Off the Map (Winter Rescue #2) (6 page)

“Actually, I was feeling guilty about something I said to Carrie after I hung up with you,” Scott said. “I don’t know what it is about her, but I can’t seem to control myself whenever she’s around.”

“I’ve noticed that.”

Big surprise. A blind man living in a cave would have noticed that.

“I acted like a jerk.”

“It happens to the best of us.”

“I accused her of being responsible for Mara’s death.”

Newman paused. “Well, shit. That’ll do it.”

This time, Scott really did laugh out loud, though it turned slightly maniacal at the end. He dropped his head to his hands. “I handled things all wrong. She hates me.”

“She doesn’t hate you. She’s angry with you. It’s not the same thing.”

“It might as well be.”

“Anger passes in time. Hatred leaves a mark. There’s a difference.” Newman nudged him with his elbow. “You know, you two remind me a lot of your mom and dad.”

Instinct reared as a sharp recoil in Scott’s gut, and he almost clapped his hands over his ears to drown out the sound of Newman’s voice. He didn’t want to hear this. He didn’t want to have this conversation. There was no use in confirming what he already knew.

“Barry was the same way.” Apparently, Newman wasn’t picking up on the subtext. “God, he loved your mom. More than anything in the world, like she was oxygen, like she was everything.”

Scott grunted. Newman ignored him.

“And she loved him back just as much, that was the thing. They couldn’t keep it inside. Happiness, anger, resentment, excitement—all of it was right there, so close everyone in the room could almost taste it.”

“I know.” Scott spoke coldly, hoping to shut him down. “I was there.”

“I was always so jealous of them. Everyone was. Their wedding had to be the worst party I’ve ever been to—warm beer, potato salad that poisoned half the guests, rain all over everything—but no one would have changed a thing. Especially the two of them. The world could have been ending around them, but they were so wrapped up in one another, I doubt they would have noticed.”

Scott knew that, too. When the world had ended—
his
world, at least—he was the last person either of them cared about.

But Newman wasn’t done waxing poetic. “I imagine all of us dream of that, of loving someone so much it consumes everything else.”

“I don’t.”

Newman blinked at him.

“I think it’s bullshit.”

“Scott, it’s not what you—”

“Don’t patronize me,” he said, feeling the same happiness, the anger, the resentment, the excitement—all of it. It swelled up inside him before going flat again. “Save it for someone who believes in happily-ever-after. I’m not saying it wasn’t heartwarming and romantic at the time, but you saw what happened when she walked out. You know what it did to him.”

“That was…unfortunate.”

Unfortunate.
Hardly. That word wasn’t descriptive enough for a man so crushed by disappointment and despair that he gave up. On work, on life, on the twelve-year-old boy who might not have lost the love of his life, but who lost both his mother and his father in one fell swoop.

He could still remember walking in the door after school that day, his feet crunching on broken plates and broken glass, everything in the trailer that wasn’t nailed down smashed beyond repair. Not even the bathroom mirror had emerged unscathed. That was where he’d found his dad hunched over the sink, the bloody streak from the point of impact matching the one on his hand.

Sorry, kiddo,
he’d said, his words slurred from hours of hard drinking.
I broke them all. I guess we’re looking at about seventy years of bad luck.

“It wasn’t unfortunate.” Scott’s jaw clamped tight against the memories. “It was catastrophic.”

“And yet, if you went next door and asked him right now, he’d still say it was worth it.”

Scott grunted. He wouldn’t ask. Nor was his dad likely to be sober enough to understand the question. “Has he gotten around to fixing that mirror yet?”

“No. But he will.”

Scott grunted again. He didn’t know why his dad insisted on holding on to that bad luck charm, staring through bloodshot eyes at his cracked reflection every morning, but Scott refused to cross the threshold until it was replaced. He wasn’t going back there, to that place where misfortune reigned. In fact, most of his adulthood had been spent doing everything he could to escape, avoiding any of the bad luck omens that could whirl him into the agony of his adolescence all over again.

Since this wasn’t a topic of conversation he cared to continue much longer, he changed the subject to one only marginally less painful. “Did you get the rest of the report on Mara?”

