Page 35 of Disappearance at Angel's Landing
Lila didn’t know what to say to that, what to think. She wasn’t that person. But because she’d relied on a persona to bury all the bad and hide from the pain she couldn’t rid herself of, he’d equated her with the nightmare of his past. She could see it now, the slight manic gleam in his eyes with what little sun broke through the storm clouds. Nothing she said would convince him he was suffering from a delusion. Not even her death. He would kill her, then he’d move onto his next target. And the next. Until the police finally caught up with him. “So you killed her.”
So many innocent lives destroyed, all because no one had believed him when he’d needed it most. She couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened had she not kept her pain all bottled up as Ranger Barbie but instead unleashed it on the people around her. Would she have become a killer as he had? Would she have met Branch and found her dream job? Would she still have fallen in love or let the darkness consume her?
“You think she didn’t deserve to die for what she’s done to me?” He was right back in her space, putting himself on her level, sliding the tip of the blade across her throat. Almost lovingly.
“I think you like listening to yourself talk.” Lila pressed one palm into the ground. She could stop him. She just had to figure out how to get her body to stop bleeding. And ignore the gut-wrenching agony ripping through her heart.
The truth was, none of those questions mattered. She had buried her pain underneath layers of pink and glitter and bleach because the idea of taking it out on others as her brother-in-law had taken his domination out on her had sickened her down to the bone. She’d found the safety she’d been craving since she was seventeen years old by getting lost and finding small pieces of herself in Zion National Park. And she’d fallen in love with Branch because he’d been the first person to make an effort to understand her, broken or not. He’d taken a good long look at all the darkness she hid from the world and held her anyway. And she loved him for it. Stupid heart. “To be fair, I did ask for the villain speech, but I really don’t want your voice to be the last thing I hear before I die.”
Her scalp burned as he fisted a hand in her hair. “You really don’t know when to keep your mouth shut, do you?”
“No.” Lila brought her boot between them and slammed her heel into his groin as hard as possible. The blade nicked her skin as he fell back with a scream of agony. It bounced off the walls and drilled deep into her soul. “That’s more like it.”
Getting her feet under her, she fell forward toward the exit, as though her body knew exactly where to go. That sense only lasted a second before a hand wrapped around her ankle, and she hit the ground. The breath knocked out of her as she reached for the cave’s entrance. It was right there. All she had to do was run.
Her vision blurred as the killer flipped her onto her back. “Let’s see how loud you can scream this time.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
He’d waited. And waited. But there was no sign Lila intended to meet up with the SAR team.
But while Branch was more than ready to admit she liked to disobey orders to get under Risner’s skin, she wasn’t stupid. She wouldn’t risk her life in a storm like this to make a point, and the rangers back at headquarters hadn’t seen her.
Lila was missing.
Which meant something had happened in the time he’d left her in this very spot and when he’d pulled his head out of his ass to come back and apologize for the way he’d treated her. And Branch had an idea who might’ve been involved.
He scanned the ground in circles, frustration building each time the rain corrupted evidence of her boot prints. The first print had been protected by an overhang, pulling him down a narrow slot canyon worn into smooth curves over the years. He’d recognized it from their two days together. The subsequent prints had washed away in the storm. Every shred of evidence, every clue telling him where she might’ve gone erased in a matter of minutes. He couldn’t fight back the desperation that’d nearly destroyed him after the landslide.
The killer had come back to finish what he’d started. Branch didn’t have proof. It was literally vanishing right in front of his eyes, but he’d always trusted his gut. He followed the slotcanyon, recovering mere divots of her footprints. Until they just…stopped. She must’ve taken a wrong turn. Doubled back.
Crouching to get a better look at the patterns left in the mud, he tracked Lila’s divots. But her prints weren’t the only ones lingering. Another set had followed her in. Deeper. Harder to wash away despite the storm’s relentlessness. No ridges or treads. Just impressions. Bigger than his partner’s.
And right in the center of one, rivets of brown mixing with rainwater. Like slicked oil refusing to give up the fight against a more soluble opponent.
Blood.
Fire burned up Branch’s throat as he shoved to stand. Lila didn’t carry any weapons, which meant she’d been injured. He couldn’t tell how badly, but enough for the killer to abduct her a second time. Damn it, he should’ve been there. He should’ve known the son of a bitch wouldn’t let her go. Lila had tried to tell him. The killer was convinced she was just like Sarah Lantos, that she deserved to suffer for her sins, and Branch had left Lila to fight this alone because of some warped sense of protecting himself.
His blood pumped too hard. His throat raw from swallowing the growl clawing through him.
He marched straight out of the slot canyon. She wasn’t here. The killer wouldn’t have left her body out in the open. He’d want Lila to suffer as promised, secluding her. Branch had returned to the trail in less than thirty minutes after he’d turned his back on her and hadn’t seen any evidence of anyone until Risner showed his pinched face. Which meant the killer would’ve taken her someplace nearby. Somewhere he could take his time but distant enough no one on the trail would hear her scream.
Branch ran through his knowledge of the area. Lila was better at this kind of thing. She was just…better.
In every way.
And he loved her.
More than he relied on his fear. More than his isolation. He loved every inch of her, complete with her shame, her secrets and unwillingness to bend. He loved her meddling and impulsiveness and the way she made decisions based solely on her mood. He loved the flares of pink on her uniform and the way she protested Risner’s control by bejeweling her belt against regulations. He loved the way her body had melted into his when he’d kissed her, as though she’d always been the missing piece of his soul he’d lost in the divorce.
But he mostly loved how she’d dragged him back into the light with her unending invitations to show him around Springdale, to meet for coffee and when she’d thrown him a surprise birthday party in the break room. He still couldn’t figure out how she’d learned about his birthday, but it didn’t matter. She’d stood in the middle of that linoleum-coated corner of the office with balloons and a cake made just for him with that gorgeous smile on her face and daring in her eyes.
He loved her.
And he would do whatever it took to get her back.
Branch rushed from the slot canyon, taking in as much detail as his brain allowed. Rain pummeled the tracks he’d followed into the canyon, but he could still make out the increasingly rare divots she’d left behind. None of them faced the direction of the valley, wider on one end compared to the other. Had she backed up? Stumbled away after being injured?
