Page 96 of Dark Sky

Sheridan fell in behind Nate and they continued up the drainage. Her back felt like it was burning because it was so exposed. The two of them were easy targets.

But Nate rode along calmly, swaying a bit in the saddle. Without turning around, Nate whispered, “Are they still back there?”

Sheridan didn’t crane around. Instead, she straightened herlegs in the stirrups and leaned forward as if adjusting Rojo’s bridle. While she did it, she shot a glance back under her armpit.

“They’re still there,” she whispered back. “Standing there by the creek watching us go.”

“Good. We’re going to ride away, okay?”

“Okay, I guess.”

When she presumed they were far enough from the Thomases not to be overheard, Sheridan said, “What are we doing? They were lying to us. I know they were.”

“Correct,” Nate said.

“So what are we doing?”

Nate blew out a puff of air. “We’re up here to find your dad, remember? I could have taken out Earl and Kirby and not found out the answer. Most important, I didn’t know where Brad was. I didn’t want either of us to take a bullet. If you got shot, I could never look Marybeth in the eye again.”

“Never mind that. We’re going back, right?”

“Please give me a minute to think. I’m trying to figure out our plan,” he said. It was a rare moment of candor from Nate, she thought.

“They don’t care about Dad. They’re up here to get Steve-2,” she said. “I put it together. Earl blames Steve-2 and ConFab for what happened to Sophia.”

Nate looked over his shoulder at her, urging her to continue. She spilled out her theory: this was all about Earl Thomas getting revenge on Steve Price. Her dad was just along for the ride.

Afterward, she said, “There were terrible rumors about Earl and Sophia. I never really believed them, because you know how high schoolers are. But he did seem unnaturally close to her, and you should have seen him at her graduation. It was embarrassing. Do you think they know where Dad is?”

“I think they’re trying to find him,” Nate said. “Just like us.”

“Then he’s alive,” she said with relief.

“My best guess. Your dad can be pretty wily at times. Are they still watching us?”

She did the bridle-adjustment ruse again. “Yes. But they’re looking up toward the ridge.”

“See that thick timber just ahead?” Nate said.

“Yes.”

“As soon as we get into it, I want you to do something.”

—

Five minutes later, with Nate holding Rojo’s reins while they hid in the dark copse of trees, Sheridan kept low and scrambled back to the mouth of the trail. She ducked behind a thick spruce trunk and pried the covers from the lenses of the binoculars and focused them on Earl and Kirby below them.

Earl was signaling to someone up on the slope by waving his hand. Kirby sat slumped; his head bent forward with his chin resting on his chest. If it was a hangover, as Earl had said, it was a powerful one.

She rotated around the tree to scan the slope. Within a minute, a younger man even bigger than Earl appeared in a clearing. He was riding a huge horse and he was headed downtoward the creek. The man was slowly leading a string of horses behind him. A scoped rifle lay across the cantle of his saddle.

She studied him for just a few seconds before he rode out of view behind more trees. The packhorses, one by one, stepped cautiously down the path.

Sheridan gasped, and leaned into the binoculars so hard they hurt her face as the horses passed through her field of vision.

Then she turned to Nate. “Toby,” she hissed. “Toby is with them.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

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