One Step Too Far (Frankie Elkin #2)(63)

“And if we don’t find Tim’s remains this afternoon?” I ask quietly.

“We’re close. I can feel it.”

“So close someone else feels compelled to stop us?” I push.

Martin shrugs. He doesn’t seem put off by the idea. If anything, he leans into it. “You two take care of yourselves. If something happens to me, so be it. I’ve made my peace. No need to worry about hauling down my body. This canyon’s as beautiful a place as any to rest in peace. Hell, maybe Patrice’s parents would give permission to bring some of her ashes up here. Then the three of us would be together, just as she wanted. Tim would like that, I think. Forever under the wide-open sky. There are worse places, worse ways, to die. Just ask Patrice.”

I dart a nervous glance over my shoulder at Bob. He’s looking nonplussed at the morbid turn to the conversation.

“Let’s just focus on reaching that cave,” Bob says now.

Martin gestures toward the rifle slung over Bob’s shoulder. “Keep that close.”

Bob nods soberly.

“Can you feel it?”

I don’t understand what Martin’s talking about, and then in the next moment . . . I do feel it. Like an itch between my shoulder blades. The sense of being watched. Of no longer being alone.

I glance around wildly. Bob does too. The towering cliff face, the exposed boulder field, a distant bluff. I can’t make out a single sign of life, not even a bird soaring overhead, though now that I’m aware of the sensation, I can’t let it go. I want to whirl in circles. I want to scream at the top of my lungs, “Show yourself.”

But nothing moves. No one appears.

“Let’s get to the cave,” Bob suggests quietly, the urgency in his voice unmistakable.

Martin is already walking north. But then I spy what I’ve been looking for. The bloodstained rocks from yesterday afternoon.

As much as it pains me, I turn in that direction. Because I understand Martin way better than he realizes. I also have to do what I have to do, even when I know it’ll lead to nothing but heartache.

“I’ll meet you there,” I tell them, gesturing toward my new destination. I hold up my red emergency whistle. “I’ll stay in contact. One is good. Three is bad.”

“Separating is already bad,” Bob states.

“And yet here we are. You heard the signal yesterday, right?” I glance at Marty, who nods. “Then you’ll be able to hear me now.”

“Frankie, no—” Bob grabs at my arm. I pull away.

“You have your job, I have mine.”

“You don’t have a job!”

“Yes I do. I work for the dead. And my path takes me over there.”

I don’t wait. Though my hands are shaking and I have a queasy feeling in my stomach, I head for the bloodstained boulder where we discovered Neil’s collapsed form yesterday afternoon. I hope Bob doesn’t follow. I wish desperately that he will.

But Martin has already resumed his beeline for the mysterious cave. After another moment of unhappiness, Bob succumbs to his employment agreement and follows.

In a matter of minutes, they are nothing but a cloud of dusty footsteps drifting farther and farther away.

I wait to see if our invisible watcher will go with them. But I’m not that lucky. Martin and Bob disappear. The itching between my shoulder blades remains.

I take a deep breath, then I get to it. My personal quest for the day.

I don’t like feeling like prey. Which, after much consideration, leaves me with only one option. To hunt the hunter. And hope I find him first.





CHAPTER 25





Two things have bothered me since Neil was attacked. Who and how? Then it occurred to me that maybe those questions go together. Neil’s attacker had to have materialized right here, on this bloody boulder, inches behind his target. Meaning it had to be the only other person in the immediate area—college buddy Scott. Or there’s something else we’re missing.

The sun is already high in the sky, heating up the canyon. The air is so dry and dusty, I feel each breath like a coating of grit in the back of my throat. I don’t drink any water just yet, however.

I need to marshal my resources. For all my best guessing, there are too many things I don’t understand and too many bad things that can still happen between now and our nighttime chopper rescue.

The top of the bloody boulder is completely exposed. No trees for a stalker to hide behind, no nearby clumps of grass for shelter. I jump down, landing not so gracefully on a strip of sandy pebbles below, then take a fresh look at my surroundings. The rocks around here are completely helter-skelter. Some have collapsed together close enough that it’s easier to stay on top, leaping from one to another. But other boulders are so massive, or rest so askew, there’s no choice but to work around them. The area I’ve landed in is nothing more than a narrow ribbon winding here and there. Wide enough for two people across, or one Bob. It doesn’t allow me to see much ahead, which only heightens my nervousness.

I walk around the base of the boulder Neil had been traversing. If someone had been down here in this corridor while Neil stood up top, would he have noticed? I would think movement would attract his attention. But on the other hand, standing where I am now, I’d be invisible to anyone watching from the other side—say, the direction I’d come from.