If I Should Die_ A Novel of Suspense - Allison Brennan [8]
Lucy barely waited until Tim braked. She jumped out and ran into the woods. It was definitely the yellow Raptor that Sean had been driving, parked between two trees. The keys were in the ignition.
Lucy glanced at the GPS on her phone. Sean’s cell phone was transmitting half a mile directly southwest of their location. He could have lost his phone while pursuing the arsonist, but that didn’t explain where he was now.
Tim caught up with Lucy and checked the gas gauge. “It still has fuel.” He held his hand over the engine, then touched it. “Warm, not hot.”
Lucy looked around the woods for a sign of the second ATV. Not only was it not within sight, but there was only one set of tracks. It was unlikely that Sean would have pursued someone on foot then just left the ATV here—or would he?
Tim ran down to the highway, then across it. She didn’t see anything that gave her a clue as to what happened to Sean. She walked a wider circle, still picking up no signs that there was more than one rider. She followed depressions in the mulch that led back to the logging road, forty feet from Tim’s truck, then ended at the packed gravel and dirt road. She knelt. It was nearly impossible to make out tire impressions, but gouges from taking off too fast clearly came from a vehicle wider than an ATV. Several drops of fresh oil stained the gravel near where the tracks stopped.
Tim returned and said, “Nothing. No sign of foot or vehicle traffic or the other ATV.”
She rose and gestured to the oil spot and four gouges. “Someone was parked here and left quickly. We need to find Sean’s phone.” She didn’t want to say it out loud, but he could be lying injured anywhere between here and his phone. Finding the phone was a starting point to tracking him down. Then she would contemplate the idea that he’d been forced to leave with the arsonist.
Except that there was only one set of tracks leading from the ATV to the car.
Tim handed her the keys to his truck. “Continue down this road until you reach the signal. I’ll take the quad and retrace its route, and hopefully we’ll meet up at some point.”
Lucy nodded. She ran back to the truck and got in the driver’s seat. Deep pits and debris littered the path in front of the vehicle. Lucy was forced to drive slowly, and it took her nearly ten minutes before she saw the other ATV.
She stopped the truck and jumped out. She could hear Tim’s ATV in the distance, but with the echo couldn’t gauge how close he was.
On the ground was a blue helmet—the one Sean had been wearing. She smelled some sort of fuel, but it wasn’t gasoline. She looked under the vehicle and saw a large dark spot on the ground.
There were signs of a scuffle, the dirt freshly turned, branches broken, bushes trampled. She followed the destruction and saw Sean’s backpack next to a tree.
She searched it. All his emergency supplies were there, including his phone.
The ATV, the backpack, the helmet—everything but Sean. And no sign of the arsonist.
Lucy bit her lower lip. Sean was resourceful, smart, even cunning at times—there had to be a logical explanation as to why his things were here, while he wasn’t.
“Sean, where are you?”
Tim drove up, stopping close to where Sean’s helmet lay on the ground. Lucy said, “Did you find anything?”
“Nothing.”
“There was a fight over there,” she pointed to where she’d found Sean’s backpack, which she now had over her shoulder. “I found his pack and phone.”
“We need to be careful,” Tim said. “There are several ventilation shafts for the mines in the area, and it’s easy to miss the warning signs. The mines are all closed now, but they’re still dangerous.”
“We’ll start where I found the backpack and go from there.” Her pulse raced. “How deep are these mine shafts?”
“Fifteen, twenty feet, some deeper. They’re narrow, six to eight feet wide, used for ventilation and to haul supplies in and out. They’ve been boarded up for years.”
They followed the tracks which made a sharp turn to the right. They skirted a tree stump, and Tim said “Watch your step.” He gestured toward