They passed through Wilmington. The Hungry Trout Resort sat on the right, its parking lot half full, a couple standing on the porch watching the road. The road curved and the sound changed beneath the tires, the pavement rougher here, patched and repatched, a road that the county maintained just enough to keep it passable.
"Pull off up here," Samuel said. "On the right.”
Noah saw the sign for Flume Falls. He gripped the wheel tighter, sweat beading along his hairline. The pull-off appeared on the right, a gravel lot edged by gnarled pines and wooden trail signs that leaned at angles in the mist coming off the river. The lot was empty. No other vehicles. No one.
He killed the engine. Below them, the West Branch of the Ausable River roared through the gorge, a sound so constant and so loud that it swallowed everything else. The narrow steel-truss bridge spanned the gap ahead of them and the spray from the falls rose in a fine mist that drifted across the lot and clung to the windshield.
"End of the line," Samuel said. "Get out."
Noah opened the door and stepped onto the gravel. The cold hit him immediately, the river mist carrying a chill that cut through his jacket. Samuel climbed out behind him, the gun leveled at Noah's back now, no longer hidden behind a seat. Out here in the open, under the trees, with the river thundering below them, the situation was stripped down to its simplest terms. Two men. One gun. The edge of a gorge.
"Walk," Samuel said. "Down the trail."
The dirt track was slick with moisture, loose rocks and exposed roots running through it like veins. Noah walked with his hands slightly out from his sides, each step measured, feelingthe ground before he committed his weight. The sound of the river grew louder as they descended. The gorge opened up below them, the water white and violent where it squeezed between the rock walls, and the mist rose around them until Noah could feel it on his face and taste it in every breath.
Samuel stopped him near the edge. A flat section of rock overlooking the falls. The water was maybe thirty feet below, churning through a narrow channel with enough force to tear a tree apart. The spray was constant. Noah's shirt was damp. His boots were wet on the stone.
The gun pressed into the back of his skull. Noah stared out at the gorge, the white water, the mist rising from the rocks. He could feel Samuel standing behind him and slightly to his right. Close enough that the barrel was flush against his skin. The cold of the metal and the cold of the mist were indistinguishable.
This was where it ended. A flat rock above a river with a desperate man behind him and no one who knew where he was. Noah's mind ran through the options the way it always did, the training, the instinct, the calculations that happened whether you wanted them to or not. Spin left, go for the arm, try to redirect the barrel. But the ground was wet and the footing was bad and the margin for error was nothing at all.
"Why did you do it, Samuel?"
"I didn't." His voice was almost lost in the roar of the falls. "I never touched those girls. Hailey. That was different. But the others." A pause. "I didn't do it."
"Then help me prove it. Come back with me. Talk to the DA. Give us everything you know about the girls who came through the agency. The Three Pillar Community. Derek Hollis. Everything."
"And spend the rest of my life in prison for Hailey? For Colorado? For things I didn't do and one thing I..." He stopped. "One thing that wasn't what they'll say it was?"
"You said Hailey came to you. If that's true, tell it in a courtroom. Let a jury decide."
"A jury decided in Colorado. Before they decided, my life was already over." The gun shifted against Noah's skull, sliding from the back to just above his right ear. The barrel pressed into his temple. Noah's breath stopped. His hands hung at his sides. Every muscle in his body locked tight. "I'm not doing that again."
Samuel stepped around to Noah's side. Noah could see him now in his peripheral vision. The gun still leveled at Noah's temple, inches away. Samuel's face was slick with mist and sweat. He looked like someone who had arrived at a place he'd been heading toward for a long time without knowing it.
"Do me a favor," Samuel said.
Noah waited. He could feel his pulse in his throat.
"If you find Hailey, tell her I never meant for any of this to happen."
"Sure," Noah said. "I will."
The mist was heavy between them now, the sound of the falls so loud that Samuel's next words were almost swallowed by it. Almost.
"You know, being guilty of something isn't the same as being guilty of everything."
The crack split the air open.
Noah flinched so hard his knees buckled. His hands flew to the side of his head, instinct, his body reacting to what his brain hadn't processed yet. He shuddered, braced, waited for the pain. But there was no pain. No impact. No bullet.
He was alive.
He opened his eyes and turned. Samuel was gone. The space beside him was empty. The rock where Samuel had been standing was wet with mist and something darker. Noah looked over the edge and saw the body hit the water, a shape swallowedby the white churn of the falls, there for a second and then pulled under and swept downstream.
He didn't know. He'd heard the shot but hadn't seen it. Samuel could have fired into the air and jumped. Could have faked it and dove. Could be alive in the current, letting the river carry him away, banking on the cold and the chaos to cover his escape.
Noah didn't think. He went in after him. If Samuel was alive and running, Noah couldn't let him disappear into the river. If he was dead, Noah needed the body. Either way he was going over that edge.
