Page 26 of Save Me

IT WAS HUNT’S second night on the mountain and he hadn’t slept more than an hour or two. He’d already packed up his camp and was just waiting for enough light to track by.

He was eating a protein bar when a porcupine ambled by. His presence startled a gray fox heading back to its burrow for the day. The night birds had gone to roost, and the birds who came with sunrise were already flitting from limb to limb, then dropping to the ground for bugs and grubs. Life abounded, and all he could do was hope Lainie was still part of it.

His wait came to an end in the blink of an eye. The forest went from shadows to daylight, like God walked into the room and turned on a light. He shouldered his pack and started walking in the direction of the last tracks he’d seen—his head down, sweeping the area before him with a clear-eyed intensity. He couldn’t afford to miss a clue. Her life depended on it.

LAINIE HAD FALLEN asleep in the night and woke in daylight, burning with fever. Her lips were cracked, and her mouth and throat were so dry she didn’t have spit to swallow. She knew enough about the human body that she was severely dehydrated, and if she didn’t keep drinking water, her organs would begin shutting down.

She could hear the water in the nearby creek, and getting to it today was her only goal. But when she raised up on her elbow to push the branches aside, the pain that shot up the back of her neck and head was so sharp and sudden that, for a moment, she thought she’d been shot.

“That hurt,” she muttered, as she pushed past the pain and started crawling.

But the twenty yards from her shelter to the water might as well have been miles. By the time she got there, her arms were trembling. She went belly down at the water’s edge and drank until she could hold no more, and then she ducked her face into the flowing stream over and over, trying to cool the fever, until she finally gave up and crawled the rest of the way into the creek.

The water was barely knee deep, but she floated on her belly to a partially submerged rock. Using it for an anchor, she wrapped her arms around the projection above the water and held on, letting the cold mountain water be the ice bath she needed.

She was still hanging on to the rock when a possum waddled out of the underbrush and went down to the water to get a drink. The irony of her fighting to stay alive, side by side with a little possum simply quenching its thirst, was a most perfect analogy of life. After it moved back into the underbrush, Lainie began the painful journey of getting herself out of the creek.

By the time she reached the bank and began to crawl up the slope and back to her shelter, she was exhausted. She pulled the branches back around herself, and as she did, realized she’d lost a sock in the creek, then accepted that it no longer mattered. Exhausted beyond words, she rolled over into a ball and closed her eyes. The last thing she remembered was feeling her clothes beginning to dry, and thinking how hungry she was.

GREG AND TINA MAYES were back at the search site again, only this time they’d come prepared. They had folding chairs and a cooler full of drinks and snacks, and were sitting in the shade of a nearby tree.

After they’d gone back to their hotel last night, neither of them had mentioned the obvious, but they both assumed that their daughter was dead. As they sat at the search site this morning, they were actually discussing where Lainie would be laid to rest when an older model Buick drove up.

The moment Greg saw the car, he cursed.

“What in hell makes Chuck Gray think he has business here?” he said.

Tina glanced up and shrugged. “Probably for the same reason we are. Their son. Somehow, they know Hunt’s here. You will be civil. They have as much right to be here as we do. You do not get into a shouting match. Do you understand me?”

Greg gave her a look. He knew better than to challenge her with that tone of voice.

“Whatever,” Greg said.

CHUCK AND BRENDA GRAY were holding hands as they started across the parking lot when Brenda saw Lainie’s parents.

“Greg and Tina are here,” she said.

Chuck stopped, stared at them a few moments and then started walking toward them, but it was the women who spoke first.

Brenda nodded at the couple. “Have you been here long?”

“A few days,” Tina said.

Brenda hesitated. Her voice was shaky as she spoke. “Do you know if Hunt is here?”

“We saw him,” Tina said, then glanced at Greg. His nose was still red and swollen, and he had a fat lip.

“Did he do that?” Chuck asked.

“His version of ‘hello,’” Greg snapped.

Brenda ignored him and refocused on Tina. “Did you talk to him? Did he tell you where he’s been?”

“He spoke. We listened. It appears he didn’t know anything about the past until recently. He is beyond enraged. He’s gone up the mountain to look for Lainie. Said he wouldn’t be back without her, and if she was dead, he was going to kill Greg when he got back.”

Brenda gasped and reached for Chuck’s hand. “I told you we should have told him.” Tears rolled, and then she wiped them away. “Is there any news about Lainie today? We’ve heard nothing since we left home.”

Tina shrugged. “Not about Lainie, but they arrested the hiker. They think his story was faked. They think she wasn’t hiking with him, and that he faked the bear attack to cover up what he’d done to her. They’re still searching, but I don’t think they believe she’s alive.”

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