Page 95 of Love Me Dangerous

I need to be patient.

At the trailhead, I don’t see a dirt bike trailer. Just a couple of dusty cars and a minivan. So whoever is up there came from some other access point. According to the map, I can take an easy trail to the wilderness boundary, then it’s a short hike to the location where the dirt bike disappeared. I’m not crazy about heading cross country at this hour, but I’ll move fast.

After sitting around all morning, moving helps me warm up. My side still hurts, but every day it gets a little better. On Saturday night, I didn’t feel it at all.

I think about what Sawyer said about Sofie’s loyalty. Am I being blind in trusting her? It doesn’t feel like it, but I’m definitely not looking at it through a clear lens.

My dick gives an unhelpful twitch. For months, I managed to shut off my appetite, but now that it’s awake, I can’t seem to turn it off.

When I pass by the wilderness boundary sign bolted to agiant ponderosa, I take the narrow path through a dry pine forest meant for hikers and horses to a broad plateau. While catching my breath, I slip the binoculars from my pack. It takes only a quick scan to locate where the dirt bike or bikes flattened the meadow and overturned rocks in the dry dirt.

On the move again, at the top of another rise, I reach a trail junction. Larch Pass is straight ahead in 16 miles. The other trail, from the southeast and clearly imprinted with the dirt bike tread, is The Idaho Centennial Trail.

A detail fires in my memory. Sofie mentioned a centennial trail race. Did competitors use this trail? Where does it come from?

I raise the lenses to my eyes again and sweep the high meadow and the forest, trailing the dirt bike track. A chill creeps up my spine, making me shiver. If I wasn’t hunting for something out of place, I would take time to appreciate the landscape, the honey-golden grasses dancing in the wind, the purple rock faces, the deep green of the forests.

I’m about to put away the binoculars when there’s a flash of something from a copse of brilliant yellow larch trees. I wait, focusing my gaze on the location. I’m not sure what I saw. It could be a trail marker flashing in the sun. Or something metal, which doesn’t fit up here.

After tucking the binoculars back in my pack, I start off again. The minor relief from the ibuprofen I downed with my lunch is starting to fade. Or maybe it’s the hiking.

When I come to the larch trees, some of their needles have already fallen, turning the ground into a thin carpet that crunches under my boots and peppers the air with their sunbaked scent. Larch trees are rare in Alaska, and I’m momentarily distracted by the soft bristles and the heavily textured bark. Skirting the edge of the grove, I climb to the top and a hidden lake basin. The water is a pale turquoise, like a tropical sea. Breathing hard, my breath making little clouds in the quickly cooling air, I stand in a patch of sunlight and get my bearings.

On the far side of the lake, a rock wall rises to a forested ridge. More larch trees rim the right side.

The trail intersects with a faint footpath that I’m assuming circles the lakeshore. Despite the dirt being wet here, I’ve lost the bike tread, probably in the rocks. I’m tempted to linger at the lake edge, eventhough I have no purpose here—it’s so pretty and tranquil and that color is hard to look away from—but I turn back, searching for the tread.

The faint whine of the dirt bike echoes from below somewhere. Crap, have they turned back? I stand still and listen, but I can’t pinpoint anything more. Was it just a trick of the wind?

I flex and relax my cold fingers and think of something warm. There’s still coffee in my thermos back in the truck. And after barn chores at home, I’ll have a hot shower and a warm bed. This makes me think of Sofie’s and how good she looked in hers.

A weird feeling sinks through me, like an itch I can’t scratch. A hunger that lingers, unsatisfied.

Is it the way I’ve let Sofie into my life?

Or is it the idea of the Hutton’s ranch as home? It’s always been temporary. A stopover in the quest to reunite with William when it’s safe. But being with the Huttons and Sofie Whittaker in Finn River has stopped feeling temporary.

I’m not sure when that changed. And I’m not sure I like it.

Just below the lake, I pick up the dirt bike track again, but the terrain is rocky. I enter the larch grove, which has swallowed the sun, the shadows long and crooked across the rocks.

Did the dirt bike ride through here? This is hardly easy terrain. I walk past a house-sized boulder and pause to listen. The chilly breeze makes the hairs on my arms prickle but I resist the urge to rub them.

I’m about to turn around when something cold and hard presses into the back of my skull. A round enters the gun’s chamber, and I feel someone’s breath on my neck.

“Get on your knees, boy.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

ZACH

My stomach bottoms out,and a chill races over my skin.

“Okay,” I manage, and lower.

“Hands behind your head.”

I do as I’m told. Every second the gun doesn’t fire gives me hope. I cling to it.

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