Page 40 of Steinbeck (The Minnesota Kingstons #5)

“Kristen,” he said, gauging the distance to the top, “I’m going to need to breathe if we want to reach the top. Could you?—”

She buried her head in his back, between his shoulder blades.

Okay, so maybe not.

“What is your favorite subject in school?”

“Art.” Thread-thin voice.

“Outstanding. I drew my dog once—Mom thought it was a bowl of spaghetti with legs.”

Another weak laugh. Liam clung to that sound. The rim was just above, a few feet.

“We’re nearly there.”

“Liam!” Noah’s voice boomed from over the edge a second before he appeared, his broad frame silhouetted against the sun. “What do you need? Meg is here too.”

“Almost home.” Liam kept climbing. “Help me over the lip. Guard that right leg.”

Liam’s boots gripped the rock, the rope taut against the anchor. “You will like Meg.” He lowered his voice. “She’s a doctor and will know exactly how to fix you up. She’s really nice. And between you and me, I think Noah’s got a crush on her, but they’re both too chicken to admit it.”

Kristen giggled again. Some of her terror melted away.

Noah had anchored himself and reached down, grabbing Kristen’s harness and pulling her over the edge. Liam followed, collapsing onto solid ground. His chest heaved as he unclipped her from his harness, leaving her secured to the rope as a precaution.

“You did awesome, Kristen.” He brushed dirt from her hair. Her brothers rushed toward them, and Meg knelt over her leg.

Liam sat back, his hands shaking, the adrenaline crashing out of him.

He closed his eyes. Pine sap and limestone dust filled his nostrils.

The rope burn on his palms stung—he should have worn gloves.

Canyon wind cooled the sweat on his neck while gravel bit into his spine through his jacket.

His heartbeat thundered in his ears, drowning out Meg’s gentle questions and the boys’ chatter—all proof that everyone was breathing, talking, alive.

He glanced sideways, catching a glimpse of a bus in the distance—it looked almost like a converted city bus.

Mint green with faded brown trim, the vintage beast sported safari-style windows and the unmistakable boxy profile of a 1970s city transport gone rogue.

There was some dispersed camping just outside the park boundaries, but everything below the rim in this area, as well as a hundred feet from the edge, was National Park, and that bus was too close.

Something about it nagged at him, but he couldn’t focus on it. Not yet.

Noah’s hand landed heavy on his shoulder. “Quite a save. You solid?”

Liam nodded, lying. Adrenaline had stirred up the coiled darkness inside. Christiana’s face flashed again—the wide eyes, the scream?—

Maybe he couldn’t do this job if, every time he rescued someone, the past crashed over him, took him out.

He was just starting to learn how to stand again.

An SUV skidded to a stop. A woman launched out, tears streaming.

“Mom!” Michael bounced to his feet. “She’s okay! The ranger saved her!”

“You should’ve seen him!” Eric rushed over as their mother collapsed beside Kristen. “Total hero!”

The word punched into Liam’s chest. “Just doing the job.” But his voice emerged thin, the words hollow.

Because they didn’t know the truth.

Heroes didn’t get their friends killed.

* * *

Please don’t let them find me.

Except it might be too late. Because according to the encrypted chatter she’d intercepted yesterday, she was the target.

The certainty gnawed at Nimue Hart’s gut like a parasite.

Sure, the encrypted chatter had been faint, snatched from the ether via her satellite uplink under the wide Arizona sky, but she’d cracked it in under an hour.

“New lead on target,” it had read. “Mobilizing assets.” No names, no specifics, just the cold efficiency of the Russian syndicate she’d been dodging since they’d tracked her to King’s Inn eight months ago.

Nimue stretched out in the small mint-green seat of her converted city bus, pencil trailing across the page as she captured the shapes and shadows of the canyon through the side window.

Her hand moved in practiced strokes—light for the distant rim, heavy for the shadows carved deep into sandstone.

Drawing had always been her reset button, the one thing that untangled the knots in her chest.

The North Rim spread before her like a geological masterpiece—crimson buttes rising from purple depths, their surfaces carved into impossible angles by millennia of wind and water.

Morning light painted the layered rock in shades of amber and rust, while shadows pooled like spilled ink in the crevices below.

