Murder List

Chapter Forty-six

Regan walked at a fast clip at the beginning and then slowed down. The crowd thinned out. She was so lost in thought she didn’t realize everyone had passed her until she reached the second-mile marker. She’d already gone farther than she’d intended. It started to drizzle, and she was hot and sticky. The diehard runners were probably crossing the finish line by now, she thought.

She wasn’t sure where she was. She didn’t want to turn around and walk another two miles back to the starting line, and she didn’t want to keep going to the finish line because that was another three-and-a-half-mile trek. She knew she’d run into a volunteer if she turned around and started back, and so she did just that. She really should have paid attention to all the signs and arrows the staff had placed along the route, but she’d been too busy feeling sorry for herself. And thinking about Alec, of course. Why didn’t he know she was the best thing that would ever happen to him? No other woman would ever love him as passionately as she did.

He didn’t love her, though. He wouldn’t have stayed around as long as he did if it hadn’t been for his job. It was all over and done with now, and she needed to stop crying over him. She was probably dehydrated from all the tears she’d already shed. The only good thing to come out of all of this was that her pride was still intact.

Alec would never know that he had broken her heart. He would feel bad about it if he ever found out, and the last thing she needed or wanted was for him to feel sorry for her.

Tears blurred her vision. She was thoroughly disgusted with herself. “For the love of God, get it together,” she whispered. And stop thinking about him.

She was thirsty and decided to focus on that. She wanted water, but anything cold and icy would do. She increased her pace as she walked along, but slowed when she saw a volunteer riding his bicycle toward her.

She waved to him and asked if he knew of a shortcut to get back to the starting line.

“Didn’t you see the signs? There’s a path that cuts through the park. Just around the curve behind me,” he said. He smiled then. “Lots of the walkers have quit already.”

She didn’t much like his smug, condescending attitude. He’d certainly put her on the defensive. He rode on before she could explain that she wasn’t a quitter. She had planned to walk only two miles, and that’s exactly what she had done. In fact, she’d gone farther.

She shook her head then, for it finally dawned on her that she didn’t need to defend her actions to anyone, and what did she care what the volunteer thought about her? She saw that the biker had stopped again, and she guessed someone else was asking him if there was a shortcut through this maze.

She walked around the corner and spotted a trail angling to the south, but there was another one that branched off it twenty yards ahead. If it didn’t meander, it would take her directly to the parking lot beyond the starting line. She took it, but it didn’t really go anywhere, and she ended up circling halfway back to where she’d started. She tripped over something, looked down, and saw that her shoelace was untied. The stone wall was on her right. A huge oak tree, at least seventy-five years old, butted up against it. Its gigantic branches, covered with leaves, draped down over the wall, and she noticed someone had carved initials in the trunk. She leaned against it, swung her foot up on the edge of the wall, and tied her shoelace, and then straightened and leaned forward to see what was on the other side.

A steep, narrow ravine sloped down a good forty feet to a wooded area with a stream running through it. Jagged rocks jutted out on one side of the drop, but across the stream, there were trees with thick gnarled branches that looked as though they were growing into the side of the hill.

It was drizzling again, and a fine mist was hanging like a puff of smoke between the trees. There wasn’t any breeze, and the air was stifling. It was suddenly so quiet, so still, she felt almost disconnected from the world around her.

Her gaze moved upward. That’s when she saw him. There, standing between the trees was the man in the black running suit. He was directly across the ravine, and he stood as still as a statue. He was waiting for her to find him. She was so shocked to see him there, she flinched. He nearly gave her heart failure. What was he doing?

Surely no more than three or four seconds passed as they stared at each other. His face was completely devoid of any expression. She kept her eyes locked on him as she slowly backed away from the wall. He suddenly tilted his head ever so slightly and shouted something to her. Just one word, she thought, but she couldn’t make it out.

His face changed then, and, oh, God, she suddenly knew who he was and where she had seen him before. Terror crushed down on her. He mouthed the word again, much slower this time, clearly enunciating, and then he motioned with his hand, and she finally understood.

Run. He was telling her to run.