CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kari spread the maps from Brightwater's house across the hood of her vehicle, Michael Torres's wife standing beside her with red-rimmed eyes.
Search and rescue teams were assembling at the Peralta Trailhead, but Kari knew traditional search methods wouldn't work.
Brightwater had spent years running these mountains, knew every wash and ridgeline and hidden canyon.
He'd avoid the obvious routes, the places where searchers would naturally look first.
She needed to think like him. Needed to understand not just where he'd go, but where his twisted beliefs would take him.
"Your husband's training route," she said to Mrs. Torres. "Did he follow the same path every time?"
"Usually the Ridgeline Loop. About twenty miles, gains maybe three thousand feet of elevation." Mrs. Torres's voice shook. "He's done it dozens of times. He knows it better than our own neighborhood."
Kari traced the route on Brightwater's map, noting where he'd marked observation points and decision nodes—places where a runner would have to choose between different paths.
But she was looking for something else. Something in Brightwater's journal entries about transcendence and enlightenment, about the sacred nature of suffering in the desert.
She pulled out her phone and scrolled to the photos she'd taken of Brightwater's journal.
One entry stood out: The sacred places are where the desert shows its true face.
Where water is absent and heat is absolute.
Where the body breaks and the spirit emerges.
Only in the harshest landscape can transformation occur.
The harshest landscape. Kari thought about her grandmother Ruth's teachings about the desert, about how the Navajo understood this land as a place of both danger and spiritual significance.
Balance was key—respecting the desert's power while not seeking to be consumed by it.
But Brightwater's damaged brain had twisted that understanding, had turned respect into worship, balance into extremes.
He wouldn't take Torres on the established trails. He'd push him into the most brutal terrain, the places where the sun hit hardest and there was no shade, no water, no mercy.
Maria appeared at her elbow, radio in hand. "Search teams are ready. Where do you want them to start?"
Kari studied the map, thinking about the Ridgeline Loop and where Brightwater might have intercepted Torres.
If Torres had started at six AM, he'd have been about five miles in when Brightwater made contact.
From there, the chase would have pushed Torres off his planned route, deeper into the wilderness.
But where would Brightwater drive him? What destination would his delusional beliefs suggest?
She found what she was looking for on the map—a section of the Superstition Wilderness marked with a red star in Brightwater's handwriting: Sacred ground. Where I first saw the truth.
"Here," Kari said, pointing. "This area, about eight miles northeast of the main trails. It's remote, the terrain is brutal, and according to Brightwater's notes, it has personal significance to him."
Maria studied the location. "That's rough country. No established trails, exposed ridgelines, washes that turn into ovens in the afternoon heat."
"Exactly. That's where he'd take someone for 'transcendence.
'" Kari looked at her watch. Almost two PM.
Torres had been running for over eight hours.
If he was still alive, he was in serious trouble.
"Get the search teams moving toward this area.
But tell them to approach carefully. If Brightwater's with Torres, I don't want to spook him into doing something desperate. "
As Maria coordinated with search and rescue, Kari made a decision that went against every protocol in the book.
She couldn't wait for coordinated teams to slowly work their way through miles of desert.
Torres didn't have that kind of time, and if Brightwater saw a large search operation approaching, he might kill Torres and disappear into the wilderness.
She needed to go in alone, use her knowledge of the desert and her understanding of Brightwater's beliefs to find them before it was too late.
"I'm going ahead," she told Maria. "Give me a thirty-minute head start, then bring the teams in behind me."
"Kari, that's—"
"Not up for debate. I know this kind of terrain, and I understand what Brightwater thinks he's doing.
If anyone can talk him down, it's me." She grabbed water bottles from her vehicle, checked her sidearm, and pulled on a hat to protect against the brutal afternoon sun. "Thirty minutes. Then follow."
She didn't wait for Maria's response, just started moving toward the area Brightwater had marked as sacred ground.
The terrain was immediately challenging: loose rock, steep climbs, and exposure to the sun that felt like a physical assault. Kari settled into a pace she could sustain, conserving energy while covering ground as quickly as possible.
Her grandmother's voice echoed in her mind as she climbed: The desert teaches balance. It gives water and takes water. It offers shelter and demands respect. Those who push too hard, who demand rather than ask, they learn the desert's harshest lessons.
Brightwater had learned the desert's harshest lesson during his catastrophic collapse five years ago.
But his damaged brain had interpreted that lesson backward, had turned a warning into a mission.
Now he was teaching the same twisted lesson to others, believing he was elevating them when he was actually killing them.
Kari navigated by landmarks and instinct, heading toward the remote area Brightwater had marked. She watched for tracks, for any sign of passage, but the rocky terrain revealed little. Still, she pushed on, trusting her understanding of where Brightwater's beliefs would take him.
After forty minutes of brutal hiking, she found footprints—two sets, both running shoes, one set showing the irregular gait pattern she recognized from the crime scenes. Brightwater and Torres, the tracks fresh enough that they couldn't be more than an hour or two old.
She followed the prints into a narrow canyon where the walls trapped heat and reflected it back with suffocating intensity. Her shirt was soaked with sweat, her water already half-gone. She forced herself to drink anyway, knowing dehydration would make her useless to Torres if she found him.
The canyon opened into a wider basin surrounded by rust-colored cliffs. And there, in the center of that brutal amphitheater, Kari saw them.
Michael Torres lay on his side, positioned with the same careful arrangement Kari had seen at every other crime scene. But unlike the others, Torres was still breathing—shallow, labored breaths that suggested his body was on the edge of complete failure.
And standing over him, running shoes worn from miles of pursuit, was Thomas Brightwater.