Hannah walks down the dock, filming Logan the whole time. She is on the bank when he comes up out of the water, holding the lifeless girl.

  This footage is unbelievable, Hannah thinks. Then she feels ill at the thought. This girl is dying, and all she’s doing is filming what’s happening.

  But she doesn’t stop. Her editor’s voice is in her ears, spurring her on.

  Logan sets the girl down in a patch of grass and kneels next to her. He puts two fingers on her throat, checking for a pulse, and puts his head over her face, his neck turned so he can watch for her chest rising and falling and feel her breath on his cheek.

  “There’s a pulse,” he says, his voice unbelievably calm. “But she’s not breathing.”

  Hannah’s heart slugs in her chest. She doesn’t stop filming.

  Logan tilts the girl’s head back and tries to give her rescue breathing. The girl’s chest doesn’t rise. No air is getting in. Logan puts his hands together, palms down, and presses on the girl’s abdomen.

  Water bubbles up out of the girl’s mouth, and Logan quickly turns her on her side. Lake water faucets from her mouth and nose.

  “She’s breathing,” Logan announces, “but she’s still unconscious.”

  Hannah thinks this seems like a good place to stop filming. She presses the red button and pockets her phone.

  Logan puts his arms under the girl and lifts her. She’s in a one-piece suit, and her arms and legs flop like pale, boneless noodles. Logan rushes past Hannah and the girl’s sister. He places the girl down in the boat.

  “Everybody in,” he says, taking the sister’s hand and helping her into the boat. He takes Hannah’s hand, and before she knows it, she’s sitting in the boat next to the unconscious girl.

  “I’m going inside to call an ambulance,” Logan says. “Hopefully they’ll meet you at the parking lot.”

  Hannah opens her mouth to say they’ll wait for him, but then stops herself. As if he can read her mind, Logan says, “You’ll waste valuable time if you wait for me. I’ll run down the path and meet you there.”

  The boat pilot needs no more instruction. He yanks the starter cord and the motor fires up. He presses the throttle and spins the boat in a tight arc, aiming it back the way they came.

  As the boat speeds away, Hannah cranes her neck and watches as Logan runs into the cabin.

  Chapter 4

  The paramedics lift the unconscious girl and place her on a stretcher. Hannah and the older sister watch from the dock. The pilot of the boat stays in his seat, out of the way.

  “My dad told me to take care of her,” the sister says to Hannah. “But when she didn’t come up, I just panicked. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “She’s going to be okay,” Hannah says.

  The girl looks up at her with puffy, tear-filled eyes and says, “Is she?”

  Hannah puts her arm around the girl. It’s not a gesture Hannah would normally be comfortable making—always the professional asking questions, not the friend providing comfort—but it seems to be what the girl needs. She collapses into Hannah, beginning to sob.

  The paramedics roll the stretcher down the pier, toward the parking lot and the waiting ambulance.

  “Come on,” Hannah says, and she keeps her arm around the older girl as they follow.

  The paramedics put the girl inside and begin to work on her: putting an oxygen mask over her mouth to help her breathe, placing an IV in her arm. When they’re about to close the doors, Hannah says, “Can her sister go with her?”

  The paramedics look at the girl under Hannah’s arm skeptically.

  “How old are you?”

  “Seventeen,” the girl says.

  For a moment, Hannah thinks the girl must be lying. She barely looks old enough for high school.

  “I’ll call my dad when we get to the hospital,” the girl says. “He’s in town already.”

  “Okay,” the paramedic says, relenting.

  The girl climbs aboard, and the doors slam shut. The sirens come to life, and the ambulance pulls to the edge of the parking lot, hesitates for an instant at the intersection, and then races away at high speed.

  Hannah takes a deep breath. She can’t believe what just happened. She hopes the girl is going to be okay, and she has a good feeling she will. The girl was breathing and was in good hands.

