Page 44 of When the Silence Breaks

“I can help,” she said. And she would.

“You can, but honestly, you’ll slow me down. We want to head up that ridge today, and at the top should be the spot marked on your grandfather’s map.

“Why not just build our base camp there, at the place marked on the map?”

“Reasons.” He started pulling gear from his pack. “Load management. We’re going even higher. It’s exhausting andpotentially dangerous. We’ll take essentials with us but have a cache here. Add to that, if the weather turns, having this lower-elevation camp waiting and ready is safer than being trapped up high.”

This likely had to do with his training too, but she wouldn’t bring that up. “And if for some reason we get separated from each other, I can find my way back to the base camp.”

From where he crouched to set up the tent, he stared up at her. That look. No words.

Right. “I hear you loud and clear. You aren’t going to get separated from me.”But what if you do?

He finished setting up their shelter. And yeah, she felt a little bit better knowing they had a place to return to, but she wasn’t sure why this flimsy tent would reassure her up in this cold, unfamiliar—unforgiving—setting. Gorgeous, but terrifying.

He grabbed his pack and pulled it back on. “We’re leaving your pack but taking mine in case we don’t make it back.”

Seriously? “Why wouldn’t we make it back?”

That look again. Only, this time she wanted an answer.

And he knew to respond. “Out here, youalwayshave survival gear with you.”

“Then why set up the camp at all?” The altitude must have been getting to her. That was the only answer she had for asking so many questions. They were here and he was the guide, and she would trust him to know his business.

“Let’s go,” he said.

She followed him up yet another incline, only this one was at a much steeper angle, leaving her breathless after they’d finally topped the rise.

“It’s a good thing you got a map. If all we had was where I found that shred of metal, that wouldn’t tell us much. The plane could have crashed far from where I found that piece.”

“And to be honest, someone else could have found it and dropped it there.” She lifted a shoulder.

“True.”

Ryder stared at his cell—presumably at the photo of the hand-drawn map. Uncertainty creased his brow. He looked up, scanning the jagged hundred-foot escarpment and, beneath it, a natural terrace spanning fifty yards across.

“We’re here,” he said.

“What do you meanhere?”

“We’re at the spot marked on this map.” He held up his cell for her to look at the image of faded lines and smudges.

She couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “There’s nothing here. No trace of wreckage.” Her heart sank. “Please tell me we didn’t make this climb for nothing.”

But she kept the full weight of her disappointment to herself. And searched Ryder’s striking gray eyes for some flicker of reassurance, a glacier-covered peak at his back. His hair was tousled by the wind, which had grown stronger now, as if to sweep them off balance and over the edge. She’d already put too much hope into this guide.

She saw it then, though, in his eyes. Not uncertainty, not even hope. Something steadier ... resolve.

Eighteen

Ryder hated seeing the sheer disappointment crawl across her features and settle in those golden-brown eyes. She kept her chin up as if trying to hide her frustration. She had a lot riding on whatever she hoped to find hidden in this treacherous mountain terrain. He’d been impressed with her ability to keep up and gave her all the brownie points for effort, but she wasn’t a mountaineer.

“I mean, X marks the spot, doesn’t it?” she asked.

Ryder studied the terrain, considered the possibilities. “Think about it. You got a map and a letter with a vague explanation. If your grandfather survived the crash, he would have looked for shelter—something better than the remnants of a crash. The plane went down in May, and it would still feel like winter up here. If he found shelter—a cave, maybe—he might have stashed something there we can use. Maybe it’s exactly what you’re looking for.”

“You’re saying he wasn’t marking the spot where it crashed?”