Rocky Mountain Manhunt

Though she had never been here before, the terrain was familiar. Her fingers tightened on a clump of sweetgrass, and she smelled wild mint. The trees were mostly ponderosa pine, but there was also a stand of aspen with lean white trunks and the round green leaves of early summer. She knew that she was somewhere in the Rockies, probably in Colorado. But why am I outdoors? How did I get here?

Her brain floated—adrift in the hazy netherworld between sleep and wakefulness. Though she tried to think, she couldn’t draw upon memory. The slate had been wiped clean.

And yet, she could identify the plants. Sweetgrass. Burdock. Snakeroot. Goldenrod. She recognized the charred stench that rose from her clothing; it smelled like an old campfire.

Instinct drove her to sit up. When she tried to stand, her body screamed in agony, and she sank back to the earth. Her legs ached from running, endless running.

Every muscle throbbed, but the pain was more intense on her left arm. She peeled off her parka to take a closer look. The upper sleeve of her blue silk blouse was shredded. Dried blood stained the fabric and there was a fresh red ooze. She’d been wounded.

Reaching up, she touched the back of her skull and found evidence of another injury. Blood matted her long, thick, blond hair. Something terrible had happened to her.

Her gaze swept the meadow. Amid the faraway line of conifers, she caught a glimpse of movement, and she focused intently. The barrel of a rifle aimed directly at her heart. They were coming for her! The hunters were coming.

A wave of terror surged in her chest, and she gasped. Her throat tightened. She was drowning in her own fear—an urgent panic that flooded every cell of her body. She had to escape. To run. To hide.

Rolling thunder echoed through the mountain cliffs and valleys, and the rain began to fall hard. Vertical sheets of water pelted her head and shoulders.

Drawing upon her last reserve of strength, she staggered to her feet. Beside her was a backpack—a big one that was suitable for weeklong wilderness expeditions. She hefted the weight onto her shoulders. She knew inherently that she needed to keep this pack with her at all times.

Stooped over, she moved as quickly as she could toward the nearby sheltering trees. Every step was torture. Inside her hiking boots, her toes cramped. Her knees and ankles creaked like frayed hinges.

At the edge of the forest, she collapsed on a carpet of pine needles. Small, gasping sobs escaped her chapped lips as she squinted through the rain toward the hunters on the opposite side of the mountain meadow.

She saw nothing. They were gone. She peered so intensely that her eyes ached. Nothing. They had vanished so quickly. Did they even exist? Had she invented the hunters? No! She knew they were out there.

Fear was her only reality, her only truth. People were after her. Faceless men, hunters, tracked her down like an animal. My God, why? What have I done?

If they found her, they would kill her. They’d tried once already. The slash on her arm. The wound on her head. She had to stay hidden, here in the forest. It was the only way she’d survive. She had to be smart. But how? How could she pretend to be clever when her brain was addled and her memory was gone?

She couldn’t do this. It was better to surrender, to lie back and accept her fate.

“Stop it,” she whispered angrily. She wasn’t a quitter. Though she didn’t remember her own name, she knew this: she wasn’t the sort of woman who gave up without a fight.

Her shoulders straightened. She would take responsibility for her own safety. She would forge a new life, a new identity. Here, in the forest.

Following the custom of Native American tribes christening a newborn, she chose her name based on the first thing she had seen when she’d awakened.

Rain. I am Rain.

Chapter One

At midafternoon on a sunlit day, Rain hunkered down beside a rippling creek. She reached into the cold, clear water and picked out a pebble. Round and smooth, the stone was the color of a tiger’s stripe and speckled with bits of quartz.

After careful inspection, she decided the tawny color was perfect for today—a very good day because she’d caught a fish. Today, she was fierce as a tiger. She was the huntress instead of the hunted.

Though she’d seen no sign of the men who had been pursuing her for days, she still felt their presence. At any given moment, they might appear.

Rain turned her back on the creek and scurried toward her wilderness home. Careful not to follow the same route and create a path that might lead others to her hideout, she zigzagged toward a wall of pines and a towering granite formation. Behind three fat boulders was a cleared space with a fire pit. She pushed aside a clump of sagebrush and entered her shallow cave.

Kneeling on the cave floor, she ceremoniously dropped the tiger pebble into a basket she’d woven from reeds and twigs. One pebble for every day of her new life. “Twenty-eight, so far.”

Proud that she’d survived so long, Rain smiled. The sunburned skin across her cheeks stretched and cracked, and she rubbed her face. Without moisturizer, her complexion must be a leathery disaster. Not that she was planning to win any beauty pageants.

