Page 118 of If You're Reading This
Logan held his breath as Zimmerman continued backing up, adjusting his tripod legs and checking angles. The killer was maybe ten feet from the edge now, and he was completely absorbed in his work.
“The aurora needs to frame both trees equally,” Morgan continued, her voice steady despite the circumstances. “If you’re too close, you lose that celestial backdrop that gives the whole composition meaning.”
“Yes,” Zimmerman breathed, looking through his viewfinder again. “Yes, I can see it now. The space between them is part of the story.”
He took another step backward, then another, fine-tuning his position. Eight feet from the edge. Seven.
Logan caught Morgan’s eye and saw the desperate hope there. She was gambling everything on Zimmerman’s obsessionwith perfection, banking on his need to create the ultimate photograph overwhelming his awareness of his surroundings.
“Perfect exposure requires perfect positioning.” Morgan’s voice took on an almost hypnotic quality. “Just a little more. You want to capture the full emotional distance between life and death.”
Six feet. Five.
Zimmerman was completely absorbed now, making tiny adjustments to his camera angle, muttering about f-stops and shutter speeds.
He looked up in excitement. “The light is perfect. Absolutely perfect. Just one more step back to get the full?—”
His foot found empty air.
For a split second, Zimmerman seemed to hang in space, his camera still clutched in his hands, his face a mask of surprise and confusion.
Then gravity took hold, and he disappeared over the edge with a scream that was cut short by the sound of impact far below.
The clearing fell silent except for the whisper of wind through the trees.
Logan and Morgan stared at each other across the twenty feet that separated them, both hardly believing what had just happened.
“Is he . . . ?” Morgan whispered.
Logan listened carefully, straining to hear any sound from the ravine below. Nothing. No movement, no groaning, no calls for help. Just the eerie silence of the wilderness under the dancing aurora.
“I think he’s dead,” Logan said quietly.
Morgan closed her eyes, her whole body sagging with relief and exhaustion. “I can’t believe that worked.”
“Your knowledge of photography saved our lives,” Logan said. “That was brilliant.”
“I just used his ego against him. He always needed to prove he was the better artist.” Morgan looked around at their situation—both still tied to the ice columns in the middle of nowhere. “Now we just need to figure out how to get out of these ropes.”
Logan tested his bonds again, feeling for any weakness. “The team will find us. They’ll figure out where we are.”
He prayed the team found them before the cold became too chilling.
He wanted to believe their troubles were over, but he knew that wasn’t true.
Not yet.
CHAPTER
SIXTY-SIX
Andi’s hearthammered against her ribs as she crashed through the underbrush, following the GPS coordinates toward the clearing.
Behind her, she could hear Duke, Ranger, and Yazzie moving through the forest, their flashlights cutting through the darkness between the trees.
“Logan!” she called out as they reached the edge of the clearing. “Morgan!”
“Here!” Logan’s voice came back, strong and alive, and Andi felt a surge of relief so powerful it nearly brought her to her knees. “We’re here!”
