Page 32 of Manhunt in the Narrows
No signs of life. Of anyone else out here. The killer had to have brought her this way. There were no other branches to follow at the end of the Narrows, but the park itself stretchedover two hundred square miles. A gust cut through the valley and whipped up the dirt under his feet, erasing any kind of tracks. Still, Elias’s gut told him he was headed in the right direction, as if Sayles had connected that invisible internal string she’d discovered inside him to herself. To give him something to focus on. To follow.
And, hell, he’d follow her to the ends of the earth. He’d chase her forever if that was what she required of him, to show her she was worth every second, every mistake, everything he’d be required to give up for a single shot with her.
There were no paths out here in the backcountry, but he kept heading forward. Blood crusted in his palm and between his fingers though the pain remained consistent. Pulsing and unrelenting. It was too late to go back now. Backup wouldn’t get here in time. Without Sayles, he was stranded in the middle of the desert without any idea where to go next, food, medical supplies or a way to contact the visitors’ center. All he could hope for was that Grant had gotten enough information on their location to provide support, whatever that looked like.
He was on his own, but this was what he’d trained for. What he was good at. He’d studied the thinking patterns and motivations of killers for years, including the very people involved in his father’s death. The Hitchhiker Killer wouldn’t be any different. There was a reason he’d followed the interstate to Zion National Park. Elias had originally assumed it’d been to avoid arrest, but most criminals wouldn’t trade a nine-by-nine cell and three meals a day for an early death in the middle of the desert. The closest thing to civilization outside the park was Springdale, a tourist town constructed and dependent on the lure of the park, but the town sat completely in the opposite direction. No. The killer wasn’t looking to escape. Sayles had said he was looking for something. Someone. But who the hell would be out here?
The answer came as Elias rounded the next bend in the unofficial trail. In the form of a blue canvas tent. The entrance had been left unzipped, the makeshift door collapsing into the tent and exposing the window at the back. A white-and-red cooler lay discarded on its side, melted ice leaking into the dirt in a spreading dark patch.
More evidence of a struggle peppered the dead landscape. A paperback—tossed face down into the dirt—a shredded sleeping bag thrown over a cactus a few feet away.
And the foot peeking out from the corner of the tent.
Dread pooled at the base of his spine, pulling Elias to a stop. He studied the boot-clad foot, willed it to move. Compared it to the pair Sayles had been wearing these past two days, and the dread turned into something darker as he recognized the brand. No. No, no, no. It wasn’t her. It couldn’t be her. Then he was running. “Sayles.”
Dirt kicked up under his shoes as he rounded the tent. And froze.
Chest heaving, wound bleeding, Elias studied the body, doubling over. Nausea churned in his gut, and he had to look away as horse flies started circling. He’d faced bodies before, but this one…
Not Sayles. The face he studied belonged to that of a stranger. Hispanic male dressed in a denim button-up shirt and shorts, full mustache with a peppering of beard growth. Maybe thirty, thirty-five years old. The park was supposed to be evacuated. What was he doing out here by himself? Blood clotted around the bullet wound between the victim’s eyes. Fresh. Couldn’t have been shot more than thirty minutes ago, which meant he still had a chance of catching up.
National park rangers would have to collect the body. For now, Elias grabbed a half-eaten bag of beef jerky, shoved a handful into his mouth and searched through the tent forsomething—anything—to help him find Sayles. No radio. No weapons. He tossed a second sleeping bag to the other side of the tent. And realized this victim hadn’t been out here alone after all.
The Hitchhiker Killer had taken another hostage.
Chapter Twenty-Five
A scream seared her nervous system.
Not hers. Though Sayles was close to losing her mind as images of a bullet ripping through that man’s head refused to dissipate. She’d been forced to leave him there next to his tent, his pleas for his wife’s life still shredding through her.
But it’d just been a game. One the killer had already decided the winner. Empty promises of choosing one victim while the other would walk away unscathed replayed through her head as she’d just stood there, trying to make herself as small as possible so as not to regain the Hitchhiker Killer’s attention. Except Patrick had never intended to let either of the campers go. Instead, he’d pulled the trigger and left an innocent man die at her feet. There hadn’t been anything she could’ve done to stop him. Not without taking a bullet herself.
