Mountain Investigation

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Muttering a curse, he rolled off the woman, banishing the sensory memory of how she’d felt beneath him—all soft, curvy and female. He so wasn’t going there.

Once this was all over and al-Jihad and the others had been brought to justice, he’d allow himself to live again. But at the moment he had no intention of letting himself be distracted by a woman. Besides, even if he had the inclination, there was no way in hell he’d be going for this woman. There was a physical connection, yes—it had been there from the first moment he saw her. But she was a witness at best, a conspirator at worst, and she’d been married to one of the bombers.

She was a means to an end, nothing more. The fact that her glare suggested that she hated his guts made it that much easier to ignore the fine buzz of tension running through his body as they faced each other in their small hiding space.

Her eyes were dark and bruised in her pale face, her full lips trembling, though whether from fear or cold or a combination of the two, he didn’t know. It didn’t much matter, either, because he needed to focus on getting them the hell away from the cabin and down to cell phone range ASAP.

Shucking out of his camo jacket, he shoved it at the woman. “There are mittens in the pocket. Put them on your feet and follow me. And for crap’s sake, don’t make any noise.”

She started to snap in response, but shut her mouth when he pulled his gun from where he’d tucked it at the small of his back, and racked the action to the ready position, just in case.

He waited for a second, watching to see what she was going to do. When she pulled on the jacket without comment, then felt in the pocket and covered her bloody feet as best she could with the mittens, he nodded grimly. “Good call.”

Then he turned his back on her and led the way out of the small copse, moving as silently as he could, but traveling fast because the light was fading. Already, the sky had gone gray-blue, and the world around them had turned colorless with the approaching spring dusk. So he jog-trotted downhill, hoping to hell they’d get lucky and make it down the ridgeline undetected.

The first half mile was tough going through a hilly section of deadfall-choked forest, made more difficult by the fading light. At first Mariah moved quietly, but as they kept going, Gray heard her breathing start to labor, heard her miss her footing more and more often.

He turned back, ready to snap at her to be quiet if she wanted to live. But one look at her waxy, pale face, which had gone nearly white in the fading light, had him biting back the oath and cursing himself instead.

He crossed the small gap between them and caught her as she crumpled, sweeping her up against his chest.

She was feather-light in his arms, though his memory said she’d been solid, bordering on sturdy before. The change nagged at him, making him wonder exactly how long she’d been bound in that cabin, and what Mawadi and the other man had done to her.

Guilt pinched, but Gray quickly shoved it aside, into the mental refuse bin where he consigned his other useless emotions, few and far between though they might be.

After only a few seconds of unconsciousness, she roused against him, pushing feebly at his chest. Her eyes fluttered open. The dusk robbed them of their color, but he knew they were amber, just as he knew he couldn’t trust the stealthy twist of heat that curled through his midsection when their gazes locked. She moistened her lips and swallowed, and he was far too aware of those simple actions, just as he was far too susceptible to the tremor in her voice when she whispered, “Put me down. I can walk.”

“Don’t be stupid,” he said, the words coming out more roughly than he’d intended. He yanked his gaze from hers and pressed her closer, not in comfort, but so he wouldn’t be looking at her face, wouldn’t be thinking of how her body felt against his, flaring unwanted heat at the points of contact.

Gritting his teeth, he shifted his grip so he could shove the 9 mm back in the small of his spine, then took hold of her once again and headed downhill, moving as fast as he could while still keeping quiet. His four-by-four was maybe another mile farther down, and as he hiked, he forced himself to focus on the case, not the woman. The case was important. The woman wasn’t.

By now, Mawadi and the second man would have gotten in touch with the other members of their cell. If Gray could talk SAC Johnson into sending choppers and search teams up to the cabin, they might get lucky. They wouldn’t get al-Jihad, of course; he was too smart to come up the mountain now. But they might get Mawadi, might get some idea of why the terrorists had returned to the area.

As Gray put one boot in front of the other and his back and arms began to ache, though, it wasn’t the terrorists, his boss or even revenge that occupied his mind—it was the woman in his arms. And that could become a problem if he let it.

MARIAH WOULD HAVE held herself away from Gray, but she lacked the strength to do anything but cling, with one arm looped over his neck and her face pressed into the warm hollow at his throat. She despised surrendering control to him, hated that her safety was in the hands of the FBI special agent who had been a large part of making her life a living hell more than two years earlier, and whose relentless questions had put her father in the hospital, nearly in his grave.

But at the same time, the man who held her easily, walking with long, powerful strides, was so unlike the picture in her mind, it was causing her brain to jam. This man was warm to the touch rather than cold, and when their eyes had met, his had blazed with an emotion that she couldn’t define, but had been far from the detached, sardonic chill he’d projected during the investigation.

His warmth and steady masculine scent surrounded her now, coming from the jacket he’d given her and from the solid wall of his body against hers. She’d hated the man who had interrogated her, hated what he stood for and how he treated people. But she didn’t know how to feel about the man he’d turned out to be—the soldier who’d come up to her cabin alone and had been there when she’d needed him in a way that nobody else had for a long, long time.

