* * *
“Maya! Zoe!” Her voice was growing hoarse, the air rubbing painfully against her throat each time she shouted. Artie accepted it as part of her punishment for being an inattentive chaperone. No, she hadn’t been inattentive—she’d just been attending to the wrong things, like how broad Derek’s shoulders were and how great his legs looked in neoprene.
She wasn’t sure how much use her calls were, anyway, since the wind had increased in volume to a wailing roar. Her boot slid on a loose rock, and she stumbled. Derek caught her upper arm before she could fall. Grimacing at her clumsiness, Artie gave him a tight smile of thanks. All they needed was for her to sprain her ankle and have to be carried out of there.
After dropping south, they’d turned west again and followed the edge of the crevice for a while. Now their course was taking them through a thickly wooded area. The trees swayed and thrashed in the wind, turning the usual tranquil scenery into something nightmarish. The clouds and fog had darkened the afternoon to dusk, and Artie couldn’t stop herself from thinking of how scared the lost girls must be.
Although the radio had chirped a few times, no one had announced that they’d found the missing kids yet. Despite the sandblasting effect of the wind, Artie forced herself to keep her head lifted so she could look for any glimpse of the girls. It got harder when they moved into an area that had been ravaged by the previous summer’s fire, the black skeletons of the pines stripped bare of any green needles that might’ve helped block some of the wind.
“Zoe! Maya!” Cupping her hands around her mouth, she screamed the names, trying to make them heard above the howling gusts. It was pointless. Her throat ached from yelling and the wind snatched away her voice. It was as if nature itself was against her. Now that the forest had the girls, it wasn’t about to give them back without a fight.
A flash of movement in her peripheral vision caught her attention. Her heart pounding, she grabbed Derek’s arm.
“What?” he shouted.
“There!” Artie pointed in the direction where she’d seen something move, already jogging toward it. “Zoe! Is that you? Come on out! You’re not in trouble, I promise!”
Derek wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her to a stop.
“Derek, let go!” Artie strained against his hold. “I saw something moving over there!”
“Wait,” he ordered, his mouth so close to her ear that his hot breath warmed her skin, even through the knit of her hat. “Go slowly. The girls aren’t the only living things in these mountains.”
The sense of his words penetrated, and she stopped fighting his hold. As soon as her struggling ceased, he released her. Continuing more cautiously toward the spot where she’d seen the motion, Artie scanned the trees and brush, desperately hoping to get a glimpse of one of the girls. There was nothing there, though, and her shoulders slumped.
“Sorry.” She turned toward Derek. There was a lull in the wind, so she didn’t have to scream to be heard. “I must have imagined it.”
Each disappointment—not finding the girls hiding by the reservoir, the dog losing their trail, this latest false alarm—was harder to take, especially as the snow began to swirl again as the wind resumed its howling. Her feet stopped moving as frustration and worry settled heavily on her shoulders.
Derek brushed past her, his eyes on the ground. He moved through the trees, apparently searching for something.
“What?” She was back to yelling. Her abused throat complained, making her wince.
Instead of answering out loud, Derek pointed at the ground. Moving toward him, Artie saw an impression in the sheltered area between two protruding tree roots. She crouched for a better look, and Derek followed suit.
“Shoe print?” The snow was dry and shallow, but there was a definite top and bottom curve to the impression. The problem was that it wasn’t a child-size print. The snow was new, so the shoe print was, too. Artie couldn’t stop herself from looking around the gathering gloom. Her neck prickled with the feeling of being watched.
“Yes.” Derek looked grim as he scanned the area. “And not from a little girl’s boot.”
“Could it be from one of the other searchers?”
“Not unless someone got lost.” His gaze raked the trees surrounding them again. “Really lost.” Taking his cell phone from his pocket, he crouched and took a picture. As he started to rise, Artie put a hand on his knee, stopping him.
“Wait.” She dug in her own coat pocket and pulled out a pack of gum that she placed by the print, careful not to smudge the edges. “Take another picture. The gum package will help scale it.”
“You’ve been watching those cop shows again?” he teased, but he took a couple more photos before putting away his phone.
She returned the gum to her pocket, giving the boot print a final worried look. “We did a unit on forensics last month.”
“You taught third-graders about blood spatter and gunshot residue?” Derek stared at her, although the corner of his mouth was twitching.
With a shrug, she said, “It was more fingerprints and photographs, but sure. They loved it.”
He grinned, tapping the screen on his phone. “I’m sure they did.”
When his brief smile disappeared, Artie asked, “What’s wrong?”
“No cell reception,” he explained, returning his phone to his pocket. “I was trying to text one of those pictures to the sheriff.”
