CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Kari crouched beside the weathered trail marker, studying the scuff marks in the dirt where Silas Hartman had apparently stopped.
The sun hammered down with an intensity that made her grateful for the wide-brimmed hat she'd grabbed from her truck, though it did nothing to stop the sweat from trickling down her spine.
It was nearly two in the afternoon now.
Kari straightened, scanning the landscape with the practiced eye of someone who'd grown up learning to read terrain the way other kids learned to read books.
The McDowell Mountains rose around them in layers of rust and gold, creosote and palo verde clinging to slopes that looked deceptively gentle from a distance but turned brutal up close.
Beautiful country. Deadly country, if you didn't respect it.
"The loop he planned would take him northeast along this ridge, then down into Bear Canyon before swinging back west." Maria traced the route on her phone's mapping app.
"But his last GPS ping was here—" she pointed to a location about three miles into the planned route "—and it hasn't moved in over six hours. "
Six hours. In this heat, with limited water, even an experienced runner would be in serious trouble by now. And if Hartman had encountered the same person who'd killed Hayes, Rodriguez, and Ramirez, trouble was an understatement.
"Any update from search and rescue?" Kari asked, knowing Maria had called them during the drive over.
"Phoenix PD is sending two teams. Should be here within the hour." Maria wiped sweat from her forehead. "But we can't wait an hour. We need to start moving toward his last position now."
Kari nodded. She needed no convincing.
They'd come prepared—both wearing tactical gear suitable for desert hiking, both carrying emergency water and first aid supplies. Kari had even brought rope and a trauma kit, knowing that one couldn't come over-prepared to reservation backcountry where help might be hours away.
The trail Hartman had been following was well-marked for the first mile, a popular route that saw regular traffic from day hikers and trail runners.
But as they pushed deeper into the mountains, the path became less defined, splitting into smaller trails that required constant attention to avoid getting turned around.
Kari found herself falling into the rhythm of tracking—watching for footprints, disturbed rocks, broken vegetation.
Any sign that someone had passed this way recently.
"There," she said, pointing to a patch of loose gravel where a running shoe had left a clear imprint. The tread pattern was fresh, no wind-blown sand filling the grooves yet. "He came through here."
Maria photographed the print with her phone, documenting everything they found.
Good investigative practice, even in the middle of a search and rescue operation.
If this turned into a crime scene, when it turned into a crime scene, Kari's instincts told her—they'd need evidence of Hartman's route and anything that might point to his pursuer.
They pushed on, the temperature climbing as the afternoon wore on.
Kari's shirt was soaked through with sweat, and she forced herself to drink water regularly despite the urge to conserve it.
Dehydration would make her useless, and they needed to be sharp.
If he'd veered off the path, and they missed it, the mistake could cost him his life.
The terrain grew more challenging as they climbed, rocky slopes giving way to steep washes filled with loose stone that shifted treacherously underfoot.
This was technical country, the kind that punished mistakes.
Kari thought about the GPS data from the previous victims—those zigzagging patterns that suggested desperate evasion.
If someone was chasing Hartman through terrain like this, pushing him off established trails into rough country, he'd be burning through energy at an unsustainable rate.
"His GPS stopped moving here," Maria said, checking the coordinates against their current position. "We should be close. Maybe another half mile."
They moved faster, urgency overriding caution.
Kari scanned constantly for any sign—a water bottle dropped in panic, clothing torn on thorny brush, blood on rocks from a fall.
The desert had a way of preserving evidence, but it also had a way of concealing it beneath layers of sameness that could make even obvious signs invisible to untrained eyes.
She saw the backpack first—a small hydration pack lying abandoned beside a cluster of barrel cactus. Maria spotted it a moment later, and they both broke into a trot.
The pack was unzipped, the empty water bladder hanging limp from its frame. Kari picked it up carefully, noting how light it was. "Completely dry. He drank all his water."
"Or someone made him pour it out." Maria was scanning the area, her hand resting on her sidearm. "His GPS watch isn't here."
"But his phone is." Kari reached into the pack's side pocket and held up a smartphone, its screen cracked but still showing a faint battery indicator.
"This is what we've been tracking. The watch syncs to the phone, the phone pings the cell towers.
Without the phone, the watch is still recording his route, but it's not transmitting. "
Maria closed her eyes briefly, absorbing what that meant. "So he's still out there with a watch recording exactly where he is, but we have no way to get that information."
"Not until we get the watch back."
Kari studied the ground around the pack.
More footprints, confused and overlapping.
Hartman had stopped here—or been forced to stop.
The prints suggested he'd been moving in circles, possibly disoriented.
Heat exhaustion could do that, could scramble spatial awareness until you couldn't tell north from south.
But there was something else.
"Maria." Kari pointed to a second set of prints. "We've got two people."
Maria studied the tracks in grim silence, then met Kari's eyes. Neither spoke.
