Chapter 1 - The EdgeMiles Carter had never been so frightened of the sky.
From the top of Eagle’s Crown, the mountains looked endless, blue ridges fading into the distance beneath a hard, clear Colorado sky. The valley below was so deep that the river winding through it looked like a silver thread.
Miles stood only a few feet from the cliff.
The parachute pack felt enormous on his ten-year-old shoulders.
Wind tugged at his jacket and pushed strands of brown hair across his wet eyes.
He looked down.
His stomach seemed to drop before the rest of him did.
Miles immediately stepped backward.
“Grandma…”
His voice cracked.
Doris Hale stood behind him.
At seventy-one, she still carried herself with the rigid elegance that made people straighten their backs when she entered a room. Her silver-blond hair moved gently in the wind. She wore expensive hiking clothes and polished boots that looked almost new.
Miles wiped his face.
“I’m scared.”
Doris smiled.
It was the smile she used at Christmas photographs.
The smile she used when guests visited Hale Ridge Lodge.
The smile that made strangers describe her as charming.
“Relax,” she said.
Miles shook his head.
“I’ve never done this before.”
“You’ve practiced.”
“Not from here.”
Doris rested a hand on his shoulder.
Miles wanted the touch to comfort him.
Instead, something about it made him more afraid.
“Your parents and your grandfather will be so proud of you,” Doris said.
Miles stared at her.
“Did Grandpa say I had to?”
A tiny pause.
Then Doris smiled again.
“Of course.”
That answer should have reassured him.
It didn’t.
Grandpa Harold had always told Miles something different.
Courage isn’t doing whatever someone tells you. Courage is knowing when to say no.
Miles looked over the edge again.
His knees trembled.
“No.”
Doris’s hand tightened slightly.
“What?”
“I can’t.”
“Miles.”
“I’m sorry.”
His breathing became shallow.
“I really can’t.”
The softness disappeared from Doris’s face.
It happened so quickly that Miles wondered whether he had imagined the grandmother from five seconds earlier.
Her brows lowered.
Her jaw tightened.
Her eyes became flat.
Cold.
Miles stopped crying.
For one terrible moment, he simply stared at her.
Doris leaned closer.
“If you won’t jump on your own…”
She stepped directly behind him.
“…I’ll make you jump.”
Miles whipped around.
“Grandma?”
Something inside him finally understood.
This wasn’t encouragement.
This wasn’t one of Grandpa’s adventure lessons.
This wasn’t even anger.
Doris meant it.
Miles backed away from her.
Unfortunately, behind him was nothing but sky.
“Grandma, don’t.”
Doris took one step forward.
Miles lifted both hands.
“Please.”
She stared at him with an expression he had never seen before.
Then her gaze dropped briefly toward his chest.
Not his face.
Not the parachute straps.
The small zippered pocket built into the front of his harness.
Miles suddenly remembered the folded blue envelope inside it.
The envelope he had found two days earlier in Grandpa’s study.
The one bearing Doris’s name.
The one he had not been supposed to see.
His fear changed.
“You know,” Miles whispered.
Doris’s eyes snapped back to his.
That was all the confirmation he needed.
Miles turned toward the trail.
He never reached it.
Doris moved.
Her boot struck him hard from behind.
Miles screamed.
“GRANDMA!”
His feet slipped from the rock.
For half a second, he was still upright.
Then the world disappeared.
Miles fell over the edge.
Wind swallowed his scream.
The cliff rushed past him.
Rock.
Sky.
Trees.
Nothing made sense.
His arms flailed instinctively.
The parachute pack twisted against his shoulders.
Miles had never learned how to deploy it alone.
Doris had promised there would be an instructor.
There had been no instructor.
His hand struck something attached to the harness.
A handle.
He grabbed it.
Pulled.
Nothing happened.
Miles screamed again.
Above him, the edge of Eagle’s Crown became smaller.
For several endless seconds, he fell.
Then something exploded behind him.
Fabric snapped violently in the air.
The harness jerked around his chest.
Miles cried out as his body swung sideways.
The parachute had not opened completely.
A tangled section of canopy fluttered above him while the rest twisted around its lines.
But it slowed him.
Not enough.
Trees raced toward him.
Miles struck branches.
Pain tore through his shoulder.
Another branch snapped beneath him.
The half-open canopy caught in the crown of a pine tree.
Miles swung hard.
Then the branch broke.
He dropped again.
This time only twenty feet.
He slammed onto a narrow rocky shelf covered in brush.
Everything went silent.
Miles lay motionless.
His cheek rested against cold stone.
Somewhere above, hundreds of feet away, Doris stepped toward the cliff.
She looked down.
From where she stood, she could see only torn white parachute fabric disappearing into the trees.
No Miles.
No movement.
No voice.
Doris did not scream for help.
She did not call his parents.
She did not run toward the trail leading down.
Instead, she remained perfectly still.
Then the corner of her mouth lifted.
A slow smile appeared.
She turned away from the edge.
Inside the zippered pocket on Miles’s harness, the blue envelope remained pressed against his chest.
May you like
And far below her—
Miles opened his eyes.
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