Page 24 of Manhunt in the Narrows (Red Rock Murders #1)

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 climb now, 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’d gained 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.

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 stretched over 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 for something—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.