Kari pulled out her radio, hailing the search and rescue teams that should be arriving at the trailhead soon.
"We've found evidence of our missing runner at these coordinates.
We also have evidence of a second individual.
Requesting immediate backup and additional search teams. Subject may be injured and dehydrated. " If he's lucky, she added mentally.
The response crackled back—teams were mobilizing, helicopter support requested, ETA twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes felt like an eternity.
"Which way did he go?" Maria asked, studying the confused tangle of prints.
Kari crouched lower, blocking the sun's glare with her hand to better see the subtle signs. There—another print, just the toe of a shoe, moving away from the rest, northeast. "This way. Toward the canyon."
They followed the trail, such as it was.
Hartman had been stumbling by this point, his prints showing drag marks where his feet hadn't fully cleared the ground.
The signs of exhaustion were unmistakable.
So were the signs of the person behind him—those steady, measured prints that never faltered, never showed the slightest hint of fatigue.
The canyon opened before them suddenly, a deep cut in the landscape where flash floods had carved channels through ancient stone. Kari felt her stomach drop. If Hartman had gone down there, if he'd tried to hide or escape in those narrow passages...
"Silas Hartman!" she called out, her voice echoing off the canyon walls. "This is Detective Blackhorse with the Navajo Nation Police. If you can hear me, make noise!"
Nothing. Just the vast silence of the desert, broken only by the distant cry of a hawk circling overhead.
They descended into the canyon carefully, aware that one wrong step could send them tumbling down unforgiving slopes. The temperature dropped slightly in the shade of the canyon walls, but the air felt thick and still, trapped heat radiating from the stone.
Kari spotted more signs—a bloody handprint on a boulder where Hartman had caught himself during a fall, torn fabric caught on a thorny branch, more prints leading deeper into the labyrinth of channels and dead-ends that made up the canyon system.
"He's lost," Maria said quietly. "Even if he wasn't being chased, he's completely disoriented. These canyons all look the same."
Kari knew she was right. The canyon was a maze, and without landmarks or clear sight lines, even experienced hikers got turned around. Hartman would be operating on pure survival instinct now, every decision clouded by fear, dehydration, and exhaustion.
They pushed deeper, calling out regularly, listening for any response. The helicopter arrived overhead, its rotors beating the air with a rhythmic percussion that echoed strangely in the confined space. Kari radioed their position and direction of travel, coordinating with the aerial search.
"Silas Hartman!" Maria's voice bounced off the canyon walls. "If you can hear us, make noise! Any noise!"
Nothing but silence and the distant thrum of helicopter rotors.
They searched for another two hours as the sun crept steadily toward the western horizon.
Kari found more signs: a water bottle cap wedged between rocks, more blood on stone, and footprints that showed increasing stumbling.
But no Hartman. The canyon system was a labyrinth of branches and dead-ends.
The light was failing when Maria grabbed Kari's arm. "There."
What looked to be a figure slumped against a boulder in the shadow of an overhang.
They ran, scrambling over rocks and through narrow passages. Kari's heart pounded with hope and dread in equal measure. Please let him be alive. Please let us have gotten here in time.
But as Kari got closer, the shape resolved itself into a backpack, propped against the rock in a way that from a distance had looked like a person's silhouette.
No Silas Hartman.
"Damn it." Maria's voice was hollow with disappointment.
Kari picked up the pack, checking for identification. A name was written in marker on the inside: S. Hartman. So he'd been here, maybe recently. But he'd moved on, or been forced to move on, deeper into the maze.
The radio crackled. Search and rescue coordinator, calling from the helicopter: "We're losing light. Need to pull aerial support in fifteen minutes."
Kari looked at the canyon stretching endlessly in multiple directions, then at the sun touching the mountaintops. The shadows were lengthening, pooling in the low places. Soon it would be too dark to see tracks, too dangerous to navigate the technical terrain.
"We need more time," she said into the radio.
"Understood, but we can't fly search patterns after dark in this terrain. Ground teams will continue, but aerial support is RTB in fifteen."
Return to base. Kari wanted to scream at them to keep looking, to find him, to not give up. But she understood. Helicopter crashes killed rescuers too, and flying in darkness over mountainous terrain was asking for exactly that.
Maria was studying the abandoned pack, her face grim in the fading light. "He's still moving. Or someone's making him move."
"We need to call in more ground teams. Get people out here with night vision equipment, thermal imaging. We can't stop looking just because the sun's going down."
"Kari," Maria said softly.
"What?"
"It's time."
Kari pretended she didn't understand. "Time for what?"
"We'll search again at first light. With more people and better equipment."
"First light?" Kari shook her head, dispirited. "You really think he's going to be alive then?"
"I think," Maria said delicately, "it's beyond our control. We've done what we can for now."
Kari said nothing. She just gazed out across the darkening desert, feeling helpless and wondering if Silas Hartman shared the same feeling.
And whether he would ever even know that anyone was looking for him.