EIGHTEEN

  

They started along the path by the pool. While most of the search party members headed into the woods near the ruins of the old stone wall and fanned out by the bones of the former church, Allison and Jason walked toward the cliff and the trail that led down to the river. They walked in silence, aware that just a week ago a woman had died along this path. Overhead, stormy cumulous clouds gathered in a pack between the mountain peaks, their shadows casting a wide net over the valley. The heat hadn’t let up, but the rumble of thunder in the distance said that it soon would—as did the brisk breeze.

Jason looked upward, squinted, and took Allison’s hand. “Hurry up. I’d say let’s split up to cover more ground, but I don’t want us separated in this either. We’ll stick to the path and, if we can before the rain starts, check out the river bed below.”

Allison nodded. She’d never been much of an athlete, and her only time spent outdoors as a kid was during her family’s once-a-year excursion to Knoebels Amusement Resort an hour and a half away. Her father had made them all cram into one tent to save money on campground fees. Since then, Allison associated the word rustic with cramped and miserable. She loved this area of Italy, but she knew that when it came to steep hikes and dangerous climbs, her view was that of Vaughn’s: not for me.

Allison walked carefully in the center of the trail. It started off relatively flat, but by a quarter of a mile in, it started to pitch downward. The ground underneath, peat that had gone dry from a few rainless days, rolled under her hiking boots, making her feel unsteady. She concentrated on listening—for rustling, yelling, calling, anything that might give away Sam’s location.

In another eighth of a mile, they reached a crossroads. To the left was a steep climb toward a clifftop. To the right, the trail continued its descent toward the river. Allison could hear the water rushing below. It occurred to her again that this was the trail Shirin had taken the fateful evening of her fall.

“Go right,” Allison said between huffs. She reprimanded herself to make better use of that gym membership.

The path got steeper and steeper as it marched resolutely toward the river valley. On the left side, the trail gave way almost immediately to the cliffs: rocky outposts that plunged nearly vertically to the river below. On the right side of the trail was forest—now lush and green and shadowed, but no doubt dark and ominous the evening Shirin fell.

A few hundred feet and it was obvious where the accident had occurred. The trail went from dry and smooth to trampled and wide. Someone had created a seat from an old tree stump, and cigarette butts circled the makeshift stool. The cliff in that section was particularly rocky, with a slight overhang before the rock dropped to the river below.

Had it not been for the litter and the knowledge of Shirin’s death, this would have been a cozy spot—a nice place to look out over the wild river and the flower-dotted meadows beyond. Instead, Allison felt a shiver run the length of her spine. Something bad had happened here. The boot prints told only part of the story.

Jason stopped walking. He looked out over the river, then backwards toward the tree stump and the trees beyond. “I take it this is where she fell?”

“Shirin? I think so, at least based on Karina’s description.”

A buzz started in the distance and grew louder. “Chopper,” Allison said. “Perhaps they’re broadening the search.”

“Or they’ve found him.” Jason spun around, toward Allison. His eyes looked distant, as though contemplating a problem. He frowned. “Something is odd.” He squatted, placed peat between his fingers, and rubbed. “Did it rain the night Shirin died?”

Allison thought back. “Yes.”

“Was it pouring?”

“For a little while, maybe. Not too bad.”

“And they say she slipped?”

“She slipped off the trail. They saw the skid marks the next day.”

Jason’s frown deepened. “If it was raining, how did the tracks remain?”

Allison shrugged. “As I recall, the rain had ended earlier. By the time she was out, it was just misty.” She knelt beside him, not sure what she was looking at. “Why?”

“This material—” Jason held out a palmful of peat “—would be easier to slip in when dry. It gets smooth and dusty, like it is now.”

Allison immediately saw where he was going with this. “So if it had been raining, she would be less—not more—likely to slide over the edge.”

Jason stood, clapping the dirt from his hands. “Right. That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have tripped over something.” He glanced around, shook his head. “But there are no exposed roots or other detritus here.”

“There could have been that night. Detritus, that is. And it was dark.”

“Perhaps.” Jason chewed on his lip, a habit he had when thinking deeply about something. “They definitely saw skid marks in the peat?”

“Yes, that’s what was told to me.”

“I want you to trip, Allison.”

Allison’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

Jason smiled. “Not over the side. Just here, now. Feign a trip. Pretend you lost your footing while walking quickly down the path.”

Allison did so. She forced her feet to flounder, made a mock trip, and landed softly on her bum. She rose quickly, wiping the dirt from her knees.

“Now look.” Jason pointed to the path. There were gouge marks where her feet had hit the ground, and a spot where she’d landed. No skid marks, though.

