It was the only article in the box about Hannah's murder. By the time Abraham Murdock had called the authorities to report that Eli was dead—presumably by his own hand—Sunny was in the hospital, never to return home. There was a picture accompanying the article, not of Hannah—the Murdocks had never released a photo of her, or even acknowledged her death—but of the trail where she'd been found. The photo was in black-and-white, but Emme could see the orange dirt in her mind's eye, the canyon ravine at the edge of nothingness. The wild beauty of the place felt disturbed by Hannah's body, clad in bright green hiking pants and white T-shirt, her limbs splayed out, her eyes wide open to the sky. The couple who had found her hadn't moved her, not one inch, before Emme got there. "We thought she was a mannequin at first," the man had said, and the woman burst into tears and buried her face in her boyfriend's shoulder. Emme saw how he held her close, how gentle his hand was on the back of her head, and how easily he could crush her skull on the rocks at their feet, if he wanted to.
She blinked to clear the memory. Her mother knew how Emme had screwed up this case, how she'd failed Hannah...how she'd failed her, and yet she'd still kept the article. With a hard exhale, she crumpled the paper in her fist and threw it into the flames. Her gaze fixated on it as it transformed from black to white and then to nothingness. She might have two weeks left on her contract with the National Park Service, but in her mind she was already done. She twisted around to look at the Craftsman house and the A-frame building that sat in front of it: The Sunny Spot, her mother's bakery. It had been closed since Sunny had gone into the hospital weeks earlier, but the moment she was officially out of the Park Service, Emme was going to reopen it. Leave all this tragedy behind her and build a life where the biggest complication was bread dough. Except—her mother had named Addie a co-executor of her will, and she needed Addie to sign off on the bakery's transfer to her name. Emme turned back to the fire, which bloomed taller as another log caught, and bounced her knee. She wanted to move into that future and put her broken days as an investigator behind her. But she couldn't until her sister came home.
Her pocket vibrated, jolting her. She reached in to grab her phone, willing it to be her sister reading her mind all the way from Tanzania.
But when she looked at the screen, it was Stace's name that lit up, not Addie's. She clicked Accept. "I told you, I'm not going to Acadia."
"This isn't about that," Stace said, his voice low and serious.
Emme's insides twisted. He was going to ask her for another favor. "I can't go flying off to wherever, Stace. You know that."
"I don't need you to go flying off to wherever," Stace said. The knot inside Emme tightened. "I need you to drive ten minutes into Zion National Park. There's a body in The Narrows."
CHAPTER TWO
There are three ways into Zion National Park. From the south, Zion Park Boulevard runs right through Springdale, funneling visitors past the iconic sign and into the main visitors' entrance. Drive north along the scenic road through the park and pull off to hike up to Angels Landing, or around the Emerald Pools, all beneath the perpetual gaze of those red cliffs towering high to the sky. The Virgin River snakes its way through the entire park, wild and wide, rushing and roaring in places, and calm and quiet in others.
Emme held onto the overhead bar in the open-air Jeep as it rumbled along the park road toward the Temple of Sinawava. From there, they'd have to take the easy Riverside Walk to access The Narrows. One of the most famous hikes in Zion, The Narrows takes you into the actual river, beneath cliff faces worn smooth by millions of years of erosion from water and wind. Most people came from the south, or "bottom up," along the paved Riverside Walk to its end point where you have to climb over the low stone wall. Descend into the river, and you're in The Narrows.
Emme gripped the bar tighter as the Jeep jolted over a pothole. So much for sliding under the radar in her last two weeks on the job. Damn Stace; he knew her too well. Zion was her backyard, and he knew she wouldn't refuse an investigation on her own turf.
"Should be there in a few minutes." Theo, the ranger who was driving, shouted to her over the roar of the engine and the wind. "Then we'll have to hike in."
Emme nodded in response. She would do a preliminary investigation—one last favor for Stace—and get someone else assigned to the case. If there even was a case. Most deaths in the parks turned out to be accidents.
Theo pulled the Jeep into the small lot at the Zion Shuttle Stop #9 and they hopped out. Emme walked to the back of the Jeep. She slung her pack over her shoulders, tucked her water bottle into its side pocket, and grabbed her hiking poles. There was a steady stream of people on the Riverside Walk; it was one of the easiest hikes in the park, more of a walk than a hike. They threaded their way around the other walkers, who moved aside when they spotted Emme's wide-rimmed ranger hat and flak jacket with the words FEDERAL AGENT emblazoned in yellow on the back. The trail was only a mile long, and she and Theo reached its end quickly.
