Hot Spring Seven was one of at least twenty hotspring pools along Black Wolf Run, an intermediate five-mile hiking trail that wound up the first third of Renegade Ridge, through what was arguably one of Washington state’s most beautiful forests. The springs—some hidden, others out in plain view—were what made Black Wolf Run one of the more popular trails in the whole fourteen hundred square miles of Renegade Ridge State Park. Despite the unpredictable terrain in the park, visitors rarely got loston or near Black Wolf, as it was pretty straightforward—go straight up, soak in a spring, come straight down. But that’s not to say Tara couldn’t have wandered off the path or jumped onto another trail in the weblike network that wound through the park.
“Who reported her missing?” Jessie asked as they moved into the cool, damp shade of the forest canopy. Almost as if they’d choreographed it, Jessie and Alex fell back about five feet and fanned out behind her. Sabrina was the point person of their SAR team—the one who would follow the girls’ trail, step-by-step. As flank trackers, Jessie and Alex’s job was to look forward while Sabrina looked at the ground, shouting out warnings when another set of tracks was about to intersect the ones they were following, or when Sabrina might be about to run into a tree or a person.
“Paula bypassed the ranger station and called the police as soon as she came down the mountain,” Sabrina said.
To Sabrina’s left, Alex muttered a soft curse under his breath, letting her know she didn’t have to explain any further. She did anyway. “The police, in turn, bumbled around from two-thirty to four before calling us. Add twenty minutes for us all to get here and for the tracking team leaders to get briefed, and you have…”
She let the sentence trail off. All three of them knew what they had. They had a lost, undoubtedly frightened girl who’d been missing for way too long. The first few hours were critical when it came to finding a lost hiker.
Her walking stick struck packed dirt with a frustrated thump as the gravel portion of the trail ended, and the sounds of Alex’s and Jessie’s followed. It only took them seconds to reach the bend in the trail, where the ferns lining the side of the gravel path marched inward, narrowing the passage on Black Wolf Run. Tall, densely-packed coniferous trees—mostly Douglas firs, Sitka spruce and the western hemlocks that marked the area as temperate rainforest—also closed in around them, dripping with moss and blocking out much of the pale-gray light overhead.
“Two hours.” Jessie sighed. “What is the matter with these people?”
If they were lucky, Tara would be sitting on a rock somewhere, waiting for them. But as they’d all learned from experience, teenagers rarely held still, especially when caught up in a panic.
A flurry of footprints that looked like the right size caught her eye, and Sabrina stopped to examine them. Crouching near the loose dirt dusting the edge of the trail, she scanned the area, piecing together a complete print in her mind from the partials before her.
The muffled sound of thunder rumbled from the east, and she glanced upward at the fast-rolling gray clouds, the fall breeze that drove them sending a chill across her exposed face and hands. This part of the Olympic Mountain Range, in a region where southern maritime and northern outflow winds combined, was known for bad weather and heavy precipitation—both of which would undoubtedly strike before the afternoon was over.
Jessie crouched down beside her, careful to stay back out of her line of sight. “Those papers you gave us, that was Tara’s footprint, right?” She tugged the sheet out of her pants pocket and unfolded it, examining the footprint image on it once more.
“Not exactly,” Sabrina replied. “And these aren’t the ones we’re looking for.” She stood, dusting her hands off on her pants leg.
“Nope,” Alex concurred from her other side as he and Jessie rose as well. “Close, though.”
Leaning over, she traced the footprint on Jessie’s sheet of paper with her finger. “This image is actually of the friend’s boot. Paula and Tara like to shop together, so they bought the same brand of hiking boots on the same day from the same store. Tara’s are size-six Ecco brand hiking boots with a hexagonal lug print. Paula’s about your height, so….”
“So Paula has monster feet, as evidenced by what’s on this paper, and Miss 110-Pounds has the very tiny version,” the six-foot-one Jessie finished with a wry smile. As usual, Sabrina was surprised at Jessie’s self-deprecating comment. The woman was all lean muscle with a dancer’s grace, and that, coupled with her long blond hair and freckled complexion, gave her the wholesome look of an outdoor-gear model.
“You have very nice feet,” Alex said, wagging his dark eyebrows at her. “Nothing monster about them.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls,” Jessie returned in a bored, exaggerated monotone, more than used to Alex’s flirtatious ways.
Sabrina barely registered the conversation. She could still feel Paula’s hand clutching her arm. Something’s wrong. Tara’s scared to death of hiking by herself. She’d never disappear like this.
Not that she hadn’t heard those words a hundred times before, but still…Sabrina couldn’t shake the feeling that despite her SAR team’s excellent record when it came to finding the missing, today wasn’t going to be their lucky day. Call it intuition, call it her reaction to the smell of storms in the air. It felt too much like the day Rosie Donovan went missing, the day the police started their vendetta against everyone on the park’s search-and-rescue team because of her.
Don’t think about Rosie.
The sound of a polite cough accomplished what her mind couldn’t, drawing her attention to Jessie, who shifted her lanky frame from side to side, obviously itching to get going again. She’d been a star basketball player at the University of Washington, so sometimes when she grew impatient she’d get a look about her as though she was about to swat you to the side and go for a layup.
Grabbing her radio off her belt, Sabrina pressed the talk button down with her thumb. “Base, this is Tracker One,” she said into it. “We’ve passed the trailhead and are heading to the PLS. I need someone up here to close off this trail, stat, over.” She lifted her thumb off the button.
“Tracker One, there’s a park ranger on her way. Should be there in two minutes, over.” A spectacular burst of static punctuated the end of Skylar Jones’s statement. Skylar was the site coordinator, the one who briefed tracking teams and dispatched them when someone went missing inside the park. Several months ago, Sabrina had had her job, but she’d quickly demoted herself back to lead tracker shortly thereafter. Being cooped up in the ranger station while everyone else hit the trails was not her idea of a satisfying workday.
Alex moved up next to Sabrina, squinting down the trail. Just after taking a sharp bend to the right, a series of switchbacks climbed up the steep initial portion, and then it was a fairly moderate climb to the hot springs. “You okay, Bree?”
Tara’s scared to death….
Blinking out of her thoughts, she turned to look at Alex. His close-cropped dark hair, mostly hidden today under the Mariners ball cap, held not a trace of gray, and very few lines marred skin that seemed to stay perpetually tan, despite Port Renegade’s infamous lack of sunshine. Other than not sporting the permed mullet that had been all the rage back in the day, Alex looked exactly the same as he had when they’d graduated from high school together. “I’m fine,” Sabrina said, as the ants in her pants kicked in in a big, bad way. She started walking.
“Yes, you are fine.” Alex bared his teeth at her in a vulpine grin.
Sabrina rolled her eyes and kept moving, the two flank trackers following suit.
Alex sighed. “Ah, come on, Bree. You know you want me.”
“Gross. You’re like a brother. Knock it off and