Page 4

Four

Stephanie

The sound of the birds waking up welcomes me when I slide open the door to the deck to watch the sunrise.

The temperature has been steadily rising, and this morning a spring jacket and my hot coffee are enough to keep me warm. With my travel mug in hand, I wander down to the creek, which is swollen with melt waters but so far staying within the bounds of its banks.

I fill my lungs with the crisp morning air and feel a smile tugging at my lips. I’m starting to see what drew JD to this spot, it’s so beautiful here. It’s taken me a while to be able to fully appreciate it.

Since dinner at Janey’s last Friday, I’ve been actively trying to get out of the house at least once a day. Nothing big, just grabbing a fancy coffee and a pastry at Bean There, or picking up a few odds and ends at the pharmacy. Enough to at least see, if not interact with, other human beings.

I didn’t recognize myself on Friday, scurrying off to the relative safety of solitude when Jackson walked into Janey’s kitchen with JD. I’m not that person, I’m an experienced federal agent, for crying out loud. Jackson spells trouble for me, but I don’t run away from trouble, I face it. That’s who I am.

But I’d been hiding for weeks, and although I may have been healing physically, I could feel my courage and mental strength eroding. I realized what a coward I was becoming when I ran from Jackson that night.

So I’ve been pushing myself out of the safe cocoon the trailer has become. Yesterday’s outing was to the UPS store in Libby to collect up a package I ordered, and I picked up a burrito at a roadside stand on the way home.

This morning my plan is to unpack the hand-knitting kit I ordered online and get a start on my new project. I’d seen an ad on Instagram when I was mindlessly scrolling, and loved the look of the bold texture of the blanket in the picture. It didn’t look too complicated when I did a little research and found a YouTube tutorial on how to make one. I clicked on the product link in the description.

It’ll be good to get my hands busy with something other than baking, which I bought ingredients for last week. I’ve been doing a little of it every day, but unfortunately, there is no one but me to eat it and I can feel my ass growing.

But first I want to greet the morning and drink my coffee surrounded by all this beauty. I want to learn to be in the moment. Too much of my adult existence has been spent in my head, plotting and contemplating tomorrow instead of appreciating today. That constant feeling of trying to catch up to something elusive, but never quite catching up.

Here, right now, I let myself hear, see, smell, feel, and appreciate the clean air in my lungs, the steady beat of my heart, and the taste of that kick-ass new coffee I bought on my tongue.

I feel good. Energized.

Not so much a few hours later, when I try to free my hands from the tangle of knots I managed to create for the umpteenth time.

Easy, my foot! On the video they showed a five-year-old hand-knitting to illustrate anyone can do it. Sure, anyone but this thirty-six-year-old, college-educated, decorated federal agent. I have no idea what I’m doing wrong.

Frustrated, I reach for my phone to call a friend.

“Do you know how to knit? Because it’s not working for me.”

Janey bursts out laughing on the other end of the line.

“I’m sorry,” she immediately apologizes. “You caught me off guard with that. You’ve taken up knitting?”

“Well, I need something to do with my time and my hands,” I respond a tad defensively. “Besides, I like the look of those big, chunky blankets, so I ordered a kit, but I keep getting tangled.”

“Oh, hand-knitting? I’ve always wanted to try that. The principle is the same as with needles.”

“Which I’ve never done in my life either,” I clarify.

“Right. Growing up the only child of a farmer, I had the benefit of being groomed by both my mother and father. Dad made sure I knew my way around livestock, and Mom taught me all the necessary traits a good farm wife would need. I think it was a bit of a disappointment when I didn’t follow in either of their steps, but at least I did pick up a few handy skills. Including knitting,” she adds.

The picture she paints of her childhood evokes a long-buried ache in my chest. My mother died when I was twelve, leaving my grief-stricken father to care for my older brother, David, and me. Not that he was around much, we were mostly left to our own devices while he drowned himself in his work. Admittedly, raising kids alone was not the easiest thing in his line of work; he was an FBI agent.

Sadly, the only thing my father instilled in me was a burning need to gain his approval. Hence my career choice. Any actual life skills I have either my mother imparted on me before she died, or were self-taught. Knitting definitely did not make that list.

My fingers stroke the soft, lush yarn in my hands, as I push down the surge of bitterness. I should know by now it does me no good to dwell too much on things I can’t fucking change anyway.

“Can you help?” I ask Janey.

“I’m about to go into surgery and have a few visits this afternoon, but why don’t I pick us up some dinner in town and drop by after? JD is working anyway. He’s hardly been home since the team was called out on that search this past Friday.”

“What search?”

Normally, I stay on top of what goes on around me and in the world at large, but I’ve been living in a bit of a bubble these past weeks. The world could be on fire, but unless it was raging outside my window, I’d be completely oblivious.

“You haven’t heard? Missing hunter,” she explains.

“Wow, and they’ve been searching for five days already?”

That seems like a long time.

“Yeah, apparently there is a lot of pressure to find this guy, dead or alive. His name is Juan Pérez, and he’s the son of Diego Pérez?—”

“The Argentinian ambassador?” I guess, interrupting.

“One and the same,” Janey confirms. “Although, that part hasn’t been made public knowledge yet.”

