Page 4 of Manhunt in the Narrows (Red Rock Murders #1)

He wasn’t sure how far they’d hiked. But his legs felt as though they were on fire.

Up ahead, Ranger Green made the trek look easy, but he’d already tripped, slipped and face-planted over the slimy rocks determined to stop him from going any farther.

What the hell kind of nightmare was this?

The getup she’d dressed him in hadn’t done a damn bit of good on that last fall.

Frigid water had worked down the collar and soaked his T-shirt straight through.

His fingers had lost feeling a few minutes ago while she navigated him deeper into hell itself.

“You really hike this thing every weekend?”

There was a certain confidence she carried he couldn’t ignore. Like she’d been made for this place. Otherworldly and stronger than he’d estimated. Wilder than she wanted to admit. Definitely formidable and guarded. “When I’m not on shift.”

Couldn’t argue with the view, though.

Sayles slowed her pace, then came to a stop atop an oversize flat rock at the river’s edge.

For him or for herself, he didn’t care. He needed a break.

The sun barely reached the tips of the canyon walls high above him, and a chill settled across his shoulders.

Or maybe it was those intense green eyes assessing him from a few feet away.

“You look like you could use a few minutes.”

His lungs agreed. He was in shape. Part of the job. But this… This was something else. Muscles he wasn’t aware existed protested every step. “How far until the first campsite?”

She swung her pack forward from one shoulder and extracted a metal water bottle. He’d expect nothing less from a national park ranger concerned with keeping her park garbage-free. Taking a swig, she threw him an unexpected smile. “We’ve only been hiking for twenty minutes.”

Elias nearly doubled over at the realization. He checked his watch. Yep. Sure enough. Twenty minutes since they’d entered the trail. “I’m going to die out here, aren’t I?”

“Don’t worry. There wouldn’t be any need for a manhunt. Given these currents, your body would turn up in a few hours.” She repackaged her water bottle and zipped up the bag.

Was that a joke? Elias couldn’t help but laugh as he dug around for his water bottle, which was plastic and not nearly as large as the one she’d brought, though he’d made sure he’d grabbed the water purification tablets she’d recommended. “Dark humor is your thing. I’ll try to remember that.”

With all the death and violence he and Grant had seen over the years they’d been partnered together, humor under pressure was something he understood well.

It was a way to not let the bad things follow you home at the end of the day.

Though you had to play it right. That meant no jokes around superiors or grieving family members.

Both rules his partner had ignored a time or two.

Maybe their current assignment wasn’t Elias’s fault after all.

“We’ve got to keep moving. Radar picked up a storm moving this way.

” She shrugged back into her pack but waited for him to catch up.

“Flash floods are the biggest danger on this trail. The rating was low this morning, but there is a long section of the Narrows we won’t be able to escape if we get caught in the rain. ”

“Good chance of dying. Noted.” Elias tried for a thumbs-up. Damn it all to hell, his entire body hurt at this point. “So who’d you have to kill to get gear that fit me? Because I have a feeling you’re not the kind to go out of your way to make sure I was prepared today.”

“The boots are Risner’s,” she said. “What he doesn’t know won’t kill him.”

He had to bury the hot thread of annoyance at hearing she had access to the district ranger’s personal effects. Wait. “You stole them?”

“Borrowed.” She angled her chin over one shoulder, putting him in her peripheral vision. Keeping tabs on him. “Don’t worry. He’ll get them back after they recover your body.”

A seam rubbed the wrong way on the inside of his jeans. Taking off the first few layers of skin. Damn it. Water had made its way to his jeans. This was not going to be pleasant. “And the hydro bib?”

She faced forward, shoulders going tight. “My ex was really into fishing. I took that and the rest of his stuff out of spite.”

Okay. So he could add vengeful to the growing list of attributes. A lot like the muscles in his legs screaming at him to go to hell if he took one more step. “I take it the relationship didn’t end well.”

“Most divorces don’t end on good terms.” The inflection had drained from her voice.

She’d been married. Why did that fact heat feeling back into his fingertips?

Elias followed in her steps, kept to the same slimy rocks, spotted the steady gaps between.

There was a method to her madness. As if she was following a map laid out by Indiana Jones himself.

Or maybe he wanted to have more confidence in her so they got out of this alive. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“You didn’t.” An energy he couldn’t put his finger on stiffened her movements. “I haven’t seen anything to suggest your killer came this way, but we have miles ahead of us, and he has a good hour head start. He could already be at Orderville Canyon Junction. It’s where we want to camp tonight.”

He didn’t miss the change in subject. All right.

Back to the reason they were here. He could do that.

