Few places in this world are more dangerous than home.
John Muir
MONDAY, 7:35 P.M.
BRIDGER-TETON NATIONAL FOREST, WYOMING
Harper Reynolds inched forward, hoping she hadn’t made a mistake in coming there.
After she positioned her camera on the tripod, she zoomed in closer with her long telephoto lens. Taking in those big brown eyes, she captured the images of a grizzly bear foraging for berries near the Grayback River below, a good eighty yards from her. A hundred yards would have been better. The bear was aware of her presence—he’d lifted his head and noticed her at the same moment she’d seen him on her approach to the river. Then he’d gone back to his searching, and she’d set up her tripod on a rise to look bigger and be safer if distance wasn’t enough.
Maybe she was still too near, but she wanted to get even closer. That’s what her teleconverter was for. She could get up close and personal with him without putting herself in danger. In fact, if it weren’t for the trees, she could be several hundred yards away and still get great shots.
Through her camera lens, she balanced the massive creature with other elements—the river, trees, and boulders—as pure joy surged through her. The river was the perfect background and allowed her to include depth.
Raw vigor exuded from the bear’s rippling muscles as he moved. Never in her life had she been this close. A rush of adrenaline—the thrill-seeker’s kind—coursed through her. She wanted others to look at the images and feel the same nervous energy she felt being so close to this enormous and dangerous creature.
The sound of the rushing river anchored her, igniting childhood memories of this very spot, and mingled with the bear’s grunts as he searched for food. She imagined he was happy too. She drew in the scent of pine needles and caught a whiff of the sulfurous stink from the geysers at nearby Yellowstone. Then she clicked on more images of the beast, taking in his hundreds of pounds of muscle and power.
Finger hovering over the button, she paused. Only a few more images and she would have to switch out the memory card.
No deleting images for her. She’d learned the hard way that inconsistencies in the metadata could cause all the images to be questioned and ultimately disallowed by the court. Except these weren’t the kind of images for which she had to ignore the artistic rules of composition to focus solely on establishing location, evidence, position.
She gave herself a mental shake. It had been a year. Why was that coming back to her at this moment? No violent scenes, her therapist had said. And definitely no more crime scenes. She’d agreed.
Now she took pictures of nature. Peaceful. Serene. No blood or death.
The sun sank lower, forcing her to adjust for diminished lighting. She focused on the bear’s eyes. Hoped for some interesting activity or behavior. She wasn’t afraid. She’d brought her bear mace, after all.
And I know how to use it.
Still, she shouldn’t push her luck and stay too long.
Tracking the bear as he lumbered along the riverbank, she swiveled the camera to the left on the tripod. She thought she had finally gotten the hang of panning after all the pictures she’d taken. Except the bear moved again and this time behind a large boulder, completely out of view.
She glanced around. Should she reposition the camera to get more shots?
Her cell buzzed in her pocket.
What? She got a signal out here? Emily was probably texting to see why she wasn’t back yet. Her sister could have come along on the hike, but she’d claimed she needed to work on her latest mystery novel. Harper grinned. Partially true, but Emily was also nursing blisters and sore limbs from their recent hikes.
Harper reached for her phone, but a flash of bright pink caught her attention. She peered through the lens and panned the camera to search across the river.
Maybe a hundred yards out she spotted a woman.
Her arms flailed as she tore along the brush, bursting through the thick foliage. Her mouth hung open. Was she screaming? If so, the rushing river drowned out the sound from this distance.
Harper’s heart pounded. She peered through the lens and zoomed in closer. Took pictures.
The woman’s face twisted with pure terror, then she glanced over her shoulder at something. What was she running from?
Harper panned again to follow the woman. She snapped pictures. She should call 9-1-1, just in case. She couldn’t stand by and do nothing while someone was in danger. With her free hand she reached for her cell in her pocket and tugged it out. She peered through the lens again. With a sharp intake of breath, she caught sight of a man with a rifle looking through his scope from at least four hundred yards away. Harper couldn’t be sure he was actually watching the woman or had ill intent.
Regardless, she fingered 9-1-1. The call wouldn’t go through. No signal now. She shifted the camera back to the woman. Magnified the image.
The woman’s eyes widened—that final look of horror. Then . . . a blank stare.
