Chapter Three

Even though it was her day off, Lainie had set the alarm the night before. She wanted to be on the trail just after sunrise. It was her favorite time of day to begin a hike. The air was still cool, and she'd be on her way back down by the time the day was heating up.

She'd packed her backpack the night before with protein bars, snack packs, first aid, bear spray and a hunting knife. All she had to add were water bottles, and did so before zipping it up.

After checking the weather report for the day, she opted for long pants, sneakers, thick socks, a long-sleeve T-shirt and a flannel shirt to use as a jacket. She had her hiking pole, and a compass, a cell phone, and a charger stick in her pack, just in case.

She put her long hair in a ponytail at the back of her neck, and tied a bandanna around her forehead. Her sunglasses were already in the car, and after a quick breakfast, she headed out the door.

Traffic was already moving at a steady pace as she wound her way west out of Denver and into the foothills toward her chosen hiking path. She liked the Beaver Brook Trail for a number of reasons. The likelihood of running into a lot of other hikers at this time of morning on a weekday was slim, and that suited her.

She was already anticipating the hike as she arrived at the parking area below the trailhead. Pleased that there were no other vehicles around, she got out, dropped the car keys in her pocket, shouldered her backpack, reached for her hiking pole and started up the trail.

JUSTIN RANDALLHADno idea what time of day Lainie liked to hike, but he was betting it was early. He had the GPS in his phone already set, and was hoping to beat her there, find a secluded place to park and wait for her to arrive. As he drove across town, he quickly learned it was cooler than he'd expected, and was wishing he'd worn long pants instead of hiking shorts. But he would warm up as he hiked, and was making good time through traffic when the truck in front of him blew through a red light.

It hit two cars making opposite turns in the intersection, which threw them into other cars, and by the time the crashing and skidding was over, four cars, a police car, a delivery van and the truck were in a tangled mess at the four-way light.

Traffic came to a halt. There was no way to back up, and no way to move forward. Justin was cursing his luck as police and emergency vehicles began arriving, but there was nothing to do but wait. It took almost an hour before a lane had been cleared for traffic to detour on a nearby street. He had to reset his GPS to get where he was headed from another direction, and by the time he reached the trailhead, the one positive of his morning was that her car was the only one in the parking lot. He laid his hand on the hood, but it was already cool, which meant she'd been gone for some time.

He didn't know if the trail forked, and if it did, which way she would go. He was angry and frustrated, but changing his plan never occurred to him. He was hell-bent on one destination, and that was to get between her legs. So, he shouldered his pack and took off up the trail at a trot.

A CARDINALWASflitting from tree to tree along the path Lainie was on, and after a while, she decided it was following her. Delighted, she began talking to it as she went, fantasizing about how and why it was happening.

"I see you...flying from tree to tree along my path. Have we met before? You'll have to excuse me. I'm terrible with names."

A flash of red shot across her line of vision about twenty feet in front of her, and landed on a low-hanging branch. It was the cardinal. She watched as it turned its head one way, and then the other, before dropping to the ground below, where it promptly gobbled up a bug.

"The mighty hunter scores!" she said, as the bird flew back into the tree.

She glanced at the sun, guessing it must be nearing 10:00 a.m. by now, and paused to take a drink.

The cardinal flew off as she began moving again, and for a while, she thought he'd finally flown away. It wasn't until the bird suddenly reappeared that she paused, curious as to what it was doing.

It was that pause that saved her.

In that moment of silence, she heard footsteps on the trail behind her and glanced over her shoulder, expecting another hiker. There was a man behind her, hoofing it up the trail at an unusually hasty pace, but when she saw his face, a wave of panic rolled through her.

Justin Randall!

She shouted at him, angry that he'd made her afraid. "Justin! What the hell are you playing at? There are laws against stalking, and I've made myself perfectly clear."

Justin began smiling and waving his hands. "Lainie! Wait! It's not what you think!" Then began moving faster, to get to her before she bolted.

She'd already dropped her backpack and was fumbling for the bear spray when he started running. Her hands were shaking as she popped the top, and got one good spray toward his face, before he knocked it out of her hand.

He had closed his eyes at the last minute, but the spray still went up his nose, and all of a sudden, the inside of his nose was on fire and his throat was swelling. When his eyes began to burn and his vision blur, he swung a fist at her face. One punch landed on her cheekbone below her eye, and another missed her face and hit the side of her neck.

And just like that, Lainie was back in her bedroom with her father, fighting for her life. She couldn't let Justin Randall knock her out. She had no chance of getting through this alive unless she stayed conscious.

She was still in a panic when he grabbed her by her arms and took her down, straddling her lower body and pinning her arms above her head.

