Page 84 of Rock Bottom

“You should just kill me,” Oscar mumbled.

“If anything’s happened to Dante, you might get your wish.” I stopped in front of him, wiping rain from my face. “Tell me where you took him, Oscar. There’s still a chance we can save him.”

His jaw trembled, and he looked away.

I grabbed his face and turned him back to me. “Just tell me the truth, Oscar. Did you…” God, I couldn’t even get the words out. “Did you hurt him?” When he didn’t answer, I slammed my fist into the tree trunk beside his head and shouted, “Did you hurt him?”

“Untie me and I’ll take you straight to him,” Oscar finally said.

Bad idea. If I untied him, he might attack me again, or run off, but he was the only one who knew where Dante was. We could search the forest for days and never find him, even in ideal conditions. With the rain, the mud, and my throbbing head, the chances that we’d find Dante alive without Oscar’s help were slim at best.

“Tell me where he is and then I’ll untie you,” I offered.

He shook his head. “No deal. Even if I told you, you’d never find it. I have to show you.”

I glanced over my shoulder at Wattson, trying to decide what to do. It was a second, maybe two, but that was long enough. Oscar took off running through the forest.

I spat a curse and raced after him, shouting for Wattson to follow. Oscar ran along the ridge, incredibly nimble for a guy with a broken arm and his hands tied behind his back. He charged through tree branches, sending them snapping back into my face. Morticia raced past me and lunged with a growl. I thought for sure she had him, but he somehow evaded the dog’s jaws. Morticia let out a pained whine as she lunged again and got caught in a thorn bush.

I stopped by the dog. Dammit, Boone would kill me if anything happened to his precious mutt, but Oscar was getting away. I winced and did my best to pull the thorny branches away from Morticia while trying to track the direction Oscar was running in.

Wattson slid to a stop next to me. “Go,” he shouted. “I’ll get her loose!”

I left the dog in good hands and ran after Oscar.

By the time I caught up to him, I was breathing hard and sweat stung my eyes. I stumbled through a veil of vines. The forest abruptly ended on the other side, and I slid to a stop atop a flat sandstone rock. The roar of a nearby waterfall filled the air. Oscar stood on the edge of a cliff, looking down over a drop that was easily over a hundred feet into a shallow pool of choppy water.

“Oscar,” I said and extended my hand. “Come away from the ledge.”

He looked back at me and the look on his face said he wasn’t coming back. “It’s the only way we can be together.”

“Don’t do this,” I said and took a step forward.

Without another word, Oscar turned and threw himself off the cliff into the rocky pool below. I raced to the edge to look down, but there was no sign of him on the rocks. There was only the churning white water far below.

“Jesus,” came Wattson’s voice from behind me. “Did he…?”

I stepped back from the cliff. “There’s no way he could have survived that, but just to be safe, call back down to base and get someone out to search downriver for a body. I’m going to go find Bowie. Now that we’ve lost the only lead we had, he’s our best chance to find Dante.”

“Wait.” Wattson put his hands out to stop me. “He wasn’t the only lead. Leo and Xavier were able to brute force their way into Dante’s phone. It’s paired to another device, one they believe he might be wearing. Did he have on a watch?”

I closed my eyes and tried to remember. I’d seen him with one of those smart watches on when he first got off the plane, but not since we’d arrived at the cabin. He’d complained it was useless since there was no Wi-Fi. Maybe he’d put it back on when we were getting ready to leave.

My eyes snapped open, and I grabbed Wattson by the shoulders. “Can they use it to track his location?”

Wattson nodded. “Within a few meters, yes. If he’s wearing it, that is.”

“It’s the best lead we’ve got. Tell them to get those coordinates to us ASAP!”

“Already done,” he said, but the way Wattson said it, it sounded like there was more.

“What?” I asked, lifting my hands. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“The coordinates are static, Church. Wherever he is, he’s not moving.”

I knew what he was trying to say. There was a chance that Dante was gone. Maybe Oscar had killed him and then thrown himself off the cliff so they could be together in death.

But I couldn’t believe that. Dante had to be alive, and I was going to find him.

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