Her jeans were torn, and so baggy that she held them up with twine she’d plaited from reeds and sweetgrass. Her blue silk shirt was in tatters. Several days ago, she’d given up on grooming her long, unmanageable, blond hair and had hacked it short—not stylish but functional. She didn’t have time to worry about how she looked. Every moment was dedicated to survival. Nothing else mattered.

Though it was a bit early for dinner preparations, she couldn’t wait to cook the fresh trout that would go so well with her usual salad of goldenrod, burdock and mint. As she took the leaves from the cooking pot where they soaked in water from the creek, she wished that she had oil or butter for frying.

Those were food items her backpack had not provided, but she wasn’t complaining. The pack had literally saved her life. Tucked inside, she’d found a Marmot Pinnacle sleeping bag, a serrated Buck knife, a collapsible fishing rod and Meals, Ready-to-Eat—the same kind of prepackaged, high-calorie food that the U.S. military used on maneuvers.

Though the last of her MREs had been devoured thirteen days ago, Rain found plenty of edible foods in the wild. Bark and grass. Flowers and roots. And now, the chokecherries and elderberries had begun to appear. She wouldn’t starve.

In fact, her health was good. Her wounds had healed, thanks to the first aid kit in her pack and her knowledge of medicinal plants.

Though she still couldn’t force herself to recall what had happened to her, memories had appeared like snapshots—moments caught in time. Once remembered, these pieces of the past became hers, not to be forgotten again.

Easily, she pictured her mother descending a sweeping staircase, being greeted by a golden retriever with a wildly wagging tail.

And there was a Little League game she’d coached.

On a green golf course, she practiced her swing.

Rain remembered her own wedding. The pristine lace dress. The filmy veil. And roses, tons of pink roses. Unfortunately, the groom wasn’t a clear vision, and she had the sinking feeling that her marriage hadn’t turned out well.

The elaborate, many-tiered cake, she recalled, had been delicious.

With a longing sigh, she fantasized about all the marvelous foods she used to eat. Gourmet sauces. Cheese and bread. Cream and chocolate desserts. She especially missed the candy bars her father used to bring home when she was a little girl. He’d hold out his arms and allow her to search his jacket pockets until she found the chocolate.

By far, her favorite memories were the days she’d spent with her father. A big, strong man, he’d taught her wilderness skills when she was a girl. They used to go backpacking together. He’d taught her how to forage; those skills had probably saved her life.

Through the mouth of her cave, she glanced heavenward. Her father—his name was Eric—had passed away several years ago. “I miss you, Dad.”

In her mind, she repeated his name. Eric. The golden retriever, also deceased, was Daisy. Her mother was Elizabeth. She’d remarried. Her new husband was Peter Rowe, and he had a son, Tom Rowe. All those names. But when it came to her own identity, she was still…Rain.

Knowledge of her immediate past remained elusive no matter how hard she tried to remember. The only thing she knew for sure was that hunters were trying to kill her, and their pursuit was relentless.

The only way to be safe was to stay hidden.

This was her life. The forest was her home. And it was time to build the fire and cook her fish. She took the cooking supplies from the backpack and went to the fire pit where the twigs and sticks were already laid.

Carefully, she guarded the flame of a match from her dwindling supply. For kindling, she used a hundred-dollar bill.

PILOTING SOLO IN HIS modified Super Cub, Liam MacKenzie swooped low and made a pass through an isolated valley in Rocky Mountain National Park. Not a particularly safe aerial maneuver, this dive wasn’t anything he’d try with the people who regularly hired him as a charter pilot. But Liam had been flying this little Cub so long that she was like an extension of his own body; he could make her do anything he wanted. He tipped the wing and stared down at the waving grasses. There appeared to be nothing unusual.

Nearing the edge of the meadow, he pulled back on the yoke, cleared the treetops and ruddered left, preparing to make another sweep. Two days ago, he’d flown high over several miles of terrain, including this meadow, taking aerial photos for a real estate developer in Grand Lake. When he’d gotten the developed pictures back and studied them, he’d seen a parka on the ground—a sign of human life where none should be.

There were dozens of possible explanations. An animal might have dragged the parka there. Someone outside the sanctioned camping area might have lost their jacket. But Liam hoped the parka was a sign of two people who had been missing for nearly a month: Kate Carradine and her boyfriend, Wayne Silverman.

The major search-and-rescue efforts had ended a couple of weeks ago and miles away from here. A forest fire had destroyed nearly a thousand acres, and these two missing people were presumed lost in the flames. No trace of them had been found. No bones. No rubber-soled hiking boots. And, significantly, no sign of a burned-out vehicle.