“Murder is a blunt instrument, wielded by the emotionally compromised. What I do is a knife in the dark, wrapped in poetry — a sonnet composed for an audience of one.” M.K.

  Cliff Lake, in the High Uintas Wilderness Area of northeastern Utah, is breathtaking. At eleven thousand four hundred feet above sea level, standing on the shore of the small lake will quite literally take your breath away. Finding it on a map is challenging. Getting there is an endeavor that requires considerable planning. The GPS coordinates, 40.791340, -110.407407, are helpful when searching online but imperative when hiking in. No trail goes there. Few people do.

  The High Uintas make up nearly a quarter of the Wasatch National Forest—over a million and a half acres of wilderness, overseen by the U.S. Forest Service and set aside for conservation and solitude. The High Uintas area itself prohibits any kind of motorized or mechanized vehicles. That's essentially four hundred thousand acres you can’t get to unless you’re willing to hike in. Meredith McNeil was willing.

  The High Uintas are a place where the land seems left over from an ancient time—wild, wind-battered, and achingly silent. The peaks rise like a forgotten spine across northeastern Utah, running east to west, arrogantly defying the north-south standards of most mountain ranges. Above 10,000 feet, the world changes. The air thins and cools, fragrant with pine and tundra grass. Snowfields cling to the slopes of virtually every peak year round.

  Alpine lakes—hundreds of them—glimmer in the basins between peaks, waters still, impossibly clear, and cold enough to cause the onset of hypothermia in minutes. Despite the cold, or possibly because of it, numerous species of Trout stir beneath the surface like flickers of shadow. When the wind dies down, the world holds its breath.

  Clusters of spruce and subalpine fir, their trunks dark with age, are scattered among the slopes and valleys. Elk, wolves, mule deer, and bear slip between them like ghosts. And in the hush of dawn, you might hear nothing but the thin call of a hawk circling high overhead. It’s a place built for predators—quiet, patient, and efficient.

  Storms come fast. One moment you're under sun; the next, clouds pour down the ridgeline like sinking smoke, and thunder rolls across the high basins. After the rain, the scent of wet earth and pine is so clean it almost hurts to breathe.

  The Uintas don’t offer themselves easily. The trails are rugged, the climbs steep, the weather fickle. But for those who traverse their wind-lashed passes and camp beside their silent icy lakes, the reward is solitude, clarity, and the strange, quiet joy of being somewhere untouched—somewhere where the wild still reigns.

  It was the kind of place a power-hungry executive would holiday, and then talk it up for months afterward. If things went badly, the Uintas could kill you. Even if they didn’t, they’d still leave you blistered, bruised, and blissful in your suffering. It was the kind of place where overachievers could still overachieve while, ostensibly, relaxing. Meredith McNeil was just such an overachiever.

  Ask anyone in her office—Meredith wasn’t just “going” to the High Uintas. She was hiking twelve miles into the wilderness, climbing three thousand vertical feet, to camp for six nights beside a tiny alpine lake in search of a rare breed of trout. If she didn’t come back to Southern California with stories of danger, hardship, and accomplishments few humans could claim, it was a failed vacation.

  She hadn’t used a guide since her first trip six years ago. She’d made a similar trek every year since—and every year, she went solo. Using a guide twice would be weakness.

  Everyone on the eighteenth floor knew about her annual trip—it had become a kind of office lore. The two walls of her corner office that weren’t floor-to-ceiling glass were covered in photos: mountain peaks, wild animals, and Meredith holding trout.

  Year-round, a beat-up wooden table in one corner was piled with hiking, fishing, and camping gear she was testing. Underneath, unopened boxes waited for their turn. Between upgrades, replacements, and new gadgets, she was always chasing something better—cooler, lighter.

  Even Meredith couldn’t say if the real purpose of the trip was the challenge, the solitude, the scenery, the gear… or the obsession of setting a state record with a Golden Trout. Maybe it was all of it.

  The Folder was delivered to Mathias’ split-level condo just after lunch. The weather in Philadelphia was curiously warm for early spring, and it had put him in a good mood. He’d finished his run an hour ago, showered, and already eaten. When the knock came, he waited sixty seconds, then bounded down the stairs, glancing through the window at the top of the door as he descended. The courier was just pulling away on a scooter. Mathias didn’t need to open the envelope to know what it meant.

  It was time to go to work.

  The Folder–what Mathias called the sealed, padded cardboard envelope–rested against his door. It was always the same, empty except for an ultra thin USB drive. As he opened the door The Folder toppled into the doorway of the blue sixties era condo. He picked it up and closed the door. He took the stairs two at a time, back to his room at the rear of the condo where his laptop lay on a desk. He tore the envelope open, slid the thumb drive into the port, and waited. It had been months since his last job. The money was fine—but it was the freedom from boredom that excited him.

  With the delivery of The Folder, before he even lifted it from the floor, the game had begun. Every action carried weight. Even inserting the drive into his laptop held risk. He was both architect and player—driven to understand the constraints, obsessed with the precision of the plan, then stepping inside the execution to see if his vision could endure reality.

  The empty envelope went into the shredder next to the desk. The password prompt appeared on screen. Mathias had set this password using a double-blind encryption method several years ago, the kind favored by cyber security purists. The system had been configured so the thumb drive could be encrypted remotely, without even the sender knowing the key. Only Mathias knew it. It was the name of his mother—a cipher in its own right, unspoken for decades, and known only to him. Mathias entered the password and waited.

  Decrypting an AES-256 encrypted drive can take time—especially with large files or added security layers. This one decrypted in seconds. It only contained one file, a three hundred ninety five byte text file. It would have been considered small even back in the nineteen eighties. Compared to digital documents today it was almost non-existent.

  Mathias opened the file. It contained gibberish. Thirty two characters, a mix of upper and lower case letters with numbers and special characters mixed in. It was another password. Mathias wrote it down on a post-it note, triple-checked that it was written correctly, then withdrew the thumb drive from his laptop and put it through the shredder too. The shredder churned through the thumb drive and spit the fragments out the bottom.