She stumbled forward as the toe of her boot caught on a rock and turned to see that gun still aimed at her back even as the man dragged the female camper across the desert floor by her pretty blond hair. Sayles didn’t know where they were going, had no idea how to get out of this mess. They were at the mercy of a man who possessed no mercy. This… She wasn’t trained for this. What happened now? “Please, you don’t have to hurt her.”
Another scream bounced off the mountains around them as the killer wrenched the woman’s head back, and Sayles’s heart squeezed too hard in her chest. The camper had dropped to herknees, trying to keep up with the killer’s push forward. Dirt-crusted blood trickled down her shins and pooled along the tops of her white socks. “You’re right. I don’t have to hurt her, but it’s been a long time coming. You deserve what’s coming, don’t you, Mae?”
Mae.
Shock slapped Sayles across the face with an invisible hand. Her legs threatened to collapsed right out from under her. How… How did he know her name? The hairs on the back of Sayles’s neck stood on end, and she wanted nothing but to escape. Run as fast as she could and never look back as realization set in. She tried to pick up on details of the woman’s face, to give herself something to keep her grounded. The soft curve of groomed eyebrows, the way her flannel shirt—much too big for her frame—hung off her shoulders and revealed the tank top underneath. None of it did a damn bit of good. “You…you know her?”
“Mae and I go a long way back, don’t we?” The killer smoothed the pad of his thumb along the woman’s cheek. “Years, in fact.”
Tears streaked down the camper’s—down Mae’s—face as she latched both hands on to the killer’s wrist for relief. But there was no escape as long as Patrick kept that gun on them. Sayles could try to run, but that would leave this woman, whoever she was, in the hands of a man who looked as though he was one wrong response away from putting a bullet in both of them. The sobs intensified, each striking Sayles harder than the one before. “He’s my… He was my husband.”
The world almost tipped on its axis. Sayles tried to focus on something—anything—but the cavern tearing through her chest.
“Was?Are you kidding me, Mae?” The Hitchhiker Killer tugged Mae’s head back against his abdomen with more force than necessary, earning a whimper that Sayles found all toofamiliar. She’d heard it before, coming from her own mouth as her ex stood above her screaming for an answer as to why she hadn’t picked up the phone when he’d called. “I seem to recall you telling me it was death do us part. So, no, Ranger Green. I was not her husband. Iamher husband, and it’s time for Mae to come home.”
The control, the domination and manipulation—it was all coming back in full force. Unfiltered terror surfaced. Sweat broke across her skin despite the dip of the sun behind the mountain to the west. The urge to shrink, to hide, wrestled with the new facets she’d forged since her release from prison. The ones that told her she was stronger than her abuser, that she’d survived, that she’d won. They felt like nothing more than the sand stuck between her fingers compared to the black hole dragging at her body, anything but solid.
She couldn’t let it win. Couldn’t let this man win. She’d stood up to this particular killer before, shown him she wouldn’t be beaten down to that husk of a woman again. It hadn’t been a conscious effort but created from choice. From Elias showing her exactly how much power she exerted. Her choice. It’d always been her choice when it came to him, and…and she loved him for it.
The solid wall of adamant she’d built between her and the rest of the world had crumbled in a matter of days because of him. Because he’d encouraged her to trust herself, to save herself while he’d stood nearby in case she needed help. And she’d used that agency to reject the idea there could ever be anything between them. She’d been wrong. So wrong. What she wouldn’t give to wake up pressed against Elias’s chest in a too-small tent again. To hear that laugh that physically brushed her insides and surged heat into her face. To feel his mouth on hers and forget all the hurt and the pain and the bitterness.
She’d started falling for him. And lost the chance to tell him.
Trusting Elias with her heart wasn’t about giving up her freedom. He’d never take that from her. He’d never cage or isolate her as her ex had. It was about choosing him over that deep-rooted fear. And she wanted to choose him. More than anything. Regret fought to consume her whole, but she wouldn’t give it leverage.
