“He did,” she said. “He promised her.”
Tim clenched his jaw. If he weren’t standing in the narthex of his church, he would’ve let loose. “And you just gave it to him. It never crossed your minds that he’d run it straight to his newspaper?”
Frankie paled. “Well, he did mention something about a reward.”
Maisie winced. “Pops, it was my idea to come find you and let you know he had it. I knew where’d you be.”
Tim glanced at her dirty hands. Empty dirty hands. He let out a slow breath, then suddenly remembered Naki was on the phone. “Naki, did you hear that?” Silence. Tim pulled the phone away and checked the screen. “He hung up.”
Fantastic.
“All right,” Tim said, tucking the phone into his pocket.“Let’s get outside, where the rain might improve the way you two smell, and start at the beginning.” He pushed open the church doors, dreading how this day was turning out.
Scout and Chase had started up the Precipice Trail beneath a sky so blue it felt like a promise. Today washerday. The day she could conquer her fear of heights.
By the time Chase got the call from Frankie and decided to descend, a few gray clouds had gathered—nothing ominous but enough to add to her anxiety. Honestly, every part of her wanted to head back down with Chase.
But she wassoclose now. Just a little farther and she could tell Elizabeth she’d done it. Faced it.
So she kept climbing.
A few sprinkles dotted the rocks, light enough to ignore. She fixed her gaze on the granite ahead, refusing to look down. Not even a glance. Then the last scrap of blue sky vanished and showers started—cool, steady, and slick. She paused, heart thudding. Maybe sheshouldturn back. Risk was one thing. Recklessness was another.
But she wassoclose.
She slowed her climb to a snail’s pace, pressing her back against the cold, unforgiving rock of Precipice Trail, holding tight to the rungs. The trail had narrowed to a ledge no wider than her boot, with nothing but air and the jagged rocks below. Hikers had died on this trail. It was one of the first training lectures she’d attended when she arrived at Acadia. Precipice was challenging and difficult, especially in unpredictable weather. Like now.
Especially when you have a terrible memory from Precipice Trail, and your stomach had begun to churn from the moment you reached the trailhead. Especially when your counselorthought the reason you avoided committing to any relationship had to do with that stuffed-down memory.
Scout took a shaky breath and tightened her grip on the metal rungs, hand over hand, as she moved carefully along the trail. A gust of wind howled, tugging at her ranger hat, and she jammed it tighter on her head. “You can do this,” she said aloud, her voice shaky. “You are arangerfor the National Park Service! You’ve handled much worse than this.”
But the truth was, she hadn’t. Heights were her weakness, her kryptonite, the one thing that turned her legs to jelly and her courage to dust. Her badge was supposed to mean bravery, competence. But here she was, trembling on a trail.
She gritted her teeth and forced herself forward, one cautious step at a time. But the clouds above, dark and brooding, gathered into a mass that felt as heavy as her chest. The first low rumble of thunder echoed through the mountains, and Scout froze. She hated this. Hated the way her body betrayed her.
She really should turn back. She recognized those cloud formations. She knew that she should get as low as she could as fast as she could.
But she was so close. She just couldn’t let herself retreat.
She was determined to get to a certain spot on this trail—that very place where she and her dad had stopped, sat down to look at the view, shared a snack. And then Dad told her that he and Mother were going to “live apart.” Nothing would change all that much, he had said in his reassuring way, because he already traveled so much. Plus, he’d write to Scout every week, and she could write or email him. And he and Scout would go camping each summer, just the two of them.
Scout didn’t cry. She had just listened to him, half numb, half not-surprised. It was true that Dad was hardly ever home, and when he was, he and her mother were constantly arguing—mostly over how much he was away. So, in a way, it reallywouldn’t be all that different from how it had been. Maybe even better, because their adventurous camping trips wouldn’t have to accommodate Mother’s dislike of the outdoors.
So she hadn’t cried, but she did make the mistake of looking down. The drop was steeper than she’d thought, the ledge narrower. Something inside her had shifted, a cold, gripping certainty settling in. From that moment on, heights weren’t just unsettling—they were paralyzing. And if her counselor’s assessment was correct, Scout was emotionally stuck too. According to Elizabeth, Scout’s subconscious decided she would never let anyone hurt her again—but that also meant that she was unwilling to open her heart.
Elizabeth, Scout hated to admit, might be on to something.
Acadia had always called her back, not just for the park itself, but to this exact spot. The place where, at fifteen, everything had changed. Elizabeth suggested that if she could stand here again, reframe the memory in her own terms—gut-wrenching, heartbreaking, butnotfatal—it would finally loosen the fear of heights’ grip on her. And maybe she could open up her heart to another.
The problem was ... the whole thing looked death-defying—and she was so terrified she couldn’t budge.
Her hand clenched the iron rung at her side, slick with rain now. “Hey, God! If you have a moment to spare, I could use a little help down here!” She didn’t really expect an answer, but it felt good to shout at him.
Lightning streaked across the sky, sharp and brilliant, illuminating the world around her in a split second. She gasped and squeezed her eyes shut, her heart pounding in her ears. For a moment, all she felt was cold fear. She was going to die, right here. All alone.
But then, as if it had been whispered into her ear, a phrase floated into her mind.
Do not fear, for I am with you.
