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“I’m not leaving. I’ll join the search team,” she said.
Mitch’s nod was less hesitant now. “Wait here,” he said before moving toward one of the cars.
He returned with a backpack and began pulling items out.
“Wrist-band GPS—put this on; I don’t need you getting lost too. Water and food are in here and a dry sweatshirt I had in the back of the van,” he said, before removing his pistol from its holster and handing it to her. “It’s loaded. I’ll log this when I get back to the station. Be careful, Bethenny. You don’t know who, or what, is out in these woods.”
Bethenny nodded, and the farther she walked, the denser the woods became.
But as she called out Lachlan’s name, over and over, a strange sensation crept up her spine.
BETHENNY
It was difficult to tell when the sun set and the night settled in, because the sky had been black all afternoon. Not a sliver of sunshine forced its way through the dark, thunderous skies. The reprieve from the storm had been brief and for the past two hours, Bethenny had been walking in rain so heavy that she struggled to see her own feet at times.
She wore a rain jacket that bordered on a tent and boots—thanks to Mitch—so thankfully her clothes had, for the best part, remained dry.
She prayed Lachlan had found somewhere to take shelter because the skies were angry and unrelenting.
With every step she took, it became harder to suppress the reality that he might not be alive.
But she refused to believe that.
A full search team had been dispatched and were on site. Bethenny hadn’t seen anyone yet, though, and her labored breath was the only human sound she’d heard in hours.
“Lachlan?” she yelled, calling out his name again. Her voice echoed and she realized she must be close to Devil’s Throat.
The woods thinned in front of her and she surged on, knowing the cliff tops were ahead. It was a dead end, but at least it felt like one corner of the woods had been searched.
She tripped on her feet when she saw a blood splatter on ground. She wondered if she’d missed any farther back, but it would’ve been impossible to see on the dark, muddy ground. As she neared the cliffs, the soil changed and became sandier. She quickened her pace, following what was definitely a blood trail—mostly washed away. But the blood lingered in small pools, like blurry red mold on the ground.
Her heart was in her throat as her eyes followed it right off the cliff.
She sucked in a breath as she inched forward, leaning to peer over. Water cascaded, tumbling violently to the rapids below. Hikers came here just to see these waterfalls. Given the amount of rain today, they were in full force.
Bethenny looked at the skid marks on the ground.
Someone had gone over this cliff.
She looked again. She couldn’t be sure, but the tracks weren’t clean and it was possible a second person had messed up the tracks. Could they both have gone over?
She inhaled another shaky breath and leaned farther over, her eyes scanning the banks below for a washed-up body—or two. But she didn’t see anyone or any personal belongings at all.
She took a careful step backward.
At a safe distance from the edge, she kneeled, pulling a forensics kit from her backpack. She collected a sample to use for DNA evidence. She might be able to find out whose blood this was. She prayed it was not Lachlan’s.
Her eyes traced the trail again. Normally, the shape of a drop of blood on the ground could tell you which direction the bleeding victim had been moving, but due to the amount of water pooling on the ground, it was impossible to tell.
Bethenny carefully packed the sample into her backpack, took one last look over the banks, and turned back toward the woods. She tilted her head back, closing her eyes, praying for some guidance. Stumbling across Lachlan in these woods would be the equivalent of winning the lottery. And she’d never been the lucky kind; she had never won anything in her life, not even one of those raffles at the Redwater bake-off.
A small squeal left her lips as she slid on the sludgy mud, just managing to catch herself before she ended up butt first in the mud. She looked around, but there was no one to see her stumble.
Of course there wasn’t—that was the entire reason she was trekking these woods. She’d lost count of how many miles she’d covered today. She didn’t want to look at her watch; if she knew the number, it would only make her feel tired.
And now was not the time to feel tired.
Treading more carefully after her near-slip in the mud, she noticed a partial print by the tree log.