A condor circled somewhere in that vast emptiness, riding thermals between the ancient walls.

But on her page, the vibrant canyon translated to stark grays and blacks, her pencil capturing texture and form without the fire of color.

The view should have been enough to distract her from yesterday’s intercepted message, but her pencil kept pausing mid-stroke.

She’d told Emberly she wasn’t running, which was true. Hiding, though? That was another story entirely. She’d found herself in her own game of cat and mouse, but until yesterday she’d believed she held the upper hand.

New lead on target.

She’d made the mistake of leaving a trail in her online searching. Rookie move.

At least if she was the target, no one else would get caught in the crossfire. She set her sketchbook aside and slid back onto the bench at the table, fingers flying across the keys of her setup. Three monitors flickered to life, casting blue light across her face.

The fold-down table that should have converted into a queen bed had become the permanent home for her digital fortress—three screens, her tower, a tangle of cables, and a keyboard worn smooth from years of use.

She’d rather crash on the minicouch anyway.

Sleep had sort of become a luxury after eight months on the run.

She scanned the encrypted chatter. Yeah, there it was, only updated: “Moving on target.”

Her heart dropped to her stomach. She toggled through feeds from her perimeter cameras, each one a grainy window into the world around her. Nothing. Not even a swaying branch.

Were they moving on someone else?

She sagged against the seat back. Maybe this was the sign she needed to pack up and move again.

But she’d chosen this place for a reason.

The bus, parked in a dispersed camping spot just west of the Grand Canyon’s North Rim, was her sanctuary and her fortress.

Its mint-green exterior hopefully passed for an eccentric camper’s ride.

No one would guess it thrummed with more computing power than the nearby lodge could dream of—solar panels feeding a battery bank, a satellite dish, and a network of cameras hidden in the surrounding pines. Moving meant starting over. Again.

The quiet peace of her solo trip had been nice at first. Now she hated it with every fiber of her being. But if keeping her sister—and the people they loved—safe meant living alone, she’d pay that price.

She secured the connection, then dialed her sister Emberly’s number. The call disconnected. She tried again with the same result. She pushed back from the table with enough force to make the bus rock slightly before heading outside.

The stairs affixed to the back creaked as she climbed up to the deck the previous owner, Jack Kingston, had built on top.

He’d probably envisioned romantic evenings under the stars with his fiancée, Harper, but for Nimue, the small deck made the perfect platform for her satellites and solar panels.

The sides rose just high enough to hide her equipment from casual observers.

She stepped onto the wood decking, then walked over to Big Bertha.

This dish had been her biggest investment—as large and powerful as the bus could handle without looking like a NASA facility.

A small branch of leaves had fallen across the receiver.

She tossed it over the side, then checked the alignment. No damage, thank goodness.

The North Rim of the Grand Canyon had more trees than the South Rim, which wasn’t ideal for her signal, but the lack of hordes of tourists was a must. Besides, the canyon stretching south provided a wide enough sky to make up for the interference.

From her elevated perch, the world spread out like a masterpiece painted in stone and sky.

Towering ponderosa pines and aspens crowded around her position, their branches creating a natural canopy that filtered the afternoon light.

Beyond the treeline, the canyon yawned open—a vast chasm carved into layers of red sandstone, pink limestone, and cream-colored rock that told the story of the ages in geological shorthand.

The North Rim sat over a thousand feet higher than its famous southern counterpart, and the difference showed in everything from the cooler air to the thick forest that surrounded her.

No crowds of tourists with their clicking cameras and chattering voices.

No parade of tour buses belching diesel fumes.

Just the whisper of wind through pine needles and the distant cry of a red-tailed hawk circling the thermals.

She was tucked with her back to the forest like a security blanket, but to her south, the canyon floor disappeared into purple shadows, the Colorado River nothing more than a silver thread winding through the depths.

The far rim shimmered in the heat haze, a ribbon of gold and rust that seemed to float above the void.

This was why she’d chosen this spot. Isolation wrapped in beauty, the cover of the trees combined with a wide sky for her satellites.

The nearest neighbor was the North Rim village, made up of a campground, lodge, visitor center, general store, and a couple dozen buildings for staff.

But even that was miles away over winding forest roads.

Out here, she could disappear into the landscape like smoke.