You’d have to be a zombie walking through the woods to miss it.
Sommer had hope because she was forcing herself to have hope.
“This trembling has to stop,” she told herself aloud.
Sommer was doing a lot of out-loud self-talk. It ranged from placating to motivational to angry. But it all happened within the tight confines of her posture.
Her hips and knees ached.
Her muscles burned.
Sommer hoped her discomfort was from sitting still for so long and not the telltale signs that she, too, was getting sick. This was not the time for anything to exit her system as a projectile.
A cough barked out of her throat. Then she sucked in a deep, stuttering lungful of air, only to cough it out again.
The downward thrust on her diaphragm pressed miserably against her bladder.
She had to pee.
Her need to pee took up a lot of mind space.
For a moment Sommer considered trying to ease her pants down, ease her hips off the seat, and pee where she sat.
But wouldn’t it put her in even greater danger?
Wet mats plus electricity seemed equally dangerous as touching metal.
In her mind, Sommer gamed it out: the liquid conducted the electricity, resulting in a deadly zap to her hoo-hah.
Is that how they’d eventually find her? Pants down and a barbequed beaver?
Sommer wanted to laugh at the absurdity, but she could already feel an overflow dribble.
“Please,” she whispered for the umpteenth time without any explanatory ask. “Please.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Gabriel
Friday Morning
Sterling Pass Ranger Station was only forty minutes up the highway.
Gabriel had turned into the gravel parking lot at the ranger station just as the temperatures and the sun were rising.
He recognized Sommer’s car and pulled in next to it.
Nothing looked off.
He’d say this was a fool’s errand except Sloane was so damned convincing.
Throughout his career, he had learned to trust his gut. And Gabriel’s gut said this was life or death.
He had to believe that, whatever was happening, Whiskey could track to Sommer, he’d make it to her in time, and his skills would somehow be helpful.
Leaving Whiskey in the car, Gabriel walked to the station and tried the door.
Lights off, everything locked tight, Gabriel wondered if the rangers had been sent out on the manhunt, searching for the kidnapped FBI special agents, no longer deep undercover, but wearing the Bureau jackets like Hester Prynne’s scarlet A.
