Rocky Mountain Rescue, Elle James [rooftoppers .TXT] 📗

edge of the cliff and looked down. His stomach clenched when he saw a body laying at the bottom. “JoJo!” he yelled. The body didn’t move. As he studied it he knew it wasn’t her. “JoJo!”

A small voice from below answered. “Max, I’m down here.”

He leaned as far over the edge as he could without falling off. He spotted her clinging to the edge of a very narrow ledge, her body plastered against the stone escarpment. All it would take would be a brisk wind, and it could knock her off. She’d meet the same fate as whoever else it was at the bottom.

“Hang on, sweetheart. I’ll come down to get you.” He had nothing with him. No ropes. No rescue equipment. Nothing. And everybody else was on their way down the hill. He had to go catch up with them and get them to go for help. He had equipment in the back of his truck. If he could get to that, he could at least get down and stabilize her until a rescue team could get there to bring her up in a basket. “I have to go down the hill!” he shouted to her. “I’m going for help. Don’t go anywhere.”

A strangled laugh sounded from below. “I’ll be here.”

Max ran back to his ATV, hopped on and sped back down the hill. He had almost reached the corner where he’d looked back when RJ raced around it and nearly ran into him.

She came to a halt. “What’s going on? Where’s JoJo?”

“JoJo fell over the cliff.”

“Holy shit!” RJ exclaimed.

“I need all of my equipment from the back of my truck. Ropes, D-rings and harnesses. Everything from behind the back seat of my truck. And I need you to call 9-1-1 and get a rescue team out here with a basket. Tell them we have one alive to be rescued and one to be recovered.”

RJ’s eyebrows rose. “Curry? He wasn’t with the rest of the group.”

Now that he thought about it, the person at the bottom of the cliff had worn the clothing colors Curry had been in. Max nodded.

RJ shook her head. “What the hell?”

“I’m sure we’ll learn all about it once we get JoJo up from the cliff ledge. Right now, I need that equipment. ASAP.”

They found a wide place in the trail and both turned. RJ headed downhill while Max headed back up to the cliff. He couldn’t do much until he got his equipment, but he could stay there and provide encouragement until it arrived. Back at the top of the bluff, he parked his ATV, ran to the edge and lay down on his stomach so that he could scoot out as far as he could without falling over and keep an eye on her until help arrived. “I’m back,” he called out. He could swear he heard a sob. “You hanging in there?”

“Doing the best I can,” she answered. “Max?”

“Still with you, baby. Want to tell me what happened?”

“Curry,” she said. “He tried to push me over.” She laughed, her voice catching on a sob. “He succeeded.”

“Why did he do it?”

“Dispose of the evidence,” she said.

Max swore. “That bastard!”

“No kidding,” she said. “He buried me, but he wasn’t the one who beat and raped me.”

The roar of an ATV drew Max’s attention. He rolled onto his side to see who was headed their way. Hoping it was RJ, he was disappointed when he saw Stover pull up behind him. Then it hit him. If Curry was the one who’d buried her, and he wasn’t the one who’d attacked her…

Max leapt to his feet and staggered a few steps on his bum leg. Stover didn’t get off his ATV. Instead, he revved the engine and raced toward Max. He turned right before he got to Max and swung out his leg in an attempt to kick Max over the edge.

Max grabbed the man’s leg and yanked Stover off his ATV.

Stover landed hard on his belly. Max threw himself on top of the man, straddled him and held him down. “It was you, wasn’t it? You’re sick and don’t deserve to breathe the same air as JoJo.”

Stover grunted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Get off of me.”

“Your friend Curry pushed JoJo off the cliff. He told all.”

“Why would he do that?” Stover said.

Max grabbed Stover’s hair and pulled his head up. “Why would you try to kick me over the edge?”

“I thought it was you who’d pushed JoJo over the edge,” Stover said. “You’re the one who’s a danger to others.”

“Lying bastard.” Max barely resisted the urge to slam Stover’s face into the dirt.

“Is she dead?” Stover asked.

“Why do you want to know? Are you afraid she’ll get her memories back and point to you as the man who raped and beat her?”

“Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Stover struggled beneath Max. “Get off me. I’ll have you up on assault and battery charges.”

“Your man Curry confessed before he threw JoJo over the edge.”

“He did?” Stover asked. “Confessed what?”

“You know what,” Max said. “I bet he’d be willing to confess in exchange for leniency on his sentence.”

“You’ve got nothing on me,” Stover said.

“Don’t I?” Max called out, “You doing okay down there, JoJo?”

“Just waiting for my knight in shining armor to save me.”

Stover muttered a curse.

Max leaned close to Stover’s ear. “That’s right, she’s still alive, and she remembers.”

Stover snorted. “It would be my word against hers.”

“Her word and a rape kit.” Max straddled Stover for fifteen more minutes until he heard the sound of engines climbing the hill. He kept up a running conversation with JoJo throughout that fifteen minutes, mostly to reassure himself that she was still alive and hadn’t fallen the rest of the two-hundred-feet to her death.

She was getting weak, her voice shaking more with each passing minute.

Max could do nothing until he had his equipment.

Moments later, ATVs topped the hill, racing toward him. Gunny, RJ, Cage and Jake pulled to a skidding stop. In the basket