Page 12 of Distress Signal

“Ten minutes.”

Another sigh from big bro. “There’s a clearing about a quarter mile out to the west that you can touch down in. I texted those coordinates.” West pulled his phone out, then punched the new numbers into the system, and our course altered slightly. “One of Crew’s guys will be waiting on the ground to lead you in.”

“You’ve got the fire department out there too?” West asked.

“They assisted with the search.”

I noticed how he pointedly didn’t mention the second half of what SAR stood for—and rescue. That combined with the lack of urgency told me we would not find someone who could be saved, and my heart twisted in pain for the friends and family of this lost soul.

“So it’s a recovery.”

“Yes.”

“Where was our call?” West said. “You know we’ve got more experience than our baby brother and his guys.”

“You were busy.”

I snorted.Bullshit. Ranch business didn’t come before the welfare of Dusk Valley citizens or lost campers, and he damnwell knew it. Shit like this was the whole reason I even had access to the SAR chopper. Hell, I was the only person within a hundred miles of this place who could even fly the damn thing.

But after the whole ordeal our youngest brother, Crew, and his now-fiancée, Aspen, had gone through last summer, Lane was wary of letting his family anywhere near cases.

Especially if foul play was suspected.

Suffice it to say, my curiosity was officially piqued.

West and I shared a look that told me he felt the same.

“What do you think we’re walking into?” he asked after Lane severed our connection.

“Honestly? I have no fucking clue. Before that strange conversation, I would’ve guessed a camper who died from exposure. But he’s being cagey, and when he gets like this, you know there’s more to it than that.”

“Been a minute since we had a murder around here,” he said, almost conversationally, though that twin-speak thing we had going for us allowed me to read between the lines.

Allowed me to understand the subtext, how below the off-handed remark, he was remembering last summer when Crew had been taken hostage by the woman who had committed Dusk Valley’s last murder.

Crew’s abduction wasn’t anyone’s fault but Kelly Saunders’, and he’d gotten the love of his life out of the whole mess, but that didn’t stop the rest of us from remembering the fear that came with realizing he’d been taken, and the seemingly interminable hours we spent trying to figure out where the fuck he’d been.

I wondered: would this case hit as close to home?

Ten minutes later, I touched down in the field and found Crew himself at the tree line, waiting to lead us in.

“What’ve we got?” I asked as I opened the back door of the copter and extracted the basket, leaving the bag of medical supplies.

“Female vic,” Crew said as West and I fell in line behind him, ducking under low-hanging tree branches and stepping on newly sprouted saplings, trampling a path back to the site. “Mid- to late twenties if I had to guess. No idea how long she’s been out here, because the ME hasn’t arrived yet, but body is fairly well preserved.”

“Well, it’s been cold as fuck,” West said. “So I’m sure that helped. She’s not a popsicle, is she?”

“I don’t think so, but rigor mortis has set in, so it’s hard to tell.”

“Time of death is within the last day or so, then?” I asked.

“Most likely,” Crew said. “Lane’s MP was reported this morning, and by then, the call from hikers had already come in.”

Conversation stalled as he led us up a steep incline that plateaued slightly at the top. When we reached it, West and I stopped to survey the scene.

Off to the side stood Crew’s subordinate firefighters: Tuck, Childers, and Burns. They murmured amongst themselves, waiting for instructions from their captain, but each gave us a nod of acknowledgement. Several of Lane’s deputies also milled around, fanned out at regular intervals, presumably searching for evidence.

Johns was here, but he wisely stayed far away from Crew—likely on Lane’s orders.