One
Trouble was stalking her. And Sierra wasn’t keen on being anyone’s lunch. Especially not a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound mountain lion, with blood on its teeth.
Sierra Blackwood stood on the foothills trail, her breath forming white puffs in the October morning air. The tracks in the frost-covered pine needles told the story—massive paws four inches across, with claw marks extending beyond the toe pads. Fresh. Maybe thirty minutes ahead of them.
“Jackson, you see those prints?” Sierra’s voice carried across the narrow trail, pitched low enough not to spook the cat but loud enough for her SAR team to hear.
Jackson Stewart materialized from behind a cluster of scrub oak, his military training evident in the way he moved—silent, controlled, eyes constantly scanning. His tactical gear was worn but functional, the kind of setup that screamed former special ops. “Yep. Big tom. Following the same trail as our missing hikers.”
“We need to get moving if we want to find him first.” She picked up her pace on the trail, already sweaty under her jacket.
The foothills rolled away toward the distant peaks covered in a mix of pine, aspen, and juniper. This terrain sat between the high country and the valley floor, where her ranch spread out in the distance. She could actually see the corner of her property from here—the old fence line that marked the boundary between Blackwood land and the national forest. The trail they followed wound through BLM land before connecting to the network of old mining roads that crisscrossed the area.
This was familiar country—harsh, but more forgiving than the high peaks. Every ridge held memories of childhood rides, every valley a lesson learned about reading the land. The terrain still demanded respect. One wrong step on these loose rocks could send a person tumbling down a thirty-foot drop into the creek bed below.
And out here, alone, that mistake could be your last. The vastness swallowed sound, swallowed hope. A person could scream until their voice gave out and never reach another soul.
She pressed forward, following the faint trail that wound between massive boulders and stands of pine.
Roland and Suzette Lopez, the couple from Denver, had been missing for eighteen hours now. City folks, probably wearing cotton sweatshirts and running shoes, definitely hypothermic by now if they’d survived the night. The temperature had dropped to twenty-eight degrees, and the wind chill made it worse.
“Kevin, Paige, you copy?” Sierra keyed her radio.
“Copy, Sierra.” Kevin’s voice crackled through the static. “We’re about two hundred yards southeast of your position. Found some fabric caught on a deadfall.”
“What color?”
“Blue. Looks like fleece.”
Sierra closed her eyes briefly. Suzette Lopez had been wearing a blue fleece jacket when they’d started their “easy day hike” yesterday morning. Easy. Right. Nothing about the Renegade wilderness was easy, especially not in October, when the weather could turn lethal in minutes.
Their teenage children had called the Renegade Parks and Rec service when they hadn’t returned home last night.
“Stay put. Don’t approach until we clear the area. We’ve got a cat sighting up here.”
“Mountain lion?” Paige’s voice, pitched higher. She was newer to SAR, a substitute teacher who’d joined the team six months ago with her SAR K9. Good intentions, but she spooked easily.
“Affirmative. Jackson and I are tracking north along the ridge. You and Kevin work the lower trail system. Radio check every fifteen minutes.”
Sierra clipped the radio back to her utility belt and pulled out her GPS unit. The coordinates put them at 6,800 feet elevation, still high enough that the air bit at her lungs with each breath, but low enough that the terrain was manageable. She’d been riding these hills since she was old enough to walk.
“Blood trail’s getting heavier.” Jackson pointed to dark spots on the granite slab ahead of them. “But it’s not human.”
Sierra moved closer, studying the crimson droplets that dotted the rock face. Too much blood for a small animal. Deer, maybe. Or elk. “He made a kill recently. That’s good news and bad news.”
“Good news—he might not be hunting. Bad news—he’s territorial and won’t want to share his territory with hikers.”
“Or searchers.” Sierra shouldered her pack and checked her bear spray. Fat lot of good it would do against a mountain lion, but protocol was protocol. “Stay twenty feet back. We don’t want to corner him.”
They moved along the ridge, following the intermittent blood trail and the deep gouges in the earth where something heavy had been dragged. If the hikers had stumbled across something that scared them, they might have panicked and run. Running was the worst thing you could do around a predator, but city folks didn’t know that.
Her radio crackled. “Sierra, this is base. How’s your progress?”
She keyed the mic. “Still tracking. Found evidence of a mountain lion kill in the area. Hikers may have encountered the cat.”
“Copy that. South Eagle police are requesting an ETA.”
Sierra bit back a word. The last thing she needed was pressure from law enforcement. “Tell them we’ll have an update in thirty minutes.”
