Caleb’s younger brother punched in the security code, drove inside the gate, and parked.
As he climbed out, his German shepherd jumped down beside him. Thunder.
Micah had worked with both of them more times than he could count. Wyatt and Thunder were experts when it came to search and rescue operations. They helped to track lost hikers, lost children, lost senior citizens. They’d even helped locate evidence in a few cases that had gone cold.
Wyatt was a stand-up guy—calm under pressure and reliable. He was the kind of man who showed up when things got hard and didn’t need to be asked twice.
Micah knew he’d put in an application with the National Park Service. He’d heard through the grapevine that they’d recently called him back for the next step in the process. It would probably be a good fit. But Micah suspected the move wasn’t only about career advancement. Some people needed a change of scenery after a loss, and Wyatt had earned that much.
Wyatt never talked about it directly—that wasn’t Wyatt’s way—but Micah knew the shape of it. The younger sister of one of Wyatt’s friends had gone missing two years back. Wyatt had worked the search himself, had pushed harder than anyone had any right to expect.
It hadn’t been enough.
By the time she was found, there was nothing left to save.
That kind of thing didn’t leave a man the same way it found him.
“Wyatt.” Micah nodded as the man approached, extending his hand.
Wyatt shook it firmly, his grip solid. “Micah. Where you two headed?”
Micah explained what they were doing.
“Mind if I tag along?” Wyatt asked. “An extra set of eyes can’t hurt, right?”
“Not at all,” Micah said.
The three of them turned toward the back fence line, Hamilton and Thunder moving ahead of them, noses already working the ground.
“So what’s new?” Wyatt asked as they walked. “Mom said there’s a lot going on. I stopped by so I could hear it for myself.”
Caleb filled him in—Grace’s arrival, the emergency placement, the note on Naomi’s windshield. Then Dale’s visit.
Wyatt’s expression darkened. “Dale Harding showed up here?”
“You just missed him,” Micah said. “He said he wanted to see the baby. Said he was just checking in asfamily.”
Wyatt let out a low breath and shook his head. “There’s nothing family about him.”
“Agreed,” Caleb muttered.
“You know anything about him?” Micah asked, watching Wyatt’s face.
Wyatt was quiet a moment, his jaw working. “I’ve heard things. Nothing concrete, but—word around town is he’s been running with some shady people lately.”
Micah’s stomach tightened. “What kind of shady people?”
“The kind who’d take a baby and never give her back.” Wyatt’s words came out flat and serious. “If they thought it served their purposes. Or Richard’s.”
The words hit like a punch.
Micah had suspected Dale was trouble. He’d felt it from the moment the man had smiled at them through the gate. But this confirmed something darker.
Dale wasn’t just family trying to stay connected. He was a potential threat. And if he had people backing him—people willing to do whatever Richard wanted—then Grace wasn’t just at risk from a custody battle.
She was at risk, period.
“We need to be careful,” Micah said, his voice tight. “All of us. Keep eyes on the property. Don’t let anyone we don’t know get close.”
Caleb nodded. “Agreed.”
They reached the back gate, and Caleb pulled out his key. The metal scraped as he unlocked it, and the three of them stepped through into the woods.
The temperature dropped immediately. The canopy closed in overhead, filtering the light into a dim, grayish haze. The ground turned soft beneath their boots, thick with fallen leaves.
Micah scanned the tree line, his senses sharpening. The woods were quiet—too quiet, maybe. No birds. No rustling in the underbrush.
Just the sound of their footsteps and the dogs moving through the leaves.
The bad feeling in Micah’s gut deepened with every step.
