At Last

“What?”

“That you only go to the diner when Amy’s working. And now you’re finding excuses to ‘visit’ her.”

Suddenly Matt was ready for round two after all. He pushed to his feet and gave Ty the “come here” gesture.

Ty, who’d never met a challenge he wasn’t up for, gri

“It’s work,” Josh said, tossing Matt the phone.

Ty sank back to the mat. “Handy, since I was going to hand you your own ass.”

“Fuck if you were,” Matt said, wisely stepping out of Ty’s arm range before answering the phone.

Thirty minutes later, Matt was showered and on his way to Squaw Flats. A group of hikers had called in to report a theft from their day camp.

Matt parked at the trailhead and hiked up to the area. He took a report for the missing gear: a camera, an iPod touch, a smartphone, and a Swiss Army Knife. The campers hadn’t bothered to lock up any of their stuff-a situation that Matt had seen a hundred times. He liked to call it the Mary Poppins Syndrome. People left the big, bad city for the mountains and figured they were safe because apparently the bad guys all stayed in the city.

The fact was that National Park Service Law Enforcement Rangers suffered the highest number of felonious assaults, as well as the highest number of homicides of all federal law enforcement officers. People never believed Matt when he spouted that fact, but it was true.

After taking the report, he spent a few hours in the area, a visible presence to deter any further felony mischief. He had four park rangers who worked beneath him, each assigned to a quadrant of the North District, and they patrolled daily, but the quadrants covered far too much area for them to be 100 percent effective.

Budget cuts sucked.

Since thieves rarely bothered to get a permit first, Matt detained everyone he came across to check them. At the south rim, he found two guys perched on a bluff, readying their ropes for a climb down into Martis Valley.

Lance and Tucker Larson were brothers, though you couldn’t tell by looking at them. Tucker was tall and athletically built. Lance was much smaller and frail as hell thanks to the cystic fibrosis ravaging his twenty-something body. They ran the ice cream shop on the Lucky Harbor pier, and when the two of them weren’t climbing, they were trouble seeking.

They both nodded at Matt, who gave them the once over, trying to decide if he needed to check their bags. The last time he’d found them up here, they’d been consuming Tucker’s homemade brownies in celebration after a climb-brownies that had made their eyes red and put stupid-ass grins on their faces.

Not to mention, brownies that were also illegal as hell.

“Hey,” Lance said with an easy smile.

Tucker, who was never friendly with anyone holding the authority to slow him down, didn’t smile. Nor did he say anything.

“Any brownies today?” Matt asked.

“No, sir,” Lance said. “No brownies on us today.”

This made Tucker smile, so no doubt they’d already done their consuming. Great. “Careful on the rocks,” Matt said. “You check our site for the latest conditions?”

“Mudslides,” Lance said with a nod. “I’m hoping to see Tucker slide down the entire rim on his ass like he did last year in this very spot.” He patted his pack. “Got my iPhone this time so I can get video for Lucille.”

Matt shook his head and left them to it, intending to head back to the station, where a mountain of paperwork waited for him. But just outside the Squaw Flats campground, he found evidence of an off-site campfire. This was illegal, especially this time of year. The campfire was abandoned, but the ashes were warm, and as he stood there, he heard the footsteps of someone ru

There was only one reason to do that: guilt. Someone had something to hide. Matt took off ru

He didn’t stop. They never stopped.

Matt sped up and caught the back of the kid’s sweatshirt, yanking him to a halt. “Hold still,” he said, when his arsonist fought to get free.

Of course he didn’t, so Matt added a small shake to get his meaning across. The kid’s hoodie fell back from his face, exposing dirty features, a snarling mouth, eyes spitting fury, and a surprise-he was a she. A scrawny she, who was lanky lean, as if three squares hadn’t been a part of her recent program. “Let go of me!” she yelled, and kicked Matt in the shin. “Don’t touch me!”

Christ. She was maybe sixteen. He let her loose, but before she could so much as lift another foot in his direction, he gave her a hard look. “Don’t even think about it.”

She lifted her chin in a show of bravado and crossed her arms tightly over herself. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Her voice was cultured and educated, but her clothes were dirty and torn and barely fit her. “Then why did you run?” he asked.

“Because you were chasing me.” She didn’t add the duh; she didn’t have to-it was implied.

“Where’re your parents?” Matt asked.

Her face was closed off and sullen. “I don’t have to answer any of your stupid questions.”

“You’re a minor alone in the woods,” he pointed out.

“I’m eighteen.”

He gave her a long look, which she returned evenly. He held out his hand. “ID.”

She produced an ID card from her ratty, old-looking backpack, careful to not let him see inside, which reminded him of yet another prickly female he’d come across, two nights ago now.

The girl’s ID was issued by the Washington Department of Motor Vehicles for one Riley Taylor. The picture showed a cleaner version of the face in front of him, and the birth date did indeed proclaim her eighteen as of two weeks ago.

Handing the ID back, he nodded his chin toward the trail from which he’d come. “Was that your campfire back there?”

Her gaze darted away from his. “No.”

Bullshit. “You need a permit or a paid campsite to overnight out here.”

She just stared stonily at a spot somewhere over his shoulder. “I know that.”

More bullshit. Matt eyed her backpack. “Some folks about a mile west of here were ripped off earlier today. You know anything about that?”

“Nope.”

“What’s in your backpack?”

She hugged it to her chest. “Stuff. My stuff.”

His ass. The only thing that saved her was that when he’d grabbed her a minute ago, her backpack had seemed nearly empty. Far too empty to be carrying the stolen loot. She’d either fenced it already or she’d stashed it somewhere. “What are you doing out here?”

“Camping.”

“With your family?”

A slight hesitation. “Yeah,” she said.

More bullshit. “Where?”

“Brockway Springs.” Again her gaze darted away.

She was racking up the lies now. Plus Brockway Springs was a campground about seven miles to the east. “That’s a long way from here.”

She shrugged.

“Look,” he said. “You shouldn’t be out here alone. You need to go back to your family. I’ll give you a ride.”

“No!” She took a breath and visibly calmed herself. “No,” she said more quietly. “I don’t take rides from strangers. I’m leaving now.”

With no reason to detain her, there was little Matt could do to stop her. “Put your ID away so you don’t lose it.”

She once again opened her backpack, and he made no attempt to disguise the fact that he took a good look inside. A bottle of water, what looked like a spare shirt, and a flashlight. He put his hand on her arm. “Where did you get that flashlight?”

“I’ve had it forever.”

It was the same model and make of flashlight that had gone missing off Matt’s bumper the other night. It was also the most common flashlight sold in the area. More than half the people on this mountain had one just like it.