Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
The only thing I hated more than my morning run was the way skipping it felt like a personal failure, as if the version of me who used to pass physical benchmarks and timed drills was still somewhere nearby, watching and keeping score.
So, despite Monday being my day off, I finished my coffee, ate my second-to-last string cheese, laced my shoes, and told myself I would at least make an attempt.
My car was parked directly in front of my apartment, nose-out the way I always left it now in case I needed to make a quick getaway.
As I stepped outside, stretching my calves against the curb, I caught the flash of daytime running lights turning off, just at the edge of my vision.
I turned to find a Rivian sitting along the side street where the lot let out, tucked just far enough away that it wouldn’t normally draw my attention.
It was the same Rivian that had been parked outside the BackPorch coffee shop, and in one of the employee parking spots when I headed out at the end of my shift while Kenna and Gracie continued their night of celebration.
And given the price tags on those things, it was a good bet it belonged to Kenna.
I fought the instinct to freeze. Freezing was noticeable, and while I couldn’t see anyone in the driver’s seat through the tinted glass, there was a high chance that Kenna Scott was sitting there watching my every move.
I leaned down, retied the laces of my shoes, and took a second to think. She hadn’t parked in the lot. She wasn’t blocking me in or approaching. She was simply watching. Doing her job as a private investigator and staking me out.
I was filled with a strange mix of irritation and reluctant admiration.
Given my bout of athleticism that had resulted in a tackle-slash-arrest, she had good reason to be suspicious, and if I were anyone else, I probably wouldn’t have noticed her, but she had picked the wrong person to fixate on.
Guess my run would have to wait after all.
I straightened, unlocked my car, and slid into the driver’s seat like this was all part of the plan. In the mirror, I saw the Rivian’s headlights come back on a beat later.
Bingo.
I pulled out of the lot and headed toward highway 97, settling into an easy, unhurried pace. Kenna followed, careful to keep a buffer between us. She was good—better than most people who tried this sort of thing without formal training—but she wasn’t invisible.
At the next intersection, the freeway on-ramp loomed ahead. I slowed my car just as the light turned yellow, selling hesitation and defensive driving. Then, at the last possible second, I accelerated.
The light switched to red as I made it through the intersection, leaving her behind. I took the on-ramp and merged smoothly, pulse ticking up despite myself. It wasn’t triumph so much as relief. Temporary relief, but I’d learned to take what I could get.
And layered underneath that relief was an inkling of pride. My future with the FBI may be in shambles, but all those TEVOC training exercises and tests still amounted to something. Even if it was something as simple as shaking a tail for a couple of hours.
I exited again a few miles later and kept driving, windows down, letting the dry summer air fill the car. If Kenna doubled back to my apartment and I was already there, it would be obvious what I’d done. Besides, the whole point of shaking her was to give me time to exist unobserved.
As I drove South down highway 97, I remembered looking up directions to the Big River Campground, where the missing woman’s hand had been found, and to Benham Falls where her phone had been discovered only a week after she disappeared.
Sure enough, it was only a few minutes later before a brown recreational sign appeared along the side of the road with an arrow pointing to the right.
Lava Lands Visitor’s Center
Benham Falls Trailhead.
I slowed as I considered what I was about to do and then turned on my blinker. As I navigated into the turn lane and followed the signs leading towards the trailhead, I told myself I was only here for the exercise. Because Kenna’s appearance had distracted me from my morning run.
It had nothing to do with the skeletal hand that had been found here three years ago. And I certainly wasn’t here to solve a case that the entire Bend Police Department and one particularly enterprising private investigator hadn’t been able to solve.
The parking lot was already half full, even this early. As I got out of the car I stood there for a moment, wondering if my shoes were good enough, and then decided if my feet started to hurt or the trail became too steep, I could simply turn around.
The trail was wide and packed hard from use, dust puffing faintly with each step. The Deschutes ran alongside it, calm and steady, the sound of moving water threading through the morning air. Within minutes, I realized I was enjoying myself.
This wasn’t running—counting breaths, counting down the minutes and the miles, waiting for it to be over. This was movement with a purpose that wasn’t punishment. I found myself slowing just to look around, watching sunlight flash on the water, nodding at passing joggers and dog walkers.
At some point, I noticed my shoulders had dropped.
I stopped near a bend in the river and leaned against the railing, letting myself breathe. For a few quiet minutes, there was no FBI, no manhunt, no version of my past clawing at my heels.
Just a trail. A river. And me.
Had Lexi walked these same trails? Was this where she had vanished before her hand made its way downstream, only to end up miles away from where her cell phone had been found?
If she had come out here, there were several scenarios that might lead to her disappearance.
If she had been attacked by a wild animal, it would explain how the hand had travelled so far South. But anyone looking for her would have noticed signs of an animal attack.
She might have wandered off the beaten path or slipped down one of the steeper stretches of riverbank that ran along the right side of the trail. That could explain how her phone had ended up in the water near the trailhead, if it had been dropped and caught by the current mid-hike.
Then there was the possibility that she’d been attacked out here.
The trail wasn’t terribly isolated, and I had passed several other people already.
Anyone who might have attacked her out here should have left behind more evidence or even a witness who could place her on the trail in the first place.
But just like Monica had pointed out during that guest lecture at Penn State, people never paid enough attention to the news or their surroundings.
And even when they did, sometimes they didn’t realize that what they had witnessed was the key to solving a case.
In any case the trail was long cold now and I was left with more questions than I had when I started my hike.
Deciding to turn back once I hit two miles, I came across a woman trying to coax an overweight pug down the trail and paused to give him some attention.
His tail furiously wagged and when the woman gave me a treat to offer him, he snatched it from my fingers before I even thought to ask him to do a trick.
The parking lot was fuller when I got back. A group of women laughed as they unloaded a dog from an SUV. A man argued gently with his kid about snacks. Ordinary life, continuing without pause.
I was almost to my car when I noticed the bulletin board.
I wandered over to it, wondering how far the trail went and if I could have reached the end of it instead of turning around.
Tracing the line on the map, my eyes caught on the flutter of paper tucked into the corner.
Half-torn and sun-faded, was a scrap of red-and-white paper. I knew that color, that font.
MISSING PERSON.
Only part of the name remained, the rest ripped away, but I could still make out the ‘ate’ of Lexi’s last name.
My chest tightened. Someone had taken the time to put this missing person’s poster up, recently enough that the paper wasn’t weather worn like some of the other notices were.
And yet someone else had decided it didn’t belong there.
Had a forest service worker taken it down as a routine process or was there something more malicious behind the angle of torn paper?
It was impossible to tell, but even as I returned to my car, the question of what happened to Lexi Tate kept running through my mind.
I sat behind the wheel, staring out at the river winding through the trees for far longer than necessary.
Even as I started the engine, AC humming weakly, I stayed where I was, wondering how a woman could go from hiking a rather easy trail to leaving behind a phone and a decomposing hand as the only evidence she had ever been there to begin with.