Confused, weak with drugs and exhaustion, she was unable to do anything but give in to circumstances beyond her immediate control. Closing her eyes, she leaned into her rescuer, anchoring herself to his warmth and strength.

She must’ve dozed—or maybe passed out—after that. She was vaguely aware of Gray loading her into a large vehicle and strapping her in tightly. Through the fuzzedout fog her brain had become, she knew that he was white-knuckle tense as he pulled the vehicle out of its hiding spot and headed it down the road. It was full dark; he wore a pair of night-vision goggles he’d retrieved from the glove compartment and drove with the truck’s headlights off, muttering a string of curses under his breath as he kept the gas pedal down and steered the vehicle along the fire-access road leading down from her cabin. Then they flew through the gate, which hung open, and turned onto the paved road headed toward Bear Claw.

He decelerated, shucked off the goggles and flipped on the headlights before glancing over at her. “We got lucky. No sign of your husband’s reinforcements.”

“Ex-husband,” she corrected him, the faint echoes of warmth and gratitude dispelled by irritation because he’d made the same mistake a handful of times during the initial investigation into the prison break. It annoyed her that he kept insisting on the undoubtedly deliberate gaffe, and that she couldn’t stop herself from correcting him each time.

He nodded, his eyes not quite the cold steel of Special Agent Grayson, not quite the fiery resolve of the soldier he’d been up on the ridgeline. When his gaze met hers, she felt a click of unwanted connection and a shimmer of fear. What next? she wanted to ask him, but didn’t, because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what his answer would be.

So, instead, she turned away from him, settling into her seat as the truck accelerated, heading for the city. While he drove, he made a call on his cell, tersely reporting the situation, and what he’d seen and done. Mariah didn’t add anything to the conversation. There was nothing she could do to change her situation; she was too weak, too confused. And, bottom line: whether it was logical or not, she was heart-sore.

Being around Lee again hadn’t only been terrifying, it had also brought to the surface of her mind things that she’d thought she’d managed to bury years ago. Seeing him had reminded her of the good times—or at least the times she’d thought were good ones, when Lee had courted her. He’d brought her flowers and silly gifts; he’d made her feel as though she were the center of his universe, that she was special. And when he’d proposed, dropping to one knee and promising that they would be together forever, she’d believed him.

But those memories were overlaid now with the pain of remembering the months after their marriage, when he’d gradually changed, growing cold and distant. After a while, his petty cruelties and outright manipulations had made her grateful for the nights he didn’t come home, and had made her start to think she was losing her mind. It was only later that she realized that he’d purposely broken her down, little by little, undermining the defenses she’d built up over a lifetime of being an outsider. Then, once he’d made her completely vulnerable by promising her forever, he’d started beating her down further, stripping her of her worth until she’d been nothing but his wife, his plaything. Simply because he could, because it amused him.

She knew the authorities thought of Lee as a follower, a patsy. She knew different; he might follow al-Jihad’s orders, but when it had come to their marriage, he’d been the one in control.

Despite the months of subtle torment, though, she’d retained a tiny core of strength. It had been too little, too late back then. Would it be enough to see her through whatever came next?

The bang of a car door startled her, jolting her awake, though she hadn’t realized that she’d been dozing.

She squinted against the sudden glare of lights. When she finally focused on the scene, she recognized the walled-in parking lot of the main police station in Bear Claw City. A tingle of unease and ill will shimmered through her at the memories of being interrogated in the station, then rushing her father to the nearby hospital, where he’d nearly died, not just because of Gray’s heavy-handed questioning, but because of the decisions Mariah herself had made, the horror she’d brought into her parents’ lives.

That was her shame. One of many.

There was a crowd gathering outside the truck; it seemed to be made up of equal parts cops and suitedup Feds, with the latter group gathering around Gray as he climbed from the vehicle. In his flannel shirt and camouflage pants, with his short brown hair bristled on end and his face and clothing streaked with dirt and sweat, mute testimony of their harrowing escape, he should’ve looked at a disadvantage compared to the other agents, neat and clean in their dark suits. To Mariah’s eye, though, he looked like a man of action, one who could break the others in half, and might do just that, given the provocation.

She saw him visibly brace himself as he squared off opposite a salt-and-pepper-haired agent who wore an air of command and a deep scowl. It took Mariah a moment to place the other man, but when she did, nerves bunched in her midsection.

SAC Johnson, the FBI special agent in charge of the federal arm of the jailbreak investigation, had struck her as a pompous ass far more concerned with his own on-camera image than the actual investigation. There was no way she wanted him calling the shots when it came to her cabin…and potentially her life. Because that was one of the things that seemed painfully clear: she didn’t need to protect herself simply from Lee’s personal revenge. The terrorists apparently wanted something from her, which meant she was going to need help staying safe, whether she liked it or not.

Not liking it one bit, she pushed open the truck door, unclipped her seat belt and dropped down from the vehicle, hissing in pain when she landed on her injured feet.

A young, uniformed Bear Claw City cop appeared at her side almost instantly, and took her arm. “This way, ma’am. Agent Grayson said you’re wounded. We have an EMT-trained officer who’ll take a look at you while we wait for the paramedics.”

