One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin #2)(111)

I smile and nod. Miguel leans over long enough to whisper in my ear, “I know you won’t, but just remember, someone in Oregon loves you.”

Which makes me cry a little more, though I’m terribly weepy these days.

Luciana and I meet Latisha. And she is gorgeous, a six-foot-tall former college volleyball player who radiates energy and health even seven months pregnant. From her curly black hair to her sculpted cheekbones, she rivals Luciana for jaw-dropping beauty. Latisha starts by clutching our hands in gratitude, then gives up and pulls us both in for a tight, teary embrace.

Scott, still pale and weak, but doing better each day, smiles in near embarrassment. Later, out in the hall, Latisha grows more somber. She thanks us for finding Tim as well. She blesses us for finally bringing her first love home.

Scott and Latisha don’t go with the big exit, but instead, one week later, quietly slip away. I don’t blame them. I imagine they need time together as a family to heal, reconnect, and relish their new life, about to begin.

I get to talk to the feds a lot. And Sheriff Kelley. Plus even more stern-looking people in suits. They mostly seem suspicious as to how I became part of the expedition. I think that’s beside the point. It’s not the beginning that mattered. It was the end.

It will take months to identify all eight mummified corpses, but the ME’s department releases Bob’s remains by the end of the week. Luciana and I drive out to meet his husband, Rob, who turns out to be an elegantly garbed Italian with neatly trimmed dark hair and striking wire-rim glasses. He is both smaller than I would’ve thought and very serious. His hand shakes so badly while trying to sign the paperwork accepting his husband’s body, I have to steady his arm. Together, we escort the plain pine casket to a local mortuary, where Rob has arranged for the body to be cremated. Later, Rob will scatter Bob’s ashes somewhere on the Olympic Peninsula, a fitting resting place for a man who spent his life chasing Bigfoot.

I deliver as best I can the story of Bob. How in his final moments, he took on a man carrying a rifle with nothing more than bear spray, so that the rest of us might have a chance. I tell him Bob died thinking of his husband and how much he loved him. Rob doesn’t cry. His deep brown eyes are wells of sorrow that just go on and on.

When Rob finally accepts the plain urn containing the ashes of the largest, bravest man I’ve ever met, I can barely stand up. Luciana has to help me back to the car. We drive to our B&B in silence. There I wrap my arms around Daisy and bury my face in her fur while Luciana goes to fill the tub.

I think too much of Bob and his final moments. Not just his words for his husband, but his advice to me. To go find what I’m really looking for.

Is it a shot at a different sort of life?

Is it a chance at a real relationship with a cop I can’t get out of my head?

Or is it me that I have lost along the way?

I have no idea.

The police raid Marge’s hunting cabin. They find the various colored backpacks, hung up in two rows of four in the back room. Nothing too conspicuous, given her and Nemeth’s outdoor hobbies. Except the packs don’t belong to them, of course.

Most of the contents have been removed, probably pillaged as supplies. But in a separate lockbox, the investigators recover personal mementos belonging to the eight victims. Pieces of jewelry. Driver’s licenses.

And in the case of Timothy O’Day, a note. The one he’d been working on that night, sitting by the fire. It’s not a draft of his wedding vows, as his friends suspected. It’s a letter to them. Telling them how much he valued their friendship. And how he could not have become the man he was today, the man his future bride deserved, without their help along the way.

There are additional scratchings that must’ve been made later. Stating he got lost. Referring to arriving in a canyon and having taken shelter in a cave.

Telling his parents he loved them.

Telling Latisha not to worry, he’d be home shortly.

Telling his friends he was sorry, nothing had gone the way he planned and he hoped to make it up to them.

Second to the last line: Tomorrow I’m going to try to climb out of here.

Final line: I love you all. Hope to see you soon.

The police can’t release the letter, as the original will be used at trial. But I convince Sheriff Kelley to make six copies. One for each of the college friends, plus one for Latisha, and then a final one, which Neil promises to hand deliver to Patrice.

Martin’s body is eventually recovered from the ravine. The number of bullet wounds he sustained . . . How the man ever stalked Nemeth through the woods, let alone found the strength for that final attack, defies imagination.

Upon receiving the news, Luciana and I somberly tend to our final and most difficult chore. We call Patrice via FaceTime and in between bouts of tears we tell her how Martin never gave up. That despite increasingly difficult circumstances, he forged on, determined to bring their son home to her. That he told us she was the great love of his life while remembering Tim with such pride and devotion. That Martin considered himself a lucky man for having such an amazing family.

Martin died honoring the memory of their son, but he also died knowing they would all be together soon.

On the screen, Patrice’s face is impossibly pale, her bald head wrapped in a flowered scarf. She dabs at her blue eyes, thanks us for our report. Then she smiles, so bittersweet, I feel my heart break in my chest all over again.