Amanda shook her head, forcing herself back to reality. She couldn’t afford distractions. Not now, not with everything at stake. The path steepened, and she increased her pace. Her backpack bounced uncomfortably against her spine, heavy with survey equipment and her research notes.
Those notes were everything—months of painstaking research into Porter Rockwell and the rumors of gold he’dhidden in these mountains. She’d been so close to connecting the final dots when Bill …
She swallowed hard, pushing away the image of Bill Harris’s body crumpled beside his car in Provo Canyon. A shotgun blast to the back of his head had left little doubt about the killer’s intentions.
Bill’s research notes were gone. The official police report called it a robbery gone wrong, but Amanda knew better. Someone had silenced him. Why?
And now Nash was involved. Nash, with his questions about the same gold she was tracking.
The trail curved sharply around a cluster of boulders. Amanda’s foot caught on an exposed root, and she felt herself pitching forward. Her arms windmilled frantically as she tried to regain her balance, but momentum carried her down. She landed hard on her side, feeling a sharp twist in her ankle as her body slid several feet down the gravelly path.
“Crap!” she hissed, pain shooting up her leg.
Her backpack had slipped off in the fall, spilling its contents across the trail. Maps, notebooks, her GPS unit, and geological tools lay scattered among the pine needles and dirt.
She tried to stand, but her ankle buckled under her weight, sending a fresh wave of pain through her leg.
This was bad. Really bad.
She crawled toward her scattered possessions, frantically gathering them. She needed to be gone before Nash decided to follow her. She stuffed a topographical map back into her bag, then reached for her research notebook—the one with all her notes on Porter Rockwell and the broken arrow symbol.
Her fingers closed around it just as the sound of footsteps reached her ears.
Too late.
“Amanda?” Nash’s voice carried down the trail, closer than she’d expected. He must have followed her after all.
Panic surged inside of her. She tried again to stand, gritting her teeth against the pain, but her ankle wouldn’t cooperate.
Her mind flashed to eight years ago …
“I had an amazing time tonight,”she told Nash as they stood on her front porch after prom. His fingers were linked with hers, and she wished the moment could last forever.
“Me too,” he said, his eyes reflecting the porch light. “Maybe tomorrow we could?—”
She pressed her lips to his. He relaxed into the kiss, and for a wonderful moment, only the two of them existed.
The door flew open behind them, and they jumped apart at the sound of her father’s voice. “Amanda, inside. Now.”
Regretfully, she turned away from the confusion on Nash’s face.
“Good night, Nash,” her father said, before he slammed the door.
Inside, the small rental house was in chaos. It looked like half of their belongings had been stuffed into boxes.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“They found us,” was all her father said. “We have to go. Now.”
Her mother had frowned. “I’m sorry sweetheart, we have to go.”
Within twenty minutes, they were in the car, driving away from Cross Creek and everything Amanda had come to love about it. She stared out the back window, tears streaming downher face, wanting to explain everything to Nash but knowing she couldn’t.
Her father’s voice was tense as he drove through the night. “I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
“Amanda! Are you okay?”
She jolted and fumbled with her backpack, trying to stuff the rest of her equipment inside, but it was too late. He appeared around the bend in the trail, concern etched across his face when he spotted her on the ground.
