“No.”
He looked at me again.
This time, I gave him the stare before he decided whether to say anything.
He raised one hand. “I can take the rig back toward Old Quarry and sit on the sedan until Annette decides what to do with it.”
“That’s what I need.”
“You want me to come with you first?”
“I’ve got my truck.”
“That didn’t stop you from losing it once today.”
The words should’ve hit wrong.
They didn’t. They were just true.
I unlocked the pickup and opened the door. “Handle the sedan, Rudy.”
“Your call.” He took two steps back, then stopped. “Dex.”
I looked over my shoulder.
“If this is turning into something that isn’t a simple skip recovery, you might want to let somebody know before you’re standing in the middle of it alone.”
The key ring pressed into my palm.
“I’ll call North Fork when I know what I’m looking at.”
Rudy nodded once. “Try not to make Annette louder than she already is.”
He headed back to his rig.
I got behind the wheel of my truck.
The seat was too close. I shoved it back hard enough to make the track slam. The cab smelled like her now, faint under leather and dust. Cheap motel soap. Warm skin. A trace of whatever she used in that pale hair.
I noticed too fast.
Worse, my first breath inside the truck wasn’t only anger.
The second vehicle had turned back toward the road. From here, there were only a few practical choices before full daylight: down toward the highway, back toward Pine Shadow, deeper over Bearclaw, or into the short-term rental roads tucked along the pass. She wouldn’t pick the highway unless she wanted cameras, gas stations, and witnesses. She wouldn’t go back toward Pine Shadow. She’d picked this trailhead because it was close enough for a prearranged pickup and hidden enough to buy time.
Bearclaw cabin roads sat less than three miles up the slope.
I started the truck.
The engine turned over clean, like it hadn’t just betrayed me with my own keys.
The pass climbed into sun.
Morning pulled color back into the world one ridge at a time. Gold caught on the tops of the pines. Fog clung low in the drainage ditches and thinned where the road rose. I droveslowly, watching shoulders, driveways, gravel spurs, and places where a small car could hide under trees.
The first cabin road held a row of old vacation places with tin roofs, empty firewood racks, and no fresh tire marks worth stopping for. The second had a locked gate and two mailboxes stuffed with old flyers. The third road was marked with a faded plank sign: BEARCLAW RIDGE RENTALS. PRIVATE ROAD. NO TURNAROUND.
A narrow tire track cut through the dust on the shoulder.
