Page 52 of Glimmer in the Darkness

He tromped through the woods from where he’d left the food, but his hands were empty. When he saw her, he attempted a smile, but she wasn’t buying.

“What’s wrong?”

“Food’s gone.”

“Gone? Like… Was it a bear last night?”

“Not a bear.” He lifted his hand, revealing the rope he’d used to tie the bundle of food to the branch. She saw the clean-cut end. “Someone stole it.”

Someone who didn’t want them on this mountain.

“We’re going back,” he said. “Now.”

“What? No, we can’t. Ella’s out here. We have to—”

“Someone stole our food, Cassidy.”

“We’ll survive. We’ll… forage.”

“I’m not worried about eating.”

At the thought of it, her stomach growled.

“Someone wants us gone.”

“You said it yourself. If he wanted to hurt us, he could have last night.”

Kneeling in front of the tent flap, he yanked her sleeping bag out and started rolling it up.

“James, we can’t quit now. We’re so close.”

His head snapped around. “Close, are we? How do you know? You have no idea—”

“I just mean… we’ve come so far.”

“This is a big mountain.” He tossed her sleeping bag beside his own and yanked a tent peg from the ground. The fabric fluttered to the bracken. “We might be close. We might be nowhere near that cave. Assuming it even exists.”

“What does that mean? Now you don’t believe me?”

“I believe… I believe you believe what you’re saying.”

“Wow. So now you think I’m crazy.”

“It was a long time ago. You can’t remember everything. And it’s not worth risking your life to possibly save Ella’s. We’ll go down, tell the police—”

“I’ve told the police!” Her shout reverberated off the rocky hillside. She lowered her voice. “More than once.”

“But now we can tell them someone tried to scare us away.”

“Someone is scaring you away.”

He glared at her. “It’s not safe for you, Cassidy. I have very little to lose.”

Why would he say such a thing? James, who’d always had everything. Who’d always had such a strong faith. Someday, she hoped to delve into those questions with him. But not now.

“The police don’t believe me. They think I’m a murderer.”

He sat back on his heels. She waited for whatever words he was gathering, but he returned to the task of folding up the tent pole, then shoving it in the little fabric bag it had come in.