Page 23 of Manhunt in the Narrows (Red Rock Murders #1)

“No!” She dived for the spot where Elias had disappeared.

The ground rushed to meet her in a frenzy of dirt and lacerating gravel. Her chest threatened to cave under the impact as she reached for nothing but air.

He was gone. There one second and gone the next.

Acidic loss burned up her throat. No. It wasn’t possible.

This was all some kind of nightmare. She was going to wake up.

Any minute now they’d be in her one-person tent, her sprawled across his chest and him acting like he’d gotten the best night sleep of his life.

They would have breakfast together and throw barbs at each other.

He would flash her that smile that went straight to her insides and maybe kiss her again. “Elias!”

Only the Virgin River’s roar answered. Tears burned in her eyes.

“Yes, very sad. Shall we go?” A strong hand wrapped around her biceps and hauled her to her feet.

Her legs had turned to Jell-O. Her inability to get her feet underneath her—to comply—testified to his strength as an all-around psychopath.

“As I said, I’m on a deadline, and I’ve already wasted enough time trying to get my hands on you for this little project. ”

They were moving. Along the trail. Away from where Elias had gone over the edge. She couldn’t just leave him. There was still a chance he’d survived, right? Sayles ripped her arm out the killer’s grasp. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Stumbling back, she spun on her heel. Ready to launch down the trail.

But she didn’t make it far. She saw his shadow first. Then came the pain.

Crushing weight tackled her into the ground.

Her knee slipped over the edge of the two-foot-wide goat trail, but the killer’s weight held her in place.

Her forehead bounced off slick mud. White explosions danced behind her eyes.

Air. She couldn’t breathe. Excruciating agony threatened to snap her spine in half as she tried to suck in a breath.

“Unfortunately, Ranger Green, that’s not your decision.

” He fisted his hand in her hair and pulled, forcing her back to compensate.

The barrel of his gun cut into the side of her face.

Somehow warm and cold at the same time. Mouth pressed against her ear, he exerted pure dominance over her.

“Now, I’ve been patient up until now. Keep fighting me and I will burn this entire park to the ground before throwing you into the flames. Do you understand?”

The grip on her scalp tightened. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes, quickly dying with the gust of wind over the top of the canyon.

Not from the pain but the sudden gulf of darkness bleeding from her heart.

Right where Elias had set up residence. She’d convinced herself she’d known emptiness and loss, but it was nothing compared to the void chipping away at her now.

Dirt infiltrated her mouth and nose; thick layers of mud stuck to her uniform and face.

“Say the words.” Another wave of pain punctuated the Hitchhiker Killer’s point. “Say that you understand what’s at stake.”

Every cell in her body fought against agreeing to anything this man wanted. The fight might physically cost her, but inside, she knew Elias would expect nothing less. Her teeth locked. “Go to hell.”

“Oh, Ranger Green, where do you think I came from?” The pressure against her spine vanished.

She managed to suck in a lungful of oxygen a split second before the killer wrenched her upward by her hair.

Slapping both hands over his to ease the pain, she had little physical control facing him.

Any second now, Elias would drag himself over the lip of the canyon.

He would tell this bastard to let her go.

He’d look like hell but throw her that crooked smile to ease the anxiety churning nausea in her gut.

One second. Two. She waited. Ignored the Hitchhiker Killer’s prompts for her attention.

And waited. The hard pound of her heartbeat between her ears stretched seconds into minutes, into what felt like hours.

But he never came, and her heart broke all over again. Gone. He was gone.

He’d been right there for the past two days.

At her side. Keeping her from mentally breaking when all she’d wanted to do was curl into a ball and disappear.

Elias had seen through the armor she’d built around herself and accepted every broken piece she’d tried to hide from the outside world, and she’d thrown it back in his face.

Unwilling to give up a sliver of the hurt she’d survived in favor of the unknown.

Because she’d been scared. Unfairly compared him to her ex when they couldn’t be more different.

She’d regret it for the rest of her life.

“Let’s go, and if you try anything like that little rock-in-your-bag maneuver, I will shoot you in the arm.

Then the other arm. And then I’ll move on to your hands until there is nothing left of you.

” The killer shoved her forward, and it took everything in her not to hit the ground a second time.

He collected her pack and tossed it at her chest with too much force.

“You won’t need them where we’re going.”

She faced off with golden-yellow sun making its way toward the horizon, brushing off layers of dirt from her uniform shirt. Sweat beaded at her temples despite the consistent breeze skirting the rim of the canyon. “Asshole.”

His laugh hit wrong, disingenuous and sickly. He didn’t answer, but she had a feeling he wasn’t the first person people invited over to dinner.

“Where are we going?” Sayles kept awareness at her back while searching for a way to escape.

Rocks shifted beneath her boots, the gravel much looser here than along other parts of the trail as they closed in on Big Spring.

She could throw a handful in his face. Give herself a head start, but she wasn’t sure her ribs could hold up against another tackle.

Emerald-colored waters rippled 1,000 feet below under the onslaught of two medium-size waterfalls.

The river was shallowest here, a hub that swelled only with the onslaught of storms. There was no surviving a jump from this distance.

Elias had fallen at a deeper section. He could’ve survived. He could need help.

“If I told you that, I’d be ruining the surprise. All you need to worry about is helping me avoid any other ranger patrols.” The killer’s footsteps kept in time with hers. Deliberate. Intimidating. He wanted her to know he could strike out, that he was the one in control here.

Damn it. Why had Elias put himself between her and the man at her back?

He had to have known he’d lose a fight against a gun, but he’d made the choice to protect her anyway.

To give her a chance to run. Because that was the kind of man he was.

A protector, through and through, with the weight of the entire world on his shoulders.

No one else would’ve been good enough to do the job, but that relentlessness had forced him to sacrifice so much.

And for a stupid minute, she’d convinced herself she could be the one to help him break free of those self-inflicted responsibilities.

For a stupid minute, she’d considered saying yes.

But handing her heart over to someone else—giving him the same power she’d granted her ex—scared her more than falling over the edge of this cliff.

She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t go through that again,

Sayles glanced back, vying for a view of the river. For some sign Elias wasn’t dead.

“I’ve never met someone who thinks so loudly before.” A nudge in her lower spine forced her to look ahead. The gun took shape in her peripheral vision. “Whatever escape you’re considering, Ranger Green, it won’t work. I will find you, and you will wish you were dead.”

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 and dipped 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 be evacuated, 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?”