  Hannah turns toward the lake. Everything seems incredibly vivid—like her senses are heightened. The colors of the trees and the water seem to stand out. The fresh air is delicious. Every sound—every birdcall, every bug chirp—seems to vibrate with discrete clarity.

  The pilot of the boat comes walking toward her. He’s carrying her daypack, as well as Logan’s.

  “Some morning,” he says, with a grin on his face telling her that he’s feeling the same intense adrenaline rush.

  He asks if she wants a ride back across the lake to the trailhead.

  “No thanks,” she says. “I think my plans for the day have changed.”

  She glances toward the path along the lake, expecting Logan to come jogging up. But there’s no sign of him.

  The boat pilot offers her daypack to her, and then he holds up Logan’s pack, as if unsure what to do with it.

  “I can put this behind the counter inside,” he says. “Or I can leave it with you.”

  Hannah thinks for a moment and then tells him to put it behind the counter.

  Before the kid walks off, Hannah tells him that she’s a reporter for the Lake Tahoe Gazette.

  “Can I ask you a few questions?” she says. “For an article.”

  He agrees, and he gives her exactly what she’s hoping for: lively, pathos-laden quotes about what they witnessed.

  When the interview concludes, Hannah leans against her car and waits for Logan to come walking down the path. He has a two- or three-mile hike to get back, and she’s surprised he hasn’t made it yet. He’s had plenty of time.

  She pulls out her phone and watches the video. The images are incredible. She’s no professional videographer, but the camera is in focus, and she was in the right place at the right time. When Logan carries the girl out of the water, he looks like a movie hero. His shirt sticks to his chest. His arm muscles are taut. His expression is calm, yet determined.

  She watches it again, mesmerized.

  Now she feels antsy. She wants to get to the newspaper. The art department can extract an image from the video—a picture of Logan looking heroic—and put it next to her story in tomorrow’s paper. They can also have the article up on the website by this afternoon, along with the full video.

  “This thing’s gonna go viral,” she mutters to herself as she watches the video a third time.

  She looks up and still there’s no sign of Logan. Is it possible he went ahead and hiked up to Lake Aloha? She doubts it. He has no water, no food.

  Hannah knows her article will be much better if she has an interview with the hero himself. But she also knows how the news business works, and a story like this will demand follow-up articles. She can do an interview with the girl and her family. Another interview with Logan. Not getting a quote from him in the first article won’t be a big deal if she’s able to interview him tomorrow. Or the next day.

  And if she’s honest with herself, she knows this will give her an excuse to call him. All of her misgivings about him being a rich trust-fund baby are erased. She saw the real Logan in action. Money or no money, he’s a good person.

  As she climbs into her car and starts the engine, she looks again to the path. Still no sign of him.

  After she drives away, when no one is watching, there’s movement from the shadows of a cluster of pine trees near the trailhead.

  Logan steps out of hiding.

  Chapter 5

  I sleep in late, and when I do get up, I’m more stiff and sore than I expected to be. I’m in good shape, so I didn’t think the dive into the water and the jog back up the trail would have taxed my muscles. Certainly, summiting Mount Tallac or snowboarding all day at Heavenly Mountain Resort is more exhausting. But there must be something about the intensity of saving someone’s life, the adrenaline of the experience, and the stress it puts on the body.

  I check the time on my phone and see an unfamiliar number called me twice. It’s a Lake Tahoe number. Maybe Hannah? I’ll listen to the messages later.

  I walk through my small two-bedroom house in my boxers, rolling my neck from side to side. My house is furnished modestly, with most of the furniture purchased at thrift stores. No paintings or photographs hang on the walls. I might have a few million dollars in diamonds at my disposal, but I’ve always preferred an austere lifestyle.

  My place could use a woman’s touch, though.

  I look through the refrigerator and decide a big helping of protein is what I need. I pull out egg whites, sliced turkey, and shredded mozzarella cheese to make myself an omelet.

  As I cook, I think about the day before. After I called 911 and answered all their questions, I ran back down the path toward the general store and the parking lot. I knew there was nothing else I could do. More than anything, I was jogging because I was cold. The air was chilly in the morning, and I was wearing wet shorts and T-shirt. My shoes squished water with every step.