But Lainie was fighting for her life, kicking and thrashing beneath him, and in one brief moment when he let go of her hands to rip at her clothes, she stabbed her fingernails into his face, and raked them all the way down his cheek and neck, plowing furrows into his flesh, then began kicking and scratching at his neck and arms until her hand was slick with his blood.

"You bitch," he roared, and then threw back his head and laughed. "I knew you'd like it rough!"

She dug her fingers into the ground, intent on throwing dirt in his eyes, and felt a softball-size rock beneath her palm instead. She grabbed it without hesitation and swung it at his head. The crack when it hit was the sound of sticks breaking.

He grunted and fell backward, stunned by the blow. She rolled to her knees, grabbed the same rock with both hands and smashed it down onto his mouth and nose. Blood spurted from his lips, as he spit out a tooth to keep from swallowing it. He had both hands on his face, rolling and moaning, as Lainie leaped to her feet and started running.

She went flying down the trail, leaving everything behind her but the car keys in her pocket, knowing she had to outrun him to survive, and run she did, until her side was aching and every breath she took was like swallowing fire.

She didn't know he was behind her until she began hearing curses and shouts. She looked over her shoulder in horror. He was covered in blood, carrying both backpacks and her hiking pole, and running like a man possessed about a hundred yards behind her.

Hope sank. "God help me," she mumbled, and ran faster.

It wasn't until she was started down a steep drop on the path that she realized she was in what hikers called "the blind spot."

She couldn't see him when she looked back, which meant he couldn't see her either. And it was becoming all too clear that he was going to catch her before she ever got to her car. At that moment, she remembered something Hunt used to say.

When faced with a hard decision, do the unexpected.

So, she faked her death.

She yanked off her sneakers, then threw one partway down the slope along with her flannel shirt, and left the other one in the path. Then she dropped and rolled in the trail to make it look like she had a bad fall and rolled off into the canyon below.

Still in her sock feet, she leaped across the path on the other side and ran deep into the trees and brush before pausing to get her bearings. She couldn't keep going down, because that's where he was going, so she hunkered down and began moving in a crouch back up the mountain, and never looked back.

THELASTTHINGJustin expected to see was one of Lainie's sneakers on the trail, and then he saw where she fell and looked over the slope, saw her flannel shirt first, and then the other shoe.

Holy shit. The bitch fell off the mountain.

He let out a sigh of relief, and then realized he was still carrying her things. The first thing he did was wipe his prints off her hiking pole before he tossed it down the slope, and then he slung her backpack down with it.

His whole face was on fire. He could feel the furrows she'd left on his face and knew he had to get them treated, but he stopped long enough to use a bottle of his drinking water to wash off what he could of blood and bear spray.

He was confident animals would destroy her body, but his DNA was all over her clothes and backpack, so he began concocting an alibi on his way to his car.

They'd gone hiking together and were surprised by a bear. He was trying to protect her when the bear knocked them both down. He sprayed the bear, got caught in some of the blowback, and was unaware that she'd been knocked over the side of the mountain until after the bear ran away.

Then, he sat in his car and watched TikTok videos until his phone went dead, and his wounds wouldn't be fresh, before driving himself to the nearest emergency room. He staggered in, claiming he'd been knocked unconscious after a bear attack, that his hiking partner was missing, and he'd found a shoe in the path and seen some of her gear on the downslope. His best guess was that she'd fallen off the path into a canyon, but he was too weak to search on his own, and when he got to his car, his phone was dead, so he drove himself to the ER.

Within the hour, both the local police and the Denver Park Rangers were in ER taking his statement, while a doctor and nurse continued to clean up his wounds. They put four staples in his head wound, reset his broken nose and told him to see his dentist, and to drink his meals through straws for the next couple of weeks.

A nurse was swabbing out the scratches as he continued to answer questions, but she wasn't buying the whole story. So, while the police were still questioning Justin, she signaled for the doctor to come out into the hall.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Those scratches on his face and neck don't look like bear scratches. They look like fingernail scratches. And he has them on his wrists and neck, and upper arms, too. If his hiking partner is missing, he might be the reason why."

The doctor frowned and went back into the exam room. "Mr. Randall, I want to take another look at the wounds on your face to make sure we've gotten out all of the debris."

Justin didn't say anything, but he was worried. When the cops began whispering between themselves, and then one of them requested the wounds be swabbed for DNA, then took possession of all of the swabs they'd used to clean the scratches the first time, he knew they weren't buying all of his story. But since it was the only one he had, he was sticking to it.

