Page 61 of Forbidden Boss

Yuri walks to the place where the guardrail breaks. He crouches and points.

“Looks like she cut off her zip-tie here,” he says. The rail edge is sharp and red with blood. “The blood is still pretty fresh.”

We flag it. Creek noise rises. One man finds a bit of torn gray fleece on a thorn. Another points out a heel slide where she lost footing and caught herself. We mark it and keep moving.

“Ridge team,” the radio crackles, “broken branch waist-high, direction east-northeast.”

“Hold and mark,” I say. “We’re thirty seconds out.”

We step around a blown-down tree limb and climb a short shelf. The creek opens in a run. The lip is slick. A log lies across like a low bridge. There’s a handprint in the near-side mud and prints on the log. One small and tight. One longer, sloppy, trying to hurry.

“She crossed here,” I say. “He tried to go around.”

“Or he cut high,” Yuri says, pointing at a faint deer path angling into scrub. “He could be trying to get in front of her. He’d have the advantage of sight.”

I radio to my teams.

“Ridge, you’re on me up the deer path. Creek team crosses and stays with the dog on the lower. North floats ten off creek right. South holds our six at the last good cover. Everyone calls if you find fresh blood.”

We move. The deer line is narrow and rough, the soil loose. We watch our footing; we could easily slip and fall. My Italian loafers weren’t made for this kind of work. I keep my eyes on the ground, my head on a swivel. I listen for anything, for screams or heavy breathing. I say a silent prayer to whatever gods are listening that I find her before Marcus does.

Two minutes in, the K9 barks once and goes quiet on command.

“We’ve got blood on this stone,” the handler says.

“Mark it,” I say. The dog tugs forward.

My phone vibrates. It’s IT.

“Nothing on a Catskills IP yet. I did see a cell phone pinging near where you are before it went dead a few minutes ago. I think it’s his.”

“Flag the last tower,” I say. “Send to Yuri.”

I hang up and force my breathing to steady. We could be closing in on Marcus, but where the hell is Mari? The forest is so deep and dense, we could be looking for days.

We crest a bare shoulder. The ridge breaks, and I can see the road through the trees in a gray slash. Troopers have set out cones. Volunteers hold flashlights and talk.

I drop to a knee behind a stump and take ten seconds to breathe. I rub a hand over my face, and it comes away cold and damp. For a second, the edges blur, then snap back sharp. I hate it. Yuri drops beside me and says nothing. He can read me without words.

“She’s ahead of him,” I say.

“Looks that way,” he says. He doesn’t add the part I’m dreading. How long can she stay ahead of him? How far behind are we? For all we know, he’s found her and killed her already.

“She’s tough,” he says after a minute. “She’s not going down without a fight. She might take care of him before we can.”

I nod and stand, knowing we don’t have the luxury of time to contemplate her possible fate. All we have is hope.

“North to base. We’ve got fibers on a thorn, gray knit, and a fresh scrape on bark at shoulder height. Direction holds east.”

“Copy,” I say. “All teams hold verbal. Call clicks only unless you have eyes. Marcus has ears. He’ll be listening for us the same way we’re listening for him.”

We tighten the circle and keep moving.

We climb into a boulder field. The stones are slick and black. The cracks hold leaves and water. It smells like iron, cold dirt, and crushed fern. I’m reminded of the survival-skills classes my father forced me to take. He would always say, “You never know when you’ll need them.” For once, I’m glad for his harsh instruction.

The deer line forks. One path goes high to a rocky lip and a better view. The other cuts low toward a run of saplings where you can move faster. I split us again with hand signs. I take high with Yuri. It gives me an angle and a chance to see over.

At the lip, I drop and crawl the last four feet. I look over the edge. The woods open to a shallow bowl and then lift. I see a shape move between two trunks and then stop. It’s a lone man. It’s got to be Marcus.