“Not that I’ve seen.” Lily sighed. “She happens to be in the cabin where there might be some trouble brewing, but it could just be teenage drama. I don’t know why I didn’t expect that.”

Chase shook her head. “See, that’s why the camp makes me crazy. Too many hormones, too much drama. Who needs it?”

Lily laughed. “How old are you?”

Chase smirked. “Why?”

“Because you sound like you’re ninety.”

“I’m twenty-five.”

“You can’t have forgotten what it was like to be a teenager, then.”

“I wasn’t like that,” she said quietly.

Lily cocked her head, the dawn light bright enough now for Chase to see her clearly. She’d pulled her hair back with some kind of hair tie, and her eyes were clear and bright. She looked great in that loose shirt that still managed to cling in all the right places, and the shorts left a lot of leg to admire. Still those damn running shoes.

“What were you like?” Lily murmured.

Chase ran a hand through her hair. She was too tired for this conversation. “I didn’t have any questions about who I was. I knew exactly what I was gonna do.” She laughed shortly. “I just needed to grow up fast enough to do it.”

“Be a ranger, you mean.”

“No,” Chase said, “that was not my plan.” She leaned down and bundled up her dirty clothes.

“What was your plan, then?” Lily asked.

“Some other time, Lily.” Chase sighed. “Sorry, just…long story.”

“You’re tired, aren’t you,” Lily said.

“No, I’m fine,” Chase said quickly.

“Have you had any sleep since you left here the other night?”

“Did I wake you up?”

“I didn’t realize it was you,” Lily said. “I heard a vehicle leave. I guess I should’ve known it was you, but I wasn’t used to things around here. No one else seems to stir between sundown and dawn, except Sarah. I think she’s always up late.”

“I end up going out most nights,” Chase said. “We get a lot of calls, and in the summer, it’s pretty much all the time. Sometimes I don’t even get to the messages until midnight.”

“Not a job for the fainthearted.” Lily walked beside Chase back to shore. “What was it?”

“Missing hiker,” Chase said. “She was twenty-four hours late for check-in, but her friends kept expecting her to show up at any time, because she always did, and then they finally let us know.”

“Solo hiker?” Lily asked.

“Yeah.” Chase let out a long breath. “Not unusual up here at all. I always used to go out alone.”

“Yes, but you were born climbing, I’ll bet.”

Chase gave her a quick look. “Why do you say that?”

Lily looked surprised. “I know that you grew up in the mountains, and I’ve seen you look at them. They call you, don’t they?”

“They do,” Chase said flatly. “They won’t be calling this girl anymore. We needed the dogs to pick up her trail. She’d been making a serious climb, probably got onto a muddy patch that looked solid and wasn’t. She went into a ravine.”