  The password unlocked a secure, cloud-based file repository—originally set up under the digital umbrella of a law firm. No username, no case ID. Just a blank screen with a password prompt. A system designed for discretion. Every file came with a countdown clock. Once the archive was opened, the contents would expire and delete themselves permanently.

  Mathias entered his password. The screen flashed and an index of folders appeared. Each folder was labeled, a category. The first was Acquaintances. Further down were folders labeled Assets, Employment, Family, Habits, Hobbies, Investments, Travel, and others. He figured that most of this had been collected by private investigators, or provided by the case sponsor. If the folder existed, there were documents inside of it. At the top of the screen were only two words. Meredith McNeil.

  Meredith’s seventy seven Ford Bronco was more than she needed to get to the China Meadows TrailHead, her jumping off point into the High Uintas. The vehicle, a restomod with an F150 Raptor R’s 5.2L supercharged V8. The seven hundred horsepower machine had cost her almost two hundred thousand dollars. It was the best. She didn’t know anything about cars. She knew it was the best because she’d asked for the best. And paid for it.

  The winter after her first trip into the Utah mountains, the one with the guide, she flew back to Utah to meet with a highly reputable offroad restoration shop. The guide the year before had driven a beat-up old Bronco. It had gotten them to the trailhead just fine—so she wanted one, too. The consultation with the owner of the shop had taken three hours. She explained what she wanted, and what she intended to use it for. They asked a lot of questions, showed her examples of their work, both in the shop and in photographs. She selected paint color options, fabrics, and leathers. She paid a fifty percent deposit that afternoon. As soon as she left the building they went to work finding a chassis.

  It was finished in time for next year’s expedition. She’d paid extra to make sure it would be. The unveiling in the shop was an event in itself. The whole shop stopped work and gathered in the showroom. They opened the big bay door so the sunlight could glitter off the metallic flecks in the paint. They were proud of their work; almost every craftsman had contributed. Their faces wore the cost of every long night and weekend sacrificed to meet her deadline. They had given of themselves to bring her dream to life.

  The color was a beautiful burgundy with a tan soft top and tan leather seats. It was a work of art and its off-road capabilities were exceptional. As they rattled off the specs Meredith glanced at her watch.

  It had forty inch Mickey Thompson Mud Terrain tires, Dana forty-four solid front and rear axles, front and rear locking differentials, electronic sway bar disconnect, 4:1 low-range transfer case, four inch suspension lift, heavy duty ball joints, skid plates, rock rails, and front and rear facing trail cameras. She didn’t know what any of that meant, let alone how to use it—but she kept that to herself. Serious overkill.

  She nodded and smiled, said, “looks great” to the owner and threw her pack into the back seat. No thank you, no questions—she just drove away. They all stood looking after her.

  After her trip each year she’d return to the shop in Salt Lake City. They’d give her a ride to the airport and then they’d detail the Bronco, check the fluids, move it to their climate controlled storage building, and shake their heads at the lack of dirt and only three hundred more miles on the odometer. They’d also seriously overcharge her. They suspected this year was going to be no different.

  Meredith McNeil’s flight landed Sunday afternoon at Salt Lake City International Airport. Walking out of baggage claim she sympathized with the salmon she’d baked the night before. Even the breeze was hot. The mountain peaks that surrounded Salt Lake City were rocky, shades of grey and brown. Scrub oak began appearing around seven thousand feet, thickening as it spilled down the slopes. Not a patch of snow in sight. A good sign.

  She walked to the curb where a black Lincoln Navigator was waiting for her. The driver stored her pack and fly rod travel case in the cargo area. She slipped into the backseat, pointing the cool air vents at her face and chest. The limo driver pulled away from the curb and headed downtown. A little pampering at the Grand America Hotel would be perfect before this year’s epic began.

  Mathias arrived a day earlier, he had a couple chores to knock out before the rabbit arrived. A taxi dropped him at a third-rate off-road Jeep rental shop an hour outside the city. He paid the cab driver in cash, then went inside. He’d reserved a twenty year old Jeep Wrangler Rubicon–secured without a credit card. The deposit was two grand, cash. The rental fee was double what it should have been. He showed a fake ID, signed a fake name, and drove off the lot. Turning left, he headed for Cabellas.

  The off-road restoration shop opened at eight on Monday morning. Meredith arrived at 8:05 a.m. in the same black Lincoln Navigator from the night before—same driver, too. Her Bronco was waiting in the lot, keys already in the ignition. She didn’t say a word to anyone. Just moved her backpack and rod case into the backseat and drove away.

  Mathias followed at a distance. He’d been on her trail since the airport. His new backpack and hiking gear were already packed in the back of his rented Jeep. The only stop she made was a fly shop—probably asking about the current hatches, picking out an assortment of flies to match. She didn’t tie her own.

  They left the city behind, Bronco and Jeep threading east through the mountains. Meredith drove the disembodied Raptor like a Prius, never once letting the beast off its leash. Mathias kept his distance. When her destination became clear, he peeled off toward Henry’s Fork Campground, satisfied she was headed exactly where he expected.

  Meredith arrived at China Meadows by eleven a.m. At ten thousand feet, the rolling grasslands had a climate all their own. The dry, seventy-degree mountain air was perfect for hiking—cool enough to stay comfortable, warm enough to move fast. Nights would dip lower, but she looked forward to the chill. It made for great sleeping weather.

  She liked to stay cool on the trail, so the outfit was calculated: lightweight hiking shorts, a moisture-wicking T-shirt, breathable ballcap, and her best pair of boots. Layers for colder weather were folded neatly in the side pocket of her pack—just in case.

