“What’s going on?” he whispered.

“I don’t know.” Humiliated, she admitted, “I fell asleep. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, can’t change it now. Was that a woman? Not a bird, some kind of wildlife...?”

Another scream. Indisputably human.

Willow growled.

“What if it’s our missing person?” Elsie asked. “Shouldn’t we try to save her?”

“You’re search and rescue and I’m a pilot. We’re not a tactical team. That’s a job for SWAT, maybe the Troopers. Us getting hurt or worse won’t help her or law enforcement.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“Elsie...”

She heard him, she really did. And she seriously considered staying where she was, not risking her life any more than she already had. She had to admit that the person who was after her was here on the island and wanted her dead.

But what if their missing hiker had met with foul play because Elsie had been the one sent to search for her? What if her would-be attacker had come upon the missing woman in the woods just now and harmed her, thinking she was Elsie?

It would be difficult if not nearly impossible to live with that on her conscience.

“Elsie... Where are you?”

That voice. It came from the woods. Familiar, threatening, the same she’d heard twice before.

She moved closer to Wyatt. Fear gripped her throat and chest. “That’s him.”

He pulled a revolver of some sort out of a holster and she felt a small amount of relief. The most dangerous weapon she had on her was bear spray, which would be effective on a human, though technically that use was illegal.

But he didn’t shoot it.

“What are you doing?”

“I can’t shoot without a target.” Frustration colored his tone.

“Where are you, Elsie?” the voice called. “You can’t get away this time. He was always going to find you.”

She frowned. He? The man who was after her was separate from the person who wanted her dead or hurt, it seemed.

Her throat closed a little more and she felt herself struggle to stay calm. To breathe.

“What do we do?” she asked Wyatt, wanting to feel less alone. “Stay here? Run?”

This had seemed like a safe place to spend the night, but now she realized that they were sitting ducks.

But the woods weren’t far.

The woman who’d screamed was still out there somewhere, too.

Those facts made Elsie’s decision for her. She started to tense. “We have to run,” she whispered to Wyatt, knowing Willow would read her movements and respond accordingly.

“Elsie, no—” Wyatt started, but she was already sprinting across the beach for the trees opposite where she thought the attacker was. Willow moved with her, the two of them running for the trees and safety. When she was in the shadows and the darkness, not silhouetted in the moonlight, Elsie started to breathe again. Even more so when she heard Wyatt behind her.

“You should’ve stayed put.”

“The voice was getting closer. He was coming for us.” Elsie’s sense of powerlessness and frustration overwhelmed her. She knew she’d taken a chance running into the woods for cover, but she wasn’t sure it was a bad move. “And we have to find the woman who screamed.”

“It could be a trap, you know,” Wyatt pointed out, and Elsie knew he could be right. But she didn’t think he was.

She gave Willow the command to search, heart still pounding. “Can you make sure no one is following us?” she asked Wyatt. “I need to focus on Willow if we’re going to have a chance of finding whoever that was before it’s too late for them.”

Without any more argument, she made her way through the woods, moving so quietly Elsie was convinced she and Willow weren’t making any sound at all. Wyatt wasn’t doing a half-bad job, either, especially for someone who wasn’t used to this. She pushed a spruce branch out of her way.

Willow stopped. She gave a low moan.

Elsie’s breath caught in her throat. It was her alert for human remains. Her shoulders fell. After all of this, after days of doing her best, it wasn’t good enough. They’d still failed, and failure here on this island, in this corner of Alaska where her past and present swirled together in an uncomfortable haze, was somehow worse than failure elsewhere.

“She’s dead,” she said to Wyatt, then followed her dog, needing to finish the job, no matter how much she might wish she didn’t have to.

Up ahead, Willow stopped, sat next to what looked in the darkness like a shape on the ground. Elsie fought the urge to vomit as her stomach clenched. This was far from the first body she’d seen, and it likely would not be the last, but she never got used to it.

“Elsie, wait.” Wyatt’s voice was quiet but firm enough that Elsie stopped without thinking.

He held out a hand, pointed.

She could see it now, too, the wound on the victim’s back. Blood matting the moss and clumping in the dirt of the small clearing in the woods where the woman’s body lay. A metallic scent hung heavy in the air.

She needed to check for vitals but was bracing herself for the worst.

While she took a breath or two to steady herself, Wyatt stepped forward. “I’ll do it.” He reached for the woman’s arm to feel for a pulse and shook his head.

“She’s definitely gone. No pulse at all.”

But recently dead, Elsie could see that. She swallowed hard against the sense of hopelessness creeping toward her like the fog had crept onto the beach earlier in the night.

How had it only been hours since they’d sat on the beach together, Wyatt’s arm around her? Since she’d felt...safe? Sure, the plane had been half-destroyed and they’d been trapped on an island with someone who they knew for sure was willing to kill, but in those moments, she’d felt peaceful. Maybe she’d even let herself dream about more times like that with Wyatt. But just like she’d known it wouldn’t, the peace didn’t last. It never did.

“I failed her. I should have found her. If I’d led Willow this way before we started searching, if I’d just searched from a different starting point today...” The excuses wouldn’t help, the explanations wouldn’t help, but Elsie felt chewed up inside, broken in bits and at a loss as to how to fix it.

“You did your best.”

But her best hadn’t been good enough.

The darkness of the woods pressed in on her, and instead of it being the comfort she was used to it being, it felt suffocating. Like the darkness of her nightmare, flashback, whatever it was. Elsie stood among the trees but could clearly picture that closet. She was sitting on a pair of shoes and they were digging into her leg. Someone had told her to stay in the closet, she remembered now. She had to be very quiet and stay in the closet. Like a game.

But the crying outside the door wasn’t a game. The darkness didn’t feel like a game. And when she heard someone scream, Elsie knew it wasn’t a game and she scooted deeper into the closet and tried to be as still as she could. Once it had gone quiet, she pushed the closet door open, needing to see if the person who’d screamed was okay. A family member? A friend? She didn’t know, but adult Elsie was afraid of what child Elsie had found. In the cold night air, Elsie blinked, willed the image to go away.