Page 21 (1/2)
"We going to go scare them off?"
"Hell, yeah"
They ear with a utility belt, including weapons
"Do I get one of those?" Josh asked
"No"
"But I get to look all scary and intiht?"
Matt looked Josh over Out of his scrubs, Josh didn’t look much like a doctor He looked like a six-foot-four NFL linebacker "I don’t know," Matt said, baiting hi?"
Josh narrowed his eyes "If I hadn’t taken an oath to save lives, not take theht now"
"Save it for the idiots"
Fifteen minutes later, Matt parked at the trailhead to Widow’s Peak "Hell"
"What?" Josh asked
"The gate’s open" And he’d locked it personally "The CLOSED sign is h the gate, taking the fire road that would bring them to the same midpoint plateau that the climbers were on They had to park about a quarter of a mile from the area, where they found another truck--the climbers’ vehicle, no doubt Matt and Josh hiked the rest of the way in, startling the guys just as they were getting ready to take a go at the peak
"This area is closed," Matt told them
The climbers were in their late teens Three of the four of them took one look at Josh and Matt and just about shit their pants Not their ringleader, whoe son of Allen Wright, a very successful builder who thought he was God’s gift to the entire county With a cocky grin, Trevor held his ground "Who’re you, the clied him "And you’re not supposed to be here"
"Public property, dude"
Matt shook his head This was the probleht they owned Lucky Harbor, and everything around it They also thought the laws didn’t apply to them All four boys smelled like weed Hell, there was practically a cloud of it around Trevor’s head "The gate was shut and locked," Matt said ate ide open, and I didn’t see no sign And you’re hassling us for no reason We haven’t done nothing wrong"
Trevor’s friends weren’t looking so comfortable anymore and had started to back up "Come on, Trev," one of theuy stance "They can’t do anything to us," he said, sers They know the names of the flowers and how to start a fire"
"Luckily I kno to do a little s, I’ll arrest you"
Trevor shrugged out of his backpack and tossed it over the cliff, where it pro off the rocks as it fell to the valley floor hundreds of feet below "I’"
"Jesus, Trevor," one of his friends said "You’re crazy"
"Yeah," another said "We’re outta here" He and the others took off
Trevor stood there posturing for a long beat and then started after his friends, shoulder checking Matt hard as he did "You see that?" the little dickwad said to Josh "Your partner pushed me" He pointed at Matt "Not cool, man"
Josh waited until Trevor vanished down the trail after the others "Okay, so why didn’t we crack some heads, specifically his?"
Matt slid hih You save lives, re would be fun"
Matt shook his head "My job’s to chase theate, and Matt radioed dispatch that he needed a new lock and sign brought out Then he and Josh drove all the way around the canyon and hit thefor that backpack
They didn’t find it
An hour later, Josh, who’d called in to the hospital that he was going to be late so that he could help Matt search, rubbed his sto"
"Why er than ht"
"What does that have to do ho’s buying breakfast?"
"Everything"
"How one a quarter of a mile," Amy said
"But I’m ready for a chocolate break" This was from Mallory, iped an arm over her da coffee," A about Riley, and was tired of waiting for the girl to co toward the Squaw Flats cah Areat day for a hike and had lured them up the mountain with the proirl lesson," Mallory said "Never refer to your friends’ lack of fitness"
Grace looked around at the lush, thick growth and inhaled deeply "It sain e’re hiking instead of sitting in a nice booth at the diner?" Mallory asked
"We’re calorie burning," Auilt-free brownies Just another quarter of aas theythe Chocoholics on the road experiht be a bust Are we alht I was a city girl"
"I have to pee," Grace said
"There’s a bunch of trees," Ament on pee spots"
"Maybe you should," Mallory said "It caught her Ranger Hot Buns"
"True," Grace hed "Not if I want to live"
They ca here, and it was beautiful But they weren’t the only ones enjoying it Leaning with their backs to a fallen log sat Lance and Tucker The two brothers were eating sandwiches and sucking down bottled water Covered in dust frorins appeared all the whiter when they flashed them
"Hey, ladies," Lance said in his low and husky voice, roughened fro the CF caused hiie of brownies "Anyone want to join us?"
"Oha brownie Nazi"
Mallory put out a hand and halted her, serving the brothers a careful, narrow-eyed gaze "Are those brownies horinned, slow, lazy and unabashed, and Aht about the quality of their brownies, but she should have when it cauys "What did I tell you about your brownies?"
"Uh…" Tucker said, trying to think "That they kill brain cells?"