  She withdrew her fly rod from its case, attached the reel, and strapped both pieces to the side of her hiking pack– sticking up like a pair of antennas. The new flies she bought went into her fly box, the fly box went into her fishing vest, and her vest went into her main pack. The only thing to come out of the hiking pack was a can of bear spray.

  She checked her boots, snugged up the laces, took a pull from her camelback, covered herself in insect repellant, and headed up the trail labeled East Fork Smiths Fork on her GPS. As she disappeared around the first grove of quaking aspen, her Bronco’s horn chirped, its blinkers flashed, as its doors locked; the metallic burgundy paint sparkled in the high-mountain sun.

  Mathias parked at the Henry’s Fork Campground, filling out the form and dropping enough cash in the box to entitle him to a tent site for six nights. Unlike the small dresser Meredith hauled on her back, Mathias only carried the essentials. He embraced a minimalist's philosophy, just enough for two nights, max. Still, he wasn’t unprepared. If anything he was more of a planner than his target, just more efficient. And far more willing to be uncomfortable.

  Parking his rental Jeep at the assigned campsite, Mathias quickly assembled a tent next to the vehicle. The camouflage complete, he applied insect repellent, slung his lightweight pack over his shoulders, and started up the trail to Cliff Lake.

  The Henry’s Fork Trail followed an anemic trickle of water which was—officially—called Henry’s Fork. It was so pathetic that it wasn’t even worthy of a classification. Not a creek, not a stream, not a brook or even a rill. Just… Henry’s Fork. The grand torrent trickled down from Henry’s Fork Lake about halfway up the slope, fed further up by Lake Blanchard, which in turn drew its water from Cliff Lake, pure snow runoff.

  Every spring for a thousand winters, melting snow had carved a meandering cobblestone path down the mountain—feet wide and inches deep. It roared early in the season and faded to a whisper by late summer. Along its course were what fly fishers called “holes”—deep and cold pockets where trout lay in wait, ambushing insects, larvae, and hatchlings drifting through the water column. It was a short, delicate food chain that had endured for millennia. In summer, they fed on insects that bred in and near the water. In winter, beneath snow and ice, they went mostly dormant—eating less, moving less, waiting for the sun and the hatches to return. Higher-level predators ate the trout. The occasional human among them.

  Mathias found the hike pleasant, despite the thin mountain air. The scenery was something else—sunlight warm on his back, clouds drifting lazily overhead. The wildlife, as much of it as he saw, seemed unfazed by his presence. They simply watched him pass. Small trout flitted across Henry’s Fork from shadow to shadow. Birds of prey wheeled high above or watched from the treetops in stoic silence. The place felt… perfectly balanced.

  At roughly the three-mile mark, he passed Alligator Lake—a long, narrow stretch of water that looked nothing like an alligator—three hundred yards west of the trail. It had taken him ninety minutes to cover that distance. He wasn’t in a rush, but he wasn’t dragging his feet. Another five miles, and two and a half more hours, brought him to a crossroads where the North Slope Highline A Trail intersected the Henry’s Fork Trail.

  With all these trails crisscrossing the backcountry, Mathias expected to see people. But there weren’t any. Most of the trail sections he’d passed were overgrown with grasses, half reclaimed by the wild. If more than a couple dozen people used them in a year, Mathias would’ve been surprised.

  Unlike Meredith’s route, Mathias’ hike was simpler, though slightly longer and more rugged. She had to navigate a half dozen trail changes, switchbacks, and unnamed crosstrails. He stayed on the Henry’s Fork Trail almost the entire way. Where it met the Henry’s Fork Basin Trail, he’d branch west for another mile. That would bring him to Henry’s Fork Lake. According to The Folder, that’s where Meredith planned to spend her first night.

  Thinking of what lay ahead, Mathias understood why she chose to stop there for the night. She would have already covered eight miles of difficult trail and gained twenty eight hundred feet in elevation. Likely, she was moving at about a mile and a half an hour. It would take her five to six hours to reach the lake. That was a considerable distance, uphill, in one day. That meant that the soonest she’d arrive at her first campsite was five p.m. Sunset, at this elevation in late July, was around eight thirty but you didn’t want to wait that late to make camp.

  Her second reason for making camp at Henry’s Fork Lake was simple: that’s where the trail ended. There were no trails to Cliff Lake. To reach her target, she’d have to hike another four miles through unbroken country and climb another thousand feet. It was going to be difficult. Her pace would be cut in half. That kind of effort wasn’t something you attempted six hours in, it deserved a day of its own.

  One consideration weighed on her mind—one Meredith McNeil would never share. She wasn’t sure she could make the whole trip in a single day. Her apartment was at sea level. She exercised daily, but it was all cardio—stair-climber, treadmill, the usual. Certainly, she was in better shape than ninety-five percent of the people in her office, but past jaunts into the High Uintas had taught her a hard truth: the fitness center didn’t prepare you for this. No matter how good you looked, fifty or sixty pounds on your back, altitude, and constant climbing wore you down early—every time. She needed a night to rest, time to continue acclimatizing, and a good meal or two.

  Mathias caught a glint of sunlight off water through the trees. He was still on the Henry’s Fork Basin Trail, watching for the lake to appear on the right. The flash confirmed it.

  Rather than head straight for the shoreline, he veered off-trail and slipped north into a stand of spruce and fir. Quietly, he paralleled the lake, staying in the shadows.

  He’d arrived first.

  Twenty feet back from the treeline, he settled at the base of a tree.

  And watched.

  And thought.

  And planned.

  The sun drifted across the sky as he waited. After a while, his mind wandered.

  Mathias was so tired of seeing the phrase Henry’s Fork. It was everywhere. Henry’s Fork Trail. Henry’s Fork Lake. Henry’s Fork Basin. Henry’s Fork Basin Trail. If there was a gas station nearby, he was sure it would be called Henry’s Fork Fuel.

  He’d never been to Utah before, but were the people here completely devoid of imagination?

