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He recognized the dress, since he had just seen a gown eerily similar to it. But that bride had been alive and happy. This bride was dead. He reached into the trunk to confirm it, his fingers sliding over her throat where her pulse would have been—had she had one any longer.
Something moved beneath his fingertips—in a faint and weak rhythm. He looked down again just as her eyelids fluttered open. Her eyes were a pale, almost silvery, gray, and they were wide with confusion and then fear.
She screamed and struck out, hitting and kicking at him, as she fought him for her life.
* * *
THE SCREAM STOPPED him cold, abruptly halting his headlong escape through the forest. He had heard that scream before—seconds before he’d thought he had killed the woman. Hell, he’d been certain he’d killed her.
How could she be alive?
It wasn’t possible...
More important, it wasn’t acceptable.
He had let the state trooper distract him. With his heart pounding in his chest with fear and nerves, he hadn’t known how to react to that police car behind him. At first he’d driven normally, hoping that the trooper wouldn’t notice the missing plate—hoping that he would give up following him for some more interesting radio call.
But the trooper must have called in someone else—some other agency—because then he’d noticed the black SUV. And his every instinct had screamed at him to drive as fast as he could—to outrun that vehicle.
Instead, he had let it run him off the road—into that damn ditch. He’d barely escaped the vehicle before the guy had run up to it.
In a tux...
What kind of government agent wore a tuxedo?
The kind that had happened into the wrong situation at the wrong time.
He had to go back. He couldn’t leave the woman alive. And if he had to, he would kill the man along with her. And this time, he would make damn certain that she was really dead.
Chapter Two (#ulink_249def37-1397-5e00-aac1-874bfe1a215f)
“It’s okay...” The man uttered the claim in a deep voice. “You’re safe.” But he held a gun in one hand while he grasped her wrists with the other.
His hands were so big that he easily clasped both her wrists in one, restraining her. So she kicked. Or at least she tried. But heavy fabric tangled around her legs, holding her down...inside the trunk of a car.
Fear overwhelmed her as she realized that she had been locked inside that trunk—until this man had opened the lid. She needed to get out; she needed to run. But her head throbbed. A blaring alarm intensified the pain, and her vision blurred as unconsciousness threatened to overwhelm her again. She could barely focus on the man.
He was so big and muscular that he towered over her. Thick dark hair framed a tanned face. And dark eyes stared down at her. He looked as shocked as she felt.
She struggled again, tugging on her wrists to free them from his grasp. But his hand held her. She fought to move her legs, but they were trapped under the weight of whatever she was wearing.
She glanced down, and all the white nearly blinded her. White lace. White silk. Except for the red spots, which dropped onto the fabric like rain. She was bleeding. Not only had she been locked inside the trunk of a car, she had been wounded.
How badly?
Panic pressed on her, constricting her lungs. But she gathered her strength, opened her mouth and screamed again. Her voice was weak, too, though, and only a soft cry emerged from her throat this time.
“You have no reason to be afraid anymore,” the man told her. “You’re safe now. You’re safe.”
Her vision cleared enough that she could see him more clearly. He wore a black jacket with a dark red rose pinned to one of the shiny silk lapels. His shirt was whiter than the dress she was wearing. A black bow tie hung loose around the collar of that shirt.
He was wearing a tuxedo and she was dressed in what had to be a wedding gown. What sick scenario did he have planned for her? Or had it already taken place?
She couldn’t remember what had happened and how she had ended up in the trunk of a car. Since she couldn’t change what had already happened, she concentrated instead on the present—on what was happening now and where she was. She peered around him—to the forest surrounding the vehicle that was upended in a ditch. He had brought her to the middle of nowhere.
And she could think of only one reason for that. To dispose of her body...
Because no one would ever find her out here. She had no idea where she was. There were so many trees overhead that she could barely see the sky through the canopy of thick branches. She had no idea which direction was which—even if she was strong enough to escape him. She already knew he was strong from his grip on her wrists; he was so tall and broad shouldered, too.
“Please,” she murmured. “Please, don’t hurt me...”
She shouldn’t have wasted her breath. Uttering those words had cost her so much of what little was left of her strength, and she had no hope of appealing to his sense of humanity. She doubted he had one. He must have been the person who had put her in the trunk, who had hurt her.
He was standing over her, restraining her...and he had the gun. He had to be the one who’d...
But she couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember what had happened. The pounding in her head increased as she struggled to summon memories.
But her mind was blank. Completely blank.
She didn’t even know who she was...
* * *
THE MAN WAS totally focused on the woman—so much so that he would be easily overpowered. And the blaring car alarm would drown out the sound of his approach. Ready to attack, he moved forward, but then sunlight seeped through the thick branches of the trees overhanging the road and glinted off the metal of the weapon the man held.
Just as he’d suspected, this guy wasn’t just some Good Samaritan who had happened along to rescue the woman. Despite the tuxedo he was wearing, he had to be some type of lawman. An armed lawman.
Frustration ate at him—joining the bitterness he had always felt for law enforcement. The gun would complicate things. But it wouldn’t stop him.
He would enjoy killing the man, too—now that he knew he was in law enforcement. But he would have to act quickly, before any reinforcements arrived.
