Page 27 of Searching Blind

“She was in shock,” Grant said. “She’d lost a lot of blood. Maybe she was confused.”

Lucy picked out another card and held it up so he could see it. “She lied about her profession, too. She told us she was a photographer, but this sure as hell looks like a military ID. She was active duty.”

“Okay, I’ll play devil’s advocate,” Sawyer said. “Photography could’ve been a hobby. The biggest, baddest Marine I knew was into birdwatching. Weirdly into it, you ask me, but I’d still want him to have my six in any pucker situation. Being military doesn’t mean you can’t have hobbies.”

“But why lie about it?” She kept coming back to that one sticking point. There was no reason for Maya—or Amaya? —to hide her military background unless she was also hiding something else.

Lucy frowned, turning the ID over in her hand. The picture matched Maya’s pretty face, but the blue uniform she wore, the rigid posture, and the stern expression were a far cry from the scared girl they’d found trapped under a tree.

Had she been running from something?

Or someone?

And, if so, was that person among their group? It made sense since Maya had ended up with a knife wound in her chest. But she couldn’t see how any of her hikers were involved. Chuck was all bark and no bite, and Joel was just a kid. Bea was tough and ex-military, but underneath that toughness was a caring soul. She wouldn’t kill a helpless woman. Theodore wouldn’t either. He was too gentle, too kind, too meek. That left…

She looked at the two men standing in front of her.

Not Sawyer. He’d been by her side all night—she was sure of it. And he’d been the one to raise the alarm that Maya wasn’t breathing.

She eyed Grant. She knew very little about him and Ethan, but it made the most sense that one of them was the killer.

But why would either of them kill an injured, unarmed woman?

Grant glanced over his shoulder, again checking to make sure nobody inside was paying them any attention. “Listen, I don’t want to sound callous, but Maya’s dead and her reasons for lying died with her. Right now, we have bigger problems and need to make some decisions. Like what to do with her body. The last forecast I saw said it was going to be hot today. By this evening, she’s going to start…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. They all understood the implications.

Lucy’s stomach roiled at the thought. She had seen death before—too much of it. People died all the time in national parks and part of her job was to clean up the sometimes horrific messes made by those deaths. But the natural, inevitable decay that followed death was something she had yet to get used to.

Ethan appeared in the doorway, moving silent as a ghost for such a big man. “Got that damn radio to work for a minute,” he grumbled, ignoring the way they all stiffened at his interruption. “Didn’t get anything out, but caught a few garbled transmissions. Sounds like every town up and down the coast is a mess and San Francisco is in chaos. We’re on our own.”

“Fuck.” Sawyer took a step back, rubbing his temples as if warding off an impending headache. Zelda moved closer, nudging her head against his leg in an attempt to comfort him. He gave her a small smile and a loving stroke before turning back to the group. “All right, so we’re on our own. We’ll bury Maya as best we can, and mark her grave so we can comeback for her once we’re safe. Then we need to figure out what we have for food and water and how long it will last us.”

Ethan crossed his thick arms over his chest. “The kid’s gotta get off this mountain if he wants to keep that leg. Infection’s already set in.”

Lucy closed her eyes. Everything in her trembled with a raw, primal fear at the news.

God, she couldn’t do this.

She didn’t want to be the one in charge, to have to make all the decisions.

Breathe, she reminded herself. Just breathe.

“I’m going to hike down to the nearest ranger station.” The words popped out of her mouth before she fully registered that was her plan.

“What?” Grant and Sawyer said at the same time.

Ethan shook his head. “It’s twenty miles through rugged, unstable terrain. It’ll take you at least two days, if you make it at all.”

“Hey, weren’t you the one that wanted to kick us all out last night?” Grant muttered. “Thought you’d be happy to get rid of some of us.”

Ethan glowered, his bushy brows slamming together over his navy blue eyes. “I was pissed. That girl may have been lying about who she was, but she didn’t deserve to go out like that.”

So Ethan had been paying attention to their conversation after all.

Grant dismissed him with a scowl and turned to Lucy. “I’ll go with you.”

“No,” she said at the same time Sawyer said, “Hell no.”

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