“It was an accident,” Silverman insisted indignantly.
“That can be your new campaign slogan,” Jordan told him.
Campbell was gone.
Jordan put away his weapon. Then he sat Silverman and Danvers back-to-back, like captured outlaws in an old Western, and zip-tied their hands together. He made a tourniquet outof Silverman’s belt and cinched it tight above Danvers’s thigh wound.
“You keep turning up at the wrong time,” Jordan told Silverman as he hobbled his ankles, just in case.
“You left your cruiser sitting in that motel parking lot, so I put an Air Tag on it,” he said, with what sounded like petulant pride. “I was following you around until Dylan called me and told me he was going to record Campbell and then let me arrest her. So I came here. I was waiting outside his house when I saw them leave.”
“She was suicidal,” said Danvers. “I was trying to talk her out of it.”
“I guess that’s why she was running away from you,” said Silverman sarcastically.
“What really went on up there?” asked Jordan.
“I won’t say another word without my lawyer present.”
Jordan walked away from them and took out his phone. Dropping a location pin on Google Maps, he texted it to Wen, then called her as he started off on foot.
“Jordan? I heard on the police scanner that you’re still in LA.”
“Send everyone to the location I just texted. You’ll need EMTs. Silverman shot Danvers and Campbell got away.”
“Wait. Like, seriously? What are?—”
“I’m in pursuit.”
He ended the call and started running down the path Campbell had taken.
EIGHTY-EIGHT
CARA
Cara Campbell as the next Bachelorette! (r/bachelorette Reddit thread)
Let’s make it happen.
—/u/AmyB90210
I know someone who knows someone.
—/u/srslysir
I can’t f’in believe she’s innocent!
—/u/rhbblahblah
Runyon Canyon Park closed at dusk, but Cara knew there were no cameras or park personnel to worry about as she climbed a fence on the remote east side, far from the Mulholland entrance. She’d hiked there often enough, always respectfully staying on the trails to avoid trampling vegetation. And she’d commemorated every visit with a selfie, whether from the rockmandala, the yoga field after a group class, or from somewhere in the “wilderness.”
Given where she’d been and what she’d survived, she found it ironic to be running for her life a Lime scooter ride away from multimillion-dollar rooftops and the Hollywood sign.
She bushwhacked in the dark until she found a trail, then followed it until she found the ruins of a 1940s resort. Hiding in the shadow of a crumbling stone pile that had once been a chimney, she stopped until she finally caught her breath.
So much hinged upon the slightest of chances. If she and Karl had stood further apart at Johnson’s Point, she would be dead, and he would be alive.
Tonight, if she hadn’t spotted the photo of Dylan with blond hair, she would have recorded the interview, telling him her entire story before he betrayed her and turned her over to Silverman. Dylan’s backup plan—tounaliveher—would have worked for him, too, she had to admit. He seemed untroubled by the horrible cost of his shortcut to fame. The spirits guiding him were not his better angels. They were demons, telling him to kill again.
