“This is Lincoln Moore, signing out for the day and reminding you to get outside and get into nature. Make your own adventures, and test your limits.”
He smiled for an uncomfortable amount of time, then carefully reached out and turned off the GoPro attached to a little wearable tripod that came down from his helmet. He took a deep breath, drinking some water and wiping the sweat from his brow, then removed the GoPro and helmet, stowing the camera in his backpack and clipping the helmet to the bottom of the shoulder strap.
Hands on his hips, he surveyed the lands around him, enjoying a view that few people managed to see. The Wild Flower Trail sounded like an easy, straightforward trail, but it was one of the most technically difficult trails in Mount Rainier National Park. It connected with the extreme, Hidden Falls Trail, which wasn’t open to the public and required a permit to hike. Lincoln had finally gotten the permit he needed to hike, climb, and film in the dangerous area the day before, and he hadn’t wasted any time hitting the trail.
Pulling out his cell phone and checking the time, he smiled.
“Three hours of raw footage,” he said with a big grin.
He took a selfie, typed a quick message, and posted it to his Instagram, LimitlessLincoln, hitting the “send later” button so that his phone would automatically post the message when he had a signal.
“That will be awhile,” he laughed, taking another drink and giving himself a moment to catch his breath.
The trees were dense where he was, the waterfall not too far from him but completely invisible. He’d gotten a good shot of it when he’d climbed up the cliff face earlier, but he hadn’t taken any pictures from above.
He checked the time again, mentally calculating how long it would take him to reach the base of the trail if he added the extra trip.
“Plenty of time before sunset,” he said, already catching his second wind and excited by the prospect of taking some epic wildlife photos with his new camera.
He set off through the trees, taking everything in without worrying about being on camera.
It’s nice just to breathe, he thought as he made his way up the steep forest trail that led to the waterfall overlook point.
He stopped a few yards later, cocking his head and holding his breath to listen. Eyebrows furrowed, he waited for some time, but he didn’t hear the sound again.
“Strange,” he muttered to himself.
He was sure he’d heard something, though the sound had been so far away and so thin by the time it reached him that he couldn’t place it.
Maybe there’s an animal injured, he thought, his hand going to the sheath hanging from his belt-loop.
He turned, shocked to see his belt-loop ripped and the hunting knife he carried for emergencies missing from his hip. Searching his memory, he cursed under his breath when his brain landed on the exact moment that he must have lost the weapon. Slipping as he’d climbed a rock face earlier that day, he would have plummeted to his death if he hadn’t hooked his carabiner up just in time.
Slamming into the rock face must have ripped the loop, he realized as he looked around the surrounding area for a makeshift weapon. Even a dying animal was dangerous, and if that’s what he’d heard, he couldn’t leave without doing something for the poor thing, including putting it out of its misery.
The sound came again, this time louder, followed by another sound that made Lincoln’s blood run cold. It wasn’t an animal that was crying out—it was a person!
He was already running when he recognized that there was a second voice, meaning that there were two people in trouble up ahead. The closed trail should have been deserted, but Lincoln knew that most people ignored warning signs and just did what they wanted to without heeding trail closures and permit requirements. No matter why they were on top of the mountain with him, and whether they were allowed or not, the fact remained that at least two people were in trouble, and this time of year, hikers were more likely to be attacked by wild animals starting to build up fat stores for winters that came early at this altitude.
Lincoln was almost out of the trees when he heard a man’s voice as clearly as if they were standing side by side, and he froze.
“If I can’t have you, no one can,” the man said, his voice dripping with rage and pure evil.
The hair stood up on the back of Lincoln’s neck, and he crouched suddenly, making himself as invisible as possible and creeping to the edge of the trees.
A tall man with blond hair and a slender physique held a petite black woman against a large bolder, his voice carrying across the small meadow even though he was only inches from her face. Lincoln took his eyes off them for a moment, surveying their surroundings and moving through the trees silently. The tree line wound around the entire meadow almost to the edge of the ravine, which would give Lincoln cover if he could move fast enough. As long as the man stood close to the large boulder, it would block his view of Lincoln when he burst out of the trees and attacked the man, who had obviously gone crazy.
