Page 31 of Manhunt in the Narrows
She was out of options. No weapon. No escape from this trail. Her best chance was to get them to the backcountry and wait for the opportunity to run where she didn’t have to fight the elevation, a too-narrow trail or the river itself. But biding her time could cost Elias precious minutes he didn’t have. “What do you want from me?”
“Keep moving. Daylight’s burning.” Coldness—all too familiar and terrifying—solidified the killer’s face as he guided her forward, and Sayles couldn’t help but conclude this was going to end badly. For her. For Elias. For anyone else who came across this man’s path.
She was the only one standing in his way of him getting what he wanted. Whatever that was.
They kept to the goat trail, bypassing the beauty of Big Spring below. This was the official end of the Narrows. That emerald pool below had changed her every time she’d hiked this trail. In small ways at first, then with life-altering clarity. Zion National Park held a magic to it she couldn’t explain, one of possibility and healing and support. But she didn’t feel it now. People liked to think time healed all wounds, but those people were idiots. Wounds like hers didn’t heal. She’d just had to learn how to control the bleeding.
Gravel crunched under her weight as they hiked past the oasis 1,000 feet, down then shifted to fine-grained dirt and sand. Desert weeds clawed at her shins and caught on her bootlaces as they entered backcountry. Waves of mountains crested anddipped against the crystal-blue sky. The rock here took on more of a pale tan coloring compared with the red and orange along the Narrows, but it was still just as beautiful. Miles of unending desert, canyon and green trees stretched out before them, but Sayles didn’t have the guts to stop to take it all in this time.
“Northeast.” One word. That was all he gave her as they approached a lightning-struck tree, its black bark smooth where animals and weather had worn it down over the years.
Shards of wood warned her not to get too close, and she couldn’t help compare herself to those broken pieces. Sharp. Burned. Exposed. At first glance, she would’ve assumed the tree had reached the end of its life, as she had. Under arrest for a murder she hadn’t committed, imprisoned with no sign of release, captive by a man who’d promised her the world. She and this tree had a lot in common. Except, as the Hitchhiker Killer nudged her a second time, she caught sight of new growth. Dead center in the middle of the charred remains of the tree. Surrounded by all the bad, a wisp of life.
She’d had that these past couple of days. A glimpse of something alive and renewing. Made possible by the federal agent she was so determined to hate. Her past had lost its grip in his laugh, in the way he’d put her needs first. How he’d risked his life for hers. No one had done that before. Sayles slowed her descent down the rounded, cracked hill leading into unfamiliar territory of Zion’s backcountry. No one was likely to do what he had for her again, and she’d wasted it. By letting fear win. By not telling Elias how he’d changed her, gifted her something no one else had. How he’d gotten her to dream again.
Unsure how long they traversed the desert in silence, Sayles was caught off guard by the bright spot of blue against the natural landscaping a few hundred yards ahead. Her heart shot into her throat. Hikers. Her skin turned clammy as she checked to see if the killer had noticed. The park was supposed to beevacuated, but it was impossible to hunt down every visitor in a short amount of time, especially those who came to the park to get off the grid. She made no assumptions that she’d make it out of this alive, but she could still save innocent bystanders.
She cut to the left, leading the Hitchhiker Killer more northeast. Hoping to bypass the tent altogether without drawing attention to it. But it was too late.
“It’d be awfully rude of us if we didn’t say hello.” Patrick dragged her back in front of him, the barrel of his weapon pressed into her ribs, and led her straight for the low voices coming from inside the blue canvas. “Don’t you think?”
Chapter Twenty-Four
He was dead.
That was the only explanation for the white light taking up his vision.
Elias blinked to get a better sense of his surroundings. Walls of red, orange and green bled through the brightness and took shape in his peripheral vision. Was dying supposed to hurt this much? Hell. Every inch of his body screamed. Dragging his chin to his chest, he mentally cataloged which of his limbs worked and which he’d have to let go of. Where was the train that had hit him? Water beat against one side of his face and seeped past his lips. Gross.
Turning onto his side, he let the groan stuck in his throat free. Rock cut into his hip and rib cage. Damn it. That hurt. He pressed his hand to his side to somehow keep himself together. A barrage of memory slapped into place. The killer. The cliff. The fall. Holy hell. He’d gone over the edge. And survived. That had to qualify for the Guinness World Records. He craned his head up, where he imagined the spot from which he’d done a Peter Pan into the river below, but he was too far away to tell.
Elias struggled to get his feet under him, moving slower than he wanted to. A scream echoed through his head and sent his heart rate into overdrive. Sayles. She’d tried to grab on to him. She was still up there. Alone with a killer who wouldn’t let her walk away unscathed. He had to move. If he started the climbnow, he might reach the goat trail by sundown. Searching the top of the rock wall, he failed to see any sort of movement.
