Outside
“Goddammit,” Vin said, as his call to Iz went to voicemail yet again.
Evie pressed her lips together. She had made her share of calls too, but they were both getting nowhere.
“What made her decide to come out here in the middle of the night?” Evie said.
The worry and frustration in her voice made her wince. She didn’t really blame Iz. It was exactly the kind of rookie mistake nine out of ten marshals would make in their first few months on the job, before they racked up enough bruises to know they weren’t invincible. She would have done the same thing.
That was why rookies ideally didn’t even get thechanceto do anything like this. Under normal circumstances, Cooper would have been watching Iz like a hawk until she got a little more seasoned.
Fucking Randolph Sebastian.
Vin kicked a rock. “It’s stupid,” he said heatedly. “It was a dumbass, green, wet behind the ears move to make, and now we don’t have any idea what’s happening to her.”
“I would have done the same thing, in her shoes, back when I was starting out.” She might even do the same thing now, if the stakes were high enough.
“Ididdo the same thing when I was starting out,” Vin said. “Look where that got me.” He traced one of the worst scars on his cheek, an angry red and white blossom of snarled tissue.
They had worked together for five years now, and Vin had never willingly talked to her about his scars. Technically, as far as she knew, he’d never talked to anybody. She had the impression that Cooper knew what had happened, but he’d never confirmed it.
And Evie had never asked. It was Vin’s business, and he kept himself to himself more than anybody she’d ever met. He’d never kicked open the door to his personal life and let Evie have a look around, and she didn’t know what to do with it now.
Did he want her to ask? Or was he only giving her the chance because he was shaken up, and he’d regret her asking once he was more himself again?
She hesitated over it too long, and Vin moved on.
“We don’t know that it’s Sebastian. The woods are dangerous all on their own. There are a lot of ways for people to get lost or hurt, especially in the dark.” He tilted his head back, looking up at the tree-tops. “I don’t know how easy it would be for her to fly out of here. Have you ever seen her shift? Do you know how big she is?”
Evie shook her head. “I’ll get Cooper to ask her cousin. I think it’s time to bring everybody in on this one. We can’t search the woods by ourselves, and if Izisout there somewhere, too hurt and lost to make it out, I don’t want to just stand around killing time.”
She took her phone out and paused, looking down at the screen.
“Did she get back to you?” Vin said, with a sudden hopefulness in his voice.
“No, unfortunately. But I just noticed that I’m still getting pretty good signal out here in the middle of nowhere, and I think Iz and I are on the same cell phone network. We might be able to track her phone. Even if it’s dead, we could probably get the last known location before the battery died.”
“Better than nothing,” Vin agreed.
At least it might help them narrow down the search from all these square miles of dense forest. But she had the sinking feeling that it still wasn’t going to be enough. There was somethingmalevolenthere, like someone was laughing at them. She hated to think of Iz’s brightness lost in all this gloom.
Where are you, Iz?