Flash Point - Savannah Kade Page 0,13

he wouldn’t have to deal with Huston either. He and Bethany and Bob and Doug would be their own teams. Bland and Stanford could be theirs. Everyone would work with someone they already knew. His stomach settled a little with the decision made and he was getting ready to open his mouth, when Kane motioned with his thumb back toward the ambulance.

“We've got Hernandez in the back. The intent is to leave him there and keep him warm. So we can treat anybody that comes in.”

Leo nodded. “Good thinking.”

“Yeah,” Phillips laughed. “Lucky bastard just gets to sit around and stay warm. He’s probably got a book to read.”

Yeah, and Luke could possibly watch his friends come in near death or hold a dying child in his arms. But Leo didn't say those things out loud. He quickly got down to business, anxious to be out and searching.

Dividing them into five teams of two, he pulled out a map and handed a paper copy to each of them. There was no telling what cell reception would be like in these areas and knowing that they were all well equipped to handle compasses and topographical maps made the paper a necessity.

He hoped Huston could handle it, then mentally berated himself. He didn’t know her any more or less than he knew the guys from Beatrice. Was he being a sexist ass? Or was it just something about her? Was the problem that she was beautiful and seemed to have some kind of ‘airs’ about her, as his mother had always said? And was that sexist, too?

There wasn’t time for self-reflection, but Leo figured he should examine that when he didn’t have a four-year-old in need of rescue. Still, he pulled Kane aside, “Are you good with her?”

Sebastian frowned at him as if to ask why he was being an idiot, and Leo scrambled to explain. “She's new. We're searching the mountains—mountains she doesn't know.”

Maybe that was why he was worried. That was legitimate.

But Kane tipped his head, considering it as though Leo had at least provided a reasonable answer for being a dick. “She was up here the other day when we got you—”

When she dropped me, he almost said, but again Leo held his tongue. The point was finding the boy. The point was releasing the deep clenching in his gut and holding the memories at bay just a little while longer, so he quit his line of questioning and got them all ready.

With instructions doled out, backpacks on, and high beam halogen lights in hand, the five groups stepped off into the dark, each aimed a slightly different direction.

Leo had gone maybe three feet before he felt the freezing rain hit his jacket.

This was going to get ugly. Fast.

Chapter Nine

“Check in.” The voice came through calm and certain. It was a command not a question, Jo knew. She also realized the voice wasn’t quite as clear as it had been the last time.

“Huston, Kane, all good,” Jo replied back into her comm, then added, “Nothing yet.”

They'd seen no signs of either boy. Though the parents had given a description of what they were wearing when they left the house, they now knew the Winter boys had brought extra clothing along with the camping gear they’d snuck out, knowing they'd be out overnight. The Ryder boys had done the same thing, and Sterling had been able to tell them what the other boys were now wearing. The good news was that Jason and Dalton Ryder were out in matching red snow jackets. Jo hoped it would be enough.

“Copy that,” Leo’s voice came back through the comm, the sound of it tugged at her , though she didn’t know why. Then she heard another round of back-and-forth as he checked in with each of the other teams. Jo noticed for the first time that she didn't hear the pair from the Beatrice Fire Department reply.

She looked to Kane, who said, “We're all getting slightly further apart. We're probably just out of range with them … reception’s not that good up here.”

Jo nodded. There was a lot of land to cover and a lot of natural structure in the way. Not like in Boston or Dallas.

They’d been relatively quiet up to that point, sweeping their flashlights back and forth in careful motions as a pair. Together they checked a grid pattern, declared an area done, and then turned to check the next section. They were thwarted by trees, trails, underbrush, and more.

Though there