Siena

The team spread out, Cam and Emmett searching the woods. Isaac climbed a nearby tree for a better view, and Siena scoured beneath for tracks or blood.

Nothing. It was like the body was never there. Like they all had imagined it.

"Had to have been an animal," Isaac yelled down at her before quietly uttering, "R-Right?"

Siena shook her head. "No drag marks," she hollered back, and winced. It was dumb to be yelling. If the woman had been murdered, the killer could have returned for her body. But there would still be a trail if that were true.

They'd failed to report the body to anyone except for the ranger in the Ansel Adams station who had hung up on Cam. It was like the whole thing had never happened.

"We have a duty to notify authorities even now." Emmett stomped around camp, packing up the kitchen and his bivy, as though the brash movements would make him seem more commanding. "We need to turn around."

Siena hated the idea of turning around, and hated even more that she agreed with him. A woman was dead, whatever had killed her still out there. Her loved ones could already be looking for her. Even if they'd lost the body, they had to notify the police so a larger search could begin.

Siena took her cowboy coffee into her bivy to think. Cam joined her, and they crouched together while sipping from their mugs in silence. Filling the quiet void never felt necessary with Cam, one reason Siena loved her so much.

"You're the PI," Siena finally said. "You should decide."

Cam shook her head, running her index finger absently around the rim of her cup. "You know that's bullshit. I'm a stand-in PI."

Siena bit back her frustration. "Do I need to remind you why I'm not the lead PI?"

"I only stepped up because you asked me to, but I never believed at any point you were incapable of leading this team. Not even at your worst. Feyrer thought the same. This is your project, Siena."

It was the first time Cam had brought up Feyrer on her own in a while. Cam didn't enjoy talking about death, something Siena began noticing when Cam first told Siena about her Search and Rescue stint. Cam always referred to the missing hikers as gone, not dead. She used that word a lot.

Siena finally responded. "Feyrer told me not to go..."

"In the hospital, you told me. You know he wasn't in his right mind toward the end." Cam elbowed her. "Listen... I thought Feyrer was a conspiratorial nut... you know that. But he was right to put his faith in you. What he told you on his deathbed doesn't change that."

Siena stared down at her oily coffee. "It never felt real, what he said." The cancer had returned with a vengeance. Siena had planned this expedition with him until his hospitalization. His daughter had called Siena only a few weeks later for her to say her goodbyes.

Emmett had met Siena at the hospital. She'd wished she were alone but refused to waste her last moments with her mentor frustrated with Emmett.

Wilder had looked dead already. Siena had almost wished he were dead with the unnatural way he blinked and breathed—like an animatronic in some fucked-up haunted house.

As she'd held his icy hand, he hadn't recognized her right away, his eyes struggling to match a name to her face. And when he finally did, he'd wept.

"Don't go. Don't go, don't go, don't go..." Each plea had been louder than the last, his yellowed fingernails breaking the flesh of her arm. Siena's own grip on him had tightened, and she hadn't let go until Emmett pulled her away.

Emmett—always pushing and pulling her. He'd pull her back down the mountain if he could. She wasn't about to give him the opportunity.

"We keep going," Siena said. "We're about thirty miles deep. It's quicker to reach the cabin than it would be to turn around. There's radio equipment there. Maybe we can finally contact someone, or get a better signal on the phone."

Cam finished the dregs of her coffee with an unreadable expression, but swallowed with a nod. "Sounds good, Doc."

"But only if you're okay to keep going. I know finding the body upset you." Siena touched Cam's arm. "You don't have to hide things from me."

Cam smiled crookedly. "I'm okay. But I'll be even better if I get to tell Emmett the plan."

Siena shook her head in disbelief. "You live to cause trouble."

"Only with him, promise." Cam lifted her pinkie.

Siena hooked her finger with Cam's. "Don't piss him off too much. We need him to carry gear up the mountain."

Cam ducked out of the bivy. "I'll do my best, boss."

Siena packed up to the sound of them arguing. Cam eventually played her I'm the PI card, and Siena vacated the area before witnessing any carnage. She scoured the campground for Isaac before finding him along the ridge, his lanky legs crossed beneath him as he scratched at his field journal with a pencil. He looked haggard even from a distance.

Siena approached him, peering over his shoulder to glimpse an impressive sketch of the sister peaks.

She caught his attention, and he flipped the book shut.

"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to intrude. Your drawing is beautiful. Can I see?"