“Ah.” Newman settled himself on the chair next to him. “So that’s why you really stopped by. And here I thought you were just being friendly.”

“I’m sorry. I have to know what went wrong.”

Asking for the details of Mara’s death was a bit like ripping a Band-Aid off and immediately rubbing salt in the wound, but Scott was determined to do it anyway. He welcomed the pain. At least it was more productive than shattering mirrors. “Based on the article in the paper this morning, it sounds like they made a mess of things out there,” he said. And waited.

After about a minute of sitting there together, their consciences at war, Newman sighed and gave in. “Fine. I’ll tell you—but know that it’s against my better judgment. I don’t think it’s relevant or helpful.”

“Noted.”

“If I were asked to do a full review on the situation—which, for the record, I haven’t—I wouldn’t cite human or canine error. At least, not on behalf of the rescue team. I blame the guide more than anything else. He never should have taken those hunters up there in the first place. In that weather? It was too risky.”

That much Scott knew already. A pair of deer hunters had gone missing near Gypsy Peak when yesterday’s storm blew in. At that altitude—the highest on this side of Washington—the snow fell fast and hard, and it was no wonder they’d been separated from their guide.

“From what I can gather, the team found them fairly quickly, thanks in large part to Mara. She picked up on their scent almost immediately, and directed them to an overhang where they managed to take shelter. Unfortunately, the storm picked up again and took them all by surprise. In the rush to get the volunteers and hunters secure before they lost visibility again, Mara went missing.”

Scott had been sitting there with his eyes closed, trying to paint a mental image of the scene, but at that, his eyes flew open. “What did you just say?”

“The winds were too high by that time to bring in a helicopter extraction team, so they had to rendezvous with the snowmobile fleet at one of the ranger stations. It took almost eight hours, and she got lost somewhere along the way.”

“Lost?”

“I know it’s hard, Scott, but these things happen—”

“Last night on the phone you said she was gone. Not lost. Gone.”

“She
is
gone.”

“No.”
Gone
implied dead.
Gone
implied irretrievable. He knew what
gone
meant. “If they didn’t bring a body back with them—if they didn’t actually witness her death—then she could still be out there.”

Newman caught his meaning before he finished the sentence. “It’s been over twenty-four hours, Scott. The weather forecast is still grim. Even if she did find a place to hide out, the chances of her still being alive—”

“Are just as good as if a human had been left out there. No—better, because she has the instincts to survive.” Scott sprang to his feet, pausing only to glance at the clock hanging on the wall above Newman’s head. Just past four o’clock, which gave him about an hour to get home and formulate a plan before most of the Search and Rescue group got off from their regular jobs. He could call around. Pull together a team. Force the Colville SAR and national park rangers to join him in heading back out there.

“They looked, Scott. They tried. You have to trust that they know what they’re doing.”

“That’s exactly what I
don’t
have to do. Leave no man behind—that’s rule number one, isn’t it? And they broke it.”

“Actually, rule number one is always listen to your unit leader.”

Scott appreciated the rare show of humor from his friend and mentor, but he wasn’t swayed. It was a long shot, he knew, and it was unthinkable to encroach on another team’s territory like this, but he had to try.

This was Mara they were talking about. Mara, who lived and breathed to make her handler happy, who would do anything—even sit out there alone in the freezing cold, shivering and waiting, her eyes on the horizon for any sign of human life—if she thought that was what was being asked of her.

He almost choked at the way that image hit him, how true it was to her personality, how much of an idiot he’d been to entrust her to anyone else’s care. Predictably, his emotions began moving outward, a splay of anger he couldn’t contain even if he wanted to. “I can’t believe they just abandoned her like that. This is the last time I’m selling them one of my dogs.”

He grabbed his keys and started heading for the door when Newman spoke, his voice quiet but firm. “That’s not fair, and you know it. They wanted to go back out and search for her, but even if they did feel confident about finding anything, there’s no way they’re getting into that area. The blizzard warning is still in effect and the roads are impassable—they’re saying not even snowmobiles can get through.”

