Zero-Degree Murder (A Search and Rescue Mystery) by M.L. Rowland Read Free Book Online Page A

since the devil had passed her by and continued down the trail? She had no concept of the passage of time, only of the paralyzing terror and the violent images that played and replayed in her mind’s eye.
    She took several long swallows of water, emptying her water bottle.
    Tristan’s bright blue eyes and his smile with its crooked lower tooth filled her vision. A single sob forced its way past her lips and tears stung her eyes. She rubbed them with her fists and steered her thoughts back to the others at the trailhead. What were they doing now? Had they called the police? Was someone out there looking for her?
    “Please God,” she whispered. “Please let someone be looking for me. Please let someone come and help me.”
    She lay back, stretching out full-length on the thick, soft cushion of pine needles, and stared up at the sky. The sun had dropped behind the western peaks, drawing shadow—blue and cold—across the valley. Pink and orange clouds swirled directly overhead. As Diana watched, the last blush of color faded to rust, then charcoal as swiftly and silently as death.
    The feeling in her body crept back, a thousand tiny ice needles pricking her feet and moving up her legs.
    The chill of early evening deepened. In spite of her heavy coat and hat, she shivered. She needed to move. She needed to try to get back to the trailhead, to the others, to safety.
    She gathered up the knit gloves she had torn off earlier and pulled them, dirt-covered and stiff with dried blood, onto her hands.
    Then, willing her stiff body to move, she pushed herself to her feet.

CHAPTER

12
     
    “C ONTROL. Ten Rescue Twenty-two.”
    “Twenty-two.”
    “We’re turning off Highway 26 onto two Nora zero five.”
    “At sixteen fifty-two.”
    The Suburban turned left off the highway and onto the unpaved Forest Service road. For thirty minutes, it climbed up through the San Raphael Wilderness Area toward the Aspen Springs Trailhead, gaining more than three thousand feet in elevation. The SAR vehicle crawled up through steep-walled canyons swathed in darkness, across riffling late-season creeks, slowing almost to a standstill at the hairpin turns, and rounding curves where, inches from the front tire, the mountain dropped precipitously away for a thousand feet.
    By the time the Suburban rolled into the trailhead parking lot, the sunset was a memory in swirling pewter clouds against the fading blue sky.
    Parked across the entrance of the wide gravel lot was a Sheriff’s Department Chevy Tahoe with a deputy sitting inside. Bright yellow Sheriff’s Department tape cordoned off the entrance to the trail itself. At the far end of the lot sat a giant black motor home and three cars.
    The Tahoe rolled ahead to let the Suburban past, then backed into place. Cashman swung the vehicle wide to park in a space opposite the other vehicles.
    As Gracie stepped out onto the gravel, a blast of icy wind almost lifted her off her feet. “Windy,” she yelled. She grabbed her parka from the backseat of the Suburban and threw it on. “And cold. Not a good thing for those city people.” She flipped up the hood of her parka. “Unless we find ’em tonight,” she added to herself, “or they have halfway decent karma, this could turn into another body recovery. Or two. Or three.”
    In a churning of dust, Ralph circled behind the Suburban in the team’s Ford utility truck, pulling a refurbished travel trailer serving as the team’s mobile Command Post. With maps, whiteboards, radios, batteries, office supplies, dishes, food, water, blankets, and a combination shower/toilet, it held everything anyone could possibly need to run a search.
    Cashman swung open the back door of the Suburban and lifted out his pack. “He hauled ass up here.”
    “You made great time, Hunter,” Gracie called over to where her teammate was already out of the truck and chocking the trailer tires.
    “I gotta piss so bad my eyes are yellow,” Cashman said and trotted off in the