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The three men circle the boathouse, Danny trying the door, but the padlock is secure, and there’s no sign of attempted forced entry. If the boys sought refuge here, they were denied shelter. They shout, deep and loud, for the kids, their calls bouncing off the surface of the lake and the sides of the granite, but every time they pause, there’s no hint of an answer.
“I’m worried about hypothermia,” Meg admits to Danny.
“It warmed up some today,” he reminds her, even as he rubs his hands together. She wonders how long until they can see their breath in the air again.
“It’s the windchill you gotta worry about,” McCrady contributes, and Danny frowns.
“Not helpful.”
“Sure it is,” McCrady argues. “The more you know, the more prepared you’ll be when the time comes.”
“When what time comes?” Max asks.
“The time to revive someone,” Danny says solemnly. “If we get that lucky.” Meg thinks of her basic wilderness-medic training again, worried she may forget something if she needs it. Danny just nudges one rowboat with his boot in frustration. Or maybe exhaustion-fueled adrenaline. Sometimes, during a search, the two intertwine.
They spread out again, combing the shoreline of the lake. Meg keeps calling over and over, her eyes low as her gaze sweeps the pebbled shallows of the bank, eyeing the sandy soil for any sign of a footprint, or, worse, a flesh-toned form, blending in with the sand on the lake bottom. There’s no use trying to acclimate to the possibility, so she doesn’t try. Instead, she redoubles her focus on the shore and the water and the filling of her lungs as she calls their names. The access trail is the only way to the water; if Spencer or Cameron saw the boathouse from above, they must have arrived at this juncture.
And gone where?She tries to think like a kid. You’re cold. You’re lost and hungry ... and the terrain is unfamiliar. Maybe you’re hurt. You’re definitely tired. Where do you go?Down, her training tells her. Lost people, panicked people, fatigued people, always go downhill. But would Silas’s kids?
Anyway, thereisno downhill. Long Lake was scooped out of the granite a millennium ago. If Spencer and Cameron dropped into this bowl, the only logical next step would have been to climb back out. The easiest way lies on the far side of the lake, where the slope is more gradual, but Meg glances that way only briefly before dismissing it. Because the possibility is unlikely, or because memories are too thick in that direction?
She tries to convince herself it’s the former. At any rate, the boys did not circumvent the lake along the rocky shoreline. So far, she has only covered a distance of a few hundred feet, and already the way is nearly too difficult to navigate. What brief breaks of open sand she’s been afforded at the water’s edge have given way to sagebrush and exposed pine roots. She’s picking her way over mossy rocks and through thick, spongy undergrowth that scrapes all the way to her knees:herknees ... on a child the size of these boys, it would reach chest-high.
She looks back up at the far slope, still wishing she could access it to give it a thorough search. But before she can suggest they reroute and navigate it, Danny calls the team back to the boathouse. Meg sinkswearily onto the edge of the dock, the muscles of her thighs shaking with the effort. She wipes the sweat from her forehead and looks over to Danny, panting softly with his hands braced on his knees. The others follow her gaze, awaiting direction from their team leader.
“We need to redirect,” Danny announces, and Meg starts to nod. He’s noticed the possibility on the far side of the lake, too, then.
But to her surprise, he’s ready to dismiss this search area entirely.
“I’m calling us off this lake,” he continues.
McCrady lifts his head. “I agree there’s no way they’d crash through this shoreline,” he says, “but we haven’t even scratched—”
“You know as well as I do,” Danny interjects, “there are half a dozenotherlakes on this loop with easier water access, lakes it would make more common sense to be searching. We can’t afford to waste time where they’re clearly not.”
McCrady releases a breath, low and hard. “Well ...”
“Wait, what?” Max interjects. “We’re just gonna give up?”
Any other search, Meg would explain to the newbie what he’d learn eventually with experience: no search can cover every possible square mile. Hard choices have to be made, but these choices hardly make a searcher dispassionate. It takes a steady, long-burning fervor to sign on to this madness year after year, search after search, willingly woken at all hours of the night to hike in blizzards and darkness and searing heat. To stand frozen in staging areas and climb trails hungry and so tired, falling asleep standing up is not an absurd possibility.
But today? Standard practice, no matter how practical, feels completely inadequate. “I’m with Max. These areMathesonkids,” she points out. “They’re not exactly going to fit the MO.”
Danny’s face darkens with the usual distaste at the sound of Silas’s name. But there’s indignation there, too, which Danny usually uses to mask fear. She’d certainly seen that expression on his face as they were all questioned during Jessica’s search. So what was it about now? Having his leadership questioned? Too bad.
“Every minute we continue along the lakeshore is a minute we’renotlooking somewhere the boys are twice as likely to be, Meg,” he says, frowning at her in disapproval. “You should recuse yourself from this discussion if you can’t be impartial.”
This stings. Obviouslyshe’s too close to this, but then, so is he. Which means both their judgments are skewed, only in different directions. It leaves her feeling like she’s been blindfolded and spun in circles. “You’rethe one refusing to acknowledge specific victim tendencies—”
McCrady sticks two fingers in his mouth and lets loose an ear-piercing whistle. Max claps his hands over his ears, and Meg and Danny both startle into silence. “Time is of the essence,” he reminds them, “and the two of you bickering isn’t doing these poor kids any favors.” Meg feels her face heat. He’s right, of course. “Danny’s team leader, so let’s get a move on.” He shoulders his pack with surprising grace for a man his age.
“Thank you, Phillip,” Danny says brusquely, already reaching for the radio strapped to his chest, but McCrady just grunts an acknowledgment.
This seems good enough for Danny, who has already twisted the volume knob on his radio all the way up. The near-constant chatter that always pollutes the search airwaves fills the silence of lakeshore and dock.
Before he can depress the talk button, someone else, on some other corner of wilderness acreage, beats him to it. “Team Seven, calling in to Base,” they hear. “We’ve got a blue baseball cap. Looks like ... Old Navy brand,” the searcher reports.
Everyone at the boathouse goes very still, listening as the cap, discovered directly off the trail on the right-hand side of Lower Big Bear Lake, is described to Susan Darcy. She asks Team Seven to stand by, and Meg looks straight at Danny, holding his gaze like a lifeline. This could be it. This could be the clue that narrows this massive search grid. Somewhere off-communication, Darcy is describing the cap to Silas. This very second, Silas is answering.