LAINIE'SSIDEWASACHING. She was exhausted and stumbling, and out of breath. It felt like she'd been running forever. There was an outcrop of rocks in an open space just ahead, and her focus was just getting to the patch of shade beneath it when she stumbled again, and fell forward before she had time to catch herself. Her head hit the side of the outcrop as she went down, and she was unconscious before she landed.

It was late evening before she woke up with dirt in her mouth and a huge cut on her lip. Her head was one solid ache, and when she moved, everything spun around her. As she rolled over to sit up, something ran down the side of her face. She thought it was sweat and gave it a swipe, only to have her hand come away covered in blood.

"No, no, no," she whispered, and put her head between her knees to keep from passing out.

She couldn't figure out where she was, or what had happened, and began looking around for her backpack, and that's when she remembered. The last time she'd seen it, Justin Randall had it. She groaned, remembering now that she'd tried to throw him off her trail by pretending that she had fallen into the canyon. But what if he was still out there looking for her? What was she supposed to do?

Her hands were trembling as she took the bandanna off her forehead, refolded it and tied it over the bleeding cut, then thought about trying to get up. But when she looked down and saw bear tracks in the dirt all around where she was sitting, she was on her feet before she thought. The motion was too fast, and she nearly went down again.

Her best guess was that she had a concussion, and steadied herself against the outcrop until the world stopped spinning. After that, she took a closer look at the tracks. She couldn't decide if they were old tracks, or if a bear had sniffed around her while she was unconscious, then wandered off. The thought was terrifying, and her biggest fear now became the bear. What if it came back looking for her?

Without thinking, she charged off, staggering and stumbling as she went, until the sun began going down, taking warmth with it. Her head was pounding, and she needed a place out of the wind for the night, and began keeping an eye out as she walked. When she came upon a ledge of rocks with just enough space beneath to crawl under, she stopped. The possibility of a snake crawling up beside her in the night was real, so she began gathering dry brush and small branches, then crawled beneath the ledge and pulled the branches in all around her.

She wanted a drink of water so bad she could almost taste it, and everything hurt, and she was so cold, but exhaustion overwhelmed fear. She curled up, closed her eyes and dreamed.

SHEWASRUNNINGand then she was driving, and then she was walking, and every time she saw a stranger she'd stop and ask, "Have you seen Hunter? Have you seen my man?" And every time, they would shake their heads and leave her standing.

Then the dream morphed, and she was in a boat on a river, and fog was so thick she couldn't see the shore. The boat had no motor or oars, and she was screaming, "Help me! Help me!" but to no avail.

Then from a distance, she heard a voice. She knew that voice, and stood up in the boat and began to scream. "Help, Hunter! Help. I'm here!" But the boat kept floating farther and farther away, until the world around her was silent once more.

WHENSEVENO'CLOCKcame and went at Adelitas restaurant and Lainie still wasn't there, Charis called her. The call went to voice mail. Thirty minutes later, she sent a text that wasn't answered, and then another one, and by the time the evening was over, and Charis was headed home, she was still worried enough to drive by Lainie's house. Yet, after she got there, she couldn't tell if the car was in the garage. But her lights were out, so she drove home, telling herself everything was surely okay, convincing herself that when she saw Lainie tomorrow, she would have a logical explanation.

WHEN LAINIEWOKEup again, it was morning, and a raccoon was staring at her through the brush she'd pulled in around her. As soon as she opened her eyes, it waddled away.

The moment she took a breath, she knew something was wrong. It hurt to breathe, and her skin felt hot. When she felt her head wound, her fingers came away bloody. This meant the cut was still seeping blood through the bandanna, and now she had a fever. It was all she could do to crawl out from beneath the ledge, and the only thing on her mind was finding water. There hadn't been any behind her, so up she went.

She was still sad from the dream. And it took everything she had to put one foot in front of the other, but she was lost. Not dead. Surely someone would miss her at work. Charis knew where she'd gone. She had to believe someone would find her. She just needed to be found before she was past help.

WHEN LAINIEDIDN'Tshow up for work, Charis panicked and went straight to Jennifer Wilson, Lainie's boss.

"Have you talked to Lainie? Has she called in?"

"No, and it's not like her to miss work without calling," Jennifer said.

"She went hiking yesterday and was supposed to meet us for dinner last night, but never showed. I drove by her house on my way home, but all the lights were off, and I couldn't tell if her car was in the garage or not. Please, call the police and ask them to do a welfare check. Something's wrong! I just know it!"

Jennifer made the call, but the moment she mentioned Lainie Mayes's name, she got the shock of her life and quickly put the call on speaker so Charis could hear the officer's reply.