  The next lake over, just to the west, was called Island Lake. Why? You guessed it—there’s a tiny island right in the middle.

  Just north of that: Grass Lake. Surrounded by grass. Some even growing into the water. No trees.

  To the east was a perfectly round body of water called Dollar Lake—as in, silver dollar.

  He was honestly surprised they didn’t just call it Circle Lake.

  He decided that whoever named all these things was a complete moron; not an ounce of imagination. Maybe the U.S. Forest Service should hold a nationwide contest to rename all this stuff. Give prizes! There was movement at the north end of the lake.

  Meredith approached with her fly rod in hand. Apparently, she couldn’t resist wetting the line. Her creel—the wicker basket fly fishers use to hold their catch—was still strapped to her pack, and she wasn’t carrying any fish. No luck, it seemed. Cresting a small knoll at the north end of the lake, she paused and looked around. There was no way she’d see Mathias. Between the shadows and the distance, he was too well hidden. She appeared to be choosing a place to make camp.

  A couple hundred feet up the trail, she made her way out onto a small peninsula that jutted into the lake. She shrugged off her pack, let it fall to the grass, and collapsed on top of it, dropping the fly rod at her feet. She didn’t move for almost an hour. Two hundred yards across the lake, Mathias could tell she was exhausted. This had been harder on her than he expected. He was tired too—but she was much worse.

  It would’ve been an easy opportunity to approach, to wrap things up quickly. But no. This wasn’t the place. They were alone, for now, and she believed she was completely isolated—but Mathias had already spotted the remains of old campfires and worn tent sites. People came here. Regularly. Snaring the rabbit now wouldn’t serve his goals.

  The sun had dipped behind a western peak as she set up her tent. It was still light, but darkness was coming fast. She rolled out her sleeping bag, stashed her gear inside the tent, searched her side of the lake for firewood, and built a small fire. Dinner followed soon after.

  A light breeze from the northwest carried the smell of smoke and stew across the lake, curling through the treeline where Mathias waited. As she began eating, he moved another twenty feet deeper into the copse of trees and set up his hammock—green and tan camo side facing out. He had a tent, but with no rain in the forecast, he wouldn’t need it. The hammock was ultralight, just a handful of ounces including the built-in mosquito net. Between that and his sleeping bag, he’d be plenty warm—even if temperatures dipped below freezing. He paused, admiring the bag. It still amazed him that something weighing less than two pounds could promise that kind of warmth. He was about to find out.

  Mathias ate a cold dinner: a cup of diced peaches, a couple thick slices of beef jerky, a protein bar, and a handful of trail mix. He still had water in his pack—no need to filter any yet. He tied the pack to a spool of paracord, tossed the line over the highest branch he could clear, and hoisted it twenty feet into the air. There were black bears in the Uintas. They usually ran from the scent or sound of people, but you could never be too careful.

  He paused, eyes drifting across the lake to Meredith’s campfire, flickering low in the fading light. Wouldn’t it be funny if a big black bear happened to wander by, smelled the food in Meredith’s pack, and did his job for him? That would be an amazing stroke of luck, and funny in a morbid kind of way; but was incredibly unlikely. No doubt he’d have to do the work himself.

  Mathias walked back down to his lookout from earlier. She’d be headed to bed soon—he didn’t expect her to come back out again once the tent zipped shut. He’d give it thirty minutes after that, then turn in himself.

  She sat staring at her fire for a while. Then, finally, she stood, ducked into her tent—and reemerged a moment later with a small bag in hand. Mathias understood.

  She walked to the near side of the tent, lake behind her, canvas between her and the trail. In the moonlight, she dropped her shorts to her ankles, squatted low, and watered the grass.

  Mathias turned his head away.

  He wasn’t shy. He wasn’t embarrassed. Seeing her body didn’t bother him. It didn’t humanize her. It didn’t arouse him. It was just weird to watch other people pee. He didn’t know why. It just was. Who sits and stares at someone while they’re urinating?

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Just weird.

  When he looked back, she was pulling her shorts up and dropping what looked like a baby wipe into a small paper bag. The bag went onto the embers of the fire. She crawled into her tent, zipped the flap closed, and shut off the small red light that had illuminated the space.

  The other odd thing about watching someone pee—and this might’ve just been a Mathias thing—was that it always made him have to pee too. Even if he didn’t thirty seconds earlier, he would now.

  He’d learned that in the orphanage as a child, and again on the street during the few nights he’d slept on benches.

  Tonight was no different. He walked a dozen yards uphill, just past his hammock, unbuttoned his pants, and watered the closest tree.

  The night passed quietly. From where he lay, Mathias could see the outline of Meredith’s tent in the moonlight. Every couple of hours he’d wake and glance that way, sensing for movement. She never stirred.

  But just because she slept didn’t mean the world around them did.

  Animals moved in the darkness. A snort. The snap of a twig. An owl’s call. The sound of breathing—close, heavy, and gone again. Who knew what was out there? Could be predators: wolves, bears, coyotes. Could be elk, moose, or smaller citizens of the basin.

  Mathias never saw them clearly. They passed through the moon-cast shadows like ghosts.

  Meredith awoke to the sun in her eyes, just beginning to eclipse the ridgeline to the east. She hadn’t stirred once during the night—it was her first full night’s sleep in months. Despite the hard ground, she felt rested. The games she played back on the coast were high stakes. The power she wielded—and the danger inherent in those she manipulated to wield it—required a delicate touch and deft decision-making. That kind of execution didn’t come without cost. For Meredith, the cost was several hours each night staring into the dark, her eyes fixed on the stark white ceiling above her bed.

  Mathias wore a Garmin Instinct Tactical on his left wrist, stealth mode activated and kill-switch enabled. It gave him access to the tools he needed without the risk of breadcrumbs. GPS, altimeter, barometer, compass, thermometer, sunrise and sunset data, and vibration alarm—everything mission-critical, nothing that required communication. If anyone removed it without disarming it first, it would wipe itself clean.