Moving his arm, he noted blood on his shirt. His abdominal wound had reopened. The fall must’ve torn it open. He’d lost his pack. His first aid kit. Sayles. There would be no cleaning or bandaging it this time. He stumbled as he straightened. Not good. “Damn.”
The hydro bib’s straps dug into his shoulders; his gear was full of water. It would only work to slow him down. Hauling himself to the edge of the river, he surveyed his current location. Oversize stair steps jutted out from the base of the canyon, overgrown with trees and shrubs. Okay. Not one of the corridors. He had to be close to the end of the trail then, to Big Spring. Elias cleared the river, collapsing on a rock lip double his height. He unlaced his boots and dumped water from each. The blisters would be a bitch with wet socks, but he didn’t have time for his gear to dry. Sayles needed him now. Discarding the hydro bib, he left it behind as he scanned the canyon walls.
They’d accessed the goat trail around the four-mile marker. If the river had swept him downstream, he should be close enough to get back on. Except this time he wouldn’t have any gear, he had a hole in his torso and the sun would give out in the next hour or so. Who wouldn’t bet on him? Elias kept to the edge of the river, careful of every slippery, algae-covered rock threatening to bring him down. If he was being honest with himself, he might not get back up.
Attempting to hold his blood inside his body, he navigated the trail downstream. Every cell in his body begged him to give up now. To wait until Grant or another ranger could lead the manhunt, but Sayles didn’t have that kind of time. And he wasn’t going to be another person in her life to give up as her friends and family had when she’d gone to prison.
She deserved better. Deserved to be happy after everything she’d survived. Not just her emotionally abusive husband but the grief and loneliness that came with betrayal. But she couldn’t see it. How ridiculously beautiful and strong she’d become in response to her circumstances. And his heart hurt at seeing her continually retreat into that shell of a survivor she’d come to rely on since her arrest. Because he’d been privileged enough to glimpse through that armor, to the woman underneath. The one who took risks in moving to a whole new state to find a new path, who put her life on the line for tourists and hikers every day, who gifted a nobody like him with new purpose. Showed him how to stop letting the bad things win. In a matter of days, she’d changed him. Reached deep into his soul and resurrected a piece of himself he hadn’t realized he’d let die with every failed date and case gone wrong. She’d brought him back to life.
So, no. He wasn’t giving up on her. He’d keep going until the killer finished the job, or Sayles told him to go to hell. Either way, he owed her that much.
Elias left the cold dependence of the river and braced himself to ascend the goat trail a second time. His legs protested each step, but he had to keep moving. He already carried the weight of one innocent life on his shoulder. He wasn’t sure he could support another. Gravel shifted beneath his boots, and he had to use more of his upper body to stay balanced. Step after step, shallow breath after shallow breath. The pain in his side speared throughout the rest of his torso, as if a nerve ending had been struck.
He was going to make it. Because there wasn’t any other option.
Sun penetrated his vision, blinding him and gold-washing the landscape ahead as he crested the lip of the canyon. Hand up to block the sun, Elias picked up the pace into a reckless jog. The pressure in his chest hadn’t let up from the moment he’dgained consciousness on that canyon floor. Whatever plans the Hitchhiker Killer had for Sayles, it didn’t include letting her walk away. Her clock had started the moment he’d gone over the edge of the trail, but he wouldn’t leave her to fight this alone.
His lungs burned. From the elevation, exertion or dropping temperatures, he didn’t know, and it sure as hell wasn’t going to slow him down. Shallow footprints took shape in front of him, one set smaller than the others. Sayles. She’d been here. He was getting close. “Come on.”
Utter exhaustion clawed beneath his skin, and a gush of blood filled his palm as he added pressure to the wound. The two were probably linked, but logic wasn’t running this show. He was racing against the clock on pure need. Need to get to Sayles, to catch this killer, to make his father proud. All of it combined in a heavy dose of adrenaline that wouldn’t last long if he pushed too hard. But what other choice did he have?
The trail flattened out in front of him. Mountains demanded attention from every angle with valleys hidden by an insurmountable amount of trees and brush. Sayles could be anywhere, and without her as a guide, all he could do was trust his instincts. “This isn’t going to end well.”
Elias stepped off the goat trail and into the unknown. Sweat won the battle against the sun, seeping through his T-shirt despite the onslaught of drying heat. His ankles ached from uneven terrain, but he’d just add it to the long list of problems he’d have to deal with later. If he survived. Patches of snow highlighted the northern peaks of the cliffs staring down at him as he cut his own route into the first valley. Gravity added to the weight on his body, and it took everything he had left not to fall face-first into the dirt.