I can see how that might put the pressure on. Yikes .

The few cases I’ve worked on involving high profile individuals were an exercise in diplomacy. Something I haven’t exactly been blessed with an abundance of. Hard to concentrate on the job at hand when every step you take and every decision you make are under a tremendous amount of scrutiny.

I bet the High Mountain Trackers team wishes they were dealing with an average Joe Blow.

“Wow. That’s gotta be tough. What if they don’t find him?”

“It’s a distinct possibility. For all they know he could’ve been washed out into the Kootenai River somewhere, heading for Canada.”

The Kootenai River has the unique feature it both starts and ends in Canada. It rises somewhere in the Canadian Rockies before dipping south into northern Montana. Then it heads back north, cutting through a corner of Idaho before ending back up across the border in British Columbia. Right around Libby is where the river curves and changes from a southern flow to a western, and finally a northern one.

“Well, I hope they find him, although after five days, the likelihood he’ll be alive when they do is slim,” I suggest.

“Oh, I know. Anyway, I should get going. So dinner, what do you feel like?” Janey changes the subject.

“I’m good with anything.”

“Pizza, ribs, burgers, Mexican, or Japanese?”

“Oh, Japanese. I haven’t had sushi in ages.”

“Done. My patient is here, but text me your preferences.”

* * *

Jackson

“Go home. Get a good night’s sleep.”

Jonas looks rough. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes for the world.

He, along with the game warden and the sheriff, have been the ones to be fielding the pressure from a variety of national and international government agencies. I would definitely not have the patience for that.

It’s clear the powers that be were not happy with his decision to give the team a twelve-hour break before we move our base camp to a lower elevation. The fact is, our horses need a break, and so do we. For the last three days, under the rising urgency, we’ve worked in teams of two, trying to cover as much ground in as little time as possible.

At this point, the entire team—myself, Jonas, and Sully included—have been out on horseback, alternating with the others to make sure someone was always covering communications and manning the drone. The problem is, with only four or so hours of rest between shifts for days on end, it’s not only our effectiveness that is suffering, it’s the horses’ concentration that starts to falter as well.

That’s why, after Wolff’s horse, Judge, slipped on a rock earlier this afternoon and he had to walk the lame animal back to base camp, Jonas made the executive decision to impose a longer rest. I’m sure Judge is going to need more than twelve hours, plus a checkup from Janey, but for the rest of us that should be enough to get reenergized.

Truth is, the chance of finding Juan Pérez alive is highly unlikely at this juncture. But that’s not something either the man’s family or the hovering government agencies want to hear, which is understandable. Until we recover his body, they’ll cling on to every last shred of hope.

My stump is sore when I lead Banner into the horse trailer. I’ve taken off my prosthetic leg whenever I had a stationary shift at base camp, but the last one was thirty-two or so hours ago, and that’s too long to be wearing my leg without any breaks.

The skin tends to start getting red and raw inside the silicone sleeve that holds the socket of the leg in place. After that blisters can form, and that could be complicated by an infection. If you don’t look after your stump properly, you can easily get yourself in trouble. I learned that lesson the hard way and have no desire to go there again.

“Jonas,” I call out when I see him heading for the communications tent Sully is starting to dismantle. “Tomorrow morning, can I have first shift in the tent? My leg is sore.”

I get a thumbs-up.

I don’t have to explain, he’s had a firsthand look at the effects of ignoring the signs before. It’s taken some time for him to trust I don’t push myself too hard. He’s made it clear if I’m the one who wants to be treated like everyone else, I have to be responsible for piping up when there is an issue. After what I put him and my mother through a few years ago, it was a challenge to earn his trust, so I’m not about to risk losing it again. Jonas may give you a second chance, but he’s not the kind of man who’d be handing out thirds.

“What are you doing for dinner?” JD asks when he hops into my passenger seat when we’re done packing up.

“I don’t know. I’ll see what I have left in my fridge, or else grab something at the ranch. Why?”

I ease my truck into the convoy down the mountain as soon as the horse trailer Dan is towing behind the ranch truck passes.

“Just got off the phone with Janey. She’s on her way to grab some sushi in town. I’m about to put my order in, are you interested?”

My mouth is already watering. After days of eating easy canned food or MREs, I crave the crunch of something fresh in my mouth. But I really need to get this leg off.

“Sounds amazing, but I should be getting home.”

I can feel him looking at me so I glance over.

“What?”

He shrugs. “Oh nothing. I was hoping you could drop me off at my trailer on the way to the ranch.”

That has my attention.

“The trailer?”

“Yeah,” he says casually. “Janey was gonna have dinner with Stephanie, so I’m meeting her there. She’s planning on checking in on Judge after dinner anyway, so I would’ve hitched a ride back to the ranch with her after to pick up my truck. But that’s okay, I can?—”

Despite my better judgment, I find myself cutting him off.

“I’ll take an assorted sushi and tempura platter and a side order of teriyaki ribs. If I’m gonna drop you off anyway, I might as well eat while I’m there.”

It’s a pathetically transparent excuse and I know it. So does he; from the corner of my eye the hint of a grin appears on his otherwise stoic face, which I try to ignore.

Bastard .