Lynn hadn’t wanted to stick around for the aftermath, and not just the playing nursemaid part as Xavier recovered from surgery. She was worried about PTSD.
Much as he wanted to believe otherwise, it was a looming specter in Chris’s mind as well. Not just for Xavier, but for himself. He’d have been happy to never reveal to another soul what had transpired on that op. What he’d done to save Xavier after he’d failed to protect the others.
Pam had expressed the same fears to Chris. He’d promised to do the work.
But had he? Or had he pushed her away?
And, as far as he could tell, she’d moved on emotionally the same time Lynn did. Except Lynn made it a clean break, while Pam supposedly stayed by his side even as she took one of his closest friends as a lover.
But now he wondered, had he been the one to shut her out as he did the bare minimum needed to skate by and return to active duty? Not that anything could excuse her actions, but the thought still crossed his mind.
He shook his head. This was an op. He shouldn’t be thinking about Pam. But then, it was a messed-up op, designed to shatter everyone’s focus.
Xavier could be dead. A Fire Team was missing.
They’d been attacked on American soil, in a location that should have been absolutely secure.
He faced the men he was now leading. No more thoughts of Pam. He couldn’t even think of Xavier. No. He was Rivera. A stone-cold operator like the rest of them.
First, they needed to figure out who had killed the tango his team had found. That person had claimed weapons and was an ally.
“We need intel on the SUV you found. The one with the bullet holes and flat tires,” Williams said.
Chris gave a sharp nod. “I was thinking the same thing. Huang and I will go check it out. Phelps and Jonas, your job is to hold this position. Update the fourth team when they show up.”
Tasks set, the teams divided and set out into the pouring rain once again.
Rain continued to fall in torrents, making Audrey question her love of the Pacific Northwest and this park and the rainforest around the lodge in particular. Thank goodness she’d gotten wool socks and high-quality leather hiking boots from Danielle Baldwin, or her feet would be soaked and numb with cold as she trudged through the woods to Jeb McCutcheon’s cabin.
She was weary in the extreme, but still wired with adrenaline. She’d had no idea her body could perform at this pace, especially at eleven and a half weeks pregnant, but survival instincts overrode hormones, apparently.
Jeb’s cabin, at the farthest end of the road from the lodge, was closer than any other to George’s forest hideaway on the opposite side of the falls. Kaxo Falls sat at the top of the lumpy boot, while Jeb’s was on the back of the calf.
Between Jeb’s place and the falls was a campground that had an historic CCC picnic shelter that was due for refurbishment this summer. Jeb often complained about campers on his property. A thinning of the clouds to the northwest allowed the moon’s glow to penetrate and cast faint illumination across the lake, allowing her to read the half dozen “NO TRESSPASSING” signs Jeb had posted around his property.
They stuck to the shadows of the trees as much as possible as they watched the old cabin and carriage house, which now served as a garage.
“We’ll wait for the clouds in front of the moon to thicken again, then make a move on the house,” Xavier whispered, his lips brushing her ear so he could be heard over the steady beat of raindrops on her hood.
She nodded. After hours of wishing for the slightest bit of illumination so she could see her feet, it was a bit odd to be wishing the light away. But the moon would be lost behind the hills and trees to the northwest in another hour or so anyway. It would set a little more than an hour before sunrise. According to Xavier, at that point, they would be setting up their tent deep in the woods, and her body ached for that moment when she could collapse in a warm sleeping bag.
She studied the cabin, which was one of the oldest structures on the lake—predating the lodge by at least ten years. She hadn’t always gotten along with Jeb—the confrontation she’d had with him in mid-November when the looting was discovered was a case in point—but she grieved his loss. He’d loved this land even more than she did, and he’d devoted his life to protecting it, even if she disagreed with his methods and sometimes his views.
He’d been a gruff Vietnam vet with an understandable deep distrust of the government. He’d viewed every action by the park with suspicion. And of course, in many instances, he wasn’t wrong. After all, ONP’s early days had been rife with colonialism. It hadn’t been a golden age for the tribal members who’d been locked out of their usual and accustomed fishing and hunting areas—theirs by right of treaties signed over a hundred and sixty years ago. But even Jeb recognized the progress of the last few decades. George’s tribe had reclaimed their ancestral cabin, and George was granted unrestricted use of the woodshop and official title as master carver for the park.
The park didn’t do everything wrong. But Audrey knew the park didn’t do everything right either.
ONP could never make up for all the losses the tribes had suffered over the centuries, but at least they were making an inclusive effort and offered reparations in ways the park could give.
Now Jeb was dead and George… Where was he?
He’d been close to Jeb. They both had been sent to Vietnam at the tender age of nineteen, serving a few years apart. Audrey figured a bond had formed when they both returned, utterly changed from who they’d been previously and needing the touch point of someone who understood the experience.
Had George known Jeb planned to stay in his cabin during the training? What had been Jeb’s plan?
She dearly hoped they’d find answers in his cabin. Plus, she harbored a hope that maybe his phone line—and all the phones on this side of the split in the road—still worked. Then Xavier could call the Navy, who would swoop in and rescue everyone.
Hope was dangerous, but it had enabled her to place one foot in front of the other for the last miserable hour. Hope was the only thing that kept incapacitating fear at bay.