“Get in,” she said. “Paige is missing. We think she went looking for you. We need you to help find her.”
His gut clenched as two words registered: “Paige. Missing.”
Without a beat of hesitation, Jake strode around to the passenger side, tossed his pack into the backseat, sprang in beside her and slammed the door. He could find out what had happened on the way back to the ranch. “Go,” he said.
She turned the Jeep around and roared back up the road.
“How long’s she been gone?” He fired the question at her.
“We just missed her a few minutes ago, but the last time I saw her was after breakfast. Dusty has the students searching around the ranch. But we need you.” She paused. “Jake, she knows you’re her father.”
“You told her?”
“I didn’t have to. She figured it out.”
Jake stared through the windshield wipers at the road. He’d assumed he could just walk away from here, like he always had. How wrong he’d been.
“Any idea where she might go?” he asked.
“If she’d gone by way of the road, I’d have seen her on my way down here. She may have taken one of the trails below the gate. But she doesn’t know her way out of the canyon. We’ve never let her go down there alone.”
Jake pictured his little girl wandering through the rain, lost and scared, looking for her father—for him.
“Could the dog track her?” he asked, grasping at any faint hope.
“Tucker’s missing, too. We think he must’ve followed her.” She glanced at him as the Jeep pulled through the side gate of the ranch. “Here’s what I’m thinking. You and I can follow the trail down to where it forks, then take separate directions. If that’s where she’s gone, it’s our best chance of finding her.”
“Makes sense.” Jake thought about taking horses, but swiftly realized that saddling them would take time, and horses could spook or slip in the storm. He and Kira would be better off on foot.
They pulled up to the house and climbed out of the Jeep. Dusty was waiting for them on the porch. He shook his head. No sign of Paige.
“Let’s go,” Kira said. Leaving his pack in the vehicle, Jake followed her toward the high gate at the top of the trail. Dressed in sneakers and a light nylon jacket, she’d be soaked within minutes. Pulling off his waterproof poncho, Jake stopped her and slipped it over her head. She started to protest, but he touched a finger to her lips.
“Just go,” he said.
With Kira leading, they passed under the ranch gate and took the winding trail down the canyon. Thunder cracked overhead. Rain drummed around them, turning the trail dust to slippery mud. With every step, Jake thought about his little girl, out here somewhere in the storm, cold and frightened, maybe even in danger. He’d never been much of a praying man, but he prayed silently that Paige would be safe and that they would soon find her.
Minutes later they reached the lookout rock where the trail forked—one branch winding along the foothills, the other going down toward the small side canyon with the waterfall. They paused, as if both of them had suddenly realized that once they separated, they’d have no way to communicate. No phone, no gun or flare to shoot. Kira glanced at her wristwatch. “Forty minutes and we meet back here,” she said. “If one of us doesn’t make it, the other one goes for help. All right?”
“Fine.” Jake checked his own watch, then moved toward the steeper, more dangerous trail leading downhill to the waterfall.
At the sound of his name, he looked back. She was watching him, fear and love mingled in her gaze. “Be careful,” she said.
“You too.” He started down the trail. At the first bend, he paused and glanced back. I love you, he wanted to say. We’ll find her and everything will be all right.
But it was too late for that. Kira had already gone.
* * *
Heedless of the pelting rain and the slippery trail, Jake lengthened his stride. He remembered that little canyon all too well—first its beauty, then the total devastation after the last rainstorm, when the runoff from the mountains had scoured it bare and left everything coated with mud. Anyone in the path of that flash flood would have died. Now it could easily be happening again. If Paige had gone this way, she could be in terrible danger.
Flash floods tended to happen later in a storm, after the mountain runoff had found a path and built up enough current to race downhill with devastating force. Could he reach the waterfall before the flood came surging over the top of it with the momentum of a freight train, sweeping up rocks, trees and everything in its path?
Driven by fear, Jake began to run, leaping roots and boulders, skidding through mud. Once, he fell, tumbling down the brushy slope. Scraped and bruised, he scrambled back to the trail and plunged on.
He was getting closer, when he heard a sound that sickened him with dread—the hiss and roar of water rushing down the canyon bottom. The flood had beaten him in his desperate race. But he couldn’t stop. If Paige was down there, he had to find her.
Sides throbbing with effort, he ran on. Suddenly he heard another sound. He paused, breath rasping, ears straining. Had he imagined it? No, there it was again, faint but distinct. It was the bark of a dog.