I turn my back on him and walk to the Jeep. The sun is gone now, casting a dying orange afterglow into the darkening sky.

“Good-bye, old friend,” I call over my shoulder.

“Good-bye,” Marco says. “For now.”

CHAPTER 1

Two Years Later

HANNAH STARES OUT at Lower Echo Lake, a long, feather-shaped sheet of blue glass with forested mountain peaks rising up around it. In the early morning, the lake is calm. The still water reflects the brilliant blue sky like a mirror. The land is silent.

She steps out of her car and inhales deeply, filling her lungs with the cool mountain air. Hannah’s lived in the Lake Tahoe Basin for a year now, but she’s never hiked here.

There is a path that runs four miles along Lower Echo Lake and Upper Echo Lake, twin alpine bodies of water lined with vacation cabins. Then the trail ascends into a remote area called Desolation Wilderness, a beautiful terrain of pine forests, granite rock formations, and ice-cold lakes. Her destination today is Lake Aloha, which, she’s been told, gets its name from a series of islands resembling Hawaii that brave hikers can swim out to.

She doesn’t expect to do any swimming today. It’s mid-September, and there’s already a chill in the air. And she’s never gotten used to the cold water in this mountain community. Even on the hottest summer day, she will barely dip her toe in Lake Tahoe. But she wants to see Lake Aloha for herself.

As a reporter for the Lake Tahoe Gazette, she works long hours and doesn’t get out nearly enough to enjoy the place she lives in. She has no real friends—no boyfriend—and as her first summer here draws to an end, she recently realized she wasn’t actually getting out and doing enough in her spare time. She knows numerous people in town, but they’re all coworkers or sources for her articles. She’s decided her lack of friends shouldn’t stop her from trying to have fun.

This short hike is an attempt to do just that.

She pulls her daypack from her backseat and double-checks to make sure she has everything she needs: water, food, sunscreen, first-aid kit.

The parking lot is empty, but suddenly a Jeep Wrangler pulls into a nearby space. She recognizes the driver, a man she’s seen at the gym. He is cute, probably in his early thirties like her, with sandy blond hair and the body of an athlete. She doesn’t know his name. They’ve never spoken. But as he steps out of his vehicle, his eyes meet hers, and he offers her a smile. His expression is friendly, maybe even a little flirtatious, and it seems to say, I know you from somewhere, don’t I?