  Thirty minutes before sunrise, the soft vibration began—just enough to stir him. If the rabbit decided to get an early start, he had to be ready. By the time she stirred, Mathias had watered another tree, eaten a quiet breakfast of diced peaches and dry Cheerios, and broken camp. He sat again in his lookout post from the night before, his pack at his side, in the shadows of trees that could have been older than the country.

  Meredith also had breakfast, broke camp, and—almost as an afterthought—watered the same patch of grass again. She was moving within forty-five minutes of opening her eyes. Even on vacation, she didn’t believe in lounging.

  Hoisting her pack onto her back, she walked to the south end of Henry’s Fork Lake with her fly rod in her left hand. She found the stone tributary that fed it, stepped off the established trail, and followed the slender thread of water south further into Henry’s Fork Basin. Mount Powell and Gilbert Peak flanked her on either side—both stoic giants standing over thirteen thousand feet. The going was slow, but with only four miles to cover today, she wasn’t in any kind of hurry.

  Mathias waited an hour, then followed. Every half hour or so, she stopped to fish one of the holes she passed. She never caught anything. The stream had thinned to a trickle, and she suspected—maybe even hoped—that most of the trout had moved upstream to the lake at the top. It took her four hours to cover the distance. Mathias caught up to her more than once, but she never saw him.

  By noon, she was half a mile from Cliff Lake, and the day had warmed into the low seventies. At a bend in the stream, she shrugged off her pack and set it on a broad, flat rock beside a deep pool. She didn’t bother fishing it—seemingly resigned to the idea that this upper section of creek held no fish. Instead, she pulled out snacks and her water filter.

  Mathias watched from the trees. This was his opportunity. She’d be sitting still for a while, eating and filtering water.

  He moved swiftly—slipping from shadow to shadow like one of the ghosts from the night. In moments, he was a dozen, then fifty, then a hundred yards east of the creek bed, moving upstream at a quick trot. He paralleled Henry’s Fork until he reached Cliff Lake.

  Breaking into the clearing, Mathias scanned the shoreline. The lake was empty—no sign of other hikers. He was in too much of a hurry to absorb its grandeur. Without slowing, he moved confidently toward the far side of the cold, clear pool, where a small cluster of trees—no more than seven or eight—stood close together at the southern edge of the lake.

  By the time he reached the trees, Meredith was just wrapping up her lunch stop. Mathias reversed his hammock so the bright orange side faced outward and strung it between the two trees closest to the water. He pitched his one-man hiking tent beside it, fully visible. Then he began gathering large rocks to build a fire ring in front of the tent, feet from the water.

  When Meredith crested the final rise, the view burst open before her. A thirty-acre, deep blue alpine lake—fringed by five hundred feet of sheer quartzite cliff wrapping two-thirds of the shoreline—was exactly what she’d hoped to find. The contrast of the water against the jagged towers of ancient quartzite, pink and white against the alpine sky, was indescribable. It was even more magnificent than her research had suggested.

  It was the embodiment of breathtaking—not just because it sat at eleven and a half thousand feet.

  The only thing out of place was the bright orange hammock, the small tent, and the man seated behind a growing fire on the far side of the lake.

  The man was eating—on the ground. He slurped what appeared to be diced peaches from a translucent plastic cup, a little juice collecting at the corners of his mouth. She couldn’t hear it from this distance, but she knew he was slurping. Typical.

  She had fruit cups too—but there was no universe in which she’d sit on the ground and eat them like a Neanderthal. She was almost surprised there wasn’t a haunch of meat roasting on a spit.

  He waved.

  Meredith didn’t wave back, but there was no point delaying the inevitable. She needed to know how long he planned on ruining her vacation. If she’d wanted company, she’d have camped at a KOA. She rounded the lake toward her neighbor.

  Her approach was confident, but he watched her eyes. They were less certain. She was looking for something—watching for something. More people? A weapon? Some sign of danger. A woman hiking this deep into the wilderness alone had good reason to be wary.

  Her left hand hovered at her belt, just behind her hip, angling it away from him as she walked. He knew the bear spray was holstered there—knew the safety strap was probably already unlatched and her hand was wrapped around the grip.

  Mathias smiled.

  He extended a hand. As she took it, she looked into his eyes. They were pretty. Her left hand loosened slightly. His smile matched his eyes—genuine and honest. Instinctively, she eased her forefinger off the trigger of the bear spray. He seemed harmless. His stance was relaxed. Casual. No ill intent in it.

  In California, she was an apex predator. She’d learned to read people. This man—back in California—wouldn’t even have been prey. He’d have been fodder. There was a masculine air about him, a rugged handsomeness that matched this terrain, and a quiet confidence necessary to navigate it. But he wasn’t dangerous. She was dangerous. She was in control here.

  Her left hand dropped to her side.

  “Justin – Urswick,” Mathias said as the handshake concluded, using the name he’d chosen for this trip. His smile broadened. He dipped his head slightly, a small nod of respect.

  “Meredith,” she replied.

  His eyes met hers again. “This place is something, isn’t it?”

  She nodded but didn’t speak. This was how dominance was established—make the inferior do all the talking. Limit your words. Control the conversation.

  He went on, as if she’d agreed. “I’ve been thru-hiking the Uinta Highline Trail. Saw this lake on the map. The pictures online were unreal—I had to see it. It was six miles, but totally worth it.”

  While the self-described Urswick talked, Meredith scanned his campsite. There wasn’t much—and it looked freshly set up. His pack was maybe a quarter the size of hers.

  “You don’t carry much,” she said, nodding toward it.

  He turned to see what she meant, turning his back to her almost entirely.

  She glanced at his waist. No gun. No bear spray. No knife. No visible means of defense.

  Another mistake of those who are prey, she thought. Never turn your back on the unknown.

