Where was he? Was he close? Did he see her? Did he have her in the sights of his rifle?
She didn’t dare look back. If she saw him, she feared she’d freeze like a deer caught in headlights. And he wouldn’t care that she’d stopped. He’d kill her and leave her body to be eaten by scavengers, picked apart by vultures, her flesh a meal for the cougars…
No! Stop it!
Sharon.
She hadn’t wanted to leave Sharon, but Sharon was dead and he would have killed her too if she’d stayed.
When he’d first unlocked the chains that pinned her to the floor she thought for sure he would kill her. She was so weak. He brought water and stale bread for them to eat, feeding them after he raped them. First Sharon.
Then her.
Stop it!
But she couldn’t. The flood of images hit her as she half ran, half stumbled down the mountain, the river calling to her.
If she survived, she would go back for Sharon. She had to. She couldn’t leave her exposed in the woods. Sharon deserved more.
She was her best friend.
Suddenly, the land dropped sharply. Miranda tried to stop her descent, but the momentum propelled her forward. She fell to her knees, then started to roll. The river-she felt the dampness, heard the roar-and then she was falling, falling…
Sheer luck plunged her into the water and not atop a rock. She thought she’d been cold as she ran down the mountain; nothing prepared her for the freezing river. She hit the rocks and silt on the bottom.
She was going to drown.
After all she’d been through, she was going to drown in the river, the river she’d told Sharon would save them.
Calling upon her remaining strength, she pushed off the bottom as the current propelled her violently forward, tossing her like a rag doll.
She sputtered to the surface and gasped for air. She spread her body out, allowed the water to transport her downstream, fighting the violent rapids from dragging her under.
Get to the bank. Just get to the other side, away from him, and grab something. Anything.
A bend in the river gave her an opportunity. She grabbed at tree roots that whipped her face. Her hands slipped, and they were gone.
She was so weak. Maybe dying here would be better. She didn’t want to remember. How long had he kept them captive? At least six days. Seven? Eight? She’d lost track of time, of the days and nights.
Who would take them to Sharon?
Her body slammed against a boulder and she cried out, but realized immediately that she’d stopped moving. The current kept fighting with her, to send her farther downstream. But she held on to the rock and finally saw where she was.
Three feet to her left was a dead cottonwood lying partially in the water, its branches a trap for debris, turning the bank into a natural dam.
Three feet.
She’d run miles over the mountain, down the slope, and had been dragged along in the river. She could make it three more feet.
She had to. For Sharon.
Miranda breathed deep, gathered her strength, and angled herself toward the dam. One. Two.
Three.
She kicked out, stifled the scream that rose in her throat as she thought she’d missed the branches.
She made it. Her body slammed against the dam, and she held on. Slowly, she pulled herself out of the river. So slowly she thought she’d die of hypothermia. In the diminishing light her body looked blue. Maybe it was blue.
How long it took her to drag herself from the river, she didn’t know.
But she made it. And collapsed on the bank.
Two hours later the search team found her.
Miranda swiped at her tear-stained face, hating herself for letting the callous reporter get to her, for making her remember the day she lived and Sharon died.
“Miranda, do you want to talk?” Quinn said.
She’d almost forgot he was behind her.
“No.”
For Rebecca, Miranda could tolerate being within ten feet of Quinn; the dead deserved justice and she begrudgingly admitted that Quinn was damn good at his job.
“You okay?” he asked, sounding concerned.
“I’m fine.” He didn’t care, she reminded herself.
Once upon a time he’d cared. Or she thought he had.
She didn’t remember when her respect and appreciation for his determination turned to love. It hadn’t happened right away.
He’d listened to her without placating her. He’d encouraged her, and even when the days slipped away and they didn’t catch Sharon’s murderer, she felt that she’d accomplished something.
It wasn’t until a month after Quinn was pulled from the investigation, when there were no leads and nothing more he could do, that Miranda suspected she had romantic feelings toward the FBI agent. In fact, she hadn’t known she’d missed him until he showed up at the Lodge one Saturday morning, three months after the attack.
“Hi.”
She couldn’t have been more surprised when Quinn Peterson walked into the dining room where she sat, alone, staring out the plate glass window at the vast canyon below.
“Agent Peterson-I mean, Quinn. I didn’t know you were coming.” Her heart beat rapidly. “Do you have information? Did you find him?”
He shook his head. “No news. We didn’t have a lot to go on.”
“I know. I just hoped-” She sighed. “Then why are you here?”
He fidgeted as he stood in front of her, looking slightly less confident than usual. “I-I wanted to see you.”
Her heart beat rapidly. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. It pounded in her ears and she thought for sure she’d misunderstood him. “Me?”
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”
“Oh.” That sounded stupid.
“I know it’s inappropriate. Just tell me to leave, and I won’t bother you again.”
“I don’t want you to leave.”
She didn’t know what she was doing, but at that moment she knew that if Quinn Peterson walked out of her life, she would regret it forever.
“I’m not going to rush you, Miranda.” He sat down across from her and reached for her hand, but didn’t take it.
“I’m not scared of you,” she said, staring at his hand. Maybe she was scared. Just a little.
Then she looked into his eyes and saw empathy, concern, and affection, but not pity.
Never pity.
She took his hand and squeezed it.
“One day at a time,” he told her.
“Okay.”
For the first time since the attack she believed she’d be okay. In time, she would make it.
And she had made it, in spite of Quinn Peterson.
She focused now on what was important: tracking Rebecca Douglas’s last steps. Her past with Quinn Peterson was just that, in the past.
The job demanded that she focus on the environment around her, look for freshly broken plants, torn clothing, anything that would help re-create Rebecca’s escape. Anything that could lead to the man who had hunted her like an animal and slit her throat.