“I figured,” Coyle called back. “Partridge’s panicking. He must’ve figured we have his girlfriend and enough evidence for an arrest.”

At a dogleg in the trail, Coyle slowed to see around the corner. Partridge wasn’t in sight. “What’s he wearing?”

“Black jacket. Jeans.”

“You see a gun?”

“No.”

They ran together again.

A couple walked toward them. Coyle shoved the Glock behind his back and held out his badge. “Did you pass a man in a black jacket?”

“Just now.” The woman nodded. “About a hundred yards back. He was talking to someone.”

Coyle bolted past the couple, aware he was leaving Woodhouse behind. Around another corner, he saw Partridge in a clearing, with a young woman in a sweatshirt and running shorts. They stood on a muddy spit at the shallow edge of the lake. The woman faced Partridge, hands on hips.

As Coyle raced forward, the woman noticed him. In the same instant, Partridge pivoted behind her, looping a cord around her neck and pulling it tight.

Partridge and the woman instantly became a single, wild creature—at one end, Partridge kneeing his victim’s back, all his weight on the rope ends, at the other end, the woman, arms wheeling helplessly in the air.

Coyle ran, gun leveled. “Police. Let her go.”

Without a clean shot, Coyle shoved his gun in his belt and threw himself onto Partridge, tearing at the man’s hands, prying away first one finger, then another. But the cord, fastened around Partridge’s wrists, held. The force of it threw the woman’s head backward, thrusting her chin in the air.

Coyle pounded Partridge’s face, over and over, bloodying his nose. He looked back but couldn’t see Woodhouse. As Coyle shifted, he slipped forward, tumbling with the pair and knocking all three of them into the shallow water.

The woman’s head submerged, the cord still wrapped around her throat. Her head whipped frantically from side to side.

Coyle seized her sweatshirt and pulled her partway out of the water. But Partridge further tightened the cord, squeezing it into the woman’s neck.

Over his shoulder, Coyle sensed someone running toward him. Then Woodhouse’s arm slammed a gun handle onto Partridge’s head.

Partridge’s body went slack, and Coyle shoved the weight away from him. He pulled the woman’s head out of the water and unwound the cord from around her neck. Her body was heavy and still. Curling his arms under hers, he dragged her to dry ground and laid her faceup.

She wasn’t breathing. Coyle knelt beside her and, with one hand, pinched her nostrils. He took a deep breath and put his mouth over hers. He blew in. He did it again.

Coyle felt his own exhaustion and the coldness of his wet clothes.

He blew into the woman’s mouth.

He heard Woodhouse drag Partridge out of the water.

He blew again, now aware of people watching.