Praise for Never Let Go
“Never Let Go is a unique and intriguing romantic suspense that will have your heart racing. Goddard’s fast-paced storytelling combined with emotional depth will keep you guessing until the very end.”
Rachel Dylan, bestselling author of the Atlanta Justice series
“From the riveting opening to the satisfying conclusion, Never Let Go is a stellar beginning to what promises to be a thrilling romantic suspense series.”
Susan Sleeman, bestselling and award-winning author of the White Knights series
“Fast-paced and suspenseful, Never Let Go lives up to its name. It grabs you by the throat from the first page, takes you through riveting twists and turns, and doesn’t let go until a powerhouse ending. Goddard has a lethal way with words and characters. She’s an author to watch—and love!”
Ronie Kendig, bestselling author of The Tox Files series
“A twenty-one-year-old cold case, arson, murder, romance . . . I couldn’t put Never Let Go down until ‘The End,’ and then I wished for more.”
Patricia Bradley, winner of the Inspirational Readers Choice Award
“Wow! Never Let Go has everything I want in a romantic suspense novel. Heart-pounding action, a second-chance romance, and a frightening cold case that won’t let you put the book down until the very last page.”
Lisa Harris, bestselling author
“With deception at every turn, danger behind every door, and a romance that was and could be again, Goddard has crafted an edge-of-your-seat experience with Never Let Go that hooks readers from the first page and holds them tight until the satisfying and surprising conclusion.”
Lynn H. Blackburn, award-winning and bestselling author of the Dive Team Investigations series
© 2019 by Elizabeth Goddard
Published by Revell
a division of Baker Publishing Group
PO Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287
www.revellbooks.com
Ebook edition created 2019
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—for example, electronic, photocopy, recording—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
ISBN 978-1-4934-1941-8
Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB), copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
To my youngest, Andrew—
always remember that you’re a blessing from God,
and a mighty man of God. No matter the battles
you’ve endured, God is always with you. His love for you
is relentless, unfathomable, and unshakable.
Contents
Cover
Praise for Never Let Go
Half Title Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Epigraph
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Acknowledgments
Sneak Peek at the Exhilarating Conclusion to the Uncommon Justice Series
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover
The name of the LORD is a strong tower;
The righteous runs into it and is safe.
Proverbs 18:10 NASB
CHAPTER ONE
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.
CHAPTER TWO
MONDAY, 7:43 P.M.
BRIDGER-TETON NATIONAL FOREST, WYOMING
The report of a rifle echoing off some distant mountain hadn’t given Heath McKade pause. Not in Wyoming, supposedly the most heavily armed state in the country, where people kept guns not so much for protection against two-legged creatures—but four. Protection and hunting.
No. It wasn’t the gunfire that gave him pause, but the scream that resounded mere moments before. That scream had been awfully close to where he’d brought a group of Emerald M guests on
horseback from their backcountry camp in the wilderness area. Still, in these mountains, sounds could travel for miles.
He did a quick head count of his guests who hiked up from the Grayback River where they’d been enjoying the scenery before getting back on their horses. This group was late heading back to the camp because two teenage boys had taken off on their own, and Heath had searched for them and hauled them back. As the founder of Emerald M Guest Ranch as well as their trail guide, he was responsible for keeping them safe. Easy enough when they followed the rules.
Frustration simmered in his veins, but he tempered it with a layer of patience that was already running too thin.
Quickly, he mounted his horse, Boots. Settled in the saddle, Heath cranked his head to listen for any other sounds—screams or otherwise—that might give him a better idea which direction to search.
No one else reacted as if they’d heard something out of place, but they’d been down by the river, which had probably drowned out the scream. He reined Boots around to head up the trail.
“Where’re you going?” Leroy called after him, emerging from the group of campers gathering around some horses.
“I heard a scream. I need to check it out.”
“You think you’re going to find someone in three million acres?”
Heath slowed Boots and glanced back at Leroy. Heath counted on him to pick up the slack.
“Nope,” Heath said. “But if she’s close and I can find her, I will. You go on ahead. I’ll contact you if I need your help.” Heath held up the radio.
Leroy Miller had twenty years on Heath, a lot of ranching experience, and was only now wrapping his skills around guest ranching—herding tourists around the backcountry—since Heath had hired him five months ago.
“Sure thing.” The uncertain look in Leroy’s eyes told Heath the older man thought Heath was hearing things. Maybe he was. He hadn’t been the same since he’d been shot nine months ago by someone he trusted.
“Heath, let me do it while you take care of your campers.”
He urged Boots up the trail, leaving Leroy standing there. “No, I’ll handle it.”
He had no time to waste talking about it. Leroy was persistent. Not a bad trait, but Heath had no patience or time for this. He’d already taken too long if he was going to be any help.
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