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but that person has already been reported missing by her hiking partner last night. He showed up in an ER with severe wounds. He said he and Miss Mayes were hiking together when they were attacked by a bear. He was injured, but managed to spray it in the face with bear repellant before being knocked unconscious. When he came to, she was missing. He found one of her shoes on the path, and saw some of her other belongings on the slope down into the canyon. He drove himself to ER to report the incident. There is already an ongoing search party, and we're still questioning him."

Charis gasped, and then interrupted the officer.

"No, Officer, no! She would never have gone hiking with that man. He's been stalking and harassing her at work for months. If he showed up in an ER with wounds, it wasn't from any bear. I promise it was Lainie, fighting for her life."

There was a moment of silence, and then the officer spoke. "I'm going to need your name and contact information, and we'll be asking you to come to the station to make a statement."

"Anything! I'll do anything for Lainie," Charis said. "Just don't turn that man loose."

The call ended. Charis and Jennifer stared at each other in disbelief.

THEPARKRANGERSwere already in search mode. They had Randall's statement about where the attack happened, and followed the path up to the spot. They found a shoe on the path, as he'd stated, and then another shoe and a shirt on the slope, farther down. They also found a hiking stick, but what they didn't find were bear tracks.

After that, they took the search down into the canyon below, expecting to find her, or her body, but the only other thing the searchers found was her backpack hanging from a tree. It was too far away from the other stuff to have fallen with her, and there was no body, and no sign of drag marks or footprints walking away anywhere beneath it.

They were already suspicious of Justin Randall's story, and were now fairly certain of foul play. She'd obviously been attacked on the trail, but not by a bear, and the bigger question was, was she even still on the mountain?

By midafternoon, the local-hiker-gone-missing story was all over the local news, and by evening, the national news had picked it up.

Justin Randall was in his apartment, so sore he could hardly move, and drinking soup from a cup, when there was a knock at the door. He set the cup down and hobbled to the door.

A detective and four policemen were in the hall.

"Mr. Randall, we need you to come with us," the detective said.

"What the hell? Why?" Justin asked.

"Because your story is full of great big holes, and we need you to come fill those up for us."

Justin was blustering and arguing all the way out the door, and still cursing as they put him in a squad car and drove away.

HUNTER GRAYHADflown a group of tourists to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon earlier in the day, and he'd just set down to unload them. They were already on their way to the office, and he was doing a final systems check as he shut down. When he finished, he climbed out of the cockpit and started across the tarmac, as the sun was setting behind his back.

He entered the office, signed himself out, and then sat down to wait to talk to Pete before going home. The television on the wall behind him was on, and he wasn't paying much attention to it until he heard a name that stopped his heart. He spun, his gaze immediately fixed on the monitor, and the journalist doing an on-the-spot commentary of what was happening.

"...Lainie Mayes, an employee of Denver Health Center has gone missing. She was last reported to have gone hiking with a friend in the mountains west of the city on Beaver Brook Trail. According to the report, they were attacked by a bear, and in the ensuing drama, she was knocked off the trail and down into a canyon, while the friend was still fighting the bear. He wound up in ER and they are combing the area as we speak. A search has turned up articles of her clothing, and a backpack down in the canyon off the trail, but Miss Mayes's body has yet to be located. Searchers are..."

But it wasn't until they flashed a photo that reality hit. He grunted like he'd been gut punched, and nearly went to his knees, then headed for Pete's office.

Pete was on the phone, a little irked and surprised by Hunt's abrupt entrance, until he saw his face.

"Hunt! What's wrong?"

"Someone I love is lost in the mountains west of Denver. They're searching for her now, and I have to go. I won't be back until I find her."

His eyes widened. "The woman hiker who went missing?"

Hunt nodded. "I'm sorry, but she means everything to me. I have to—"

"Do you need a ride? I can fly you there in the morning," Pete said.

"I can't wait that long. I'm driving up tonight. Thanks, boss," and then he was gone.

As he was driving home, he kept thinking of how close in proximity he'd been to her. He'd been here for months and all the while she was within driving distance. Now, he felt sick that he hadn't searched for her sooner. He couldn't bear the thought of it being too late.

As soon as he got home, he began to focus on what to do first. He needed to pack survival gear, including his SAT phone. He needed to know where she'd been hiking, and where the search site was located, so he did a little online research to see what he could find out. Army life had taught him to never go into a fight unprepared. If she was still alive, he had to accept that he couldn't just go storming into her life as if he still had a right to be there, but he'd made her a promise. If she ever got lost, he would save her. Even if she belonged to someone else now, he still owed her that vow.

