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Jim found the spot, off a side road surrounded by forest, within a half hour. It wasn’t hard to find. The entire area was packed with emergency vehicles, police cars and a giant crane with its nose out over a drop-off. As he got out of his pickup, the crane growled and strained, and slowly the burned wreckage of the Blazer rose from the depths. Spotlights followed its progress. He winced when he saw the thing, almost doubled over from the pain that clutched his belly. Hell, no one could have survived a crash like that, much less the inferno that had followed.
A hand clapped his shoulder. “You Corona?”
He turned to face the man with the county sheriff badge pinned to his chest and nodded because he didn’t trust himself to speak.
“We don’t think he was inside,” the sheriff said. “No sign of a body. And there should have been something. Some trace. Of course, we’ll have forensics go over it to be sure. And we can’t be sure he wasn’t thrown from the vehicle on the way down, but we’ve got dogs working the slope. If he’s there, we’ll find him.”
Jim swallowed hard. “Suppose he got out before it went over?”
“Slim chance, but I suppose it’s possible.”
Nodding, Jim looked around. “I’d like to start searching these woods.”
“I’ll get you some men. It would be easier by daylight”
“I don’t want to wait. If he’s injured... “
The sheriff nodded. Jim got the feeling the man presumed Colby was a goner and was just humoring him, but he didn’t care. Within ten minutes searchers were fanning into the woods. Jim searched using a borrowed flashlight. He strained his eyes until they watered and walked until he had no idea where the hell he was. He searched every clump of deadfall, every pile of brush, every shrub and weed patch and fallen log.
He searched until the tiny flicker of hope he’d felt began to fade away. And then he got an idea. Maybe a stupid idea, but hell, it couldn’t hurt to try. He’d have tried anything by then.
He pulled out his cell phone, dialed Colby’s. The techies couldn’t locate it any more narrowly than they had by its ping, because Colby didn’t have his location services activated on his damn phone, the paranoid shit. But still, this was a low tech idea.
He hit send, then lowered the phone from his ear and listened to the woods around him.
And he heard it. Small, faint, distant, but there. Colby’s cell phone, playing the old cavalry bugle charge. He followed the sound until it stopped, then he hung up and dialed again. And again, working his way closer every time.
Then his flashlight beam found a lump on the ground, and he ran closer, dropped to his knees, fear like an ice-cold weight in his chest as his fingers fumbled around Colby’s neck in search of a pulse. When he found one, he damn near cried. He shouted instead. “I found him! He’s alive. Get some paramedics out here!”
CHAPTERNINE
It was nearly three in the morning when Jimmy returned home. Kara surged to her feet when she heard the car in the driveway, saw the headlights painting the house walls before they went dark.
“Easy,” Caleb said. He’d come inside to sit with her after Jimmy had left, and when Wade showed up to relieve him, he’d decided not to go home. Wade had been brewing coffee nonstop—in fact, he was putting on a fresh pot when the car pulled in, but he heard the vehicle, too, and quickly joined them at the front door. “It’s Jim,” Caleb said.
“God, I hope... “ Kara bit her lip. She didn’t need to finish the thought. All three of them were dreading the news Jimmy might bring, the devastation he might have encountered when he’d gone out there tonight.
Kara unlocked the door and pulled it open as he came up the front steps, shoulders slumped, head low. He looked exhausted.
“Jimmy?”
He lifted his head, met her eyes, then glanced past her at the two men who stood behind her in the doorway. He had to see the questions in their eyes.
“He’s alive,” he said.
“Oh, thank God.” Kara put her arms around him. It wasn’t planned—it was instinctive. She hugged his neck and he hugged her waist, right there in the open doorway.
She felt the looks Wade and Caleb exchanged behind her, and a rush of self-consciousness slid through her. She released her hold on Jimmy, but he didn’t reciprocate. Instead he shifted to the side, keeping one arm around her waist, holding her close beside him as he walked into the house.
“You look wrung-out,” Wade said. “You want coffee?”
“Thanks, Wade. That would be great.”
Nodding, Wade went to the kitchen. Jim walked through the living room to the open bedroom door and peeked inside at Tyler, who slept soundly. He sighed, then turned to move back to the sofa, still holding Kara beside him as he sank onto its cushions. Caleb took a seat in the chair across from them, and Wade returned, handed a hot mug to Jim, then sat in the rocker.
Jim sipped. Then he talked. “They found Colby’s Blazer in a deep ravine, up on a side road north of town.” He wrinkled his brow. “Devil’s... something or other.”
