seeped from her lip. Her eyes rounded with fear as if she suddenly realized she was in a vulnerable, dangerous spot.
“Don’t move!” he called. “I’m with Mt. Stevens Search and Rescue!”
She acted as if she didn’t hear him, as if she were disoriented beyond rational thought, which meant she could accidentally fall even farther...
To her death.
“Medics are on the way!” he tried.
Ignoring him, she dropped to her knees and glanced over the edge of the plateau. What on earth was she doing? It seemed like she was trying to figure out how to climb down. A decision that was both unrealistic and potentially deadly.
Then again, she could be dazed from a concussion and not know what she was doing.
“I’m going down,” Jack said.
“Wait, shouldn’t you—”
“He’s right,” Leslie interrupted Bea’s protest. “Who knows what she’ll do? Besides, Jack’s done this before.”
He had done it before, although not with favorable results.
Pulling rope off his pack, he anchored it to a nearby tree root jutting out from the mountain. Romeo shot him a look, like, Don’t go without me.
“Stay,” Jack said, in case the dog got any crazy ideas. He shouldered his pack, gripped the rope with gloved hands and let himself drift so he’d land gently on the plateau, about a hundred feet down.
He wouldn’t be too late this time, wouldn’t let any harm come to the woman in the blue ski jacket.
A few moments later he landed on the small ledge. Her back was to him and she acted as if she hadn’t heard his landing. “Miss?”
Startled, she turned quickly, her eyes wide with fear. “Don’t touch me!” She stepped back, precariously close to the edge.
He instinctively reached out to grab her arm.
“No, don’t—” She stumbled backward over the edge of the cliff.
Jack dove and caught the woman’s arm. It wasn’t too hard, considering she waved both of them like a helicopter trying to take off, or in her case, a woman trying to stop the momentum that would catapult her down a mountainside.
He landed on his chest, and air rushed from his lungs, but he didn’t let go. He grabbed her arm with his other hand, as well. Considering his size versus the petite victim’s, he calculated a more than 50 percent chance of hoisting her safely up.
“Don’t! Don’t hurt me!” she cried, thrashing about.
If she kept squirming, his chances dropped way below 50 percent. “Stop moving or I won’t be able to pull you up.”
“Why, so you can kill me?”
Kill her? At this point he had to assume she’d hit her head and was suffering from delirium. At the very least she was irrational, which meant she was unpredictable and potentially dangerous. Especially if she kept shifting and broke free of Jack’s grip, or even pulled him over the edge with her.
Jack scanned his brain for information on overly excited people and how to manage them. Something he’d read in a psychology book surfaced: An irrational person’s meaning of a situation is different than ours.
For some reason the woman in the blue jacket thought Jack wanted to harm her. She was stuck in that reality and he needed to yank her out of it. He decided to go completely random.
“My dog needs me!” he shouted.
She stopped squirming and looked up. Her wide brown eyes sparkled with unshed tears of fear. “What?” she said.
“My dog needs me.”
“Your dog?”
“If you fall, chances are I’ll go with you, because I won’t let go of your arm. Then I’ll die, or at the very least I’ll be injured, and Romeo will be all alone.”
“Romeo?” she repeated.
Make a personal connection and/or connect the irrational person back to reality.
“Romeo Albert Garrett Monroe,” Jack said.
She frowned, as if trying to figure out what he was talking about.
“I know,” he said. “I’ve been told that’s a lot of names for a dog. I’m Jack Monroe. Just two names.”
She blinked and was no longer squirming.
“I’m going to pull you up now.”
He didn’t wait for a response, didn’t want to take the chance she’d drift back into hysteria. In one swift motion he yanked her up and her lithe body slid across his and landed on the other side of him.
Flat on his back, an uncomfortable position considering his backpack, he took a deep, relieved breath. Snow started falling again, a little more insistent than today’s earlier dusting of flurries.
The woman sat up and scooted away from him. “Who are you?”
He’d just told her his name. Had she forgotten already?
“I’m Jack Monroe,” he said. “I’m a volunteer with Mt. Stevens Search and Rescue, K9 unit.”
Romeo barked from above, frustrated that he wasn’t a part of the action.
She glanced up.
“That’s Romeo,” he said. “You know my name and his name. What’s yours?”
“Zoe. Zoe Pratt.”
“Is she okay?” Leslie called down.
“Yes!” Jack responded, although he suspected she wasn’t totally okay. He wasn’t sure how serious her injuries were.
“Did you find Shannon?” Zoe asked.
“Who is Shannon?”
“My friend.”
“Did she fall, too?”
“No, she was...” Zoe hesitated and hugged herself “...taken.”
“Taken, you mean...?”
“A big guy attacked us and grabbed her and...” Her voice hitched.
Jack was supposed to do something here, something that would make her feel better. But what?
“They’re sending a team to treat your injuries and bring you
