Page 68 of When the Silence Breaks

“If he doesn’t, he’ll figure it out soon enough. We have to move.”

They pushed through thick ferns and low-hanging branches until they reached the steep incline where the trees started thinning out. Ryder paused just long enough to orient them. “This ridge tracks east. If we follow it another few miles, we hit the glacier basin, which we’ll skirt. According to the map, the plane should be somewhere along the western rim.”

“Glacier basin? Do we have what we need?”

He didn’t answer right away. “We’ll find out.”

A fist squeezed her heart, and it pounded all the harder. “What’s the point of going if you don’t know?”

“Trust me, okay?”

Like he’d trusted Harlan? Oh, she wouldn’t say that out loud, and it certainly wasn’t fair, but if you couldn’t trust the old guy who attended the family horses for years, who could you trust? Harlan could have an interesting background that no one knew.

Ryder scrambled up the slope, and she tried to keep up, every snapped twig behind them a gunshot in her mind. Until they hit a narrow ravine and ducked into the rocks. Climbing. Climbing. Climbing.

And the air grew thicker and colder.

But the cloudy sky turned a light gray. Finally, Ryder paused near another ridge. Valleys and gullies, ledges and ridges. Summits and spirals and crags. Terrifying beauty.

Breathless, Sarah collapsed to sit on a boulder.

Ryder checked the communicator again.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“You mean he hasn’t confirmed he got your request for help?”

“That’s what I mean.”

“Are you worried that someone shut him down since apparently they’re onto him?”

“He can take care of himself.” Ryder sounded like he was trying to convince himself.

“Yeah? What does he do anyway?” As if she didn’t already know.

“Please. I know what you did before, remember? So you know about Holt’s work, don’t you?”

Ouch. “Okay, yeah, I know.”

He peered through his binoculars at the landscape below them.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Nothing yet.”

“Are you sure you got it right and Harlan knows the way?”

“Nothing is for certain.”

“Well, let’s not wait for them to catch up. Listen, I want to check my burner phone. I need to check on my sister-in-law. The thought that Harlan could have been coerced has been bugging me.”

Was Tessa now compromised? Were she and Jeremy still safe?

“But I need your help for that signal. Please? I know that even a ping is a risk.”

“Not sure it matters now.” His forehead creasing, he pulled the Iridium GO! out of the pack and connected her burner.