His radio chirped, and the dispatcher spoke. “Ranger Son, we just received a request from George Shaw’s family for a law enforcement ranger to check on the tribal elder in his cabin near Lake Olympus.”

Jae frowned. George should have vacated his cabin with the other inholding landowners. But his cabin wasn’t on the lake, so maybe he’d been excluded from that order? Jae had no role in the process, and so he didn’t really know. It wasn’t like he could have asked Audrey for the finer details.

“I’m unable to do a check tonight,” he replied, “but I’ll head to the lodge tomorrow.” If the Navy had changed the locks without permission, he’d make sure they coughed up a key.

“Isn’t tomorrow your day off, Ranger Son?”

He smiled, thinking of the attractive young woman who was on the other end of the conversation. She’d completed her law enforcement ranger training at the same school Jae had up in the Skagit Valley and was working as a dispatcher during the off-season as she applied for seasonal ranger jobs at all the major parks. She was kind and smart, and now it appeared she was aware of his work schedule. He wanted to ask her about that, but that conversation would be better if it happened over beers after work and not over the park radio.

“It is, but George is a friend, and I need to follow up on the cameras and potential looting anyway.”

He pulled out onto the highway that skirted the north and western margins of the mountain range that defined the peninsula, heading north toward Forks. He’d check in with Audrey later, after his shift. She lived only a few miles from him in Port Angeles. If she didn’t call him back, he’d stop by her house.

Thick sheets of rain swamped his vehicle, and he imagined being a SEAL, out in the rainforest right now, role-playing combat in this miserable, drenching storm.

No, thank you.

Jae participated in plenty of search and rescue operations and could do the work that was necessary. But to be faking it? In this? He was more than thankful for the shelter of his SUV.

The thankful feeling proved to be short-lived when less than a mile from the intersection to 101 that would take him to Forks, he came across a mudslide that partially blocked the road.

He’d driven this road just twenty minutes before.

Still, he should have seen this coming with the heavy rain. Washington was among the most mudslide-prone states, suffering hundreds—sometimes even thousands—each year, and this stretch of the Olympic Peninsula had more than its share with the storms that roared in from the Pacific.

Thankfully, there was no sign of other vehicles on the road, and there were no homes or businesses in the area.