His reply landed within a minute.
Duke
On my way. Don't go out alone again.
He was at the back gate in twelve minutes. On the phone to Lou in fifteen. Audrey came up the front walk in twenty in the clothes she'd probably been wearing on her couch. By eight, the firehouse off-duty list was in the woods behind Maple in sections, the Bishops had called the clinic, Joanne had pushedthe day, and Mrs. Halloran had let herself into my kitchen with a thermos.
I let her.
I let all of it happen.
"Astrid."
Audrey, low at my shoulder.
"Yeah?"
"You're shaking."
"I'm cold."
"Mhm."
She didn't push. She put her gloved hand on my forearm for a count of one and took it back. She kept walking.
Duke pulled up at a fork in the trail.
Left went up toward the ridge Halsey was already working. Right went down toward the lake. The middle was the section we'd been working on as three.
He looked at the radio. He looked at me. He looked at Audrey.
"We gotta split. I'll take the ridge below Halsey. Audrey, you got the middle. Doc, take the south end down to the lake. Radio if you see anything. Don't go off the grid."
"Copy."
"You hear me?"
"I hear you, Duke."
"Stay on the trail, Doc. He'll come back to your voice before he comes back to anything else, and I want to know where your voice is."
"Okay."
He held my eye for a beat. He had the steadiness in his face that Easton had on a call. He wasn't pretending he wasn't worried. He was holding the worry off the floor.
He went up the left fork at the pace of a man who had a job.
Audrey turned to me before she went.
The cold had gone into the skin under her eyes. Her hair was coming out of the knot in pieces around her ears. She looked like the version of Audrey I'd never been allowed to see at fifteen, because Audrey at fifteen didn't let anyone see her.
She put her gloved hands on either side of my jaw.
"Hey."
"Hey."
"We're going to find him."
