As Cara peered out at the shadowed landscape, a coyote howled.
But she wasn’t afraid of wild animals.
She heard footsteps. As they crunched closer, she moved away from the ruin until she found a tree whose lower branches were low enough to reach. She grabbed one and swung up, then climbed until she was concealed by leaves.
Was it Silverman? Dylan? Or just a nighttime trail runner? She couldn’t be caught by any of them.
“Cara! Cara Campbell!”
The male voice was familiar. Definitely not Dylan.
A twig snapped and grass rustled as he drew closer.
“Cara, it’s Sheriff Jordan Burke from Madera County.”
Quietly moving a branch aside with her hand, she saw him standing below her, playing a flashlight over the ruins. Unlike the time they’d met by the raging water, he didn’t have a gun in his hands.
And his voice was calm. “Cara, if you can hear me, I know you didn’t kill your husband.”
Was it a trick? Did it even matter?
She’d been running from this particular sheriff, and law enforcement in general, ever since the van crash. She could imagine Roy Abel’s televisedsmirk when he learned Cara’s justice would come from within the system. But suddenly she knew revealing herself to Jordan Burke was her safest option.
“I told you,” she said.
Sheriff Burke turned, looking for the source of her voice, then stepped over to the tree. He looked up like he was looking for a missing housecat.
“Come on down, now. You’re safe. Danvers and Silverman aren’t coming after you.”
“Did Dylan admit to killing Karl? And that he originally meant to kill me?”
“He wouldn’t say anything without a lawyer, of course. But why would he have done that?”
She climbed down carefully. “To get famous.”
“Wasn’t he already famous?”
“Famous for being a nepo baby. He was desperate to create something authentically his. And I guess he felt I’d stolen his chance.”
Unfortunately, she understood too much about that particular hunger.
Sheriff Burke shook his head in disgust. “Why don’t you explain everything to me while we walk back?”
As they hiked together in the dark, equally comfortable on the trail, Jordan listened, occasionally interrupting with aclarifying question, to the story she hadn’t had a chance to tell. The whole story, in order. She included everything she had learned in her LA investigations and tonight’s awful encounter with Dylan Danvers.
As they neared his sheriff’s cruiser, Jordan looked off into the distance at the streets of the city below them, going on to infinity.
“I was confident I’d track you down in the hills—I just didn’t figure it would be the Hollywood Hills.”
“Looks like you learned to find your way around.”
He looked at her, his eyes glinting in the light pollution. “So this guy took psychedelics, had a vision, tried to kill you but killed your husband, and pressed the hammer into your hand? And when you took the rap and even escaped, he hid his guilt by pretending to be your biggest champion?”
She laughed so she wouldn’t cry. “Some people will do anything for likes.”
He shook his head, a decent man who could hardly believe it.
Cara looked past him at his vehicle, thinking the back seat could almost be comfortable. “So you’re taking me in now?”
