Chapter 8
SHELBY
Inever make it to Denver.
I'm forty miles south of Grizzly Ridge with Logan Creed in the passenger seat of my rental SUV when Rhea's name lights up my phone on the dash mount. Logan answers it on speaker before the second ring.
"Talk to me," he says, and the shift from the quiet, gentle man who spent the last thirty minutes telling me about his daughter Lucy's dinosaur obsession to the Navy SEAL running operational comms is so immediate it makes my fingers tighten on the wheel.
"Garrett Hollis returned the rental car in Denver this morning.
" Rhea's voice is crisp and fast. "He didn't get on a plane.
He rented a different vehicle from a second agency two hours later.
A white Ford pickup. Colorado plates. Cal's cyber team pulled highway camera footage from I-70 westbound.
He turned off at the exit for Highway 9 heading north toward Breckenridge at oh nine thirty. "
Highway 9 north. That's the corridor that leads to Mountain Ready.
"He's not heading for Denver," Logan says. "He's heading for the mountain."
"Confirmed. Cal plotted the trajectory. If he stays on 9 and picks up the county roads, he's three to four hours from Grizzly Ridge. Two and a half from Mountain Ready's access road."
My hands are shaking on the steering wheel. I grip harder.
"Turn the car around, Shelby." Logan's voice is calm and absolute. Not a suggestion.
I'm already looking for the next turnaround. A gravel pulloff appears and I take it, swinging the SUV in a tight arc, and then we're heading north, back the way we came, the morning sun now behind us instead of ahead.
Logan is on the phone with Cory before I've finished the turn. "Matthews, we have a situation. Hollis is mobile, northbound on Highway 9. Three to four hours from your position. Shelby and I are returning to Grizzly Ridge now."
I can hear Cory's voice through the speaker, sharp and controlled. "Get her to Sawyer's. I'm coming down."
"Negative. Stay at Mountain Ready. If he's heading for the school, that's where we want you. On your ground, on your terms. I'll have Shelby at Logan's cabin with Erica within ninety minutes. Sawyer's already been notified."
A beat of silence. Then Cory's voice, lower. Rougher. "Put her on."
Logan holds the phone toward me.
"I'm here," I say.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm okay. I'm turning around."
"Shelby." Just my name. Loaded with everything he can't say on a speaker phone in an operational context. "Come back to me."
"I'm coming."
Logan takes the phone back and the call shifts to logistics, coordinates and timelines and contingencies, but I'm not listening anymore.
I'm driving. Fast and focused, eating the miles between me and the only place in the world I want to be right now, which is anywhere in the radius of Cory Matthews.
I used to run from things. Now I'm running toward something. The irony would make me laugh if my heart wasn't hammering so hard I can feel it in my teeth.
We reach Grizzly Ridge in just over an hour. Logan directs me straight to his cabin. Erica is waiting on the porch with Lucy on her hip and an expression that tells me she's already in lawyer mode, cataloging facts, assessing options, preparing for whatever comes.
"Inside," she says. No pleasantries. "Coffee's on. Sawyer's on his way."
The cabin becomes a command post within thirty minutes.
Sawyer arrives with a deputy. Dan Whitmore calls in from his lodge, already positioned on the county road that serves as the main northern approach to Grizzly Ridge.
Miguel McNab checks in via the Channel 16 thread from his position east of town.
And Cory. Cory is at Mountain Ready, on his ground, in his territory, doing what he was trained to do. Waiting.
The hours crawl. I sit at Logan's kitchen table with my laptop and try to work on the article draft, because that's what I told Cory I'd do and because stopping now would mean Garrett has already won.
The words come slowly, each sentence a small act of defiance against the fear that wants to swallow me whole.
Erica sits across from me. She doesn't hover. She doesn't offer false reassurance. She works on her own laptop, doing whatever former lawyers turned nonprofit directors do, and her calm presence is more grounding than any words could be.
At two fifteen, Rhea calls.
"Highway camera caught the white pickup turning onto the county road that leads to Grizzly Ridge Valley. He's thirty minutes out."
Logan, who has been on the porch making calls, comes inside. His expression is the one I saw briefly in the car. Pure operator.
"Sawyer has deputies positioned at both valley entrances. Dan's got visual on the north approach. Nash reported a white pickup passing his property three minutes ago heading toward town. He got a plate number. It matches."