Elias forced himself back into the right headspace, one focused on the potential of them coming into contact with a serial killer.

Rangers had federal jurisdiction, but there was very different training involved between the NPS and the FBI.

He was accustomed to violence. Sayles was accustomed to scolding hikers for relieving themselves off cliffsides.

“Guys like this will do whatever it takes to escape arrest. Once we find him, I’m going to need you to stay behind me.

Use me as a shield if you have to. I go down, you run like hell. Got it?”

“Got it,” she said.

No argument. Interesting. He’d expected more of a fight, but he’d give her credit for self-preservation.

A lot of people—especially civilians—fantasized about playing hero in situations like theirs.

Though rangers weren’t civilians in the least. They were federal agents only on a much grander scale.

Some, like Risner, let their ego lead the charge, but Elias didn’t get that feel from her.

She wanted to be small and stay out of the way. Hidden.

They moved a few more yards upstream with nothing but the white noise of the river filling the silence, and damn it, the seam in his jeans cut through the first few layers of skin as easily as a blade at this point.

He’d survived far more violent injuries since signing on with the Bureau, but this was a slow death.

Heat charged into his face as he realized Sayles had stopped ahead, that intense green gaze on him.

Her eyes pinched at the corners. Assessing him from head to toe. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Who says anything is wrong?” He hopped to the next rock and landed without tripping over his own two feet. Hell, maybe he was getting the hang of this trail after all.

“Your face. You keep wincing.” She worked her way downstream, closing the distance between them.

“It’s nothing.” He was a federal agent, for crying out loud. A wet jean seam shouldn’t make him feel as though his thigh had caught fire.

Sayles tipped her head back. Clouds rolled above the sliver of canyon overhead.

Thick and darker than they should be. She’d mentioned a storm caught on radar before they’d left.

Looked like they hadn’t managed to outrun it.

“We need to pick up the pace. The storm is almost here, and we need to be on higher ground by the time it hits.”

Was that him groaning or the river? Elias wasn’t sure.

She didn’t wait for him to answer, heading back upstream.

Suck it up, Broyles. Wet jeans would not be the reason he met his maker.

Every muscle in his legs protested against deepening waters.

He wasn’t sure he could feel his toes anymore, even with the waterproof boots.

The water’s temperature rated below freezing, all that snowpack melting off the mountains to the north and into the Virgin River.

A rumble of thunder seemed to shake the canyon around them.

Sayles pulled up short, attention to the sky. Her gaze then locked on him. If he hadn’t studied human behavior his entire career, he might’ve missed the note of panic in her face. She scanned the waters around them, going from clear to muddy in a matter of seconds. What the hell? “Run!”

He didn’t need to be told twice. The pain along the inside of his thigh shifted to the back of his mind.

Elias forced his body to comply, tucking his thumbs around his pack straps to avoid the bounce.

The water fought his every step, working to drag him downstream.

He replicated Sayles’s footsteps, the areas she steered clear of and her change in direction.

Straight ahead to diagonal. To the right.

“Move!” Her warning was drowned out by an angry roar ahead.

His muscles burned harder as the waters seemed to rise several inches in a matter of seconds. Flash flood. The storm must’ve dumped rain higher up the trail, and now they were going to pay for it.

Panic ticked up his heart rate. At least they’d find his body in a few hours. That was what she’d said, right? It wasn’t until Sayles cut down a smaller canyon to the right that hope dared show its ugly face.

She scrambled out of the river’s grip and almost straight up a streaked, slippery rock face. Elias couldn’t keep up, and she reached back for him as if expecting him to suddenly become a mountaineer. “Come on!”

The roar was growing louder. Closer.

The river water churned around his legs and rose impossibly higher.

Elias latched on to her hand, surprised by the strength behind the tug.

He dug his toes into the slick rock and grabbed for the nearest shrub to get hold.

His feet left the river a split second before the waters consumed the very rocks he’d been balanced on.

But it wasn’t enough. The Virgin River was going to eat them alive.

“Climb!” Sayles shouted over the thundering scream of the flood.

Pointing to the next hold, she directed him to an outcropping of rocks overhead.

His foot slipped. Her hand slapped across the back of his thigh as she took position behind him.

Putting herself between him and the river.

The waterproof boots weren’t meant to be utilized as hiking gear.

One wrong move and he’d take her down with him. He had to keep moving.

They’d reached the outcropping, and the ground evened out enough to provide a ledge overlooking the flood. Elias landed on his back, out of breath, staring up at the darkening sky.

The first drops of rain pattered against his face as Sayles centered herself in his vision. “And that’s why we don’t wear jeans hiking.”