for the surface and as soon as her head cleared the water, she coughed and gasped in a few precious breaths, wiping at her stinging eyes.
In the fading daylight the banks of the narrow river filled the horizon, impossibly high to her right but leveling out on the left. Sparse brush and skinny cottonwood trees lined the sandy river’s edge.
Not a soul in sight.
Something sharp—a submerged log, maybe—jammed into her ribs. She cried out in pain but was rewarded with a mouthful of dark river water. Coughing it out, she turned against the current and kicked for the bank.
She crawled out onto the sand, tiny rocks biting into her palms, and pushed through the reeds growing at the water’s edge. Collapsing onto a clear patch of ground, she struggled to catch her breath. What on earth had happened? Where was she?
The back of her head throbbed like she’d smashed it into a rock. Worse, though, was the way her brain felt like cotton fluff, disoriented and unfocused.
She squinted into the last fading rays of light, one cheek pressed down on the cool sand. As the initial blackness receded, her senses clicked slowly into place. The tall reeds stood like sentinels between her and the flat, glossy stretch of dark river water, barely visible in the dying sunlight. She shivered as a light breeze drifted over her drenched clothes.
Sitting up slowly, she pressed a hand to the throbbing place on the back of her head. When she pulled it away, a red, sticky film coated her fingers.
Her heart jumped in her chest. If only this horrible groggy feeling would go away, she could figure out where she was. What to do now.
Some distance to her right, the river disappeared into a deep canyon with jagged cliff walls rising on both sides. From the way the current ran, she must’ve fallen in back there, before the cliffs became impassably steep.
That way was west—the last bit of sun was still visible dipping down behind the rim of the canyon, sending streaks of pink and orange through the distant clouds.
In the other direction, to the east, the landscape flattened out and groves of cottonwood trees grew along the riverbank. No sign of civilization for as far as she could see.
How did she end up here, in the middle of nowhere?
“Ashley,” she said softly, more to reassure herself than anything else. “My name is Ashley. Thompson?”
She rolled the last name around on her tongue. Sounded right.
Somewhere through the haze in her brain, she remembered that something terrible had happened—something related to why she was here, wherever here was. But she couldn’t remember for the life of her what it was—only that it hurt, so badly her stomach clenched into a tight, aching knot.
She pressed her hands to her temples, her forehead, her eyes, trying to calm her pounding heart. Panicking wouldn’t solve anything or help her remember.
Something hard dug into her hip as she sat with her legs to one side. Fumbling in her pocket, her hand closed around the smooth, cold and heavy object, then dropped it onto the sand.
A gun.
She slid backward, staring at the dark weapon lying there like a rattlesnake ready to bite.
Law enforcement. That had to be it. She stared down at her clothing, as if her soggy black pants and white blouse could explain everything. Even though it’d been in her pocket, she had a holster. The gun had to be hers. Legally, she hoped.
And the clothes seemed familiar enough. At least they fit. She struggled to remember anything—her last meal or her last ride in a car or her last day at work—but there was nothing. Just a vast, blank space in her mind, as if someone had siphoned away her entire identity beyond her first name. How was it possible she had no idea where she was or how she had gotten there?
And what on earth was she supposed to do now?
Her lips parted to utter a prayer, but she checked herself almost instantly because, along with that certainty about her name and the sense that something terrible had happened, came the knowledge she wasn’t on speaking terms with God.
She shivered. Night was coming and she had no idea where to go. The thought of wandering around looking for help in the dark was horribly unappealing.
She crawled back toward the gun and picked it up, tentatively at first, but as her hand closed around it, a familiar sense of security washed over her. She clung to that tiny bit of comfort and clasped her knees to her chest, staring out across the desert. Hoping against reason that help would come.
Logan Everett walked across the parking lot to his Jeep. The meeting with the river ranger and the border patrol agents had taken longer than he’d expected, and the sun had begun its final descent behind the Mesa de Anguila to the west.
He could still get in a good chunk of the drive back to Panther Junction before the onset of total darkness, but he had a nagging feeling something was wrong.
That black sedan that had turned around in front of the general store—he had seen it from the window during their meeting—had headed down toward Santa Elena Canyon a good hour ago, and it hadn’t returned. Granted, it was hard to tell from his vantage point inside the Castolon ranger office, but it had looked like the driver, a woman, was alone.
Now that it was almost dark, she shouldn’t still be there. She couldn’t drive that sedan on the dirt road up to Big Bend National Park’s west entrance at Terlingua and, as far as pavement went, the canyon was the end of the line.
Logan exhaled a long breath that matched his never-ending day. Well, it wouldn’t hurt to check. He had learned that the hard way. He trusted his instincts—they hadn’t failed him yet—and if it turned out she was fine, or not there anymore, at least he’d be able to sleep tonight knowing he’d made sure.
An image flashed into his mind—a man’s body in a ranger uniform, half a mile off the trail. Vultures circling above in the 110-degree heat. More than circling.
Logan shuddered. No, he was not going to think about Sam. Not now.
Please, Lord, he prayed, keep this woman safe.
The Santa Elena Canyon parking lot lay in deep shadow by the time he pulled in. The lot was empty except for the black car, its driver conspicuously absent. Logan parked and got out, pulling a flashlight from the Jeep’s glove compartment.
He walked toward the trailhead, scanning his light across the sand for footprints. There were plenty, since the canyon trail was one of the most popular in the park. He frowned. It was also short enough that the woman should have returned by now.
He stopped when the arcing sweep of his light caught a set of footprints off to one side, leading toward the river. Annoying hikers. It was like they couldn’t read the signs plastered all over the place.
Stay on the trails. Not only did it preserve the environment, there were enough ways to get injured without needing to wander off looking for more trouble.
Picking his way carefully, Logan followed the tracks until they ended at the river. Here the sand was wet and the
