“Is that from your own observations, or what she told you?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“It’s easy to feel alienated when you’re trying to figure out your life.”
“Go to hell, Elijah.”
He’d have responded the same way at eighteen. “Nora isn’t used to being out here the way you are.”
“She just wants to clear her head and to practice what you taught her. I tried to tell her the same stuff you did in that class, but she had to hear it from you.” He raised his chin. “The big Green Beret.”
Elijah let that one go. “Any idea what route she took? There are a lot of ways she can get lost or into trouble out here. Does she have a cell phone, GPS?”
“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me her plans.”
“Is she avoiding you, Devin?”
“Get off my case, Elijah. I know you and A.J. think I’m no damn good. Tough.”
“If you don’t know where Nora is, then hike back to the lodge with me. Let’s sit down with A.J. and figure things out.”
“You go back to the lodge.”
Elijah felt like wringing Devin’s neck. “Why are you so combative?”
“I don’t like being under the Cameron microscope. I found your father’s body, and what thanks do I get?”
“Did you expect thanks, Devin?”
He paled slightly, seemed to realize he’d gone too far.
“For two cents,” Elijah said, “I’d throw you off this damn mountain. Hell, I’d do it for free. If you see Nora, let her know that she’s not alone.”
“She is alone.” Devin stood in the middle of the trail, his cheeks red with the cold and emotion as he hooked his walking stick under one arm. “We’re all alone when it comes right down to it.”
Elijah couldn’t argue with him on that score. “You’re a lot of fun these days.”
“I’m a realist.”
“Devin, if you need a hand-”
“I don’t need anything.”
“Money’s missing from the lodge,” Elijah said quietly.
Devin stared down into the dense evergreens and seemed to take a moment to collect himself. “I don’t steal,” he said. “Not from anyone.”
“You’re short one day, cash is sitting right there…”
“I didn’t take anything from A.J. or the lodge. If either of you had any evidence against me, you’d call the police.”
“Not necessarily.”
“How stupid do you think I am?” He spun back onto the trail, set his walking stick on a soft spot and moved forward. “Camerons don’t do favors for anyone but themselves.”
Elijah stayed within ten feet of Devin, and he wondered how fast Jo was gaining on them. He still didn’t want to talk about missing money in front of her. “What about Nora? She’s used to having money. She’s probably had quite a wakeup call being on her own.”
“She doesn’t steal, either.”
“Think you might impress her if you had some extra cash to toss around?”
Devin humped it up a rock face in the middle of the trail. Short of wrestling him to the ground, Elijah had little choice but to let him go. “Take your time,” he said. “Don’t trip on a root or a rock and split your head open. I’m not going to follow you. If you want to talk to me, you know where to find me. Anytime. Day or night.”
No response.
“Where will you be if I want to talk to you?”
Devin raised his middle finger without so much as a pause in his step or a backward glance down the trail.
Message received, Elijah thought.
He started back down the trail, not taking his shortcut this time. A cool breeze floated through the trees, bringing with it the acidic smell of the pines and spruces. He could camp up here for the night. He didn’t have to go back.
But Jo would be gaining on him. He kept going, rounding the hairpin turn, then dropping off the thick roots of a giant spruce tree, landing in front of her. “Agent Harper,” he said amiably. “Nice day for a hike, but watch out for wet spots this time of year. We don’t want to contribute to trail erosion.”
She wasn’t breathing all that hard for someone who’d hiked up the mountain as rapidly as she had. She looked past him. “Where’s Devin headed?”
“He didn’t say. Why? He hasn’t done anything to alert the Secret Service, has he?”
Jo ignored his bantering tone. “What about Nora Asher?”
“I haven’t seen her.”
“Has Devin?”
“Didn’t say.”
“Is he meeting her?”
“Likewise, he didn’t say.” Elijah noticed the color high in Jo’s cheeks-wind, exertion, irritation. A sense of purpose. “Getting banished to Vermont must be rough when you have an ambassador turn up dead in Washington. Nora taking off into the woods by itself isn’t a big deal, but it reminds you that you have nothing to do. So you turn it into something-”
“Elijah.”
“So intense, Jo.” He grinned at her. “Damn, but you have pretty eyes. The copper highlights bring out the turquoise.”
“Elijah, we can do this nice, or I can shoot you. Which will it be?”
“You’re not supposed to talk like that. You’re a professional.”
“No witnesses.”
“You didn’t think there were witnesses at the Neals’, either.”
“No, I didn’t care if there were. There’s a difference.”
Jo did have a way about her. Elijah jumped lightly onto a flat, gray rock. A breeze rustled through the trees. “Devin’s not a bad kid, and if Nora’s decided to try winter camping, for whatever reason, she knows what to do.”
“A lot of people who know what to do end up in trouble up here.”
His father, for one.
Jo seemed to read his mind and took a sharp breath. “Elijah, I’m sorry.”
“Forget it. You just stated a fact. I understand Nora’s father is worried about her, but she’s got a good head start on us. Even if we find her, we’ll probably run out of daylight before we can get her off the mountain. I’m prepared to spend the night up here. You’re not.”
“She is?”
He shrugged. “If she packed the gear she showed me, absolutely.”
“Devin?”
“He’s a natural. Give him a jackknife, and he could survive Antarctica.” But Elijah saw that Jo wasn’t going to respond to his humor, and he said, “I’m not worried about Devin. Let’s get moving before we end up in trouble ourselves.” He nodded down the trail. “You walk point. I’d rather look at your butt than have you look at mine.”
“Elijah…”
“You’re blushing, Agent Harper. I thought I’d never see the day. Even fifteen years ago when we were-”
“Right now, Elijah, I’m looking for a good spot to hide your body.”
She tried to pull off a scowl but couldn’t do it, and he laughed, appreciating that she hadn’t let mention of his father’s death stop her from reacting exactly the way he’d expected, the way he’d wanted her to-sharp-tongued, feisty, smart.
She lifted a foot onto a knee-high boulder and stretched her calf muscles, and he couldn’t help but notice the curve of her hip. “You’re wearing jeans,” he said. “Jeans aren’t good in the cold.”
“I’m aware of that, and, if you’ll notice, you’re also in jeans.”
He patted the strap of his daypack. “But I have a change of clothes. Not carrying any water, either?”
She didn’t answer and dropped her foot back to the trail.
“I have more than enough water to share,” Elijah said.
“Thank you. I’ll let you know if I get thirsty.”
“When was the last time you were up here on your own?”
“Years,” she said, and left it at that as she about-faced and plunged back down the trail.
Her butt really wasn’t hard to look at, Elijah noted. It never had been.
She stopped abruptly and turned to him. “I want to know what you and A.J. aren’t telling me.”
He stepped down next to her. “I don’t know about A.J., but I’m debating the wisdom of telling you that you have mud splattered on your left thigh.”