“Last I checked,” Mac told Cady mildly, “pacing the scene, badgering the rangers, and waiting for your kids to arrive doesn’t qualify as resting.”

I expected Cady to put Mac in his place, but a flicker of emotion took hold of her features. “Mac? You don’t need to tell me that when people get tired, they make mistakes.”

What mistakes? I thought. What people?

Cady supplied zero context for her words. “One hour off,” she told Mac. “For both of us. That’s all we can afford. In the meantime…” She knelt down to greet the dogs. “Jude, Free: See if the bloodhounds can pick up the trail and follow it as far as you can. Kira, I want you and Saskia to give the hounds a wide berth. We’ve got weather headed in and need to cover as much ground as we can before it gets here.”

If it rained, we were in trouble. Whatever evidence Bella had left in her wake could be washed away.

“I’ve got a ball of dollar bills in my sock drawer that says it won’t rain until noon.” Gabriel didn’t wait for Cady’s response before turning to me. “Sorrow’s Pass and the surrounding woods are bounded by cliffs on one side and ninety-degree inclines on the other. We can beat a wide path around the perimeter and work our way in.”

Our way, I thought, making my best attempt to swallow the implication there. Because we’re partners.

“Sounds like a plan.” Jude adopted a conspiratorial whisper and leaned toward Gabriel. “Good luck getting Kira to shut that ever-moving trap of hers. She’s a talker, this one.”

“I’ll talk enough for both of us.” Gabriel didn’t miss a beat. “If you promise to search for my body when she kills me dead.”

Very funny. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but they wouldn’t come. I was used to Jude whispering conspiratorially to me. I wasn’t used to my people opening the ranks to someone else.

“We’ll cover as much area as we can,” I said abruptly. I wasn’t here to converse—or make friends. I turned my attention to Saskia, leading her to get the scent of Bella’s blood.

“Kira?” Cady waited until I turned back to face her before parting with a final bit of instruction. Jude and Free had made me watch television frequently enough that I knew this was the part where most TV parents would have told us to be careful.

Cady had a different refrain. “Be smart.”

Chapter 18

Despite his promise to talk enough for both of us, Gabriel gifted me with silence as we pushed through the woods. There was a chance he was hoping to prod me into speaking first.