Alive.
The woman now recovering in the hospital had said so.
Kori had to keep believing that until someone gave her a concrete reason not to. She had to believe the Lord would protect Mackenzie—and anyone else who was innocent and who’d been pulled into this.
Wyatt appeared at her side. “Ready?”
“Yes. More than ready.”
They walked back down the logging road toward where Wyatt had parked, their boots crunching through the icy ruts left by the earlier convoy. The floodlights faded behind them, and the darkness pressed in from both sides.
She stayed close to Wyatt, and Thunder ranged ahead, his vest visible in the dark.
No one spoke.
She was too tired for words, and she suspected Wyatt was too.
Wyatt’s truck appeared in the dark ahead of them. He unlocked it, and they climbed inside.
As the heater began to push lukewarm air through the vents, Kori leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes.
The radio transmissions played back in fragments.Two officers down. Non-critical.
Behind her lids, the mountains glowed with orange. Galvez’s hands were flat on the table. Graham’s face was tense after Wyatt had said fourteen to eighteen inches of snow.
She opened her eyes again and stared outside. The logging road curved, and the glow of the staging area disappeared behind the trees.
Now there was only the tunnel of Wyatt’s headlights and the sound of ice crunching under the tires.
As Kori watched the road, exhaustion settled into her bones like the cold had earlier—deep and heavy and harder to shake with every hour that passed.
Tomorrow, she told herself.
Tomorrow they’d start again. The disposal unit would clear the compound. The forensics team would find something significant in those structures. The mystery woman might give them more information.
Tomorrow there would be something to work with.
She held onto that hope.
Wyatt kept his speed steady and his eyes on the road as he drove back.
Kori was quiet beside him. Her head rested against the window, and her eyes were open but unfocused as she watched the darkness pass outside. She wasn’t asleep. She probably hadn’t been able to fully sleep since she arrived in Blue Ridge Hollow.
He checked the mirror again.
Headlights glared behind him. The vehicle had turned onto the highway maybe a quarter mile back.
There was nothing unusual about that—people drove this highway at night all the time. It connected three towns and the interstate exchange to the south. There were plenty of legitimate reasons for someone to be out at this hour.
He watched the vehicle for a moment.
At first the driver remained at a distance.
Then the headlights grew closer.
Wyatt maintained his speed. The road curved ahead toward the four-mile straightaway that ran between the two mountain ridges—where there would be open highway with no turnoffs and no shoulders.
He’d driven this stretch a hundred times.
He knew exactly how exposed it was—and dangerous.
The headlights behind him closed the gap.
He pressed his foot on the accelerator—not enough for Kori to notice, just enough to create some distance.
The vehicle behind them matched the increase within seconds.
Wyatt’s jaw tightened.
He didn’t like where this was going.
