Heads swung in my direction. “That’s us. Now if we’re done wasting daylight?”
He made the be-my-guest gesture toward the trailhead, and we took off. I tightened my small pack on my back and zipped the lightweight fleece across my chest. It was already cool and only going to get colder.
“Damn, gotta step on toes on day one?” Gutierrez asked, walking next to me.
“No point talking when the mission is pretty clear.”
“Point taken.”
We handed out radio frequencies as a group and hiked along the trail, crossing a bridge and earning a view of Telluride. It really was spectacular here, with the mountains rising on both sides of us, reaching toward the sky.
Ahead about twenty yards, the other dog sprinted through the meadow that ran alongside of us. Havoc stayed right by my side, her footsteps and breathing steady.
“So I saw you downtown with Ella MacKenzie,” Gutierrez said, breaking the silence I’d been enjoying.
“Probably.” I liked Mark well enough while we were on duty and occasionally made an effort with him on the conversation front, but Ella wasn’t on my list of approved topics.
“Something going on there?” he asked in a locker-room-talk kind of way.
“Be careful,” I warned.
“Hey, I know Ella. She’s a good girl—woman. I used to be friends with her brother. He died. You know that, right? About six months ago.”
My heart stuttered in a beat that had nothing to do with the altitude. “Yeah, I know.”
“She’s got kids, too. Good kids.”
“Yep.” What was this guy getting at?
He sighed, curving the bill on his cap in a nervous tell. This guy would be easy pickings at a poker table.
“Look, I’m not trying to be nosy.”
“Sure you are. Question is: Why?”
He looked behind us, seeing what I already knew. There were about twenty feet between us and the nearest crew members. Enough distance to talk in private. “I’m just trying to look out for her.”
“Good to know.” There wasn’t a soul on the planet who cared more about Ella than I did, and while it was almost cute—his concern—it was absolutely unnecessary.
“I’m serious. She’s got a shit-ton going on, and if there was a short end of the stick to be had, Ella was given it. Between losing her parents and Jeff walking out—”
“You know Jeff?” My footsteps would have faltered if my body hadn’t been on autopilot, used to pushing on when my mind went elsewhere.
“Knew Jeff,” he corrected. “I hung out with his older brother, Blake.”
“One preppy name after another,” I muttered.
Gutierrez laughed. “That’s so true. They both are—preppy assholes, that is. Trust-fund babies who never had to struggle a day in their lives. Both had their fortunes handed to them, and now their jobs.”
A stab of pure hatred coursed through me like an acidic poison burning in my veins. Of course he had everything easy while Ella worked her ass off.
“So you know where he is?”
“Sure. He’s working for his daddy’s company in Denver. Engaged to the daughter of a politician, if his Facebook is true.”
I stored the information away, feeding the plan that had been forming since I’d promised Maisie that she wasn’t going to die.
“Anyway, you and Ella serious?” He looked at me sideways, and I glanced at his hand. Nice wide gold band. Good. I wasn’t in the mood to fight off some guy for Ella. Not when I couldn’t trust myself not to beat the shit out of him.
“We’re friends,” I said in that noncommittal way. “I’m just helping her out.”
He seemed to ponder that for a minute and then nodded. “Good. That’s good. She needs all the help she can get right now with her kids.”
“No,” I corrected, my eyes scanning the forest line just in case we found our hiker. “She doesn’t need help; she’s honestly got it handled all on her own. But I need to help her. I don’t want her to have to handle it solo. There’s a difference.”
Gutierrez nodded again, like a bobblehead, but sincere. Maybe I’d spent too much time around soldiers. Maybe civilians chatted about their feelings on hikes in the mountains. Maybe I was the odd one for being so closed off, not him for being so inquisitive.
“Sorry, man. It’s just…it’s a small town, and you’re new. And after losing Ryan, I know she’s hurting. I mean, they wouldn’t even tell her what happened.”
Of course they didn’t. Because when ops went wrong, when soldiers were knocked unconscious instead of killed, then hauled out by insurgents into the desert, stripped of