“West. Come in. Repeat. Are you okay?” Dispatch’s voice crackled through static.
“Copy. I’m here,” Sabrina acknowledged hoarsely.
“Do not attempt recovery alone. We’re locking on your GPS coordinates now. Search and rescue is en route. Along with Dark Canyon police officers.”
Sabrina stared at the fresh rock fall, memorizing every detail. Someone had brought that woman up here. Maybe the same someone who had killed her. And now Mother Nature was helping cover their tracks.
Not on her watch.
CHAPTER 2
Noah Colton screeched to a stop at the small turnout near the coordinates he’d been given for the search site in Dark Canyon Wilderness, landing sideways in the clearing that probably wasn’t meant to be a parking spot. But if you weren’t coming in hot and spraying a shower of gravel to announce that you’d arrived to get the party started, what were you even doing with your life?
Besides, driving fast and furiously had its perks, but it wasn’t his job. And he’d been itching to get out into the field from the moment he’d received the call.
A body hidden by a rockslide was exactly the kind of challenge that made his blood pump faster. Search and rescue work wasn’t the same rush as investigative journalism, but he loved it.
Maybe not as much, but it was close. He’d made his peace with walking away from chasing stories. Mostly. When his mom had gotten sick, he’d dropped everything and come home to Dark Canyon with no regrets.
Noah made it a habit to never look back. All the good stuff lay forward.
Dancer stood at high alert in his travel carrier, picking up on his energy like always. The golden lab might as well be the other half of his brain. They’d worked seamlessly together from moment one.
The second Noah opened the carrier door, Dancer sprang from the back seat of the truck, sidestepping in excitement. That’s how he’d gotten his name—he did this funny dance step crossover move when forced to hold back.
They understood each other. Noah didn’t like boundaries either.
Grabbing his gear, he trekked to the scene, a long haul in the biting cold, well accustomed to people’s tendencies toneverdisappear near the road. Once on-site, he surveyed the scene, his mind chopping through what he knew.
A dead body in Dark Canyon meant questions that needed answers. The kind that used to drive him halfway around the world in search of the truth.
If only…but that wasn’t why he was here. SAR was his job now. Find what was hidden, uncover the land’s secrets. No room for mistakes when lives were at stake.
Though this would be a rare one for him, already knowing from the outset that this was a recovery effort, not a rescue. That alone accounted for why his attention had veered even slightly from the mission.
The weather had turned nasty since the earthquake, clouds heavy with promised rain. Not ideal conditions for scent work, but Dancer had delivered in worse. Noah pulled out his radio to check in with incident command, documenting the deteriorating conditions. Everything by the book—scene contamination was already a concern with the number of personnel moving around.
“Command, Colton on site. Need immediate perimeter control and photo documentation before search begins. Over.”
“Copy that. Establishing fifty-foot perimeter now.”
His gaze snapped to the woman pacing near the fresh evidence of a rockslide.
Hello. What have we here?
She had to be Officer West, the one who’d discovered the body before the earthquake hit. Yes, okay—she was the only female in the entire group, but that wasn’t why she’d instantly commanded his attention.
Energy crackled off her as she moved. And the way she moved…efficient. Commanding. The woman possessed serious presence and it hooked something inside him. Noah found himself picking up his pace to reach her, Dancer matching his stride.
“Officer West,” he called out. “I understand you have a difficult recovery situation for us.”
She turned, and Noah’s breath caught. He’d been expecting capable. He hadn’t been prepared for the fire in her blue eyes or the way she sized him up with the same hungry intensity he saw in the mirror every morning. She was all throttle, no brakes.
Her gaze swept him from head to toe in kind, and she didn’t bother to disguise the fact that she appreciated what she saw.Likewise, Officer West. Likewise.
The air between them sizzled.
Oh. Boy.
