Master of the Abyss

like Gary’s guard dog, ready to rip and tear. “Are they giving you grief?”

“No!” She grabbed his forearm, and his muscles were taut, ready for action. “I don’t want trouble, Jake.”

“My touching you would cause trouble?”

“I… Yes.” And yet, she wanted him to hold her, to touch her, to be with her so badly that her voice shook.

“Enough to tell me to stay away?”

The ache in her chest must be ignored. “I don’t cause trouble. This isn’t my home or…or my family. I don’t rock the boat.”

He studied her for a long moment. “Don’t you live here?”

“Yes, but…”

He watched her with no expression on his face, and she felt a surge of anger. How dare he judge her?

“Listen, Hunt, you haven’t wanted to be with me except for sex, and you’ve made that perfectly clear. In fact, I’ve heard your ‘one night only’ rule so often, it’s coming out my ears.” She hauled in a breath. “Well, it’s my turn. This isn’t the night.” There might never be a night, but she could explain that…later. Not now, when every word seemed to slash into her throat.

“I see.” His eyes never left hers. “I’m not sure your perception of your cousins is accurate, Kalinda, but I know you believe what you’re saying.” He nodded politely. “Enjoy your night.”

As he walked across the deck, her throat tightened, and she spun around, staring past the flickering lights, out to the dark pastures. Dammit, she couldn’t feel abandoned-she’d told him to go away.

And he had.

Chapter Eight

As his Search and Rescue group hiked up the trail, Jake tuned out the low chatter about the young woman who had disappeared from a campground before the Fourth.

The conversation with Kallie two days ago still clung to him like a pit bull with a good grip. He couldn’t call the sprite a coward. She was competent in what she did, brave enough to defend friends from a roomful of drunks, smart enough to have a college degree. She knew herself enough to know she enjoyed submitting and was confident enough to do it. But the disapproval of her family had somehow pulled the ground from under her feet. He’d seen the pain in her face when she’d pushed him away, but she’d still done what her cousins wanted.

As the trail branched, two SAR members veered off to follow the smaller path. The others continued on, eyes constantly moving, watching for any signs of the missing person.

Kallie had the right to end their relationship-if that’s what they had-although he’d felt surprisingly disappointed, not just at the lost evening but in not seeing her at all. He frowned. Perhaps he should be grateful for this clean break. One she’d requested.

But seeing such a strong woman go belly-up bothered him. Did she really think her cousins wouldn’t love her if she-how did she put it?-rocked the boat? Considering Virgil’s concern over Kallie, Jake figured she could probably tip the entire boat over without causing a ruckus.

The little sub definitely had a problem with trust, didn’t she?

As he stepped over a downed log, he wondered if her phrasing of “this isn’t the night” implied she wanted to see him on other nights, when her family didn’t surround her. And the thought raised his spirits. Pitiful, Hunt.

When the trail branched again, Jake held up a hand to indicate he’d take it. As he veered onto the side path, his partner, Eric, fell in behind. The forest was silent except for the regular shouting of the SAR team: “Abigail!”

The uneasy feeling in the pit of Jake’s stomach grew. No one had seen this hiker for three days.

Abigail Summers had stormed out of a campground after a fight with her boyfriend. Leaving the car for her, the guy had hitchhiked to town and caught a bus home. Due to the holiday, no one had missed Abigail until a family reunion. Eventually they’d discovered her car still parked at the campground. Going by the disarray in the tent, she’d never returned from her hike.

The boyfriend had shown SAR the trail that Abigail had taken. While Jake and Eric and the other teams conducted a hasty search in the most likely areas, others would round up dogs and helicopters. Unfortunately the main trail branched off several times, vastly increasing the search area.

When Eric paused to catch his breath, Jake gave him a careful look. “Doing okay?”

“I’m good.” After a minute, the college student straightened, settled his daypack, and moved out. The dry pine needles didn’t leave much sign behind, and so far they’d found no evidence that Abigail had chosen this trail. Jake kept his eyes moving, looking up, looking back. No tracks leading off, no threads or cloth from the purple top or jeans she’d last been seen wearing. Each time the alarm on his watch sounded, he stopped to shout and listen. “Abigail! Abigail, are you here?”

No response other than the high call of an eagle and the faint wind in the pines. Hell. His gut cramped until the muscles hurt. Logan thought Jake should quit SAR, said it brought back too many memories. And it did, dammit. People had searched for Mimi for days before finding her broken at the bottom of a deep ravine. He’d seen her when they carried her body out of the forest.

But unlike this hiker, Mimi hadn’t gotten lost, and she hadn’t fallen. She’d set her pack neatly to one side. No marks on the steep trail’s edge indicated that she’d slipped. In fact, her body had fallen so far out that she would have had to deliberately run off the cliff.

Suicide. Because of him.

He shook his head. Let it go. Right now, someone needed his full attention. He hadn’t found a way to help Mimi, and the thought of her dying alone, that she might have suffered, still cut sharply. But maybe he could save someone else.

They left the forest, climbing to where the narrow trail had been carved out of the cliffside and required careful attention to the footing. Falls were a leading cause of death in the Yosemite area. Using binoculars, Jake checked over the side every few feet.

A long way down, a stream at the bottom turned the tiny gorge green with vegetation. He pressed the binoculars closer to his eyes. A long brown mark showed on the verdant slope-possibly exposed dirt from plants being ripped away. An ominous feeling bowed his shoulders.

“Eric. Look over the side. Can you spot anything below that brown patch?”

As the kid dropped to hands and knees, Jake moved another few feet, searching for any other sign. He spotted a splash of color between two trees.

“Hey, I see something. Purple, I think.” Eric pointed.

“Good eye.” Jake tied red and white flagging to a sturdy pine growing out of a crack in the rock, and noted the GPS point in the log. When Eric joined him, he pointed out visual references to the young man. “Do you remember how to radio it in?”

Eric nodded. The freckles stood out on his face as he swallowed. “Do you think…?”

“Don’t think, Eric. We follow procedure.” Jake paused, his gut aching as he added, “Yes, it’s probably her.”

“Oh.”

“I’m going to try to climb down. Radio and then stay up here on the trail and direct me in.”

The hike to the bottom of the cliff seemed interminable. He forced his way through