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“You drove the truck into the ravine.”

Will Bennett leans back in his chair and stretches his long legs toward the fire. “Technically, the truck slid.”

“Because Taylor parked it on loose gravel.”

Taylor lifts his beer. “Details.”

The sun is sinking behind the mountains, painting the Nevada sky in deep streaks of orange and red. From the patio behind my house, I can see most of the Iron Ridge property.

Eighty acres of high desert, jagged rock, cedar, and open sky.

The main house sits on the highest point. Below us are the converted training barn, equipment building, bunkhouse, and the office we finished renovating three weeks ago.

Iron Ridge Protectors isn’t officially open yet, but we already have more work than we can handle. Missing-person recoveries. Private security. Hostage consultation. Jobs law enforcement can’t touch until someone has enough evidence to bring them in.

After eighteen years in the military, most of them spent in Delta Special Forces, the four of us don’t know how to sit still.

Apparently, we also don’t know how to celebrate a birthday without arguing over a wrecked truck.

Arthur transfers the steaks onto a platter. “Thirty-seven. How does it feel?”

“Exactly like thirty-six.”

“That’s because your life is painfully boring,” Taylor says. “You need a woman.”

“No, I don’t.”

“You need a dog,” Will offers.

“I might consider a dog.”

Taylor points his bottle at me. “That right there is your problem.”

I don’t ask what he means.

I already know.

For eighteen years, these men have watched me wake from nightmares with Hayley’s name on my lips. They know I searched for her. They helped me search.

Hayley Wyman and her entire family vanished from Tennessee three days after my father sent me to military school.

By the time I escaped long enough to get home, their house was empty. Her father had quit his job. Their bank accounts were closed. No forwarding address. No explanation.

Nothing.

I spent years checking every trace I could find. Hayley’s Social Security number was never used again. She never applied for a driver’s license, enrolled in college, opened an account, or left any kind of trail.

It was as if she had died at sixteen.

I never believed she left willingly.

“Food’s ready,” Arthur says.

A sensor chimes inside the house.

The four of us go still.

The sound is different from the warning triggered by an animal crossing the fence line. Someone has entered through the main gate.