“Not yet.” She pulled away, focused on the group of FBI special agents, where Gray and SAC Johnson were arguing in low voices, their faces set in stone.

She took a couple of hobbling steps toward the knot of suits, pulling Gray’s camouflage jacket more tightly around her shoulders. As she came closer, she heard Johnson snarl, “Were my orders somehow unclear?”

“No, sir.” Gray’s square jaw was locked, his eyes cool. But underneath that coolness, Mariah thought she sensed an undercurrent of hot anger. For the first time, she started to wonder whether the chill of his demeanor was designed to hide something entirely different, something more in line with the soldier he’d been up on the ridgeline.

And you so shouldn’t be thinking about that right now, Mariah told herself as she moved to join the men.

Johnson glared at his subordinate. “So my orders were clear, yet you deliberately disobeyed them by performing reconnaissance near Ms. Shore’s cabin.”

Gray nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Which explained why he’d been alone. It also reinforced her initial impression that Johnson was more focused on protocol than results, whereas Gray was…well, she didn’t know what he was, but he wasn’t anything like his boss.

“If Agent Grayson hadn’t been up at the cabin, acting on orders or not, I’d probably be dead by now,” Mariah said, coming up beside Gray. “And you wouldn’t have a clue that Lee and the others are back in the area, would you?” When the older man’s attention locked on her and his scowl deepened, Mariah lifted her chin and met his glare.

Johnson must’ve seen something in her eyes, because he brought his attitude down a notch, nodding and holding out a hand. “You may not remember me, Ms. Shore. I’m Special Agent in Charge Johnson.”

“I remember.” She shook because there was no reason not to, then said, “Please tell me that you have men on their way to my cabin.”

“They’re already on scene. The cabin shows signs of having been abandoned in a hurry.”

Gray bit off a curse. “You searched the woods?”

“Of course. Mawadi and the others are gone.”

“What about—” Gray began.

“The investigation is proceeding appropriately,” Johnson interrupted with a sharp look in Gray’s direction. “That’s all Ms. Shore needs to know.” He returned his attention to Mariah. “Obviously, we’ll need to ask you some questions.”

Mariah nodded. “Of course.”

She hoped none of them could tell how much she dreaded the next few hours, how much she wished she could rewind time by a week, to when she’d been at home in her cabin, safe in her delusion that Lee couldn’t get at her there. But she wasn’t back in her cabin. She was smack in the middle of the city, in enemy territory.

She’d dealt with the FBI’s idea of “some questions” twice before. The first time, she’d been weak and soft, and they’d bullied her and her parents until they’d nearly broken. The second time, just after the jailbreak, she’d been in shock, dazed and disconnected, and her flat affect had put her under suspicion, making them think she was hiding something, maybe even that she’d been in contact with Lee. In the aftermath of that second round of questioning, she’d vowed never to make those mistakes again, never to be the victim again.

Lee might have captured and victimized her, but she wasn’t his victim, wasn’t anyone’s victim. If the agents wanted something from her, they could damn well give something back this time.

So she met Johnson’s eyes and said, “I’ll tell you everything I know, but I have conditions.”

Beside her, Gray muttered a bitter oath, but she couldn’t take her eyes off his boss, couldn’t correct what she suspected was a deep misapprehension. There would be time for that later. Maybe.

There was no humor to the wry twist of Johnson’s lips. “Of course you do.” He paused, waving over two uniformed officers.

Mariah stiffened when they flanked her and urged her away from the agents, away from Gray. “Wait!” she cried, unconsciously reaching for him.

Gray drew away, and when he looked down at her, his eyes had gone even colder than before. He said, “They’re taking you inside where it’s safer, and where they can clean up your injuries, find you some shoes and socks, and something else to wear. They’ll get you some food, something to drink. I’d advise you to take them up on the offer. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long night for all of us.”

Even wearing camouflage, he’d gone back to being the no-nonsense agent she remembered, and she hated the change. But in a way it was a good thing, because it forced her to step away from him, made her remember that they weren’t friends, that there was no real connection between them. He might have gotten her off the ridgeline, but that didn’t make him her white knight.

She nodded and took a big step back. “Thanks for the rescue,” she said, which didn’t even begin to encompass what she was feeling just then.

His eyes went hooded. “Sorry I didn’t get there a couple of days earlier.” He turned away before she could process the flicker of emotion she thought she’d seen in his eyes, the one that suggested she wasn’t alone in feeling a spark of attraction where none should exist.

Part of her wanted to ask him to stay with her, but what sense did that make? He might have rescued her, and he might have disobeyed orders in the process, but that didn’t mean he was on her side. Far from it, in fact. Because how could she forget what he’d done to her father? Gray had hammered at him with the same questions over and over again, implying that her father had known about Lee’s plan, that she and her whole family had knowingly helped the terrorists. Which was so wrong it should’ve sounded preposterous, only it hadn’t, coming from him. And as the first hour had turned to three, he hadn’t eased up, hadn’t given up, even when her father’s color had started to fade. Eventually, he’d let them go, but not without a stern warning to stay available, that there would be more questions to come.