“Clearing nicely. I’m heading up in about an hour to scout landing options. Terrain up there is going to limit me some, but I’ve got a couple spots in mind from the aerial yesterday. I’ll know more once I get eyes on them from the air.”
“Okay.”
“You two sit tight, and I’ll check back in this afternoon, say around three? If I’ve found something good, we can make a plan.”
“Three works.” I paused. “I hope you find something. We’re ready to get home.”
“I hear you. Getting stranded wasn’t on your agenda for this trip. You two sit tight. I’ll get you out.”
The call ended.
I lowered the phone.
Deke was quiet for a moment, studying me with those flat eyes. Looking for something. I kept my expression neutral and handed the phone back.
“So,” he said finally. “We wait.”
“We wait,” Toren agreed. Ambling into the cave, he stopped near the dwindling fire, then looked at me. “You hungry?”
“Starving.”
He turned, hobbling to the tent, then disappeared inside for a minute before coming back out, pushing his pack ahead of him.
I walked over to take it and to help him stand.
Deke watched us, cataloguing everything. Every exchange, every glance, every small thing—he filed it all away. It made the back of my neck prickle.
I turned away from him and crouched beside Toren, putting my back to Deke. “You doing okay?” I kept my voice low.
“Yeah.” He handed me a bag of biscuit mix without looking up. “You?”
“Better now.”
He glanced at me then. Just briefly as he withdrew more ingredients for breakfast from his pack. In the fleeting glance I could see his own relief that we’d made contact with Walker and had alerted him to the danger.
Passing me the package of freeze-dried sausage, he squeezed my fingers. “Me too,” he whispered.
Behind us, Deke’s boots crunched on the debris littering the cave floor.
I pulled away from Toren, not wanting our captor to see us talking. The last thing we needed was to have him separate us.
Three o’clock felt like a very long time away.
Chapter 17
Toren
Deke bothered me.
Not on a, he took us hostage and is a terrible person sort of level. More of a, there was something not right in the man’s head, sort of level. From our very first interactions with him, his attitude toward everything just didn’t sit right. He was too settled. Too relaxed. My gut said he had a plan we weren’t privy to. That meant his next move was coming. It was just a matter of when.
There wasn’t much I could do until he made said move, so I drank my coffee and watched him without looking like I was watching him.
Around six feet tall, Deke was lean, but not slight. He moved with athleticism, which honestly didn’t surprise me. Anyone who spent as much time in the bush as what I suspected he did would have a high level of fitness.
He also appeared to be good at this poaching thing. His clothing was high quality, if a little worn. But you didn’t pitch a Helly Hansen coat because it was a little frayed around the cuffs.
The man also had a fidget that cropped up after we finished breakfast. He kept his gun in his right coat pocket, but from hisleft, he pulled a Zippo lighter and absently flipped the lid open and closed.
