Page 20 of Save Me

It wasn’t until she was started down a steep drop on the path that she realized she was in what hikers called “the blind spot.”

She couldn’t see him when she looked back, which meant he couldn’t see her either. And it was becoming all too clear that he was going to catch her before she ever got to her car. At that moment, she remembered something Hunt used to say.

When faced with a hard decision, do the unexpected.

So, she faked her death.

She yanked off her sneakers, then threw one partway down the slope along with her flannel shirt, and left the other one in the path. Then she dropped and rolled in the trail to make it look like she had a bad fall and rolled off into the canyon below.

Still in her sock feet, she leaped across the path on the other side and ran deep into the trees and brush before pausing to get her bearings. She couldn’t keep going down, because that’s where he was going, so she hunkered down and began moving in a crouch back up the mountain, and never looked back.

THE LAST THING Justin expected to see was one of Lainie’s sneakers on the trail, and then he saw where she fell and looked over the slope, saw her flannel shirt first, and then the other shoe.

Holy shit. The bitch fell off the mountain.

He let out a sigh of relief, and then realized he was still carrying her things. The first thing he did was wipe his prints off her hiking pole before he tossed it down the slope, and then he slung her backpack down with it.

His whole face was on fire. He could feel the furrows she’d left on his face and knew he had to get them treated, but he stopped long enough to use a bottle of his drinking water to wash off what he could of blood and bear spray.

He was confident animals would destroy her body, but his DNA was all over her clothes and backpack, so he began concocting an alibi on his way to his car.

They’d gone hiking together and were surprised by a bear. He was trying to protect her when the bear knocked them both down. He sprayed the bear, got caught in some of the blowback, and was unaware that she’d been knocked over the side of the mountain until after the bear ran away.

Then, he sat in his car and watched TikTok videos until his phone went dead, and his wounds wouldn’t be fresh, before driving himself to the nearest emergency room. He staggered in, claiming he’d been knocked unconscious after a bear attack, that his hiking partner was missing, and he’d found a shoe in the path and seen some of her gear on the downslope. His best guess was that she’d fallen off the path into a canyon, but he was too weak to search on his own, and when he got to his car, his phone was dead, so he drove himself to the ER.

Within the hour, both the local police and the Denver Park Rangers were in ER taking his statement, while a doctor and nurse continued to clean up his wounds. They put four staples in his head wound, reset his broken nose and told him to see his dentist, and to drink his meals through straws for the next couple of weeks.

A nurse was swabbing out the scratches as he continued to answer questions, but she wasn’t buying the whole story. So, while the police were still questioning Justin, she signaled for the doctor to come out into the hall.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Those scratches on his face and neck don’t look like bear scratches. They look like fingernail scratches. And he has them on his wrists and neck, and upper arms, too. If his hiking partner is missing, he might be the reason why.”

The doctor frowned and went back into the exam room. “Mr. Randall, I want to take another look at the wounds on your face to make sure we’ve gotten out all of the debris.”

Justin didn’t say anything, but he was worried. When the cops began whispering between themselves, and then one of them requested the wounds be swabbed for DNA, then took possession of all of the swabs they’d used to clean the scratches the first time, he knew they weren’t buying all of his story. But since it was the only one he had, he was sticking to it.

LAINIE’S SIDE WAS ACHING. She was exhausted and stumbling, and out of breath. It felt like she’d been running forever. There was an outcrop of rocks in an open space just ahead, and her focus was just getting to the patch of shade beneath it when she stumbled again, and fell forward before she had time to catch herself. Her head hit the side of the outcrop as she went down, and she was unconscious before she landed.

It was late evening before she woke up with dirt in her mouth and a huge cut on her lip. Her head was one solid ache, and when she moved, everything spun around her. As she rolled over to sit up, something ran down the side of her face. She thought it was sweat and gave it a swipe, only to have her hand come away covered in blood.

“No, no, no,” she whispered, and put her head between her knees to keep from passing out.

She couldn’t figure out where she was, or what had happened, and began looking around for her backpack, and that’s when she remembered. The last time she’d seen it, Justin Randall had it. She groaned, remembering now that she’d tried to throw him off her trail by pretending that she had fallen into the canyon. But what if he was still out there looking for her? What was she supposed to do?

Her hands were trembling as she took the bandanna off her forehead, refolded it and tied it over the bleeding cut, then thought about trying to get up. But when she looked down and saw bear tracks in the dirt all around where she was sitting, she was on her feet before she thought. The motion was too fast, and she nearly went down again.

Her best guess was that she had a concussion, and steadied herself against the outcrop until the world stopped spinning. After that, she took a closer look at the tracks. She couldn’t decide if they were old tracks, or if a bear had sniffed around her while she was unconscious, then wandered off. The thought was terrifying, and her biggest fear now became the bear. What if it came back looking for her?

Without thinking, she charged off, staggering and stumbling as she went, until the sun began going down, taking warmth with it. Her head was pounding, and she needed a place out of the wind for the night, and began keeping an eye out as she walked. When she came upon a ledge of rocks with just enough space beneath to crawl under, she stopped. The possibility of a snake crawling up beside her in the night was real, so she began gathering dry brush and small branches, then crawled beneath the ledge and pulled the branches in all around her.

She wanted a drink of water so bad she could almost taste it, and everything hurt, and she was so cold, but exhaustion overwhelmed fear. She curled up, closed her eyes and dreamed.

SHE WAS RUNNING and then she was driving, and then she was walking, and every time she saw a stranger she’d stop and ask, “Have you seen Hunter? Have you seen my man?” And every time, they would shake their heads and leave her standing.

Then the dream morphed, and she was in a boat on a river, and fog was so thick she couldn’t see the shore. The boat had no motor or oars, and she was screaming, “Help me! Help me!” but to no avail.

Then from a distance, she heard a voice. She knew that voice, and stood up in the boat and began to scream. “Help, Hunter! Help. I’m here!” But the boat kept floating farther and farther away, until the world around her was silent once more.

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