He heard how crazy that sounded as the words came out of his mouth, but Dave was respectful.
“You seriously think Lieutenant King would’ve just let Tasha help?” he asked. “Just let her charge with him, into danger? Wouldn’t he have—more realistically—tucked her away someplace safe? And if so, why didn’t the infrareds pick that up?”
Good point.
“You know, the fact that all those heat signals were out by the burned out SUV,” Dave continued, still a tad slowly and carefully, “actually means that if there were bodies, either nearby or in the vehicle, they’ll probably be moved before we get there.”
Rio shook his head. He didn’t want to hear that, thanks. “Caves,” he said. “Maybe they found a cave. Mountains have caves.”
Dave sighed. Just a little.
“Or maybe they found a mine,” Rio persisted. “The ski lodge isn’t that far from New Hampshire—the Granite State.”
“Granite is quarried,” Dave said.
“Still,” Rio said. “Big holes in the ground.”
“Big open holes in the ground.”
“Okay, so maybe not so much with a mine or quarry then, but mountains still have caves, or Jesus, rocky cliff-like overhangs. Infrared imaging’s awesome, but it won’t pick up heat signals if Thomas and Tasha are underground.”
“Okay, you’re right. You win.” Dave laughed a little as he glanced at Rio. But his eyes were sad, and Rio heard the words his teammate didn’t say: But really, what are the odds of that?
Thomas used the knock they’d agreed upon before he left—the rhythm of the Lizzo lyrics Just walk your fine ass out the door. Tash had chosen it because she claimed that the men who’d grabbed her would have no clue who Lizzo was. But Thomas suspected she also got some kind of special glee from having him tap that specific line.
He’d expected to have to knock more than once, but he’d barely finished before the lock on the heavy door was released. He pushed while Tash pulled.
“Fun fact,” she said. “The lights down here go out for five seconds when the hatch door is opened. First time it happened, I got a little nervous, but it did it again when you came back, so it’s clearly some kind of royal-sex-pod-user warning system. Like, Quick, put your clothes back on, your highness, someone’s coming!”
Hope was bright in her eyes as she looked out at him, then peered behind him toward the stairs, as if she’d expected him to bring the rescue team down here with him.
“Nothing yet,” he told her, emphasis hard on the yet.
Now her eyes were filled with uh-oh as he came inside and shut and locked the door behind him. “Not even a message?”
“Not yet.”
“That’s strange,” she said. “Isn’t it? I mean, I was picturing some kind of tree like in To Kill a Mockingbird, only instead of a leaving a gift of a SAT phone in its hollow, Uncle Alan would just be sitting there himself, up on one of the branches like the biggest, weirdest bird in the world.”
Thomas laughed at that image as he unfastened the raincoat. He’d been moving pretty fast and despite the cold weather, the waterproof coating had turned the damn thing into a sweat factory. “Yeah, I half expected that, too.” He peeled the jacket off his arms, then realized he was standing there bare-chested, in just those flimsy flannel pants and his doctored boots.
Tash didn’t seem to care. In fact, she handed him a ready bottle of water, as if she knew he’d come back running hot. “Where are they?” she asked. “What’s going on?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Thomas admitted, drinking the water—that was the one thing they wouldn’t have to ration. The shelter’s water filter was high quality, plus they could be extra cautious by boiling whatever they used for drinking and cooking.
“This is so bizarre.” Tash flopped down on the sofa.
In contrast to his shirtlessness, she was wearing both of their bathrobes, with a white blanket on top. The extra-padded effect was very Pillsbury Doughboy. Especially since she was using a small white towel—a hand towel draped over her head—as a make-shift hat. She’d found some kind of clasp—sane people used them to seal bags of chips, so she’d no doubt found this one in a kitchen drawer—and had attached it beneath her chin to keep her towel-hat securely in place.
It was hard not to laugh—or at least smile—when he looked at her, especially since he was quite comfortable, even with his shirt off, in what he considered an acceptably warm temperature. Of course, he had just been out in the twenty-degree morning.
“You’re really that cold?” he asked.
“I lived in San Diego for too long,” she told him defensively. “And I wasn’t young enough to be brainwashed when I first saw Frozen. The cold does bother me anyway, thank you very much, Elsa.”
“You must’ve been miserable in the hide.”
“You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.” She quoted an old SEAL adage back at him. “Also the shared-body-heat thing really worked.”
“I meant yesterday’s,” Thomas said. “When I was gone for so long.”
“Oh, the English Patient hide,” she said. “Yes. That sucked pretty hard, but at least I knew dying of thirst was off the table, because I’d freeze to death first. Hey, look, go me! I got the weapons locker open and found this.” She gestured grandly toward the coffee table in front of her, where—whoa!—two boxes of 7mm ammo were its new centerpiece.
“That’s great,” he said. “How did you...?”
“Seven two two eight, two two,” she told him. “I know Ted pretty well.”
“Damn.” That was impressive and... oddly disappointing, since it blew up the story he’d been telling himself about Tasha’s relationship with her idiot prince—that it was superficial and based purely on sex.
Which wasn’t that great of a story to start with, and yet...
She was asking him something, and he looked over to find her giving him her impatient face, as she obviously repeated herself. “Tell me, at least, that you left a message.”
“You know I did,” he said. “And I’ll go back there, later. And tomorrow, and...” Et cetera.
“Where are they?” Tasha asked again. “And I know that you don’t know, I get that, but... Do you maybe have a guess?”
He sat on the other side of the sofa’s L, on the edge of the seat, careful to keep his sweaty-ass self from the leather-covered cushions as he gave her his best guess, as dark as it was.
“There’s been no air traffic,” he told her, but then immediately back-pedaled, “at least that I’ve seen or heard, right? Still, we were down here all night, seeing and hearing nothing, so that’s a very large chunk of time in which jets and airliners may have been flying overhead. But again, while I was outside this morning... nothing.”
She was smart. “You think something happened that shut down all flights in this airspace or...”
He could’ve sworn he didn’t flinch or twitch or even move a muscle, but she somehow read his mind.
“All flights in the U.S.?” Her mouth dropped open. “Oh, shit. Like on 9/11. You think there’s been some kind of terror attack?”