One of the medics turned to me, shining a small flashlight in my face. “You look a little pale, sir. You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, waving the light away. “I’m good.”

Ellie looked at Tyler, and he forced himself to say the words. “Just do what they say, babe.”

“Tyler?” she said.

He leaned forward, and I put my hand on his chest. “She needs you to stay calm, brother.”

The officers took her away, reading her rights as they walked. They took care to not let her hit her head on the way into the back seat then closed the door behind her. After a short conversation, they waved to us and drove away.

Watts folded his fingers on top of his head. “Holy shit.”

“Naomi is good friends with Trex. He was FBI at one point, right? Maybe he can help?” I asked.

Tyler turned to me and nodded, bewildered. “Yeah. Maybe.”

“Follow the road out to camp,” Chief ordered. “We’re done for the night.”

“Hey, Zeke?” Tyler said.

“Yeah?”

“If you want Naomi, you should tell her. I know she’s in love with her dead husband, and she’s a hard ass and all that, but damn … everyone needs to be told once in a while, you know? Sometimes you think they know you care about them, and then you find out too late they don’t.”

My heart bled a little for the shame on his face. “I’ll tell her.”

He nodded. “Good.”

chapter fourteen

cruel and unusual

Naomi

“W

hat are we doing here again?” Trex asked, peering over my shoulder.

I shrugged him off, looking closer at the monitors. In addition to the cameras all over the Complex, Peter secured funding for drone deployment twenty-four hours a day. They were equipped with night vision, thermal imaging, zoom, and GPS beacons. Even with all that tech, they can’t to locate the mother effing Alpines? I knew Zeke had been on the mountain since around four thirty a.m. because I heard the helo going up just after sunrise.

“We’re looking,” I said.

“For what?”

“Just looking.”