Chapter 8 Cara
EIGHT
CARA
She looked feral. Wild-eyed, you know? All she got from us was a protein bar and my favorite fashion sneakers, but I shudder to think what else she would have taken if we had been at the picnic table. Maybe our lives? I mean, she’s a murderer.
—Jessica Wohrle, to MSNBC
Karoline Bell from Torrance was a divorced realtor who’d come camping with the title company VP she’d been seeing for the last eighteen months and a group of his work pals.
That story, which Cara had embellished as little as possible, seemed to fly with Sanjay and Devin, whom she’d learned were from the Bay Area, more specifically the Mission District in San Francisco, where they lived on the second floor of a subdivided Victorian house.
Sanjay was a social worker, and Devin was in tech sales.
They had an overweight tortoiseshell cat named Mona.
Not only did they insist she eat their last handfuls of trail mix as they hiked down the trail toward their vehicle—she picked at it as daintily as she could, chewing one raisin, cashew, or chocolate chip at a time—but they graciously shared their water, too.
“I’m so glad we found you before anything worse happened to you,” Sanjay said, before taking a swig and passing the bottle to her.
Cara was careful to waterfall from the bottle, not putting her mouth on the rim. She wanted them to know that even though she’d stolen from them, she was a good person, respectful of boundaries.
“How did you get separated from your friends in the first place, again?” Devin asked.
“There are only two women in the group—me and the wife of one of my boyfriend’s coworkers,” she said.
“We both had to go to the bathroom but went in different directions for privacy. She must have finished first and thought I was already done. When I went back to where we’d split up, she wasn’t there. ”
“She just left you behind?” Sanjay asked, sounding genuinely concerned for her well-being.
“I’m sure she didn’t mean to.” Cara hated lying to these truly nice men. “But I don’t know her very well, or really any of them.”
“Except your boyfriend, of course,” Devin said.
“Jordan is . . .” she surprised herself by using the sheriff’s first name. “He hikes faster than everyone.”
“Surely he came looking for you?” Sanjay asked.
“Oh, definitely. It’s my fault for not staying in one place.”
“If you ask me, he doesn’t sound like all that great of a guy,” Devin muttered.
“Well, to be honest . . .” Cara was planning to make something up about him pursuing her a lot more heavily than she’d expected, saying their relationship probably wasn’t going to last, anyway, when a middle-aged couple came into sight below them.
Climbing the hill with their small backpacks and matching purple trekking poles, they had to be day hikers. They could very well have heard the latest news about the infamous Cara Campbell.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Sanjay and Devin politely stepped off the trail as they approached. Cara crouched, pretending to tie her shoe. Had they seen her face?
“Howdy,” the man said, pausing when he should have kept going past.
“How smoky is it up there?” his wife asked. “I have asthma.”
Cara herself could barely breathe.
“Blue skies on the eastern side,” Devin said. “But the smoke is coming in fast from the west.”
Cara wondered how long she could possibly fiddle with her laces. She could feel eyes on the back of her head but didn’t want to give them a better look. Surely they’d been listening to the radio and learning all about the dangerous fugitive terrorizing the hills.
“Hear that, Rob?” she said. “Maybe we should turn around.”
Keep going, Cara beseeched the woman silently. Nothing to see here. Just three friends hiking.
“It’s not that bad, Joan,” said Husband Rob. “Just a little bit further.”
Joan assented in silence as they finally moved on.
“Be careful,” Sanjay called after them.
Cara hung back so Sanjay and Devin wouldn’t see how badly her legs were shaking.
That was, until she heard the sound of barking dogs in the distance. Then she began to power walk.