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her spine, followed by anger. What in hell was he thinking! And then she knew. From the back of her mind, from a time and place she had worked hard to forget, she understood that she had been monitoring him all along, because he had been pacing her. He did not pass because he wanted something else.
    She burst ahead, escaping. Her feet were light, her speed explosive. Her muscles sang. Vegetation passed in a blur, but his pounding gait told her he was fast, too. She dared not look back. She might trip, fall off the cliff.
    She leaped off the beaten trail, risking tangled grass and loose rocks, aiming toward the gentle slope down to the lagoon. But with a suddenness that sent fear rushing through her, she felt his hard, hot exhalations on the back of her neck. Desperately, she tried to accelerate again, but she had nothing left. This was her top speed. She would have to fight.
    As she started to turn, he slammed his arms around her waist, wrenched her off her feet, and swung her around toward the cliff’s ocean side.
    Above her, the sky tilted. Panting, she rammed her right elbow back. He grunted in pain. She had connected with his pectorals, muscular and resilient, but she had not hit him hard enough to really hurt. He was taller and far stronger. She twisted from side to side and briefly saw his face with her peripheral vision. Heavy jaw, hollow cheekbones, thick, short nose. Ray-Ban sunglasses. His lips were a thin, neutral line.
    Frantic, she slashed her other elbow into his shoulder and punched a fist back over her shoulder at his throat. Too little, too late. Like a big, bored child, he flung her from his arms and staggered back to safety.
    Her balance utterly gone, she sailed helplessly through the air. Her mouth opened, her arms windmilled, and a primordial scream erupted from somewhere deep in her belly. She did not recognize the sound, and then it was gone, lost in the roar of the surf pounding far below.
    She landed at the cliff’s edge. Unable to stop, she plunged feet-first into a terrifying void of bottomless space. She jerked frantically around and grabbed clumps of pampas grass, which held for a moment on the sheer cliff and then pulled away, roots and all. But they slowed her inexorable slide, and she was not in free fall. Not yet.
    Head spinning, terror threatening to paralyze her, she clutched at outcroppings and scrub while her feet scrambled for something to brake on. Nothing she grasped held for long, and sharp rocks jutting from the cliff’s face ripped her T-shirt and shorts as her slide continued. Hundreds of cuts, scrapes, and puncture wounds riddled her hands, arms, chest, belly, and legs. The more she sweated, the more they hurt and burned, distracting her.
    She almost missed it: a spindly tree battling to grow from a crevice. As her feet, legs, and waist rushed down past, she seized it with both hands. Miraculously, the tree held. She dangled there, trying to press into the rocks. There was nothing beneath her feet. The breeze was icy against her wet skin.
    Time froze. She was in pain, discouraged, exhausted, and vividly aware that one misstep, one long, smooth stretch of cliff without handhold or toehold, or one second of inattention could lead to her death.
    As she tried to fight the fear, to summon the energy to go on, a voice sounded in her mind: You can do this. She repeated the words, and then she knew: Yes, there was one problem she could do something about—herself. She needed to focus.
    Her feverish nerves quieted. Concentrating, she dismissed her aches and bruises. She craned to look up but could not see the top of the cliff. There was no way she could climb back up anyway.
    The tree gave an ominous creak, its roots loosening.
    She forced herself to remain calm and gazed down. It was a straight drop, some thirty feet now, and there was no one down there on the beach to call to for help. The surf was heavy, but at least there was sand directly beneath, not boulders.
    She