Hot pink boot laces.
Sun glinted off a metallic surface. No. Not metallic. A bejeweled backpack.
His lungs emptied a split second before he dashed down the incline, toward the boulders at the bottom of the hill. Heartthreatening to beat through his rib cage, Branch skidded into the pack as though he was rounding home base and clutched the canvas to his chest. It was hers. But Lila…
“Where are you?” Scanning the area, he noted the body-size hole between boulders with a few scattered stones along the ground. As though someone had crawled free of a grave.
A quick inspection told him she wasn’t inside. She wasn’t here at all. She wouldn’t have left her pack voluntarily.
Branch took another look at the dirt around the boulder. Picking up on a second set of prints. No treads. With a drag mark to the right. The same boot prints they’d found at the campsite.
Ice coursed through his veins. Lila hadn’t walked away from the landslide.
She’d been taken.
Chapter Thirteen
Her moan pulled her back into consciousness. Or had she been snoring? It was hard to tell.
Pine branches swayed above her, glimpses of sunlight bearing down in between them. The ground was soft beneath her. And sweaty. Like lying on a sleeping bag.
That wasn’t right. Last she’d checked, she was about to be squashed like a pancake by a boulder twenty times her size. And then… She couldn’t remember anything else.
“You’re awake.” The voice came from somewhere to her right. Deep and vibrating. Almost…amused? Movement out of the corner of her eye convinced her brain to burn the last of the haze. The owner’s outline grew larger as he drew close. Dragging one foot behind the other. “I was beginning to think I wouldn’t have any use for you after all, Ranger Jordan.”
Oh. Damn it. She’d been kidnapped.
Shadows played across a deeply tanned face as a new gust of wind startled the tree overhead. Dark brows cut across a broad forehead lined with age markers. Midforties at least. Salt peppered through a few days of beard growth and at the temples of dark hair. His eyes were a bit sunken, surrounded by fine lines, but his face overall was soft. Bands of muscle fought to break free of the tight long-sleeved shirt he wore. Polyester if she had to guess, wicking, quick-drying. Something a seasonedclimber might use, along with the loose nylon pants currently covered in blood.
It took a minute for her name to register. Then she remembered her uniform came complete with a name tag to make it easier for hikers and visitors to verbally abuse her on the trails. Seemed the landslide hadn’t deemed it worth destroying.
Lila rolled to her side, instantly reminded of the bruises across her rib cage. The pain struck as though she’d been kicked in the gut as she settled her weight on all fours over a sleeping bag that most definitely wasn’t hers. “I don’t know you.”
“But I know you.” Tipping the point of a pocketknife in her direction, the man she assumed to be Sarah Lantos’s killer settled against the trunk of the tree a few feet away. “I know you’re the one who’s leading the charge to find me. You discovered Sarah’s body. You were the one who tested my climbing gear. The one leading your partner straight to me.”
Had he been watching her? Creepy. And definitely the killer.
“Where is Branch?” Her chest hurt. She was thirsty, and her stomach felt as though it’d started eating itself. Or maybe she’d developed an ulcer in the past couple hours. Anything was possible.
Searching what looked like a smaller campsite than the one they’d come across earlier, Lila cataloged whatever was in sight. And what wasn’t, her pack included. She’d tossed it, trying to let any search-and-rescue rangers know her location, but did they even realize what’d happened? The US Geological Survey monitored every national park for seismic activity. Did a landslide qualify? Would SAR be deployed in time to recover Branch?
“The last I saw of him, he was getting swept away with a whole bunch of dirt.” He enunciated a low whistle with a flutter of his fingertips, clutching an apple and the pocketknife in the other hand. Very Bond villain, if she was being honest. All heneeded was a white cat to stroke as he revealed all his evil plans. “Can’t imagine he survived. Dynamite can be very unpredictable. You’re very lucky you’re still alive. For a moment there I thought you were a goner with all those boulders. By the way, how did you survive?”
Dynamite? Her heart shot into her throat. No. Branch was still alive. He had to be. Because the alternative…
Lila kept her gaze on the weapon in the man’s hand. To give herself something to focus on other than the heartbreak threatening to claw her apart from the inside. “You caused the landslide. You killed—”
“Yes, yes. I’m the bad guy. I killed Sarah Lantos and shoved her over the side of Angel’s Landing. I killed your partner. I destroyed part of your precious park. Blah, blah, blah.” Leaning forward, her kidnapper waved a hand.
Tears burned in her eyes, though she honestly doubted she’d drunk enough to provide much release. Her kidnapper had brought her deeper into the valley. Flat landscape surrounded this little pine oasis, making her nothing but a target if she ran. The only other option was sprinting for the canyons, but without her supplies, she wouldn’t last more than a day. Maybe two. “What do you want?”
“I have a problem.” He limped toward her, heavily relying on his uninjured leg. Cutting along the seam of his pant leg, the killer exposed the bloody wound in his thigh. “And you’re going to fix it.”
“She stabbed you.” Branch had been right about the victim fighting off her attacker before she’d gone over the edge of the cliff. He’d probably rub it in her face for days if he found out. “Sarah Lantos. She fought back.”
“Not before I stabbed her first.” The corner of his mouth quirked to one side, and Lila’s stomach rolled. It was nothing compared to the slight twitches of Branch’s mouth that told herhe found her amusing if not a little exhausting. This one was completely acidic.
