Someone rapped on the door.
“Karoline!” called Devin. “My turn.”
The fireman had pulled into a space next to the trailhead’s information board, but she couldn’t stay inside.
All she could do was lean into her hiker-girl persona and hope for the best.
“Delightful, like roses in here!” she said, opening the door and waving her hand in front of her nose.
Devin shucked off his backpack. “Can’t wait.”
“Want me to take that back to the car for you?” she asked.
“OK, sure.”
Cara hoisted the backpack, which must have weighed fifty pounds, even without food, and went looking for Sanjay.
Who, it turned out, was loading into a black Jeep right next to the fireman’s truck.
Cara angled her body, doing her best to keep the bulky backpack between her and the fireman, who was stapling a warning to the plywood information board.
Nothing to see here. Just three friends finishing up a hiking trip.
Cara handed Devin’s bag to Sanjay, who tossed it in the back of the Jeep. Then, as he opened the passenger side door, she kept her head down, pretending to move things around. When she risked a peek at the fireman, he was reading the visitor’s log. Probably counting how many hikers were still out on the trail—those who had bothered to sign in.
Suddenly, Sanjay was beside her again, offering her a heather-gray T-shirt with a Batman logo.
“It’s clean,” he said.
“I’m embarrassed to have the one I’m wearing. I don’t want to?—”
“Trade Devin’s favorite hiking shirt for a clean one? I think I speak for everyone when I say it’s a good idea. That is, if you plan to get in the car with us.”
“Deal.”
Cara took the shirt and moved several vehicles away to change into it.
The fireman was talking on the phone as Devin returned from the outhouse. Why wouldn’t he leave?
“Karoline!” called Sanjay. “Let’s go!”
She hurried back, gave Devin the dirty shirt, and jumped in the back seat.
As Devin backed out of the parking space and swung the Jeep around, the barking was so loud that she expected the dogs toburst out of the trees at any moment. Cara couldn’t help looking—and found herself locking eyes with the fireman, only ten feet away.
Did he recognize her?
Go! Go! Go!she shouted silently.
ELEVEN
JORDAN
Thanks for all the tips, crime fam. Keep ’em coming!
—@deathtripdylan
Jordan stumbled out of the MCP into unfolding chaos. A swirling wind fanned sparks and cinders from the trees like the bellows of a blacksmith’s forge. The TV crews were throwing gear into their vans and climbing inside while a straggler tried to capture it all using her phone’s camera. Everyone else was running for their cars, but access to the road was blocked by an unoccupied vehicle for which nobody seemed to have the keys. A deputy’s vehicle and an S&R truck were jockeying at each other, each one trying to be the first one to get through the narrow space that remained.
