But one was all she needed. She felt Adam’s hand brush her boot as she hefted herself up and started to climb the slope. Following the light, she used her arms and legs to claw her way to the ledge they had fallen from. Twice, she felt Adam gaining on her, his hand brushing her feet. Kicking swiftly toward him sent him back down a few feet. At the top, the ledge jutted out just slightly, making the last hurdle particularly challenging. Josie used her elbows to hook her body onto it and try to pull herself over.
Then she froze, half her body above and half below. There, in the dawning morning light was a doe and two small fawns, silent and still. The doe’s ears twitched, and her eyes stared into Josie’s, as if surprised to see her there, but not quite sure she was a threat. This was the deer’s territory, not Josie’s. As Josie hung suspended, the doe’s tail twitched and she sauntered off, out of the light and into the darkness of the trees beyond. Her progeny followed, moving more quickly to keep up.
Adam’s heavy hand closed around Josie’s calf. “You think you’re getting away from me?” he snarled. “This isn’t over, bitch. I’m gonna snap you in half. You hear me? I’m gonna kill you.”
Josie felt him pulling on her leg and stiffened her upper body. In front of her was another knobby tree root sticking out of the ground. She grabbed on with both hands and turned her head, looking down over her shoulder.
“You can’t stop it,” she told him.
“Can’t stop what? Death? You’re right. No one is stopping me.”
“No,” Josie said. “Life. You can’t stop life.”
Then she used her free leg to kick him. His nose crunched beneath her boot tread, a solid but sickening sound. He let go and fell away, into the chasm below.
Forty-Two
She wandered the forest until she had enough bars on her cell phone to call for help. The sun was on the horizon, and Noah had already awakened to find her note and roused the cavalry. Within minutes of her call, state police searchers found her. They wanted to carry her out, but she walked under her own steam. They brought her out to the road that ran alongside Harper’s Peak. Two ambulances and a half dozen police vehicles were scattered about. The troopers led her toward one of the ambulances but before they reached it, she saw Noah down the road, talking with Mettner, Chitwood, and Gretchen. When he spotted her, he started running. So did she.
They met in the middle of the scene, bodies crashing into one another. Josie let herself go limp in his arms, languishing in his warmth and his smell, the reassuring weight of him in her life.
“Hey,” he whispered in her ear. “I promised to run toward the danger with you.”
“I know,” Josie said. “But I didn’t know I was running toward danger. I only wanted to find Rory. Did you guys get him?”
“He’s in the back of one of the ambulances,” Noah said. “He took a bad spill when he was running away. They’re thinking broken leg, but he’ll need X-rays.”
“Adam?”
Noah released her slightly from the embrace, enough to look down into her face although his arms were still wrapped around her waist, holding her upright. He shook his head.
Josie wondered if the fall had killed him. It didn’t seem enough to kill him. It hadn’t killed either one of them the first time, and she’d landed on top of him.
Noah said, “Looks like he hit his head on a rock.”
Or, Josie thought, someone hit him with a rock. Rory had likely fallen off the same ledge they had, only he hadn’t landed well. He was probably down there when they fell. Adam would have been disoriented on the second fall, maybe even had the wind knocked out of him. It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that Rory had summoned the strength to find a rock and put Adam out of commission permanently.
But could they prove anything? Was it even worth it to try? As things stood, Rory would be arrested and charged with Reed Bryan’s murder. He would not be a threat to the public. Whether or not to investigate the manner of Adam’s death wasn’t up to Josie. She knew that the moment she saw the Chief striding toward her.
“Oh yeah,” Noah whispered in her ear. “Chitwood’s pissed.”
“As opposed to what?” Josie mumbled.
Noah let go of her. Chitwood stabbed a finger in the air as he got closer. “Quinn, if your grandmother hadn’t just died, I would have some nasty things to say to you. You’re way out of line. This is unacceptable. You’re on leave. No, suspension. You think you can do this rogue cop bullshit on my watch? What kind of department do you think I’m running? You don’t get to do whatever you damn well please. You could have jeopardized the entire case—or cases—’cause there sure is