  He turned back with a shrug.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I like to travel light. The Highline’s over a hundred miles long. I’ve got food and supplies cached along the way, so I only carry what I need to reach the next one.”

  She nodded, and he continued,

  “I’m only here tonight. Too far to hike back up to the Highline and still find a decent campsite before dark. Besides—who wouldn’t want to spend a night here, right?”

  She nodded again.

  “I’m headed out in the morning. Gotta get back to the real hike if I’m gonna make my pickup at Hayden Pass. Almost there—only thirty miles to go once I’m back on trail.”

  “You here to fish?” Urswick asked, nodding at the collapsed fly rod strapped to the side of her pack.

  “Yeah. Golden Trout,” was all she said.

  “Well—good luck!” Urswick replied, a glint of excitement in his voice.

  “Thanks,” she said, turned her back on him, and walked away—slow, deliberate, unbothered.

  He watched her go. She gave off every signal of someone confident they’d asserted dominance.

  Mathias, satisfied with the outcome, sat back down by the fire and finished off his peaches.

  Meredith walked to the far side of the lake and chose a small grassy rise—two or three feet above the water—as her camp. She set up her tent, then checked her watch. A little after one p.m. Still plenty of time to fish. And she was excited. The walk around the lake to meet Urswick had confirmed what she’d hoped: this lake held fish. A lot of them.

  Unlike when she was actually fishing, she'd walked right along the water’s edge. With nearly every step, small and medium trout shot from the shallows into deeper water. She’d probably spooked three or four dozen on the walk over.

  It was time to get serious about fishing. Urswick was right where she left him—back at camp, sitting on his butt, now reading a book. Well, at least he could read. Probably a graphic novel. Percy Jackson or Harry Potter, something with big print and short words. No doubt that was the depth of his comprehension. Color-by-number for the brain.

  Too bad he looked that good. If he wasn’t so dense, she might’ve said more than three words to him.

  The daily limit for trout in the High Uintas was four—Golden, Brook, Brown, or Rainbow. Meredith didn’t know the limit, and she didn’t care. She needed great pictures to take home, and she was going to catch and eat as many good-sized fish as she could. Her real goal was to set a new state record for Golden Trout. She had four days to do it.

  This elusive species was rare in Utah, found in only a handful of alpine lakes. The last three state records were all pulled from Marsh Lake—another cold mountain lake ten miles north and downstream from Cliff Lake. Rumors on fly-fishing message boards, along with her own logic, suggested that if Cliff Lake fed Marsh Lake, and if Cliff was fed only by snowmelt, then it stood to reason the biggest Golden Trout were up here. Cliff Lake was also far harder to reach. Which meant fewer fishermen. Less pressure. Better odds.

  Meredith unpacked her hip waders, fly vest, and trout net. She intended to take full advantage of this opportunity—and that meant starting now.

  Mathias sat with the book in hand.

  The Name of the Rose—in the original Italian—was worth every ounce of effort. The English translation stripped it of its precision. It was the Latin, the theology, the dense historical nuance that made it worth reading. Anything less would’ve been cheating. Mathias didn’t cut corners. Not with anything that mattered.

  The sun meandered westward as she fished and he read. Cast after cast, she moved around the circumference of the lake. By the look of it, she was having a good time. Whenever a splash broke the calm of the lake’s surface, Mathias would glance up and watch her fight a trout to within a few feet, then scoop it into her net. If it was golden, she’d measure it. Each time, she shook her head. Regardless of species, if it was big enough, she’d slide the shimmering fish into the wicker basket slung across her hip. Eight or nine had already gone in.

  Meredith had made her way to Mathias’ side of the lake. She was fishing a short outcropping of rocks that jutted from the shoreline directly in front of his fire—likely the remnants of a landslide from centuries ago. She stood on one side of the rock pile, cast over it, and let her fly settle on the far side. Any fish holding there couldn’t see her. Mathias watched.

  She began stripping line when something struck. Meredith pulled tight. The long, thin rod bent hard—almost touching the water. She scrambled onto the rocks, working the fish, pulling in line and letting it fall in loose coils at her feet. Just as she reached the top, she dipped the net and scooped the trout out. It hadn’t fought hard. But they didn’t get this big by wasting energy.

  She landed it ten feet from where Mathias sat. He stood, focused now, the book resting at his feet. He was calculating. Watching. Waiting. The moment had arrived.

  She held the fish up in both hands to admire it, momentarily forgetting he was there. It was beautiful. The lower two-thirds of its body shimmered gold in the sun. A thick red gash ran from the ventral fin to the pectoral, with a blush of crimson over the gills. Ten dark ovals, the color of aged leather, ran in a perfect line from tail to head. The tail itself was dappled with black spots. The upper third of the fish blended dark greens and browns.

  It was art made manifest.

  She stepped from the water and into the grass, cradling the fish in one hand. With the other, she pulled a soft plastic sewing tape from her vest and let one end fall to the ground. Kneeling, she laid the fish gently on the grass—it didn’t resist. From nose to tail: eighteen and a half inches. A monster. Two full inches longer than the current state record from Marsh Lake back in 2020.

  Half a day of fishing, and she had just rewritten the record books.

  From her vest, she retrieved her phone. One photo with the measuring tape laid out against the fish. Then she stood, prize in hand, and took a selfie.

  She was lining up a second shot when she realized—Mathias was in the frame. Just behind her right shoulder, something in his right hand.

  The swing was swift and brutal. The strike landed perfectly—Meredith’s right kneecap shattered. Her leg buckled and she went down hard, crashing into the grass on her right side. Pain exploded in her mind, flashing from knee to toes, surging up through her hip, and escaping in a strangled scream that tore at her throat before it reached the air.

  The fish and her phone spilled from her hands.

  Deft and efficient, Mathias swung again. The hickory club—picked up at a truck stop outside Salt Lake—came down without mercy. Her left kneecap fractured. Pain exploded again, unleashing a scream that tore through the still mountain air and startled birds from the trees behind them.

