“You sure about that?”
“He’s a grown man, Ridge. I’m not asking him detailed questions about the how of it.”
“He can’t go to jail again.” Ridge’s shoulders heave. “It’s not right, what happened to him.”
“We all know that. It’s done and in the past.”
“Never gonna bein the pastfor me—” He frowns and cuts himself off. “What’s that?”
He points across the valley, to the ridge north of the township road, on the dirt lane that leads to the cell tower on the high point. There’s a shiny glint that isn’t usually there. Like a building or an RV.
I dig out the binoculars I keep in my saddle bag and look in that direction. It’s not a building. Maybe a camper van, someone thinking they won’t get dinged because they’ve pulled in quite a ways off the road.
But when I focus in, I see it’s not an RV, either. It’s just a pickup truck, but the back is packed high, distorting the shape of it.
A sick feeling twists at my insides. I recognize that truck. I yank out my phone to be sure. It’s the same one that Cash’s buddy photographed leaving Derek Hitchkoff’s compound yesterday morning.
Motherfucker.
“How the hell did he find her so fast?” I growl, flipping over to the phone app to call Cash back as I simultaneously snarl at Ridge, “We gotta go back.”
He’s already on his feet, packing up our lunch waste.
The call to Cash doesn’t go through.
I stare at the cell tower again.
He’s fucked with it somehow.
I have one bar of signal, instead of the usual three or four. That’s probably from another tower further away that doesn’t reach down into thevalley. I bet Cash has left the wifi network of the ranch. As long as he’s in the valley, he won’t have any signal until he pings off another tower closer to town—and that’s if this Hitchkoff fucker hasn’t somehow messed with the broader network.
“Now,” I yell at Ridge, throwing myself onto Shadow’s back.
I don’t know how long I’ll have any signal for, so I call Mercy first at the diner.
“The Friendly Table,” she says cheerfully. “Can you hold?—”
“Mercy, this is urgent,” I growl.
“Okay.”
“I need you to call Cash. Keep trying — he may pick up signal closer to town. Tell him to turn around and go back to the ranch.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m on the mountain and I think Hope’s ex is here.”
“Do you want me to call Jasper?”
Her brother is a local sheriff. And the man who arrested Cash seven years ago. “Not yet.”
“But if I can’t get Cash?”
I urge Shadow to go faster. I ignore the fact that Ridge is behind me, and how disappointed he’ll be in me.
I try to see if the glint is still on the ridge or if that truck has moved. But Shadow is doing her best to get me where I want to go, and we’re jostling too much to make out the ridge clearly.
When it comes to Hope’s safety, I can’t take any chances. “Try to get Cash. If he turns around, I think we can box this guy in. But if you can’t get him, call your brother.”
