Page 93 of Her Wild Coast Refuge

With a wary glance at Quinn, I race outside. “Lexie?”

But the grounds are empty. Cold prickles crawl down my spine.

“Did you see her?” Quinn asks, making a slow scan of the camp, his hands on his hips.

“No.” I heave a hard sigh. I must have imagined someone was outside. “Let’s keep looking.”

Quinn points at the drilling rig on the far side of the camp. The dome light inside the cab is on.

I tell myself it could mean nothing. Maybe the light always stays on. Some mining equipment is built that way.

The brisk wind stings my face as we cross the camp to the rig. I climb up the tract, the giant ridges caked in tan dirt that was once mud, and peer into the cab. Lexie isn’t hiding inside, and as far as I can tell, everything looks intact.

“D.J.,” Quinn calls from the back of the rig.

I clamber the length of the machine and peer down.

Quinn points to a fuel cap in the center of the back plate. “It’s wet.”

“From what?”

He squints up at me. “Salt water maybe? I’m pretty sure it’s not diesel.”

I force a full breath, but my heart is sinking inch by painful inch. “Damn.”

From the airstrip, the chopper idles, a reminder that our time is finite.

“Lexie!” I strain my ears for a response while methodically sweeping the camp with my gaze, but there’s no movement, and no reply.

“Let’s check the rest of the buildings,” Quinn says.

I jump down from the mud-caked tract and we head over to another shipping container. The lock on this one is busted too. Inside, it’s dark. Gritty chunks of rock grind beneath my shoes. The dusty air makes me cough. I catch a whiff of that smell again—it’s fishy and sharp. It’s familiar, yet I can’t place it.

“Holy shit,” Quinn mutters.

The beam of diffuse light from the doorway illuminates a mess. Shelves are toppled like dominoes and the hundreds of core samples—gray cylinders of rock marked by neon orange paint—are shattered to pieces.

I stare, unable to comprehend what I’m seeing. “Lexie?” I call out, squinting through the dust.

A gust of wind whistles through a crack in the door behind us.

“There’s no way Lexie did this,” Quinn says softly.

He’s right. Even in a rage, I can’t imagine Lexie toppling heavy shelving like this, let alone pounding rock cores to dust.

“Then who did?” I ask.

“What if she’s not alone?” Quinn replies, his eyes dark.

“I’ve wondered that too.” I shiver against the cold.We’re ready to fight. Are you?Has Lexie joined an army of ecoterrorists to destroy the camp? The mere idea is laughable, yet I can’t shake the certainty that something is very wrong.

“The bunkhouse,” I say.

The Nissen hut’s curved roof has already rusted from the elements. We step into an enclosed space with tall metal footlockers on both sides and low shelves, probably to store muddy boots. There’s a door with a hinge hasp like the other buildings, but the lock is missing.

Quinn makes a face. “What’s that weird smell?”

“I don’t know. I noticed it earlier.”

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