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Sixteen

“SO WHAT DO YOU THINK?” Riley flopped on the bed in their luxurious room—the fluffy down comforter a cloud beneath her.

“Tate was quite defensive, and I’m not buying the ‘took off on an adventure’ claim,” Grey said with air quotes, “but I’m solely basing that on his body language. You know Kelly. Is she the type to just take off?”

“She is really into outside activities, but as far as I know, she only went for the weekends. Most often with friends down in Camp Verde.”

Grey frowned. “Did Tate go along?”

She shook her head. “Not as far as I can tell. She never mentioned him joining her, and nearly all the adventure pics on her Facebook page were of her with friends, Gus and Amy Stanton.”

“Interesting. Any chance she took off on an adventure with them?”

“I wondered the same thing, so I tracked down their cell phone numbers. Called them, but both go directly to voice mail saying they are overseas and will return calls after they’re back in the States.”

“And that wouldn’t explain the note and the key.”

“Yeah.” She sat down on the end of the bed with a sigh. “We’ve got to keep coming back to that key. It makes sense it was Kelly, but what if it has nothing to do with Tate or the retreat? Maybe someone else is after her and she fled the retreat to go on the run before they found her?”

“Good theory, but who are they ?”

“Deck found a few people from her poker club and the managers at the casinos who were none-too-happy with her counting cards and winning big under questionable methods.”

“They never proved anything.”

“Sometimes you just know, even if you don’t catch them in the act.”

Riley rolled onto her stomach, bracing her weight on her elbows and kicking her feet up, crisscrossing them in the air. “We’ll have to have Deck stay on that angle while we work on Tate.”

“Seems Kelly had a list of people angry with her.”

“Angry enough to leave a desperate note and this...” She twirled the locker key in her hand. “I’m beyond curious what the locker this key belongs to is hiding.”

****

Evergreen branches covered Kelly from head to toe, tickling her neck and sticking in the hair that escaped her winter cap. Ignoring the annoying sensation, she lay prone and still—the ground frigid beneath her but her serious winter gear keeping it from penetrating too deep.

She zeroed in with her binoculars, searching the landscape in the valley below—the long stretch of level trail they’d left behind. He was still out there ready to lunge the second he caught up.

Where are you?

Taking a slow, nearly silent inhale, she released it, her shoulders easing with the movement.

There. Eight hundred yards out in the lower clearing. Brent.

She studied his gear, including the shotgun, its strap slung across his shoulder. She was no expert, but given the scope on it, she was betting he had long-range capability.

Easing out from her cover, her white snowsuit camouflaging her, she ran in a crouched position behind the trees, where Jared awaited her intel.

“Well?”

“We’ve got to move. He’s closer than we anticipated.”