Page 24

Palm Springs

January 4, 2023

7:00 A.M.

Brady instructed me to come to Indian Canyons with a bag full of Grant’s dirty laundry—just Grant’s, no other smells. It was for the bloodhounds, as if he were part of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. Bloodhounds! I distracted myself from my worry by imagining the good laugh we’d have about that when they found him, those poor dogs smelling the damp socks and frayed boxers that reeked of hiker funk when I’d pulled them out of his hamper.

I was allowed into the trailer briefly to hand the bag to Brady. The mood inside had perceptibly changed; it had gone from feeling like a busy office to the situation room during a nuclear threat. The rescuers were tense and hyperfocused. I would never be able to fully express my gratitude for all they’d done, and as much as I hated knowing Grant was lost on his hike, I felt so much less guilty knowing I wasn’t wasting their time.

But with the storm approaching and the situation growing more dire, everyone was all business.

“Now that you’ve read his journal, do you think it’ll be easier to find him?” I asked, embarrassed that Brady had gotten a glimpse into our relationship and our issues.

He ushered me back outside where I belonged. “I guess it helped us narrow the search area, but every step he takes means we need to widen our radius of all the possible directions he can go. We suspect the lights he thought were coming from Cathedral City were actually coming from Palm Springs, which means he’s probably headed north, or what he thinks is north. He’s new to orienteering. I don’t know if he knows that north doesn’t mean north—true north and magnetic north are two different things. He might not know that you need to hold the compass flat or you might not get an accurate reading. We still have a big area to work with. I’ve got helicopters dropping my guys off at three thousand feet to work their way down. Let’s hope he didn’t get confused and start climbing again.”

“You’ll find him, right?”

“Mrs. Duffy, we’re doing everything we can. We even mobilized San Bernardino County. We’ve got dogs and drones. But I must be clear with you: it appears we’ve gone from a lost hiker to a critical situation.”

“‘A critical situation,’” I repeated. “What does that even mean? Hasn’t it been critical this whole time?”

“It’s protocol, something we do anytime someone is missing more than three days. After this much time, we begin to shift resources from rescue to recovery.”

I looked Brady straight in the eyes. “Are you trying to tell me that you think he’s… dead? Because he’s not. I can feel him.”

“I’m saying that I think it’s time to gather your family.”

The girls were flying in that morning. I couldn’t wait to be reunited with March and Dort, couldn’t wait to see Grant in their looks and their gestures. They’d inherited his wild hair, his wry smile. Even Octavia offered to come out. “You know I’m your ride or die whenever Grant takes off.”

“Isn’t there anything I can do?” The helplessness was what really got me.

“You can excuse me because I need to get back to business. Every minute that ticks by is a minute it’s less likely we’ll find him.”