  Sound escaped her lungs—raw and involuntary—as she rolled and tried to rise. Neither leg responded and she rolled back.

  Flat on her back, staring upward, she saw Urswick’s face. The expression he wore was one of assessment. He didn’t take pleasure in this, he just needed to know what must be done next. She might have realized this if the paint hadn’t overcome her. If it hadn’t plunged her into unconsciousness.

  Mathias bent over the limp body, unsnapped the safety strap securing the bear spray, and pulled it from the holster on her left hip. He tossed it into his tent.

  The phone was still unlocked. Navigating to the photo album, he deleted the last two shots—the one of her with the Golden Trout, and the one with him in the background. Then he locked the phone and wiped it down with his shirt, removing any fingerprints.

  At the lake’s edge, still holding the phone wrapped in fabric, he struck the screen hard with the baton. The glass shattered. He let go. It dropped into six inches of water and settled on the bottom. A fine dusting of silt rose, then slowly drifted back down. After a moment, the glow of the screen went out.

  The trout still lay in the grass beside Meredith, gills pulsing, trying to draw in the water it couldn’t find. Mathias tossed the hickory club into his tent beside the bear spray, then crouched and picked up the struggling creature. At the lake’s edge, he submerged it in the frigid water. With one hand under its belly, he moved it gently forward and back, forcing oxygen-rich water through its gills.

  The fish stayed still, gills and mouth flared wide, letting the artificial current pass through. After twenty seconds, it shuddered, then swam free—vanishing into the depths to recover.

  Meredith lay unmoving in the grass. The pain of two shattered patellas was more than the California predator was built for. Mathias slipped the wicker creel from around her shoulders and over her head. Inside were more than a dozen trout—every species the lake had to offer. He poured them onto her. The basket landed in the grass beside her head.

  Squatting beside her, he drew a pocket knife with his right hand and picked up the nearest fish. He gutted it cleanly, letting the entrails spill onto her stomach and chest. Then he sliced it into sections and dropped the pieces across her torso, her neck, even her face. He repeated the process with each fish she’d caught. The smell was already strong, and would only deepen as the sun climbed higher. Her shirt, pants, and hair were soaked with blood and slime. She still hadn’t moved.

  Mathias rinsed the knife and his hands. Folding the blade he slipped it back into his pocket. He turned, walked to his campsite, and began breaking camp. The fire had long since gone cold, so the only tasks were packing his hammock, his tent, and his book. It took less than ten minutes.

  Behind him, Meredith moaned. She wasn’t conscious—but she would be soon.

  Mathias walked to Meredith’s camp. He rifled through her pack, searching for backup comms. A satellite phone. An ACR ResQLink View personal locator beacon. A Garmin inReach Mini 2. All fully charged. All powered off. He took them.

  As a final insurance policy, he unscrewed a jar of peanut butter he found in her food bag. With deliberate care, he spooned thick globs onto the outside of her pack and smeared the rest around the inside of her tent. Then he left the jar open.

  He walked east, then south around the lake, stopping at a rockslide halfway down the eastern shore. There was no cover in any direction for several hundred yards. Behind the slide rose the sheer cliff the rocks had broken from—nothing was going to sneak up on him from that side.

  Mathias settled behind a large boulder, just enough of his head and shoulders visible above it to keep watch on the far shore. The wind came from the north, spiraling through the bowl where Cliff Lake rested, before spilling out into the scattered trees and grassy islands on the northern face of the Uinta Mountains. It carried the scent of fresh fish—lots of it—and peanut butter. There was human scent in the mix, too, but Mathias was counting on hunger to overwhelm fear. He was betting that the promise of an easy meal would be too tempting to pass up.

  The sun set as Mathias watched. If Mount Powell hadn’t blocked it, the glare might’ve washed out his binoculars. Fortunately, the peak consumed much of the sky, allowing him to keep a continuous vigil on Meredith. A half hour after sunset, he stowed the binoculars and pulled a thermal monocular from his bag. He powered it on and focused the view. In the black-and-white display, he could see Meredith clearly. She had dragged herself ten feet further from the lake and was slowly inching toward her tent. If she made it, it would be a heroic—but entirely fruitless—effort. There was no salvation waiting there for her.

  The coyotes appeared just after ten p.m., drawn by the scent of blood and fish. They worked over the scattered remains where Meredith had first fallen. She heard them, but the moon had yet to rise, and the stars weren’t enough to reveal these small ghosts. From time to time, she yelled—weak, desperate—but they kept their distance. They were patient. They waited.

  By two thirty, the moon crested Gilbert Peak to the northeast. Meredith had dragged herself thirty yards closer to camp. No doubt her thoughts were fixed on the PLB in her pack. The moon was a waning crescent, its face illuminated at just twelve and a half percent. It offered almost no improvement to the visibility across Henry’s Fork Basin. If anything, the half-light made things worse.

  Just before four a.m., Mathias heard a low grumble from the west. He rotated his thermal monocular away from Meredith and toward the benchlands of the Uinta Mountains. There—moving slowly, deliberately—was the unmistakable shape of a bear, lumbering toward Cliff Lake. Trailing behind, keeping their distance, were three large coyotes. Not together, but headed for the same meal.

  At five, the bear found Meredith’s tent.

  By ten minutes past, Mathias realized the figures trailing the bear weren’t coyotes at all.

  They were wolves.

  And they didn’t care about peanut butter.

  Mathias watched two shows unfold at once, panning left, then right through the thermal monocular, giving each a few moments of attention. The bear started the event—scouring Meredith’s tent, licking up every smear of peanut butter Mathias had spread. The wolves, meanwhile, circled Meredith.

  He didn’t know much about wolves, but they didn’t appear to be working in concert—yet they were clearly working together. Maybe they were lone wolves, strays from separate packs across the Wyoming border. They seemed as wary of each other as they were of her.