  When I approached the store and could see the paramedics loading the girl into the ambulance, I stopped and then crept into the trees, climbing up the mountainside, looking for a place to lay low.

  I wasn’t sure why I’d hidden.

  I’d liked Hannah from the moment we started talking. But in my mind, some kind of warning bell was going off. Like the feeling before my last encounter with Marco, my old partner, some sixth sense said to me that I should refrain from stepping out into the spotlight.

  Maybe it was that Hannah is a journalist. I don’t see how what happened could be much of a news story. Maybe a brief blurb on page four. But still I don’t quite trust Hannah, which I realize is a strange contradiction—I like her, but I don’t trust her.

  I think it comes down simply to the fact that I’m someone who wants—no, needs—to stay hidden. Hannah is someone who works in the public eye, whose job it is to reveal what’s hidden. I don’t want the world to know where I am or even who I am.

  I set my steaming omelet down on my table and pour myself a glass of orange juice. I eat quickly, voraciously, and feel better immediately. Now all my worries about yesterday seem like paranoia.

  It is a cloudy day, nothing like the clear, beautiful weather yesterday, and the gloom of the sky seeps through the windows and gives my house a depressing air. I still need to make a trek up to Lake Aloha before the weather turns too cold. But today just isn’t an inviting day to do it.

  Nevertheless, I don’t want to be cooped up all day. I check the time and see that I could make it to the afternoon spinning class at the gym. I might run into Hannah, but I don’t quite feel the same worry I did the day before. That had just been the old Logan, the cautious Logan, the guarded Logan. The Logan who had to look over his shoulder all the time.

  Now, with a fresh mind and full stomach, I think it wouldn’t be so bad to run into Hannah.

  I dress and then jog to the gym, which is just a few blocks away along a path that runs parallel to the lake. Lake Tahoe—twelve miles wide and twenty-two miles long—is known for its amazing clarity. The surface reflects the color of the sky. It’s ordinarily an intense cobalt blue, but today, under a foamy gray sky, the water looks opaque and gray and choppy. The beach, which was packed with tourists all summer, is empty.

  When I get to the gym, I say a quick hello to the employee working the front counter, and then I head back to the spinning room. There’s a stack of newspapers in a rack by the door, but I don’t even think to glance at them. It doesn’t occur to me that my picture might be on the front page.

  Chapter 6

  I stake claim to a bike in the back of the room and begin adjusting the seat and pedals. A minute later, a pretty young woman comes in and chooses the bike next to mine. She smiles at me, and I smile back—a shared smile, like yesterday with Hannah. I’ve been living in Lake Tahoe for two years and never once had a date. Two days in a row now I’ve had pretty girls smile at me.

  The class starts. There are a few other people in the class, going through the motions, their bodies on autopilot, but I push myself hard. I’m feeling a little frustrated—my inability to get to Lake Aloha yesterday, today’s crappy weather keeping me from it again—so I try to take my annoyance out on the workout.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see the woman next to me pushing herself just as hard. She sees me and smiles. I grin, and we both turn up the resistance, fighting the pedals. We’re communicating without words, motivating each other.

  Sweat beads on my forehead and my T-shirt starts to cling to my wet chest. She wipes her brow with a towel, takes a quick drink, and gets back to work. The instructor is speaking through his headset and fast-paced rock music is playing, but I’m not paying attention to anything but her. She’s my inspiration.

  I catch myself thinking about Hannah. Nine out of ten guys would probably say this girl next to me is more attractive. She is somewhere in her mid-twenties, with an athletic frame and blond hair that, even pulled back in a ponytail, is luxuriant. She has a pretty face with sharp cheekbones and a ski-jump nose.

  Hannah, on the other hand, is a little bit more like the girl next door. She has plain brown hair, cut in a no-nonsense bob, and most guys might say she needs to lose a few pounds, although I found her curves quite sexy. What struck me about Hannah that other guys might overlook were her dark-brown doe eyes and her genuine, heartfelt smile.