The conversation continued, with each angry word propelling Lincoln forward. This woman was in serious trouble, and it was clear that this man was bent on killing her then and there. He could hear the woman hitting back and even heard the man grunt when she landed a blow, but he knew that she couldn’t hold him off for long. Lincoln could leave the tree line now, but he would be completely exposed and coming out of the woods right in the man’s line of sight. If that happened, Lincoln had no doubt that the man would simply push the woman over the edge, then come after Lincoln. Without a knife, Lincoln would be forced into hand-to-hand combat with a man whose strengths he didn’t know. In a frenzy the way he was, Lincoln would be at a disadvantage no matter what, but if he was going to face this man, he was going to save the woman first.
She screamed, and he looked up in time to see her stumble over the edge, grabbing at a nearby sapling that was growing from the base of the large boulder. Lincoln’s heart skipped a beat, and he knew he didn’t have time to make it all the way around to the other side of the meadow. He had to act now or the woman was going to die—if she wasn’t plunging to her death already.
Taking advantage of the man’s diverted attention, Lincoln ran out of the woods, straight for the man who stood over the edge, laughing down at the woman.
“You can’t hold on forever,” he sneered.
Lincoln was close now, only a few yards away and bearing down on the man. The man was searching for something on the ground when he caught sight of Lincoln and turned, his face blank for a split second before he recovered himself.
“Thank goodness!” he yelled though Lincoln wasn’t far enough away to warrant yelling. “Please help. My girlfriend has gone over the edge and I can’t reach her.”
Lincoln didn’t break stride, but the man looked pointedly at the place where the woman had gone over, not realizing that Lincoln wasn’t buying his act. The man was still staring at the ledge when Lincoln slammed into him, knocking him to the ground with savage force, then rolling onto his knees and scrambling toward the edge of the cliff.
The woman was a few feet down, clinging desperately to a root that had pushed through a crack in the cliff face, creating a little loop that was just big enough for her hands. Lincoln reached out to her, but she was too far away, and the other man was already on his feet, rushing at him.
Lincoln rolled onto his back, landing a double barrel kick to the chest. The man flew backward, trying to get his feet under him and tripping before going down hard. Lincoln hurried to where the woman was while the man was still down, shrugging off his backpack and pulling a neatly coiled climbing rope out.
“Tie this around your waist,” he said, tossing one end to her and holding onto the other.
“I can’t,” she said, out of breath. “I can’t let go of the root.”
“You’re going to have to,” he said. “It’s not going to hold you much longer, and I can’t reach you.”
The man was on his feet again, putting his shoulder down and charging at Lincoln. Lincoln stood his ground. He had nowhere else to go.
The man was battered and bruised, but he just kept coming, so intent on killing the woman that he was willing to take out anyone who got in his way. Lincoln planted his feet wide, ready for the attack he knew was coming. He could run, leaving the woman vulnerable, or he could fight, risking his life.
For Lincoln, there was only one acceptable option.
When the man was a few feet away, Lincoln stepped into him, going low and hitting the man hard in the gut with his shoulder. Air whooshed out of the man and he tripped, grabbing Lincoln on the way down. Lincoln tried to pull out of the man’s grasp, but their momentum had them rolling, dangerously close to the edge and only a few feet from where the terrified woman clung to the side.
Lincoln stuck his leg out, bracing it against the side of one of the boulders that jutted up from the ground, bringing his elbow up at the same time and hitting the man between the eyes with all the force he could muster. The man screamed in pain, letting go of Lincoln instinctively to grab his nose. Before he realized his mistake, the man rolled one more time. Without his arms out to stop the momentum, he had no chance at saving himself. He screamed again, this time going over the edge on his side and tumbling down into the ravine.
His foot caught the woman in her shin as he fell, kicking her leg off the tiny ledge she’d found and knocking her off balance. She screamed again, holding onto the root, her body hanging in midair.
“Hold on,” Lincoln said, grabbing the rope and tying it around a narrow part of one of the boulders nearby, then tying it around his waist, and slipping it down so it was at the top of his legs.
He shimmied over the edge a few feet from her, careful not to knock into her. Keeping his eye on the rope against the smooth lip of the cliff’s edge, he used his legs to send himself sideways toward the woman.
He came up short the first time as her eyes widened.