He flashed a hesitant smile, opening the field book and passing it to her. "It's just this one so far. I haven't had much time. I usually sketch when I want to learn an area. Or... umm... when I'm feeling anxious."

"I'm not feeling too great myself," said Siena as she studied the sketch of the range. "You have genuine talent." Everything—the shading, scale, realism—was perfect, with one exception.

"You drew four peaks." Siena looked up, shielding her eyes to double-check there were only three mountains: Agnes in front of them, and Charlotte and Lucille to the east. "I can only see the sisters from here."

Isaac frowned and scrutinized the sketch when Siena handed it back. His eyes flickered to the mountain range. "That's weird. I thought I'd drawn it exactly as I saw it."

"Maybe you can see a fourth peak from a different angle," Siena suggested, though she knew this wasn't true. She'd been glued to the view of the valley since the start of the trip and would have seen a fourth peak if there was one.

Isaac heaved a dejected sigh and rubbed at his eyes. "Dammit."

From the look on his face, Siena wished she had said nothing at all.

They gained thirteen miles that day with no further deviations from the map, and Siena soon forgot about the strange fork in the path. After making camp near an alpine pond, the group woke before sunrise for the last stretch to the cabin.

No one mentioned the body. In fact, no one said much of anything, granting Siena the opportunity to listen for signs of predators. Or people.

But the trip remained uneventful, and on the bare granite face of the final incline, she stopped and turned to gaze over the wilderness and the valley's carpet of evergreens. The rosy beacons of Mount Charlotte and Lucille glowed against the lilac sky.

Worth it. Even without Feyrer. Even after finding the body. Few people in the world got to experience this much natural beauty in their lives, and publishing her findings bettered her chances of researching places like this for the rest of her life.

Siena looked down, squinting when she couldn't find the trail or the cairns they'd spent the last hour following.

"Come on." Cam slapped Siena's shoulder as she passed her. "I'm starving."

Siena followed, trailing the others until the mountain leveled out, granite giving way to a thick grove of foxtail pines. The twilight air felt cool and moist—strange, given how dry the rest of the hike had been.

Deep into the grove, the log-linked cabin sat on a slab of stone. Some windows were boarded over, the sun-bleached roof covered in a layer of dead needles. Ugly, run-down, and patiently waiting all these years for the next generation. For them.

"You'll never want to leave," Feyrer had told her.

Siena's throat tightened as she followed the others to the cabin porch.

Emmett sauntered forward, slapping the crates stacked in front of a boarded window. "Looks like the mules made it."

Siena fished for the cabin keys in her belt pocket, unclipped her pack, and shimmied free. "Thank god." She'd heard too many horror stories of packers screwing up orders or not showing up at all, which was why they'd suffered with fifty-five-pound packs all this way.

Cam kicked away a clump of dried dung. "They left a while ago. They're actually on schedule for once."

"Maybe they found the body on their way back down?" Isaac asked hopefully.

"What, and the packers took it?" Cam shook her head. "We would have run into them or their donkey shit. Plus, they take the east trail off the mountain to drop stuff off at the station by Triplet Lakes."

"Someone will find her," Siena assured Isaac as he frowned, though the statement was more a wish than anything else. She tugged her phone from her pocket and located the padlock on the first crate, swiping through her photos until she found one of the packer's code scribbled hastily on a Post-It note. She entered the code and yanked open the crate, sliding the lid off. It landed on the ground with a satisfying thunk.

Siena peered inside and sighed in relief. Hundreds of food packs filled the crate. The others contained supplies for their studies and pleasantries—a few bottles of whiskey, biodegradable soap, tampons, and extra clothes.

"Good." Cam sniffed her shirt. "God, I need to burn this."

Siena frowned at the cabin, creeping across the porch for a closer look.

The plaque near the door should have read Property of CalTech,like it had in the dozens of photos she'd seen from previous expeditions. But it didn't. It was blank and flecked with olive paint.

Just like the sign at the fork.

Siena ran the tips of her fingers over the sign, searching for an imprint—any lettering at all—but the surface was as smooth as driftwood.

The Forest Service made do with a tight budget. Perhaps the upkeep of signs wasn't their top priority. This place needed a little TLC anyway—maybe she'd get around to repainting it one of these evenings.

She reached down for the doorknob and halted, her eyes resting on a splintered frame, cracked door, and the sliver of darkness beyond.

The door was open.