Page 16 of Dark Sky

It was at that moment, one step away from leaning back into the void, that her stomach always gripped itself and her head swooned with momentary panic. There was nothing beneathher for three hundred and fifty feet until the pile of sharp scree at the base of the sandstone feature.

If the anchor bolt gave way or her harness or equipment failed or she’d overlooked procedural safety steps on her checklist—it would be over for her.

But the rope held and pulled taut and it reassured her that she’d prepared well. The belay device on her harness held her in place, her feet in her climbing shoes were splayed wide on the vertical face of the rock, and her back was parallel to the ground below. The light blue sky filled her scope of vision and the wind had been cut, now that she’d dropped over the rim.

She took several deep breaths to calm herself.

She could feel her heart race. Although she’d had dozens of hours of instruction from Nate, from a climbing wall to windmills and the sides of local barns, she’d only rappelled down half a dozen cliffs in the past few months. She still wasn’t comfortable doing it. According to Nate, he hoped she never would be.

—

Two hours earlier, before Sheridan had arrived at his place, Nate Romanowski had been sipping coffee at the dining room table at his compound in the sagebrush foothills when he’d heard a chirp from a speaker on the counter. Instantly, he’d narrowed his eyes and done a quick mental inventory of where his weapons were located within the house in case he needed to grab them.

The chirp meant a vehicle had entered through the distant gate.

Nate was tall and rangy with sharp blue eyes, and his blond ponytail cascaded down the yoke of his thick flannel work shirt. He’d gotten up before dawn to feed his falcons and had gotten distracted by two coyotes passing through the field who seemed to be doing surveillance on his birds in their mews. The coyotes had a sneaky way about them, how they loped along tossing their heads from side to side as if looking for rodents when they were actually scoping out the birds with sidelong glances. Nate was well aware of that particular tactic, and he’d stood up and flapped his arms to make his presence known to them.

Nate had a way with wildlife and his message had been received. The two coyotes had quickened their pace and kept going until they vanished over a hillside.

Kestrel, his thirteen-month-old daughter, had toddled into the kitchen from the hallway. He loved to watch her figure out the act of walking, the way she held her arms out at her sides for balance and took small mincing steps. When she saw him there, her face lit up and she cried, “Da!” and broke into a gallop until she tripped over her feet and crashed to her hands and knees.

Before she could realize she was hurt and start to cry, Nate scooped her up and held her out away from him at arm’s length and said, “How’s my little angel?”

“Da!”

“She’s fine now,” Liv said. “She found her daddy.” Liv had followed Kestrel down the hall from the baby’s bedroom.

Liv had accomplished something no woman had ever beenable to do before: she’d convinced Nate to come back on the grid, open a legitimate business, and remove his shoulder holster while eating.

“Did I hear the trespass alarm?” Liv asked.

The arrival of his daughter had pushed everything else out of his thoughts, he realized.

“Yes,” he said, and handed Kestrel to Liv.

Nate parted the curtain on the dining room window and looked out. Their property was wide and treeless, and his view of the road was unencumbered. He liked it that way, especially since they rarely got visitors and those who found the place usually brought bad news of some kind, like the ex-FBI agent the year before who’d informed Nate there was a Sinaloa cartel hit out on him. Not long after that, Nate had installed the alarm at the front gate so he’d at least have some warning that someone was coming.

But there was no vehicle on the road.

Instead, a liquid herd of twenty pronghorn antelope slid in an undulating line up a hillside to the right of the gate. They’d obviously passed through and triggered the alarm. The herd trailed a spoor of dust as they ran.

“All clear,” he said.

“I thought it might be Sheridan,” Liv said. “She’s coming this morning, right?”

“Yes.”

Sheridan Pickett was Yarak, Inc.’s lone full-time employee, Nate’s apprentice in falconry, and Joe’s oldest daughter. She had been with them for nearly a year.

“Are you sure you want to get her involved in all of this?” Liv asked Nate. “I mean,everything?”

“I do,” he said. “She’s really coming along. She’s smart and she has bird-sense. It’s time she learned every aspect of the job.”

“I worry about her,” Liv said, bouncing Kestrel on her hip while pouring a cup of coffee.

“What about?”

“Put aside the fact that she’s your best friend’s daughter,” Liv said. “I get worried that she’s isolated out here and on her own. I know she used to have a pretty steady boyfriend back on that ranch she worked at, but pickings are pretty slim in these parts. I think about her all by herself in that little cabin, with no friends or social circle. Women need people, Nate. Even if you don’t.”

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