Chapter Seventeen
Dying: Zero out of ten. Would not recommend.
Her lungs burned with each inhale, but Lettie leaned into the pain, let it pinch her chest. She’d refused the painkillers the emergency room physician had offered.
If only to convince herself she hadn’t actually drowned.
But every shift in her sprained ankle brought out a whimper.
How was it possible for her throat to feel dry when she’d sucked down a river’s worth of water? Ugh.
The small, understaffed ER just outside Zion National Park wasn’t used to this much activity.
The park’s superintendent—Randy—had already made his obligatory visit to check on her and make sure there wasn’t any legal reason she’d come after him or the park for what’d happened.
Then there was her intern. Shawn had at least pretended he’d been concerned for her well-being at hearing the news she’d been attacked, showcasing a bouquet of flowers, which he’d left on the side table beside her bed before heading back to the lab.
White roses. She didn’t remember telling him they were her favorite, but they’d spent hours together in that windowless office tracking Sam’s movements and the tracker’s data that needed to be combed through, exchanging embarrassing stories and favorite movie quotes over the past six months.
Springdale Police and Zion law enforcement rangers had each taken her statement too, but the details were still hazy.
But she only had attention for the man who’d refused to budge from the side of her bed.
He’d cleaned up in the hours since he’d dragged her from those woods one armed, attracting a response from the ER doctor almost immediately with that hole in his shoulder.
He’d fought treatment, demanding to stay with her, but it hadn’t taken much for the nurses to wrangle him into his own bed to be assessed.
A myriad of stitches now secured the wound where the killer had shot him with a freaking crossbow.
The fact that he’d started to regain use of his arm was a miracle in and of itself.
Because those hours clinging to him after he’d revived her…
She’d never forget them. Each step in the dark had been excruciating, his pain written all over his face, but Rome had never left her.
Never let his hold on her waver. He’d hailed the search and rescue team as soon as they’d cleared the trees.
Within an hour they’d each been strapped to a backboard and flown out in one of the NPS helicopters.
If it hadn’t been for him, she never would’ve made it out.
She studied him sitting in that uncomfortable-looking chair, his head set back against the too-low backing, eyes closed.
He’d lost the multiple layers living outdoors required, showing off strong arms and shoulders beneath one of his old T-shirts.
The baseball cap that’d practically become an extension of himself since college had seen better days, the white fabric more tan and stained than she remembered.
Every inch of exposed skin had been tanned over hours under the sun and only highlighted the beginning grays in his five-o’clock shadow.
Even after everything they’d been through, he still managed to take her breath away.
And give it based on the fact he’d performed CPR to bring her back. “You look like crap.”
Rome didn’t stir, his cap drawn over half of his face as though asleep. She knew better though. Noted his breathing, the way he tested the use of his injured arm with the slightest shift no one else might pick up on. “I’m not the one who looked like a drowned rat a few hours ago.”
She didn’t want to think about that. How her lungs had burned as her body involuntarily sucked in the freezing, clouded water.
Lettie rubbed at her chest, which pulled Rome out of his feigned peace.
Swallowing against the lingering terror that seemed to have etched itself into every muscle she owned, she focused on the blanket currently hiding the splint around her ankle. “What now?”
Rome had told her what’d happened in the minute or two after the killer had pulled her from the river.
How he’d injured the masked man and shoved him into the river, that there was a chance her attacker had survived.
Why the man who’d killed at least four hikers had pulled her from that river, she didn’t know.
Rome’s theory? Her abductor had wanted to make sure she was dead before stringing her up like the others.
But Lettie wasn’t sure that’d been the case at all.
More like… The killer had tried to save her.
Which only lent more credibility to the fact Lettie had hit her head a little too hard during her fall down the riverbank.
What kind of serial killer tried to save his victims after running them down through the woods?
“I still have a job to do.” Rome righted his baseball cap with his good arm, those small muscles in his forearm flexing, and her skin flushed at the memory of all that strength pressed against her. Hovering over her. Holding her in place. “Your bear is still out there.”
The beeping coming from the machine tracking her heart rate ticked up a notch as his words registered. “Sam doesn’t have anything to do with this. You know that.”
“I had to fill Randy in on what happened out there. My theory this killer is using a black bear claw to tear up his victims before stringing them up is just that. A theory.” He took on a stillness that could have only been trained into him since he was a young boy forced to scrounge for food in the middle of Montana wildernesses.
“We don’t have any proof your bear isn’t involved in these deaths somehow, and Randy can’t take the chance we’ve got this wrong.
If the media gets hold of the story there’s a killer bear in the park or another hiker goes missing, it’ll force him to shut down the park.
He’ll lose funding, rangers will lose their jobs.
” Rome’s shoulders rose on a deep inhale.
“I’m sorry, Lettie. But Randy ordered me to put Sam down. ”
Blood drained from her face and neck. Lettie tried to sit higher in the bed, but only managed to remind herself of her injuries.