  But this girl next to me has an incredible smile too—shining and bright, like a sunrise. I’ve always felt you can tell a lot about a person from her smile.

  When the class is finished, I dismount my bike and wipe my face. My shirt is soaking with sweat. My hair feels like I just stepped out of the shower. The girl is sweaty too, her arms slick with perspiration, her hair damp at the temples.

  “Wow,” she says, “that was fun.”

  It’s the first time I’ve heard her speak, and I love the soft elegance of her voice.

  “I’m Claire,” she says, extending her hand.

  “Logan.”

  Her hand is small and smooth, and holding it is like touching electricity.

  We wipe down our bikes and start talking. She’s lived in Tahoe for a only few weeks now, having moved from Ohio.

  “Getting away from a bad job,” she says. She hesitates, as if unsure whether to be this forthcoming, then adds, “And a bad relationship.”

  I tell her I’ve lived here for two years and love it: hiking, swimming, skiing. It’s an outdoor enthusiast’s paradise.

  “That’s why I moved here,” she says.

  I feel a pang of guilt, like I’m cheating on Hannah. But, I tell myself, we’ve never gone out. And, besides, something about Hannah was telling me to be cautious. Maybe I should listen to that voice in my head.

  As Claire looks up at me with eyes as blue and deep as Lake Tahoe, I can’t help but marvel at my good fortune that, after two years of being alone, I’ve met two good-looking women in two days.

  I’ve been told I’m handsome, but I have a tendency to be introverted. And my previous line of work always compelled me to be antisocial and paranoid, to never let anyone get too close. So I wouldn’t normally make the first move. But today I feel emboldened, and I ask her if she wants to exchange numbers.

  “Maybe we can go for a hike before it gets too cold.”

  She smiles, and we program each other’s numbers into our phones. We walk together as we head toward the door.

  I figure I’ll walk Claire to her car, but as we’re passing by the front desk, one of the employees, a teenager in a San Francisco Giants ball cap, says to me, “Hey, man, I saw your picture in the paper. That was totally awesome. Way to go, dude.”

  “What?” I’m thinking the kid must have me mixed up with someone else.

  “Yeah,” the young guy says, pointing to the stack of Lake Tahoe Gazettes by the door. “Front page.”

  I grab one of the papers and stare at it. There’s a huge photo above the fold of me coming up out of the water with the girl in my arms. My hair is wet and my expression is serious—but my identity is unmistakable.

  The headline says, HERO SAVES DROWNING GIRL.

  The byline says, BY HANNAH RYAN.

  Claire crowds in next to me and looks at the picture. Her mouth turns into an O.

  “Oh, my God,” she says. “That’s you. You’re going to be famous!”

  Chapter 7

  Hannah is sitting at her desk trying to write about an uneventful city council meeting when she gets a call from the receptionist telling her that a man named Logan Bishop is in the lobby for her.

  “He’s cute,” the receptionist whispers into the phone, then adds, “Holy shit. Is that the guy on the front page?”

  “I’ll be right there,” Hannah says.

  The newsroom is a large open-air office space, with the reporters wedged into cramped cubicles. Hannah strolls over the gray stained carpet as if she’s gliding on mist.

  When she opens the door to the lobby, the receptionist points outside and says he’s waiting for her there. She can see him through the glass double doors, pacing as if nervous. His hair is damp and his T-shirt is sweat stained, as if he came straight from the gym.

  Hannah steps outside with an enormous smile on her face. She can’t help it. But then she looks at him more closely—his face pinched, his teeth clenched, his skin strangely flushed—and her smile vanishes.

  “You’re mad?” she says.

  “Hell, yes, I’m mad,” he says, holding up the paper and pointing to his picture. “What the hell is this?”

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “I was just doing my job.”

  Logan can barely contain his anger. “Your fucking job?”

 

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