Page 108 of Track of Courage

“Might do you good to air out your brain.” This from Moose’s brother, Axel, fellow Air One Rescue tech. He’d gone with Moose to pick up Wren, who was now at the clinic in Copper Mountain with her father.

Axel and Moose had met Dawson at the FBO when Dodge dropped him off, well after midnight.

They’d driven him to their parents’—his aunt and uncle’s—home, despite his protestations.

They did stop over at the sheriff’s office, and the deputy on duty said Deke had put out a BOLO to all the highway patrols but couldn’t do anything until morning.

Dawson had left a message to the tune that morning might be too late. But given different shoes, a different situation, he might have told a distraught family member to do the same.

Especially without any leads.

So, Dawson had spent the night on his uncle’s den sofa, staring at the ceiling, hating that evil always found a way to win.

Now, he looked at Axel, who leaned against a table in the conference room. “I should have known that it wasn’t Moose on the call. I felt it in my gut—”

“C’mon, Daws. Your gut isn’t infallible.” Axel leaned up. “I’m going to get Flynn from the Gold Nugget Inn. She said that Kennedy is being released today, so she’s on board to help with the investigation.”

He’d heard the story from Moose, about how Sully had gotten Kennedy out on a snowmobile, all the way to the highway, where a state patrol had met them. How she’d nearly died in his arms. So he understood if Flynn wanted to hang around her sister—

Axel might have read his mind because he clamped a hand on Dawson’s shoulder. “Trust me. She’s antsy after sitting in the hospital for nearly a week. She’s all in. We’ll find Keely.”

He stepped back then and offered a smile. “Although seriously,Bliss? You do know her last boyfriend was Chase Sterling, the actor.”

He stared at him, and Keely’s story needled in. Wait. Chase Sterling wasn’t the father of her baby, was he?

It didn’t matter. “Go get my partner.”

Axel headed out the door and brushed by Dodge, on his way in. Dodge carried a bag of donuts from the Last Frontier Bakery and set the greasy bag on a table. “Fresh cinnamon rolls from your aunt. On the house.”

Dawson walked over, looked in the bag, but had no appetite.

“So, how’s it going? Any leads?” Dodge stood with his hands in his leather jacket pockets. Dark hair, grim slash to his mouth, he’d taken over Sky King Ranch bush services when his father started going blind. Tragedy, although in the suffering, Dodge had also reconnected with his ex-girlfriend, Echo, and remade his life.

It also brought his other brothers home for a face-off with the past, not an easy reunion after a decade of silence. But Dawson had been there for the Great Fight that had decimated the family, so yeah, he got that.

He might walk away too, if he got betrayed like Dodge had been.

Now the man stared at the map littered with tiny pushpins. “What are these pins?”

“All the sightings of a Sorros brother over the past seven years.” Dawson grabbed his mug and stepped up beside him, the coffee dark and brutal, fortifying his bones.

“These are old mining camps.” Dodge pointed to a couple out west. “And this one was an abandoned Army communications building.”

“Apparently, they know this area as well as we do.”

“They have to know we’d look for them at their old haunts.”

Moose came back in with Deke, who walked straight to the bag. “Cinnamon rolls. Your mom is a gift to the universe, Moose.”

Flynn chose then to arrive with Axel. She walked right over to Dawson, her copper hair tied back in a bun, and pulled him into an embrace.

“Don’t fight it. Just breathe, boss.”

He managed one arm around her and a smile when she pulled away. “Axel briefed me in the truck.” She unzipped her jacket. “I’m going to need coffee.”

Shasta Starr, who worked reception at the sheriff’s office, came in and handed her a cup. “I just poured it. I’ll get another.”

Flynn held it in two hands, breathed in the smell. “Had breakfast with Nora, but there’s just something about police station coffee.” She winked at Dawson.