The nurses had redressed the burns and the blisters on the bottoms of her feet, but new gauze did nothing to take away the pain.
Inside and out. “He can’t do that. Black bears are federally protected in national parks.
Not to mention, Sam is a research subject. ”
Sitting forward, Rome exaggerated the tension running the length between his neck and shoulders. “Are you really willing to risk your career and the careers of a hundred rangers on your blind faith in an animal capable of shredding and mauling those hikers?”
“I don’t care about my career anymore.” Lettie snapped her mouth shut.
She hadn’t meant to say that. Not out loud.
But she couldn’t take it back. The realization she’d come to out in those woods still rang true after the threat had been neutralized and the adrenaline had drained.
What good was having a career that no longer made her happy?
What kind of person was she to choose her job over the people she loved?
Rome’s expression slackened into unreadable stillness.
His voice dropped into dangerous territory.
“What are you talking about? Everything you’ve done in the past decade—everything you’ve sacrificed, including our marriage—has been for your career.
And now what? You’re going to throw it all away on the belief a black bear is innocent of murder? ”
“Yes.” Her chin wobbled with the absolute devastation crossing Rome’s face.
To the point she could almost read every emotion he wanted to hide from her in the split second his guard dropped.
Disappointment. Frustration. Heartbreak.
All the things she’d ignored in the days, weeks, months leading up to him asking for a divorce.
“The man who kidnapped me knows me. He knows my work. I think he intentionally used Sam to cover killing those hikers because that bear is important to my research, and I’m not going to let him get away with it. ”
Icy tendrils snaked through her veins at the memory of stumbling upon those remains. How close she’d come to ending up just like them. How close Rome had come. She couldn’t stop the shiver from overtaking her, and Rome’s defensiveness slipped.
“Did he tell you what he wanted?” The lines around his eyes softened the longer he studied her. “Did he say anything that might be used to identify him?”
Tightness squeezed around her rib cage. Slivers of conversation reached through the thin curtain blocking them off from the rest of the ER.
Low announcements from the PA, the grouping of law enforcement rangers and officers gathering in the lobby down the short hallway from the clinic’s front doors.
She tried to focus on them instead of the panic trying to seize her insides.
She’d almost died. No. She had died. She’d drowned in that river trying to get away from a madman who’d wanted…
What had he wanted? “These murders. The hikers. He didn’t come right out and say it, but it sounded like their deaths were some kind of… gift. Meant for me.”
Rome’s brows nearly met as they drew closer in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“He told me he would get rid of anything and everyone in his way to have me.” Her mouth dried. “Starting with you. He wanted to kill you. String you up like the others like some kind of offering or way to get my attention. And I got the feeling the others somehow got in his way. To get to me.”
His face paled.
“He’s been following me. Since I came to Zion.
” And she hadn’t noticed. Too wrapped up in her work, in dealing with the divorce, avoiding her family and friends.
Her hands shook as she pinched the seam of the blanket between her fingers.
Something to distract her from the terror waiting to pounce.
“Stuff has been going missing from my van the past few months. Mostly beauty products, like my perfume. I didn’t think anything of it, but he told me things he shouldn’t have known. Things nobody should’ve known.”
Rome grabbed for her hand, halting her intention to tear through the blanket with her fingernails. “He’s never going to get near you again, Lettie. I give you my word. I won’t let him hurt you.”
Tears burned in her eyes at the promise. He meant it. He meant to protect her the best way he knew how, but this… This wasn’t an animal he could track. The man behind the mask was obsessed with her enough to kill four people, and she wasn’t sure she could survive Rome being added to that list.
“He’s been in my van, Rome. Without me even noticing.
Possibly while I was asleep.” Her mind automatically went to the worst-case scenario.
Had he touched her without her knowing? Had he drugged her to ensure she wouldn’t notice his presence?
She was a deep sleeper, but she liked to think she would’ve been aware if someone else had been in her space.
That she’d recognize when something was wrong.
But the past few months had kept her from connecting to her body fully.
Denial was a powerful tool when you didn’t want to accept your marriage was over and the career you’ve been working for your entire life wasn’t what you wanted anymore.
Only in this case, her brain’s attempt to protect her might’ve put her at further risk. “You can’t promise that.”
“Yes. I can.” Rome intertwined his fingers with hers. Strong and warm and comforting. All the things she wasn’t. “Because I’ll do whatever it takes to keep you safe.”
The curtain swished to one side, revealing Zion’s superintendent on the other side. “Sorry to interrupt, but the law enforcement rangers have identified the latest hiker. I wanted you to be the first to know, Dr. Larson.”
Lettie didn’t understand. “Why?”
Randy handed her a manila folder with a quick glance in Rome’s direction as she opened the folder. To a photo of a familiar face. “Because police have connected him back to you.”