Page 15 of Into the Veins
Colson turned toward Blair’s patrol vehicle and leaned in through the open driver’s side window as the radio crackled a few more times. She’d ordered him to stay behind. He should’ve gone in there with her. Should’ve been by her side. If Cardin Townsend was their killer, it was possible Blair had made herself a target. Confusion drew his eyebrows together as the radio hiccupped again. “Do you hear that?” he asked the deputy a few feet away.
Garcia cocked his ear lower, toward the radio strapped to his chest. The deputy’s instructions had been clear. Wait for the rangers and the search and rescue unit. “Static.”
Not just static. Colson could’ve sworn he’d heard the sheriff’s voice, but now there was…nothing. Wrenching the driver’s side door open, he collapsed inside and dislodged the radio from the dash. Something wasn’t right. His instincts prickled with warning. It was too quiet. Every cell in his body honed in on the smallest changes over the frequency. He scanned the trailhead through the windshield ahead, nothing but the vehicle’s headlights casting shadows.
Out here, away from the city’s light pollution, stars battled to penetrate the rolling velvet of cloud cover. A bite of cold set up residence under his ribcage. These woods stretched for miles, with dozens of trails spreading from any given point. Colson unpocketed his phone as the pressure of time ticked in rhythm to his pulse. He brought up a trail map of the area. He and the deputy were positioned at the southwest corner of the state forest. The main trail splintered approximately an eighth of a mile in, with the first ranger station branching off another half mile east.
“…out here,” a familiar voice said.
Colson cut his gaze to the radio. He hadn’t imagined it that time. He compressed the push-to-talk button on the handset. “Blair? Do you read me?”
A low buzz filled the channel.
Garcia pegged Colson with a hesitant gaze through the windshield. “That was the sheriff.”
He tried again. “Blair, Thompson, can you hear me?” His voice echoed back to him from Garcia’s radio, but there wasn’t any answer from the two officers who’d gone into the woods to search for their suspect. Out here. What the hell did that mean? Colson strengthened his hold on the radio. It was possible the message hadn’t been meant for him or Garcia. Blair could’ve been hailing her second deputy, which meant they’d gotten separated. Only the signal was breaking up from the proximity of the mountain. If that was the case, Blair was on her own, in the middle of the woods, in the dark.
“Out here.” Panic exploded down his legs as he tossed the handset into the passenger seat and pulled the release for the trunk. He bolted from the vehicle and rounded to the bumper of her patrol car. “She’s trying to get through to Thompson. To warn him there’s someone else out there.”
“What are you doing? Sheriff told us to stay put, wait for the rangers.” Garcia shifted his weight between both feet, as though preparing to uphold Blair’s order.
Colson barely registered the deputy’s argument as he collected his weapon from the trunk where Blair had secured it. He might’ve joined this case to ensure Rachel Faulkner’s father paid up when he and Blair apprehended the killer, but there was no way in hell he’d let her pay the price. Slamming the trunk closed, he closed the distance between him and Garcia. “I need your radio and your flashlight.”
The deputy raised his hands with a shake of his head. “Mr. Rutherford, I can’t let you—”
Colson fisted Garcia’s collar and tugged him into his chest. “I’m not leaving her and Thompson out there to take down a killer alone. Give me your radio and your flashlight, damn it.”
Garcia’s jowls shook as he nodded in short bursts. The deputy tore his radio from his vest and handed over the receiver as Colson released his hold. “Yes, sir.”
“Stay here. Tell the rangers and Search and Rescue there are three officers in pursuit of Cardin Townsend when they get here. The trail branches to the east where the first ranger station is, but I think the sheriff and Thompson split to search both directions.” Colson strapped the radio to the vest he’d borrowed from Blair and inserted the earpiece from behind. He clicked on the flashlight. “The signal’s too weak to break through these trees, but there’s a chance I can reach them if I’m closer.”
Colson didn’t wait for a response, loading a round into his weapon. Temperatures dropped as he raced for the trailhead. Blair’s call had come through less than two minutes ago. She couldn’t have gotten far. His throat burned as black walls of pine and dense trees closed in. The trail gave under his weight. Flashlight bouncing in front of him, he caught sight of deep gouges left in the mud clinging to his boots. Drag marks. Blair and her deputy would’ve noticed them right away. He followed the trail higher, his pulse pounding behind his ears. Two sets of footprints stayed clear of the gouges in the middle of the trail. Blair and Thompson had tried to preserve the evidence.
Colson slowed as the trail split a few yards ahead of him. Bending at the waist, he forced his breathing to slow in order to listen to any sign of the sheriff or her deputy nearby. Only the trill of crickets and unseen wildlife reached his ears through the throbbing of his heart rate. He checked his phone, the screen’s light casting a wide pool around him. The main trail headed north while the branch off to his right led to the first ranger station. He searched the ground to pinpoint Blair’s footprints.
There.
A smaller set forged ahead, while the larger of the two branched east. Blood from the parking lot suggested Cardin Townsend had been injured in a struggle between her and Rachel Faulkner. They’d theorized she’d hiked up here to hide out in one of the ranger stations overnight and stay off the grid, but the drag marks and Blair’s boot prints both headed north, away from the ranger station. “You sent Thompson ahead to the ranger station while you followed the suspect without backup. Damn it, Blair.”
Her irrational sense of responsibility had driven her to try to take on a killer alone. Colson dislodged the radio from his vest and opened the channel. “Blair, Thompson, do you read me?”
Another crackle broke through before it cut out. “Thompson here.”
A notch of relief cut through him. “Deputy Thompson, this is Colson Rutherford. What is your location?”
“The first ranger station, sir,” the deputy said. “The sheriff believed the suspect might’ve come here to hide out. The Search and Rescue K9s can confirm, but I’m not seeing any evidence someone has been here in months. Place is cleaned out.”
“Is the sheriff with you?” Colson lowered the radio to his chin. The answer solidified in his gut before Thompson responded.
“No, sir,” Thompson said. “She took the trail leading north. Haven’t heard from her since we split up about ten minutes ago.”
“Copy that.” Colson reattached the radio and studied the footprints sculpted into the dirt. Blair had followed the drag marks. But if Cardin Townsend had come out here alone to hide after killing the victim, who or what had she been dragging up the mountain? “Another victim.”
He swept the flashlight ahead and followed the marks. Right up until they disappeared from the trail. Tiger Mountain demanded attention overhead as he searched the area for where the trail picked up. He’d hit a dead end. Taken the wrong path? No. Blair’s boot prints ended in this same spot. He hadn’t seen another trail branching off, and there wasn’t one registered on the map. She couldn’t have just disappeared. “Where the hell are you, woman?”
Colson turned around, slower than he wanted to go, and forced himself to breathe evenly. She had to be here. Raising his phone straight out in front of him to cast additional light, he searched the surrounding trees.
A dark shape materialized on the other side of the trail, set back behind a line of trees. Large. Solid. Close. Careful of the gouges carved into the trail and Blair’s footprints, he closed in on the out-of-the-way structure. An old maintenance shed from the look of it. He double-checked the map on his phone. He’d lost service somewhere along the trail, but as long as he didn’t reload the page, he had at least some idea of where he was. Only this shed wasn’t on the map. Hell, it didn’t look like it’d been used in decades. Crumbling siding and crusted panels brightened in color as he stepped off the trail. A decrepit pallet-turned-porch protested under his weight as Colson reached for the paint-stripped door. Rusted hinges screamed as he pushed inside.