Lily extracted the defibrillator paddles, slapped the moistened pads over his right chest and lower left side, and said, “Charge to 150.”

“Ready,” Chase said.

“Clear.” Everyone leaned away, and Lily triggered the charge. The body gave a faint tremor. “Rhythm?”

“Nothing,” Chase said.

“Charge to 300,” Lily said again.

“Go,” Chase said.

“Clear.” Lily shocked him a second time.

“Flatline,” Chase said.

“Intracardiac epi?” Lily glanced over her shoulder at Chase.

“I’ll get it.” Chase pulled the ampule, attached the five-inch needle, and handed it to her.

Lily felt for the landmarks. The patient was fit, and she easily found the lower edge of the sternum, angled the needle at forty-five degrees toward his left shoulder, and inserted it beneath the breastbone. She felt the faint resistance of the cardiac muscle, and then she was inside the ventricular chamber and pushed the epi directly into the heart.

“Flatline,” Chase said. As Lily had worked, Chase had managed to get an intravenous line into an arm vein.

“Push bicarb,” Lily said.

“Running,” Chase said. “Atropine?”

Lily ignored the pressing sense of impending defeat. They would try everything, per protocol, and then they would try some more. They were this man’s only chance. His last chance. “Yes, and let’s shock him again.”

“Ready.”

“Clear,” Lily said and discharged the paddles again.

“Nothing.”

Lily looked at Chase, who nodded. They ran through everything they had again, using every med to stimulate the heart, reduce the strain on the failing organ, and support blood flow to the brain. The heart failed to respond.

Finally Lily asked. “How long has he been down?”

The male student, his voice quivering, said, “Uh, almost twenty minutes since we got here.”

“And an unknown time before that.” Lily leaned back. She did not look at Chase. “Stop compressions. Time of death, 7:42 p.m.”

Chase stood and addressed the small circle of onlookers who had slowly congregated as they’d come down the trail upon the scene. “I’m going to need everyone to back away now.”

Everyone did, and she thumbed her radio. “This is Fielder. We need a recovery team with a stretcher. Alert the local authorities and the ME.”

Natalie’s voice came back over the radio. “Baxter and Rodrigues are already en route. ETA ten minutes.”

“Roger that.”

“What now?” Lily murmured to Chase.

“It’s now an undetermined death, and we have to investigate it that way. I’ll get the interviews with this group started. Someone may have seen him earlier. We’ll try to recreate what happened if we can. It would help if you talked to the two med students.”

“I’ll record it,” Lily said, lifting her phone. “Will that work?”

“Perfect. Thanks.” Chase paused. “This might take a while. If you want to go down with the retrieval team, you can catch a ri—”

Lily smiled for a fraction of a second. “I’m staying if you’re staying.”