Ryan waved. The hike up the slope was longer than she’d remembered. And steeper. She was huffing good when she plopped down beside him.

“What’d you find?” Ryan wrinkled his forehead. “Jim radioed that there was three dead.”

“There’s a body missing.”

“Missing?”

She frowned. “Turns out Darrin Besand was on that plane. And he’s the one missing. Alex wants to stay behind to look for him while we head back.”

“Besand?” Concentration skittered across Ryan’s face as he tried to place the name.

“Killed a bunch of people in Portland. Idaho too. Mostly nurses and nursing home patients. Claimed he was being merciful.”

“Oh! I remember that. Nasty dude.” Disgust filled Ryan’s tone. “So he was being merciful by killing the nurses after he raped them?” His face suddenly blanked and Brynn knew he’d remembered she was a nurse.

“How you feeling?” She changed the subject.

His smile was wan. None of his usual sparkle. “Not bad.”

“Bullshit.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He gingerly touched his abdomen. “My stomach feels like I swallowed acid. Lungs are tight.”

Brynn laid a hand on his forehead. He seemed pretty hot, but her fingers were half-numb. “You don’t smoke, do you?”

His chin jerked. “You know I don’t. What kind of question is that?”

“Any chronic pain problems you dose daily with ibuprofen or something else?”

His brows came together and he shook his head.

“No ulcers, right?”

He started to shake his head but stopped. His eyes narrowed. “I’ve had chronic heartburn for a couple of weeks. I’ve been dosing it a lot with the pink liquid stuff.”

“That could signal an ulcer. And that pink stuff has salicylic acid in it. Could be thinning your blood, making you bleed easier. You’re not supposed to use it over and over for weeks on end.” She took a quick glance at the roughed-up snow to his far left. Faint hints of red showed in two spots.

“Still bloody?”

His eyes dropped. “Yeah. And I feel like I’ve run a marathon. Not the kind of tired I get from doing these missions, more like everything hurts and I’ve used up every resource in my body.”

“Muscles and joints hurt?”

He nodded.

“Can you think of anything you ate that could make you throw up?”

“I’ve been running over everything I ate in the last twentyfour hours or so. Nothing new or odd. Couldn’t it just be a virus?”

“Not with blood. Either something’s torn the lining of your stomach or esophagus or you’ve got an ulcer you’ve not known about or…”

“Or what?”

Her gaze went down to the group of men far below them on the mountain. “Poison’s the only other thing I can think of that causes that kind of bleeding.”

“Poison! Fuck that. I’d have to have eaten a cup of lye or something to do this. I think I’d notice if I ate something like that.”

Brynn shrugged. She didn’t know much about poisoning. She automatically associated it with bloody vomiting just like ulcers but didn’t know the hows or whys. “Anybody give you something to eat?”

“Oh, Jesus Christ! No one’s trying to kill me!” His eyes wavered between disgust and amusement. “You’re the one who gave me the Benadryl. You must be trying to off me. Or Jim’s wife. She made the cookies he gave me. Maybe Anna’s trying to get rid of Jim because she’s banging someone else.”

Brynn had to grin. Ryan was right.

“I think you’ve got the flu and a bad ulcer. That’s my diagnosis,” she stated firmly.

“So now what?” Ryan screwed up his forehead.

“Rest and fluids.”

Ryan picked up a handful of snow, squeezing it into a small hard ball. “Plenty of fluids available out here. Don’t know about getting any rest. Oh, I got a hold of Collins. Well, kind of got a hold of him after Jim radioed me about the deaths.” He grimaced. “The connection royally sucked, and I haven’t been able to get him back.”

“Did you tell him we’d found the plane?”

“Yeah, but telling him where we found it was a problem. I gave him all the coordinates to check from each GPS. One’s got to be right. Someone would have to fly them to check them out. Maybe he can get a bird in the air today.”

Brynn scanned the sky. Clouds were whizzing by at different levels. It wasn’t too windy on the ground, but apparently, higher up the wind was blasting away. And the snow was getting heavier.

She wasn’t holding her breath for the sound of a chopper.

“I hope he got all the coordinates. I was only getting about every fourth word from him so I probably sounded just as bad.” Ryan paused and gazed at the group below with a frown. “What do you think of Alex?”

“Uh…” Brynn tried to arrange her thoughts at the quick change of topic. “He’s OK. Quiet. He’s kept up even though I think he’d rather get a root canal.” She closed her mouth, not wanting to say she thought Alex kept a lot below his smooth surface. Still waters and all that. Several times she’d seen things start to boil in his expression like he had a lot to say or felt strongly about something, but Alex had kept his opinions under wraps. From the moment Jim had verbally ripped the marshal to shreds at the base camp, she’d wondered what made him tick. Alex had kept his temper and responded with a gut load of self-assurance. Not an easy task in front of Jim.