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“Oh, hey,” Verity said, stepping in. “Let’s save this for another time, yeah?” She looked back and forth between our two friends. “We’re wasting daylight.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Richard said. “Finding Sarah should be the priority right now.”
“Thank you, Richard,” Kevin remarked, clearly irritated with Lulee’s drama.
“We’ll also get some bottled waters from the storage room,” Richard announced. “We’ll each take one, then leave the rest on the trail in case we can’t find her before dark.”
“It’s a long trail,” I said. “How do we know where to start?”
“Was there any particular spot that Sarah liked or pointed out?” Verity asked Kevin.
“Honestly, it all looks the same to me,” Kevin answered, shaking his head. “When we first got here, we walked the trail to the cliffs, but that was as far as we’d gotten. Neither of us had gone off the trail since we’d gotten here.”
“She came from the trees about a quarter mile in when we saw her earlier with Trevor,” I said, the reminder making me uncomfortable as hell.
“Sarah would have only gone in a couple of trees deep into the foliage,” he said, not showing any objections to his girlfriend being caught with another guy. I mean, he’d said that he didn’t care and that it was their thing, but I still couldn’t fathom it.
“And you’re absolutely certain that she wouldn’t have taken off with Trevor?” Verity asked again.
“No way,” he insisted.
“Well, that I can attest to,” Richard stated. “When Mr. Bison had checked out, he’d been alone.”
“Plus, her stuff is still in our room,” Kevin reminded us. “Even if Sarah had wanted to leave with him, she wouldn’t have left her stuff behind.” He grinned softly. “Besides, if you knew Sarah, then you’d know that she’s the type of woman that would dump me to my face. Secretly running off isn’t her style.” He shook his head again. “If nothing else, she wouldn’t leave me to worry about her like this. She’d never do that to me. No decent human being would do that to a person, let alone someone that loved you.”
“Well, there you have it,” Richard said. “Since she wouldn’t take off with another man, I think we need to grab our stuff, then head out.” Then looking at Kevin, he asked, “Want to help me bring the waters out?”
“Sure,” he answered before following Richard to the back.
Cree and I immediately started grabbing our stuff, and luckily, I wasn’t a skinny jeans type of guy. My jeans were comfortable enough to slide the flashlight and mace into my pockets. I hung two of the ropes on my forearm, so that only left the water when Richard and Kevin came back out with them.
“Cree-”
“Don’t,” he snapped, getting his stuff together. “We have a person missing, Lulee. Don’t you get that? I can’t believe you’re wanting to argue right now.”
“I don’t want to argue,” she denied. “I want to help out.”
“Youarehelping out,” I told her, keeping Cree from losing his shit on her. “Someone needs to stay back and wait for Marilyn, Donovan, and the police.”
“Verity can wait-”
“That’s enough, Lulee,” Verity said softly but firmly. “Whatever is going on between you and Cree can wait. Sarah is missing, and that’s the priority.” She gave Lulee a stern look. “How would you feel if you were the one missing, and we were wasting time arguing?”
Lulee’s blue eyes immediately lowered. “That’s not what-”
“Just fucking stop!” Cree yelled, and me and Verity froze.
“Okay, that’s enough,” I said before things could get uglier. “You girls are staying back to wait for Marilyn, and that’s the end of it.”
Just then, Kevin and Richard were walking back into the room, each holding a case of water. “This should be enough,” Richard announced as he set his case on the table. “Police and Rescue should be here soon, so we won’t need much more than this.”
“Are you guys ready?” Kevin asked.
“Just show us how the map lays out, and we can start,” I said. “In fact, we should each take a picture with our phones before heading out.”
“Good idea,” Kevin agreed.
Fifteen minutes later, we were all headed towards the start of the trail, and even though I felt marginally safe about what we were doing, I still stopped, pulled Verity in my arms, then said, “I need you to stay safe, baby. Promise me.”