BUT HUNTWASN'Tthe only one in a state of shock about Lainie's fate. Her parents had already heard the same report earlier in the day. They'd had no idea where she was or what she'd been doing since she disappeared, and learning this now was horrifying. Their biggest regret was fearing they were going to be too late to ever speak to her again.

"What do we do?" Greg asked.

Tina was in tears. "We go there. We abandoned her once at her request, but she's not around to ask permission, and I need to know if my daughter is alive or dead."

They caught the last flight out of New Orleans, with a plane change in Dallas. They wouldn't arrive in Denver until after 2:00 a.m., but they didn't care. They just wanted to be on-site.

It was nearing four in the morning by the time they reached the hotel where they'd booked a room. It was too late to sleep, so they showered, changed clothes and went down for an early breakfast before asking the concierge about renting a car.

UNAWARETHAT GREGand Tina Mayes were en route to Denver, Hunt was showering and packing, getting ready to make the drive. It was nearly an eleven-hour trip from Flagstaff to Denver, so he'd be driving all night, but there were things he needed to know. It was just past sundown when he sat down at his laptop and typed her name in the search bar.

Within moments dozens and dozens of links popped up. Surprised by the number of them, he began with the ones in the year she went missing. And to his horror, every paper in New Orleans had the answer to what had happened and where she'd been. He was reading about the parental kidnapping, and how Millie had finally helped her escape, and as the story continued, learned that she'd been chased down by her own father.

And then he saw the words "five months pregnant...lost the baby..." and froze. His ears were ringing, and the pain in his chest was so severe that he thought he was dying.

"Why didn't I know? Why didn't I know?"

Without hesitation, he picked up his phone and made a call. He didn't know if the number was still good, or if they were even alive, but he had a question only they could answer. The call began to ring, and then an answer. For the first time in eleven years, he was hearing his mother's voice.

"Hello?"

"Mom, it's me!"

Brenda started screaming, "Chuck! Chuck! It's Hunter! He's on the phone." And then he heard his father shouting at him, and realized she put the old landline on speaker.

"Hunt! Where are you? Why haven't you—"

"All those years ago, did you know Lainie was pregnant?"

He heard a gasp, then he heard his mother crying, and his father cursing. He hung up and walked outside.

The lights of Flagstaff lined the horizon to his right. A coyote yipped from somewhere nearby. He looked up. Heaven was littered with stars twinkling within the inky blackness of space. He'd spent more of his adult life in the air than he had on the ground, and always felt lighter and weightless there. But tonight, he'd fallen to earth, and the pain was so great he wasn't sure he could get up. He curled fingers into fists as the stars blurred before him, then the pain came out in a roar, and he kept screaming into the night until the pain bled away.

When he could think without wanting to throw up, he stormed back into the house in long, angry strides, coming out minutes later with his arms full of gear. He threw it all into the back of his Jeep, threw a jacket in the front seat, then went back to lock up and turn out the lights before heading north.

BACKIN NEW ORLEANS, his parents were in an uproar, fighting over who was to blame, and why he'd even asked that question now, after all these years. What happened? What had changed?

It wasn't until they turned on the television for the local evening news that they got their answer. There was a photo of Lainie Mayes behind the news anchor as he delivered the story.

"One of New Orleans' own has gone missing on a hike in the mountains outside the city of Denver. Twenty-nine-year-old Lainie Mayes, now a resident of Denver, is the object of a massive search. They've been combing the mountains for..."

"Oh, my God. Chuck! Hunt must have seen this report, too. I don't know where he's been, but it's obviously not with her. He's done some digging. But how would he know about..."

"The papers, Brenda. Remember all those ugly stories after her wreck? That shit's on the internet forever now, isn't it?"

"He'll go there, won't he? If she's lost, he'll want to be part of the search," she said. "We need to go now. It may be our only chance to ever see him again."

"I'm not going to drive all the way Denver just to get spit on by my own son," Chuck muttered.

"Fine. I'll go by myself," Brenda said, and left the room.

Chuck followed her to their bedroom. "What are you doing?"

"Packing," she snapped.

He rolled his eyes. "Okay, fine! I'll take you, but I'm telling you now, it's going to be a huge waste of time. We'll leave first thing in the morning."

"If you're going with me, you're leaving tonight," Brenda said.

JUSTIN RANDALLWASin lockup, still sticking to his story until they gave him reason not to. He sold the same story to his court-appointed lawyer, and wasn't budging. This wasn't his first rodeo, and he'd gotten away with rape accusations before. Granted, none of the other women had gone missing afterward. Whatever happened to Lainie Mayes after she clocked him with that rock was a mystery to him, too. Last time he'd seen her, she was running full tilt down a hiking path.