“No, I can’t,” she said when she realized what he had in mind.
“You don’t have a choice,” he said.
As if to prove his point, the root shifted, and she dropped a few inches. The woman cried out in fear.
“When I put my arm around your waist, let go and grab my neck,” he said, swinging again.
She closed her eyes against the fear, nodding her head and taking a deep breath.
“You’ve got this,” he assured her, giving one more valiant push and putting his arm out.
When he grabbed her around the waist, she didn’t let go at first, but before he could shout through her fear, she did as he’d said, throwing her arms around his neck quickly, then wrapping herself around him as they swung back and the dirt crumbled away from the rock, leaving the root completely exposed and loose.
“Don’t let go,” he said, pulling at the rope and searching the rocky wall for a foothold.
“I won’t,” she breathed out, her terror palpable.
His foot finally found a toehold and he put his weight there, using it to hold them both in place. Wrapped around his hips, she was closer to the top than she’d been before. He held her up, careful to keep the rope from rubbing on anything as he helped her up the side.
“Put your foot on my shoulder,” he said, planting his other foot and hanging onto her.
She used the rope to climb as high as she could, then he heard her take another deep breath before she put her foot on his shoulder and pushed herself up and over the ledge. He heard her moving away from the edge, then she peeked over the ledge at him from a few feet to his right.
“What can I do to help you get up?” she asked.
“Stand back,” he said. “There’s no way you can pull me up without going over yourself.”
She scowled, but she did as he asked, backing away while he carefully worked his way up the side one painstaking step at a time. He focused on the rock in front of him, trying not to focus on the rocks above that could be fraying the rope with every move he made.
The distance between him and the top was only a few feet, but it took him several minutes before he finally put his hands on the ledge, then grabbed the rope that was stretched taut along the smooth rock and began pulling himself up.
He was breathing hard when he finally rolled onto his back.
“I could kiss you right now,” he whispered to the sky, then laughed and rolled onto his side. “Sorry, that wasn’t meant for you.”
She shook her head.
“No. I get it.”
She was sitting on the edge of one of the rocks a full six feet from the edge, arms wrapped tightly around her body, visibly shaken.
“Are you going to be alright?” Lincoln asked.
“Is he dead?”
Lincoln looked over the edge, scanning the ground over a hundred feet beneath them until he found the man. He looked at her and solemnly nodded.
“He is.”
“Good,” she said, her voice flat.
Lincoln didn’t comment. It was clear from the dark bruise on her cheek and the fingerprints on her arm that he’d hurt her pretty badly, and any relief she had over his passing was well deserved.
“He was a monster,” Lincoln said quietly, getting closer to her as he dug in his bag. “Does your cheek hurt?”
She put her hand up to her face and winced as if she was just now noticing the injury.
“It’s alright,” she said.
“You know, you deserve better than that.” He squeezed the instant icepack until it popped, then shook it and handed it to her. “There are plenty of men out there that will treat you like the queen you are.”
She smiled at him and took the icepack, holding it gingerly against her skin.
“Thank you,” she said. “It took me a long time to realize that, but I did break up with him long before today.”
“Then, why were you here with him?” he asked, instantly regretting it. “I’m sorry, it’s none of my damn business.”
He turned quickly, pulling the rope up and untying it from the rock. He cleaned up all signs that they had been there, even packing up the picnic and loading it back into George’s backpack.
“It’s fine,” she said. “He convinced me to try to be friends with him, and I wanted it to work out so badly that I let my guard down.”
“Has he hit you before?”
“No. He was abusive, but he never laid his hands on me. It started so subtly that I didn’t realize what was going on for a long time.”
“Guys like that are master manipulators,” Lincoln said. “When he saw me coming, he had a slick explanation for what was going on without missing a beat. He had no idea I’d heard what he was saying and knew that he was trying to kill you. He looked like a normal guy worried about his girlfriend.”
“He was good at pretending to be a normal guy,” she said, wrapping her free arm around her legs and resting her chin on her knees.
Lincoln finished gathering everything then did a quick walkthrough to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. When he was done, he knelt in front of her so they were almost eye to eye.
“It’s not your fault,” he said evenly.
“That he died?” she asked, her voice catching.