Garrett is here. In the valley. Thirty minutes from where I'm sitting.
My phone buzzes. A new email from the anonymous address.
Small towns are beautiful. I can see why you'd want to write about one. I've always said you have excellent taste.
He's here. He knows I'm here. And he's letting me know.
I show the email to Logan. His jaw tightens.
"That's enough," he says. "That email, combined with the documented pattern of surveillance, the flight to Colorado, and the physical proximity, gives Sawyer probable cause for a stop."
"Can Sawyer arrest him?"
"He can stop the vehicle and question him. If Hollis does anything, says anything, that constitutes a direct threat or violates any local or state statute, Sawyer takes him in. If he's smart enough to stay in the gray area, we document everything and push for a restraining order."
"He'll stay in the gray area. That's what he does. He's been doing it for four months."
"Then we make the gray area very uncomfortable for him."
At two forty-five, Sawyer's voice comes through Logan's radio. "I've got the white pickup on Main Street. Driver is parked in front of Maggie's. Single male occupant matching the description. He's sitting in the vehicle."
Sitting. Watching. Just like the emails. Present but passive. Close but never quite crossing the line.
I stand up. Erica looks at me.
"I need to go down there," I say.
"Absolutely not." Logan doesn't look up from the map he's studying.
"Logan. He's here because of me. He followed me across the country because I published an Instagram story and he connected the dots.
If I hide in this cabin, he'll keep circling.
He'll keep watching. He'll come back tomorrow and the next day and the day after that, because that's what he does.
He doesn't stop until he gets what he wants. "
"And what does he want?"
"To see me. To remind me that no matter where I go, he can find me. To prove that I can't outrun him."
I grab my jacket. "So I stop running."
Erica stands. She crosses the kitchen and puts her hands on my shoulders and looks me dead in the eyes.
"I was in your exact position two years ago," she says. "A man tracked me across the country. He shot me. He nearly killed the people I love. And the thing that ended it wasn't hiding. It was standing up with the people who had my back and refusing to be moved."
She squeezes my shoulders. "Go. But you don't go alone."
Logan drives. I sit in the passenger seat and watch the town approach through the windshield. Main Street is quiet, mid-afternoon on a weekday, but I can see the white pickup parked in front of Maggie's Diner. The driver's side window is down.
My heart is in my throat. My hands are steady.
We park across the street. Logan kills the engine. "I'll be right here. Sawyer's two doors down in the Town Council building. Dan is on the north end of Main Street. You are not alone."
I nod. Open the door. Step out onto the sidewalk.
The driver's door of the white pickup opens.
Garrett Hollis steps out.
He looks the same. That's the worst part. Brown hair, neatly cut. Average build. Clean-shaven face with pleasant, unremarkable features. The kind of man you'd pass in a grocery store without a second glance. The kind of man no one believes is dangerous because he doesn't look dangerous.
He smiles. That familiar, reasonable, concerned smile.
"Shelby." He says my name like we're old friends running into each other by coincidence. "I was worried about you. You went dark for three days."
"I know you were monitoring my accounts, Garrett."
The smile doesn't falter. "Monitoring? I follow you on social media. Like thousands of other people."
"Thousands of other people didn't fly from Portland to Denver on a one-way ticket and drive to the town I'm working in."
A flicker behind his eyes. The briefest flash of something cold before the reasonable mask slides back into place.
"I was visiting a friend in Denver. Decided to do some driving. The mountains are beautiful."
"You don't have friends in Denver."
"How would you know? We haven't spoken in months. A lot has changed."
This is what he does. This is the game. Every statement carefully calibrated to be deniable. Every action positioned just inside the boundary of what a reasonable person might do. He constructs a reality where his behavior is normal and anyone who questions it is the one being unreasonable.
I spent eight months inside that construction. I know how it works.
"I need you to leave, Garrett."
"I'm in a public place. I haven't done anything wrong."
"You've been sending me anonymous emails for four months. You've tracked my travel patterns through my published work. You flew across the country and drove to the exact town where I'm staying. That's not a coincidence and it's not innocent and we both know it."
His jaw tightens. The mask slips another fraction. "I was concerned. You weren't posting. You weren't responding to messages. A person has a right to be concerned about someone they care about."