“I brought some treats.” AR slung over his shoulder, Moretti fished a few pieces of kibble out of his pack and held them out for Gizmo, who gobbled them.
But where was Kenzie?
Conrad stood, tried to see through the storm, looking for her dark hair, her blue parka, any color at all.
Nothing.
Fear closed around his heart like a fist.
He knelt down beside Gizmo again, drew the pink bandana he’d taken from Kenzie’s truck out of his pocket, and let the dog sniff it. “Where is Kenzie, buddy? Where is she? Gizmo, go find!”
Gizmo turned and plodded his way back up the slope, head down against the blowing snow. They’d gone on for about five minutes when Conrad saw a hint of dark hair and blue parka against the white.
He ran, shouting for her, fear constricting his chest. “Kenzie!”
She didn’t move.
Gizmo reached her side and sat.
Conrad was a few steps behind him. “Good job, Gizmo! You’re my hero.”
He dropped to the ground beside Kenzie, shed his pack, and lifted her into his arms. “Kenzie, it’s Conrad.”
She was deathly pale.
Then he saw the blood on her jeans and her attempt at a tourniquet.
“Jesus.”She couldn’t be dead. “Kenzie! Can you hear me?”
Hawke knelt down beside him, spread an emergency blanket on the snow, Megs helping him to hold it in place against the wind. “Put her here.”
Conrad laid Kenzie gently down on top of it, barely able to breathe.
Hawke yanked off a glove, pressed two fingers against her carotid artery. “She has a pulse.”
Conrad exhaled, relief flooding him with warmth.
“Thank God!” Megs shared the news with Ops.
Hawke ran his hands over her injured thigh and checked beneath the make-shift tourniquet. “It looks like she has a single GSW to the thigh. I don’t know how much blood she’s lost, but it doesn’t look like the artery was severed. The bone isn’t broken.”
“All good news,” Moretti said.
Hawke wrapped the emergency blanket around her. “I don’t think she’ll make it down the mountain. It’s not the gunshot wound that is going to kill her. It’s the cold. We need to warm her up—and fast.”
“What other choice do we have?” Megs asked. “No pilot can get a chopper up here. Visibility is zero, and the wind … ”
Belcourt pointed. “The cabin. We can ride this out there.”
Conrad had been there once a long damned time ago. “We’d have to cross that knife’s edge in this wind to get there.”
Belcourt glanced from Kenzie to Conrad to the cabin, probably doing the math in his head. “We can do it.”
“You’re as crazy as I am.” Conrad took hand warmers out of his pack to put inside the emergency blanket with Kenzie.
“Get ready for a welcoming committee,” Megs said. “Those bastards are probably holed up in there.”
Moretti checked his AR. “Oh, I’m ready.”