“Any of this. You’re the victim here, and he only went over the edge because he was trying to kill me so I couldn’t help you. It’s a clean-cut case of self-defense, so there’s nothing to worry about.”
For the first time since he’d come upon the man trying to kill her, her eyes welled with tears.
“His father will make sure someone pays for his death,” she said as she swiped at the tears streaming over her cheeks. “George was the Seattle assistant DA’s son.”
“That’s going to make things a little more complicated,” Lincoln said then smiled softly. “We’ll figure something out,” he lied, knowing that justice wasn’t always just, and they might both be tried with murder.
She nodded.
“You’re right. We’re the only ones that know he’s here, and there isn’t a trail going down that way, so I doubt anyone will ever find him.”
He was shocked by how quickly she was able to shake off her fear and think logically. She was stronger than she realized. In her place, most people would be hysterical. But this man had hurt her badly, and until the reality of what had happened sunk in, it was only natural that she would feel relief.
“In the meantime,” he said, changing the subject. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Lincoln.”
He considered sticking his hand out, then decided against it. He could tell by looking at her that she’d been through a special kind of hell, and the last thing she needed was for him to force contact when she was still reeling from almost being murdered.
“Charity,” she said.
“I’d say that I wish we’d met under different circumstances, but I’d say that’s a given. Do you think you can walk? We need to get out of here.”
She stared at him then shook her head.
“Right, you’re right,” she said, putting her backpack on, then looking at the extra backpack. “Should we leave George’s stuff here?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “There’s definitely a picnic for two in this bag, and it’s better if no one finds this.” He put it on his own backpack, manipulating both until George’s backpack appeared to be nothing but an extra pocket on his own black pack. “Unless someone gets really close to us, they won’t notice that I have an extra bag, and even then, it’s not that uncommon for long treks.”
She nodded, then looked around.
“I don’t really know how to get back to the base of the trail,” she admitted. “George covered the trails a lot with his own body, and when we took a fork in the path, I realize now that he distracted me every time. I don’t even know where we are in relation to the lot we parked in,”
“Which lot did you park in?”
“The Sunset lot.”
“I know where that is. I can take you there, and then I’ll go to my car from there.”
She nodded again, still looking shell-shocked, then she frowned and her face fell.
“What is it?” he asked. “Adrenaline crash?”
“No,” she said, tears flowing. “I um…” She took a deep breath and wiped away her tears. “My car wouldn’t start this morning, so when I called George to let him know that it wouldn’t start—”
“Let me guess, he wasn’t far and he swung by to get you?”
She nodded.
“Do you park on the street?”
“In the back of the parking lot at my apartment.”
He bit back the urge to ask her if she’d heard alarm bells this morning, and why she’d ignored them. Because he knew—George was one of those men who picked the strongest women and tore them down until they second-guessed their own thoughts. He was sure she’d been suspicious, but he would have smoothed it over to get her into his car.
“The world is a safer place without him,” Lincoln muttered. “We’ll leave his car. It really is the only thing we can do at this point. If you drive it away from here, it will look suspicious.”
“His keys are in his pocket,” she said. “I mean, not that it matters. But he always keeps his keys and his wallet in his pockets so that he has control at all times.”
“We can go back to the lot where I parked my car, which is a few miles from the Sunset lot, but it’s only a mile via the trails. I can call you a Lyft, or I can drive you.”
“If you could drive me to the Metro Station, I can get home from there.” She smiled, albeit weakly. “I took a page out of his book a long time ago, and my wallet and keys are zipped tight in my bag instead of left in the car like he would like it.”
“Good thinking.”
“Thanks. It was probably the only smart decision I made today.”
“Don’t be too hard on yourself,” he said. “This isn’t your fault.”
“Thank you for reminding me,” she said. “It’s taken a long time for me to get that through my head.”
She sighed, looking at the waterfall across the ravine, then back at Lincoln.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just wish that he’d really brought me up here so we could connect and be friends.”
“Me too,” Lincoln said.
If George hadn’t brought Charity up to the top of the Hidden Waterfall Trail to kill her, he wouldn’t be dead at the bottom of the ravine, and Lincoln wouldn’t be trying to figure out how the two of them were going to get away with murder.