That wasn’t good enough for Scott. He’d been doing this long enough to know there was always a way in. Always. When human life was on the line, when someone’s daughter or son or mother or father was out there, you found a way.

“It’s just not possible,” Newman added. His tone was designed to soothe and pacify—Scott had heard it enough times in his life to know—but for once, it didn’t work. “You have to let this go. You have to let her go.”

He couldn’t do it. He knew he should, but he couldn’t.

When Scott had first started training the dogs, a side project Newman had given him during those long winter breaks when school was out and being at home was unthinkable, he’d wanted to keep every animal for himself. Kendrick, Lance, Birdy, Wallace, Frog…he remembered each one, could say exactly where each one had been placed and what their individual strengths were. Kendrick was a leader, so intent he spurned all attempts at physical affection. Lance had a scratchy bark from a vocal cord injury at birth, but his nose was impeccable, and he could sniff out almost anything. Birdy was a picky eater but had stamina that could carry her for days. Wallace and Frog were rambunctious and inseparable, and they eventually had to be placed together or they refused to work at all.

He’d cried those first five times he said goodbye—curled up on his unmade bed, listening to his dad doing the same thing the next room over for a woman who was never coming back. He was barely a teenager, and he’d already become so much like his old man you couldn’t tell their sobs apart.

That was the moment that had changed everything. Without waiting for the tears to dry, he’d planted his feet on the floor and got back to work. Training dogs was something he enjoyed—and he was good at it—but he would
never
let himself become like the shell of a man he lived with.

He’d never cried over another dog again after that…though he’d sure as hell come pretty close last night.

“I can’t let her go. I wish I could walk away from this—you have no idea how much I wish it—but I
can’t
.” Scott took a deep breath, feeling the past rip open, hearing the echoing shatter of glass all around him. “If the place is inaccessible by snowmobile, then I’ll go by air. A chopper can get me close enough to set up a base camp and search by foot. It’s worth a shot.”

“Scott. Listen to yourself.” Newman pulled out his phone and stabbed at the screen, and Scott knew without looking that he was accessing his weather updates. “Winds up to twenty miles an hour. Gales twice that. Temperatures well below the teens. Even if you could find someone willing to land a helicopter in that, the chances of any area being clear enough to safely touch down are almost nothing.”

“Steady Pete’ll do it.”

“Steady Pete will laugh in your face.”

“Then I’ll do it without him.” He steeled his expression and met Newman’s gaze dead-on. “I’ll charter a flight. I’ll pay someone all the money I have to take me as close as they can. If I can find a pilot, you’ll give me clearance for one of the new choppers, won’t you?”

Newman clucked and shook his head. “No one is crazy enough to risk their career and life for a dog, Scott. No one.”

Scott felt a sudden sharp pang in the center of his chest. He thought for a moment he was having a heart attack, but it abated as quickly as it had started, leaving only a cold numbness in its place.

He welcomed that numbness. He relished it. Somehow, he’d always known it would come down to this.

“That’s not true,” he said, his eyes not wavering from Newman’s. “One person is just that crazy.”

Unfortunately, her name was Carrie Morlock.

Chapter Four

“Oh, Carrie—I’m so sorry I treated you like the scum that was growing inside my vest. I was wrong, and I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”

“Would you? Would you really? Anything?”

“Of course. I love you more than the moon loves the stars, more than you love re-watching
Gone with the Wind
, more than a necrophiliac loves his job at the morgue.”

“Scott, I can hardly believe it! How do I know you’re not just trying to sweet-talk me?”

“Believe this, my darling.”

Their lips touched somewhat awkwardly, since their noses got in the way and Voodoo Scott still had his creepy Joker face on, so Carrie made a few kissing noises for authenticity. Barbie Carrie was totally into it, her cotton miniskirt riding high under Scott’s wandering plastic hands.

But then she realized what she was doing and stopped. Best-case scenario, she was a grown woman sitting in her bedroom playing with dolls. Worst-case scenario, she was an unemployed and recently dumped helicopter pilot pining after a man who hated her.