What looked to be a figure slumped against a boulder in the shadow of an overhang.
They ran, scrambling over rocks and through narrow passages.Kari's heart pounded with hope and dread in equal measure.Please let him be alive.Please let us have gotten here in time.
But as Kari got closer, the shape resolved itself into a backpack, propped against the rock in a way that from a distance had looked like a person's silhouette.
No Silas Hartman.
"Damn it."Maria's voice was hollow with disappointment.
Kari picked up the pack, checking for identification.A name was written in marker on the inside:S.Hartman.So he'd been here, maybe recently.But he'd moved on, or been forced to move on, deeper into the maze.
The radio crackled.Search and rescue coordinator, calling from the helicopter: "We're losing light.Need to pull aerial support in fifteen minutes."
Kari looked at the canyon stretching endlessly in multiple directions, then at the sun touching the mountaintops.The shadows were lengthening, pooling in the low places.Soon it would be too dark to see tracks, too dangerous to navigate the technical terrain.
"We need more time," she said into the radio.
"Understood, but we can't fly search patterns after dark in this terrain.Ground teams will continue, but aerial support is RTB in fifteen."
Return to base.Kari wanted to scream at them to keep looking, to find him, to not give up.But she understood.Helicopter crashes killed rescuers too, and flying in darkness over mountainous terrain was asking for exactly that.
Maria was studying the abandoned pack, her face grim in the fading light."He's still moving.Or someone's making him move."
"We need to call in more ground teams.Get people out here with night vision equipment, thermal imaging.We can't stop looking just because the sun's going down."
"Kari," Maria said softly.
"What?"
"It's time."
Kari pretended she didn't understand."Time for what?"
"We'll search again at first light.With more people and better equipment."
"First light?"Kari shook her head, dispirited."You really think he's going to be alive then?"
"I think," Maria said delicately, "it's beyond our control.We've done what we can for now."
Kari said nothing.She just gazed out across the darkening desert, feeling helpless and wondering if Silas Hartman shared the same feeling.
And whether he would ever even know that anyone was looking for him.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Paul Daniels stared at the coffee ring staining the manila folder in front of him and wondered, not for the first time, if he'd made a mistake coming to Flagstaff.
The folder contained photocopies of land surveys from 2007, corporate filings that led nowhere useful, and Anna Blackhorse's handwritten notes that seemed to reference events Paul couldn't connect to anything concrete.They'd been at this for hours—him and James, working through boxes of documents like they were back at the Bureau piecing together some sprawling organized crime case.Except back then, the paper trail had always eventually led somewhere.
Tonight, it felt like they were just rearranging information they'd already reviewed three times over.
"This is pointless," Paul said, tossing his pen onto the desk.It rolled off the edge and clattered to the floor."We're not finding anything Anna didn't already find.We're just confirming what she already knew—that there's something suspicious about these land sales and someone's gone to a lot of trouble to hide their involvement."
James didn't look up from the computer screen where he'd been cross-referencing property records for the past two hours.His face was drawn, exhausted in a way that went beyond just physical tiredness.Paul recognized that look—the weight of regret, of guilt, of all the things left unsaid.
"So we stop looking?"James asked.
"I didn't say that."
