made sense. Get rid of Conrad, and have Kalan replace Bethany. He was down a search partner himself.
But he didn’t get a chance to reply. Jo Huston’s whiskey-colored voice came over the line before he could say anything.
“Kane and Huston here. We’re still in.”
It was followed pretty quickly by Smith’s deep voice, even though he was probably standing right next to Phillips as he said it. “Smith. Still in.”
Leo couldn’t help but smile. There were others. It wasn’t just him. They could find the boys. But poor Kalan had been out all night with Conrad Phillips by his side. It was time to regroup and get a new strategy.
Even as he had the thought, lightning cracked overhead.
His head whipped up, the indigo sky cut with white fingers arcing through the air.
At the same time, he heard multiple voices over his comm. Sebastian had hit the button in time to catch both him and Huston yelling, “Oh shit!”
Chapter Thirteen
An hour later, Leo was down to the final three of his original SAR team.
The Oh shit he had heard from Huston was them reacting to a tree getting hit by lightning nearby.
Very nearby, it turned out. Leo hadn’t heard the actual crisis, but they’d called in their report immediately afterwards. Both of them had managed to get out of the way, but one of the branches had been close, and it ripped open Sebastian Kane’s rain gear. They hadn’t said it, but the guy was probably going to have a rough bruise and some bad scratches if it had torn through the thick plastic.
The problem was the tear ruined the quality of his gear. By the time they'd regrouped, one entire side of him was wet. Though Kane had protested, Leo still had sent him home. The last thing he needed was to actually lose someone.
He made Conrad Phillips head back to town with his fellow firefighter. Unfortunately, Kane—wet as he was—had to be the driver. Phillips had managed to pick the wrong foot gear. His ice cleats didn’t fit and though Leo hadn’t caught the error at the beginning of the night, it was clear now that his boots were soaked through.
The last thing anyone needed was the next three weeks of complaining—or maybe a lifetime of it—if Phillips lost any toes to this incident. There wasn't even a found child to counter the trouble they’d gone to tonight. Leo was losing hope. It was down to him, Kalan Smith, and Jo Huston. They stood together at the edge of the makeshift parking lot.
Everyone had lost their partner now, Leo thought as he watched the taillights head down the driveway. Conrad Phillips’ truck bounced away, Kane at the wheel taking them to warmer places. Leo could admit he was jealous of that.
“It's almost seven am,” he told the others, because apparently he was still in charge of the clusterfuck. “I was expecting some light by now.”
Hell, he was expecting anything better than this, he thought. He had hoped the storm would pass through early. Instead, it had rolled slowly in, almost too slowly, and now it seemed to be lingering.
With the weather the way it was, there was no Command Central. No volunteers putting up the red-topped tent and handing out granola bars or hot soup. The locals came out in force when they could, but this was by necessity a bare bones operation.
He hated it. But he made the call. “Everybody in my truck.”
Everybody was just the three of them. Though Smith and Huston looked at each other clearly wondering if they were getting called off, too, they didn't disobey the order. He noticed Huston aimed for the back door, setting herself separate from the two guys.
But he pulled open the other back door, reaching for the things he’d packed. He'd known there wouldn't be volunteers to help them, so he now handed out peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, energy drinks, and apples. For a moment they all ate in relative silence as the storm raged outside the truck. He turned on the engine and waited for the heat to kick in. Even he hadn’t realized how cold he’d gotten until he closed the door and shut out the wind and rain.
Leo calculated that at least, if they had to stop searching for a while, he'd made it coincide with the ambulance being gone. They shouldn't get hurt sitting in the truck and eating, but they wouldn't find the kids from here either.
Exhausted and disheartened, no one spoke. The only