Rocky Mountain Manhunt

“Let’s start with the obvious fact that Wayne Silverman is still missing. Your memory might be able to explain what happened to him.”

“I can’t tell you.” Her gaze flickered, but she didn’t look away. “I’m sorry that my disappearance triggered a search-and-rescue effort. And I’m sorry that I caused people to worry. But I didn’t have a choice. I’m in danger.”

“From a person or persons unknown.”

“That’s right,” she said.

He sensed that her amnesia masked darker, more sinister events. Something traumatic had happened to her—something too terrible to remember.

If he hoped to uncover the truth, he needed to keep her talking. “Fill me in on what you do remember. You came here twenty-eight days ago. Wounded.”

“I wasn’t exactly here,” she said. “It took me a while to find this perfect little cave.”

“But you don’t remember where you came from.”

“I was on the run.”

“But you didn’t plan to go into hiding,” he said. “You only had enough food for a week.”

“That’s when the MREs ran out,” she said.

“So you lived off the land,” he said. “How did you know which plants were edible?”

“It’s not difficult. There are obvious ones to stay away from. Vetch. Locoweed. And the state flower, the columbine.” As she talked, she returned to her food-preparation tasks, lifting a cover of leaves from an expertly filleted trout and placing the fish in the boiling water to poach. “There are ways to see if a plant is poisonous.”

“Like what?”

“Cut off a little piece and put it between your teeth and your gums. If it starts to sting or cause some other reaction, spit it out.”

Her story intrigued him. He was familiar with mountain-survival techniques but had never known anybody who actually lived off the land. “How did you learn all this?”

“My dad,” she said. “He used to take me backpacking and we’d forage for dinner.”

“Makes sense. Your father was the head of RMS, Rocky Mountain Suppliers.” He hadn’t taken that piece of her background into account. “He specialized in outdoor equipment.”

“I remember.” The minute she mentioned her father, her attitude brightened. “When we went camping, we were always testing some kind of gear. Dad used to say he was the luckiest man in the world because camping was a business trip for him. He loved the mountains.”

“Eric Carradine,” Liam said. “And you’re his daughter, Kate.”

“Rain,” she said. “Call me Rain.”

“Okay. It’s Rain.” He decided to humor her. So what if she wanted to call herself Rain? Or Moon? Or Ruby-Throated Hummingbird? After all these days in the wild and a dose of amnesia, some delusional thinking was to be expected.

Besides, her Rain persona appealed to him. He respected and appreciated her gutsy stamina. In her identity as Kate Carradine, he expected her to be a socialite, a pampered society woman who arranged flower bouquets rather than eating them for dinner.

“There’s plenty of food out here,” she said. “Look at all these trees. Inside the new branches is a soft, woody part that’s edible. If you roast pinecones in the fire, then break them open, these little nuts fall out.”

“Sounds like a lot of effort.”

“Oh, it is,” she said. “I spend most of the daylight hours foraging. And I have to hike all over the place to do it because I don’t want to completely wipe out the ecosystem in front of my cave.”

“Because it’s bad for the environment?”

“And I didn’t want anybody to find me.” She poked at the fish in her cooking pot. “Why don’t you sit down and relax?”

Though he had the feeling that he was losing focus on his goal of getting her away from this place, Liam allowed himself to be seduced. He sat on a flat rock at the opposite side of the fire pit and watched as she efficiently arranged leaves and stems on a woven plate made from twigs.

“You made those plates,” he said.

“When I figured out how easy it was to weave young branches and reeds, I made a bunch of things. It gave me something to do at night, when I couldn’t forage.”

Given enough time out here, he suspected she might really create a home for herself. Her little space was swept clean, and she’d placed dried flowers among the rocks for decoration. He pointed to a tall woven vase just inside her cave. “What’s that?”

“My calendar.” She brought the woven vessel closer so he could see inside. “There’s one pebble for every day I’ve been here. I try to choose a rock that looks like the day.”

He reached inside and ran his fingers through the stones. “I see several black ones.”

“Dark days.” Hunkered down opposite him, she plucked out a caramel-colored stone. “This is today. It reminded me of a tiger, and that seemed appropriate because today I caught a fish. I was a huntress.”

“And you held me at bay,” he said.

“Yeah.” She gave a self-deprecating wink. “I’m really fearsome, huh?”

“I wouldn’t use that word to describe you.”

“No? What word would you use?”

“Resourceful,” he said. “Smart.”

She cocked her head to one side and grinned. “Keep going.”

When she wasn’t holding a gun on him, she had a vivid charm and enthusiasm. “Pretty.”

She rolled her eyes. “Now you’re making fun of me.”

“I’m not,” he said. “You look good to me.”

“Apparently,” she drawled, “you don’t get out much.”

But he wasn’t lying. He thought she had a great, expressive smile. And he liked the healthy tan color of her skin that contrasted with her cornflower-blue eyes. Even the weird hairdo worked for him. With the dark roots, and blond on top, she reminded him of some kind of exotic, tufted bird.

She passed him a plate with a miniscule shred of trout and weedy leaves. He took a taste. The flavor of the roughage was a cross between grazing and gnawing on a tree limb, but it’d be ungrateful not to eat the food she’d gone to such trouble to gather and prepare.

Rain attacked her plate with gusto. Though she wasn’t transported into ecstasy, like when she’d eaten the candy, she took regular bites and chewed thoroughly.

She glanced at his plate and raised an eyebrow. “Not hungry?”

“I eat slow.”