Harper’s heart seized as the woman collapsed face-first onto the grassy earth.
A crack split the air as it echoed across the river, finally reaching Harper’s ears.
And Harper turned to stone, becoming one with a nearby boulder. She wanted to turn and run. Like she had in the past. She wanted to flee from the crime committed in front of her.
But no. This time, she had to be strong. She had to do what she should have done long ago.
Stay. Watch. Be the witness this woman needed.
Get live-action proof, not evidence gathered after the fact.
She focused her camera on the killer, taking a kill shot of her own. His face would be plastered everywhere. He wouldn’t, couldn’t, get away with this.
With his face still pressed against the weapon, he peered through the scope, his camouflage ball cap pulled low and shadows covering the only part of his exposed, wrinkled face. She took one last picture before she ran out of room on the memory card.
She should delete the photos of the bear, but she was trained otherwise—and if these photos were needed as evidence, best to follow protocol. With trembling hands, Harper slipped the memory card out of the camera and inserted the new card.
Pulse racing, she quickly repositioned the camera on the tripod and panned to find him again. He was moving in now, hiking toward his kill with his face still pressed against the weapon.
Frustration boiled to the surface. She couldn’t get a good, clean shot of the murderer. Still, she’d fill the camera with his image. She’d commit every detail to memory.
She wouldn’t turn and run in fear and be the reason justice wasn’t served.
Come on, come on. Take off that cap. Lower the rifle. Something. I need something.
Then he suddenly stopped. Wouldn’t he go check his victim? Make sure he’d killed her?
But no. He remained in position. Still. Cold.
A hunter.
What was he waiting for?
He shifted the rifle on his shoulder and angled it.
The bear had drawn his attention. Harper had forgotten about the grizzly. That it hadn’t run off with the report of the rifle surprised her. Would the killer shoot the bear now?
Run, bear!
She wanted to scream at the animal. Tell it to flee. Her hands slicked against the camera. Against the cell phone as she repeatedly tried to call out for help. Get a signal. Something.
The bear turned away from the river as if responding to her silent pleas and headed into the woods.
A chill crept up her legs, spread around her midsection, and inched over her back. The wind shifted. A sensation she’d experienced before swept over her—she was in mortal danger.
She took one more picture, but it wouldn’t be enough to nail this murderer. Harper waited. She’d give him a few more moments to reveal himself, and then she’d commit his image to memory.
But he lifted the scope from the bear as if searching for something else. The rifle traveled upward. Higher and higher until . . .
Until the barrel was trained on her. He was looking right at her! He peered at her through his scope. She saw one crinkled eye beneath the shadows.
He saw her. The murderer was watching her.
Heart pounding, her mind raced. A bullet could blast through her now, and she’d never know what hit her.
Fear rooted her feet in the soil like an old oak tree. She was going to die. Right here. Right now. That’s what she got for trying to do the right thing. For trying to stay and see it through. To be the witness she hadn’t been before.
Move. Your. Feet.
Run!
But the pictures!
Grabbing her camera, she yanked it from the tripod, exposing herself like an idiot. She pulled her foot from the ground and took one step back. Instead of running, she dropped to her knees and inched over behind a boulder. She had to calm her breathing.
From there, she peered around the rock, looking through her camera again. The large lens was unwieldly without the tripod. She couldn’t see the killer. Her shaky hands didn’t make it any easier to search. It was no use. She wouldn’t get another chance to photograph him. Regardless, she had to get out of there. Had he gotten a good look at her? He could shoot her from this far away, couldn’t he?
Harper crept across the pine needles until she was well into the thick of the forest. She crawled until the trees were close together and much too dense for him to find her even with his scope. She hoped. Then she scrambled to her feet and ran. Harper was running again. Like before. Nothing had changed or would ever change.
Heart pounding, Harper could see the hiking trail through the trees. Only a little farther.
Her foot caught on a branch hidden in a tuft of needles and she pitched forward. She was powerless to stop her fall. A scream erupted as momentum propelled her toward the jagged edge of a boulder. Pain ignited when she hit the rock, and her camera slipped from her fingers and clattered as it tumbled into a deep gully.
Coming here had been a mistake, after all.