It was a small plane. The larger body piece still had the tail and one wing attached. The wing was barely visible in the powder, its engine a gentle snow-covered bump with its propeller still in place. Orange and brown stripes ran along the side of the fuselage and colored the tail.

Both pieces appeared to have landed right side up, and several inches of snow covered them. The scene was peaceful, pieces of the plane delicately covered with white fluff. How much more snow would completely hide the plane? She glanced at the sky and doubted the plane could be easily spotted from above. Already the snow obscured too much.

They were lucky Ryan had become ill.

She bit a lip. Ryan probably didn’t see it that way. If they got some air support today she was sending him back immediately. Unless there was someone wounded on the plane. That would take first priority.

“Hellooo!” Jim called again.

All quiet.

“Thomas and I will check the cockpit. You two check the rest,” Jim ordered. He lifted a brow at Alex, held his gaze, and motioned to his side. Alex nodded. Brynn frowned.

What was that about?

She watched as Alex removed a glove and slipped a hand in his pocket as he carefully stepped down the slope in his homemade snowshoes. She’d hid her laughter at his fascination during their construction process. He’d watched every move and asked a dozen questions that Thomas had answered with an absolute minimum of words. The marshal who hated the outdoors sure seemed to like his snowshoes. But now his face was tight, his lips pressed together, and she remembered what he’d said about the marshal on board. A good friend. Brynn studied his serious face. She had a hunch this quiet marshal didn’t let many people get close to him. When Ryan had mentioned Alex was divorced, she’d blinked, more surprised that Ryan had pried the information out of Alex than by the divorce.

Ryan had a way of talking to everyone like they were his best friends. She’d never known anyone who could put people at ease as fast as Ryan. Apparently, his skills had worked on Alex. Alex was proving to be a commendable member of the group. What he lacked in outdoor skills he made up for in simple persistence. He hadn’t let Thomas get the best of him with that slide trick. He’d let Ryan talk his ear off without coming to blows. He deferred to Jim in all decisions. Well, since that first decision anyway. And he didn’t treat her as a helpless female like some of the other SAR team members she’d worked with.

Except when he’d hauled her frozen ass off that log bridge. But she had been a helpless female at that point.

And he liked her dog; that gave him lots of points.

Kiana liked him back. Of course, Kiana liked everybody. She gave Thomas a wide berth for reasons unknown, but she joyfully accepted everyone else.

Brynn’s heart contracted painfully. What was Alex thinking as he worked his way down the mountain? With no answers to Jim’s calls, he had to know his friend probably hadn’t survived. All odds were against them finding a survivor in the wreck. Especially if it had gone down as roughly as it looked.

She watched Alex wipe at the sweat on his brow and saw his hand shake.

“Hey.” She surprised herselfby speaking and laying a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you stay back until I check the wreckage?”

His brows went up. “It’s all right. I’m good with it.”

“No, seriously. Why don’t you hang back for a few minutes?” When he’d first told them about his friend on the plane, he’d briefly revealed a soul-deep ache in his eyes that still echoed in her memory. Obviously there’d been a tight bond between him and the other agent.

“He’s a good friend, right?”

Alex seemed confused for a split second. “Oh. Yeah, he was a good friend.” Brynn couldn’t identify the emotion that flashed on his face, and it stabbed at her soul that he’d already referred to the marshal in past tense.

Jim and Thomas were nearly to the cockpit. She watched as they both drew their weapons. She shook her head.

“They’re doing the right thing.” Alex’s face showed no emotion as he watched the men. He imitated them and drew his gun from his pocket. “Are you armed?”

“No.”

“Then stay behind me.”

She let him take the lead and rolled her eyes at his back.

“And don’t roll your eyes at me.” He looked over his shoulder at her, his eyes sharp. “There was a dangerous killer on this plane. You won’t think this is funny if he’s sitting inside waiting for us with a gun in his hand.”

“Wait!” She grabbed at his coat. “You know who was on the plane? You said you didn’t.”

He blew out a harsh breath. “No one needed to know who it was. The mission’s the same whether you know his name or not.”

Icy fear crept up her spine for the first time since the log crossing. “Who?”

Alex swallowed, paused, and looked back at the plane, speaking away from her. “Darrin Besand.”

Brynn halted. “The serial killer?”

Alex nodded as he stepped closer to the plane.

Brynn glanced around, studying the trees and big rocks cropping up out of the snow. An overwhelming urge to hide and get out of sight ripped through every nerve ending. Besand was ruthless. She felt like hundreds of eyes spied on her from behind the trees. She moved closer to Alex’s back.

For the first time in her life, she wished she had a gun.

Darrin Besand rubbed at his eyes and stared harder through the binoculars he’d found in the pilot’s bag. He lowered them and looked over the top of the binoculars, but he was too far away. Without the magnification he could only see bright bits of red against the snow. And one man in blue. He brought the binoculars to his eyes and focused again.