Jason reached out to her. “Give me your hand. Just relax and go with it.”

He started to pull her. At first she felt her feet tripping, but she dug her heels in and slid.

“See?”

She did. When she looked at the path, there were two holes where she’d started to fumble and lines where her heels had dragged.

“You think someone dragged Shirin over the cliff?”

Jason shrugged. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. Look, I’ve been mountain bike riding and rock climbing since I was a kid. I know trails, and I know what the consistency of a trail means in terms of traction, speed, etc. If this woman had stumbled and fell, she wouldn’t have left track marks. Sliding—like you would do if it were very slick or if someone were pulling you—makes more sense.”

“If the peat had been wet, it wouldn’t have been very slick.”

“Exactly.”

The sound of propellers got louder. Allison looked up to see the chopper flying overhead, in the direction of the castle.

“I think they found him,” Allison said. Just then, her phone buzzed. It was Elle texting her to say that Sam had been located. Allison read Jason the text. “Thank God.”

But Jason wasn’t listening. Instead, he was on his hands and knees with his head hanging over the cliff.

“What are you doing?” Allison rushed toward him, afraid he would fall. “Are you nuts?”

“Look at this.”

Sensing the urgency in his voice, Allison got down on her knees. Jason took her hand and pulled it gently over the side. She gripped the trail hard with her knees and free hand.

“Relax, you won’t fall.” Jason rubbed her hand against something embedded in the rock. “Feel that?”

“It’s metal. A stub of some sort.”

Jason let go of her hand. “Hold my legs—just in case.”

“Jason, no—”

But it was too late. He’d shimmied his way down, toward the cliff, so that his head was hanging completely over the side. Allison kept her mouth closed and her body on the back of his legs. She knew Jason was well-equipped to deal with this situation—and not a man given to reckless endeavors. Still, her heart was pounding madly against her ribcage.

“Jason—”

“Hand me my phone, Al.”

“But—”

“Please? It’s in my back pants pocket.”

Allison reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. “Now what?”

“Turn on the camera and give it to me.”

Allison did. He snapped a picture, then twisted his hand behind him and handed her the phone. After a moment, he pushed himself backwards so his body was again fully supported by solid ground, her signal to stand back up.

“Just as I thought.”

“What is it?”

Before answering, Jason stood, stretched, and then walked to the tree stump that had been used as a stool. His face was a study in concentration. He examined the bark on the tree and the trees nearby. Seemingly satisfied, he turned back around.

“That thing you felt? That’s a climbing bolt.” He must have noticed Allison’s confusion, because he added, “When you’re rock climbing and don’t want to tie into a tree or something, you place a bolt and a nut into the rock. You have to drill, though. It takes skill—and forethought.”

He walked over to the trees on the other side of the path. “If your girl merely tripped, there would be no skid marks. If she skidded, possibly, but she could also have been dragged.” He rubbed the thick trunk of the closest tree. “It’s possible that if someone tied off using a tree, you would see wear in the places the rope was secured, especially if it was a big guy. He’d tie the rope around the tree and then pull it across the path and use it to secure himself against the face of the cliff.”

“Where he could reach up and grab her ankle.”

“Exactly.”

“But then the rope would be visible.”

“Yes, and if she had seen it, she might stop and wonder what it was or avoid the area all together.”

“If she stopped, though, the killer would have a chance to reach up and grab her.”

Jason nodded. “While that’s true, if she had any suspicion that foul play was at hand, she could turn the other way before getting close.” He ran a hand over his thick brown hair, getting the damp strands away from his face. “Plus, the trees. They would give him—or her—away. If there were marks on the trunk, then the police would know something was going on.”

“So you think they put the bolt in place to stay out of sight.”

Jason nodded. “Tying off using the tree would have been risky. But there are risks with this method too. For one, noise. To drill that hole would mean loud sound.” He looked toward the river, the din of which made hearing difficult. “But the river would mask most of that, especially if done during the day.”

“Leaving the bolt is risky too.”

Jason shook his head.

“I think whoever did that thought they could remove it. It looks chipped, as though they tried to pull it back out and failed. And it’s nestled in there pretty good.”

“I wonder if the inspector knows that bolt is there.”

“Doubtful. He’d have had to have been looking for it.”

Allison grew quiet. Jason was giving voice to her suspicions—that someone wanted Shirin dead and had gone to some lengths to make it happen. Lightening flashed in the distance, and Allison felt the first sprinkles of rain. She shuddered again, and not from the chill of the water against her skin.

Jason asked, “There’s only one thing: in this cosmopolitan crowd, who would know enough about climbing to do this?”

Allison wrapped her arms around her chest, warding off more than the bitter drops of rain. “I think I can answer that.”