  Meredith, for her part, seemed to have either passed out or drifted into sleep—until the territorial snarls of the wolves snapped her awake. She recoiled, and the movement appeared to embolden them. They focused on her and moved closer. She tried crawling toward the water, but the smallest wolf darted ahead to cut her off.

  The bear glanced up occasionally but remained focused on shredding her backpack. She didn’t even know it was there.

  The coyotes sat watching, still and silent, clustered around where Mathias’ campfire had been the morning before. If there’d been flames in the pit, he could almost believe they were telling stories—enjoying the show.

  Meredith began to beg. She was speaking to the wolves, but the wind had picked up and Mathias couldn’t make out the words. It seemed like she was trying to negotiate—bargain for her life—offering them something they couldn’t resist. She was good at these kinds of games, wasn’t she?

  When that didn’t work, she picked up a rock the size of an orange and hurled it at one of them. She missed. As soon as the rock left her hand, the other two lunged.

  Her resistance was short-lived.

  Mathias was glad. He needed to get back to his rental Jeep so he could catch his flight in the morning. Hopefully, he’d make it to Salt Lake in time to get a hotel room, take a hot shower, eat a real meal, and sleep for a few hours. It had been twenty-five hours since he’d last slept, and he still had twelve miles to hike before he reached the Jeep. But he wasn’t starting in the dark—especially not with over a half dozen apex predators enjoying an early breakfast just across the lake.

  Mathias didn’t have to wait long. The sun rose at 5:35 a.m. With it, the wolves—each of whom had eaten—slinked back into the shadows to the west. The bear, having lost interest in the tent, ambled to the far side of the lake to investigate what the wolves had left behind. The coyotes, too, had crept closer to the carnage.

  Mathias stood—binoculars in one hand, Meredith’s bear spray in the other. The movement caught the eyes of the bear and the coyotes, but none approached. A kind of balance had settled around what remained of Meredith McNeil, and none of the scavengers seemed eager to give up their share.

  Mathias moved north, then west, around the lake to what remained of Meredith’s tent. It had been destroyed—collapsed and scattered across the green patch of grass where she’d pitched it. Everything she brought was now exposed to the morning sun, most of it torn, shredded, or eviscerated by a bear hunting for food. Given how poorly she’d secured her supplies—and how quickly the predators arrived—Mathias figured this might have happened on its own eventually.

  Making sure he was upwind of the canister, he squeezed the trigger on the bear spray, ensuring some of it settled on the equipment scattered among the tufts of grass. It drifted on the wind and blew over the lake. Wiping the can down with his shirt to remove any fingerprints, he tossed it into the middle of the mess. Then, turning north, he made his way down Henry’s Fork—the way Meredith had come up the morning before.

  The trip down the creek bed was simple and quick. Without the burden of tracking a slow hiker ahead of him, the descent was much easier. What had taken several hours before now took just ninety minutes. At Henry’s Fork Lake, he didn’t stop. He veered right, rejoined the Henry’s Fork Basin Trail, followed it to the Henry’s Fork Trail, and continued north. The remainder of the trip took just over three hours—and he didn’t see another hiker. He even jogged parts of it; downhill was so much easier.

  When Mathias arrived at the Henry’s Fork Campground, it was empty. His was the only campsite still occupied—not surprising for a Wednesday morning at eleven. He looked around, then dropped his pack beside the rear tire. From it, he withdrew Meredith’s PLB, satellite phone, and Garmin satellite communicator. One by one, he placed them on the ground behind the tire. Then he backed over them, crushing their plastic housings and destroying the electronics inside.

  He gathered the shattered pieces and walked them to a row of bear-proof garbage cans. Lifting a lid, he scattered the fragments across the bin’s contents. Then he grabbed the decoy tent still sitting next to the Jeep, bunched it up, and tossed it in after them.

  The drive back to Salt Lake City passed quickly. When he stopped for gas, he removed the hickory club from his pack and left it leaning against one of the diesel pumps. No doubt a trucker would pick it up and carry it to some distant location—putting more distance between it and him.

  Once back in Salt Lake, he donated his high-end tent, hammock, backpack, and several other items from the trip to two Goodwill locations and a local thrift store called Deseret Industries. Everything went into donation dropboxes. He figured the gear would get used—and never traced back to him.

  The thermal monocular he repackaged in its original box and returned to the store, receipt in hand. When asked why he was bringing it back, he almost smiled—tempted to spin a story but he didn’t. He just shrugged and mumbled something about it being an impulse buy. The only other question they asked was whether it worked. He said he didn’t know—probably. He’d never taken it out of the box. They gave him a full refund, cash.

  He returned the Jeep, left the keys in the ignition, and wiped it down for prints. Then he caught a taxi to the airport hotel where he’d stayed on Sunday. On the way—in the back seat of the cab—he triggered the kill switch on his Garmin Instinct watch. It vibrated once, the screen went black, and all data was wiped instantly. He wouldn’t take it out of stealth mode until he was back in Philly.

  In the hotel room—still rented under a fake name—he found all his personal items waiting in his carry-on at the foot of the bed.

  He showered, changed, had a quiet meal at the restaurant next door, and slept straight through until morning.

  On the way out to the airport shuttle, he dropped his hiking clothes, trail shoes, and pocket knife into the dumpster behind the hotel.

  A short ride in an air-conditioned van—and he was on his way home.

  He didn’t have to report the job was done. The client would suspect when Meredith failed to show up for work Monday morning. A search would follow. She was a wealthy, high-profile executive—people would be motivated. They’d know where she’d gone, everyone knew. One hour in a helicopter, and the Forest Service would find what was left of her camp.

  Within twenty-four hours of law enforcement confirmation, the client would know too.

  Mathias felt satisfaction, both as the architect and as the player. His obsession with detail, his devotion to precision—they had proven worthy. His vision had survived the unpredictable. He had won. He had overcome the unknown. This time.