He had to act now. He had to make sure that the woman really died and the lawman died along with her.
* * *
THE PANIC ON the young woman’s face struck Dalton like a blow. Those already enormous silvery-gray eyes had widened more with fear while her face had grown even paler.
Aware that he was scaring her, that he was intimidating her, he stepped back. But he was afraid that if he completely released her, she might injure herself as she tried to get away from him. So he continued to hold her wrists.
“Don’t move,” he cautioned her. As wounded as she was, she shouldn’t risk causing more damage to her battered body.
But she ignored his advice and struggled even harder, thrashing about inside the trunk. Maybe she couldn’t hear him over the blare of that damn car alarm. But like her, it was growing weaker—probably either as the battery ran down or was damaged from the water flooding the engine, which had already died.
Now he just had to make sure that the bride didn’t.
“You’re hurt,” he told her—in case she hadn’t noticed the blood that had stained her dress and made her long hair wet and sticky.
She had lost so much blood that some had even pooled in the trunk beneath her. She needed medical attention as soon as possible. Or he wasn’t sure that she would survive.
“You need to hold still,” he advised her, “until I get help for you.”
But to get help, he would have to put away his gun and take out his cell. He glanced around to see if the driver of the Mercedes had returned. The towering trees cast shadows throughout the woods and onto the gravel road—making the time of day appear closer to night than midafternoon.
The driver could have circled back around—could even now be sneaking up behind them. Dalton peered around—over his shoulder and into the woods, checking for any movement. Sunlight glinted within the trees.
Off a gun?
Or maybe it was a beer can that some teenagers or a hunter had tossed into the woods.
Dalton had spent his life on the streets; he knew what dangers he would face there. He had no idea what lurked out here—where it was so remote. He couldn’t see anyone, yet the skin tingled between his shoulder blades. He felt as though he was being watched. Maybe being out of his element was what made him so uneasy—made him reluctant to put away his weapon.
But Dalton had no choice. He had to get help for the battered bride. She had already lost so much blood—maybe too much to survive.
“You’re going to be okay.” Because he had told so many over the years, lies came easily to him now. But maybe he wasn’t lying; he wasn’t a doctor. He had no way of knowing how gravely she was injured, so maybe she would be okay. “But you need to calm down. You need to trust me.”
Because of all those lies he’d told and all those old friends from the gang that he had betrayed and arrested, few people trusted him anymore. Certainly no one who knew him.
But he was a stranger to her. Maybe that was why she stopped struggling. Or maybe she was just too weak from all that blood loss.
So he released her wrists, then holstered his weapon and pulled out his cell. But the phone screen blinked out a warning: no signal.
He cursed. He couldn’t leave her here while he drove around until his phone had a signal again. She might not survive until he returned. Either her injury might claim her life or the man who’d put her in the trunk might return for her.
Dare Dalton try to move her? To carry her to his SUV and drive her to a hospital? Hell, he didn’t even know where a hospital was in this area.
Maybe she wasn’t as weak as he’d thought, though, because she drew in an unsteady breath and then tried again to climb out of the trunk. He put a hand on her shoulder to hold her still, though he probably hadn’t had to bother. The weight of the blood-soaked dress was already holding down her body.
“You have to take it easy,” he warned her. “You have a head injury.” At least that looked to be where her blood was coming from. Had she been shot?
In his experience, most of the people he had found in trunks had been shot, execution-style, in the base of the skull. But all of those people had died. If she had a bullet in her head, and he moved her...
She would probably die, too. But if he didn’t move her, she still might die. There was too much blood.
She lifted one of her hands and touched her head. Her beautiful face contorted with pain and she jerked her hand back. Staring down at her fingers, which were stained with her own blood, she gasped.
“Do you know what happened?” he asked. Maybe she could tell him if she’d been shot.
But from the dazed and glassy look in her pale gray eyes, she appeared to be in shock. Or maybe it was the injury that had her so groggy and weak.
“Noooo...” she murmured.
Wouldn’t she remember being shot? He remembered every time that he had been shot.
“Maybe you were struck over the head,” he suggested.
She could have a concussion—some blunt-force trauma that was making her bleed so much. Dalton had seen that kind of injury a lot, too, over the years.
Or she could have been shot from behind, so that she hadn’t realized what was happening to her—until it was too late. Until the bullet had been fired into her head.
Gravel scattered across the road, small stones skittering past him and into the water in the gully. Then metal clicked as a gun cocked. And Dalton realized that the same thing had just happened to him. Someone had sneaked up behind him to take him by surprise.
The damn driver must have circled back around—returning to reclaim his victim. To make sure that she was dead and couldn’t identify him.
Her eyes widened with shock and fear. Either she could see the man over his shoulder, or she must have heard the gun cocking, too.
Dalton shifted his body slightly, so that he stood between her and the danger. If the man wanted to kill her, he would have to kill Dalton first.
He reached for his holster again—for his gun. But he wouldn’t be able to draw it fast enough to save himself from getting shot. But maybe he could get off a shot himself and save her.
Chapter Three (#ulink_23ae19fb-1c12-5465-8316-df7428abd190)
The man had drawn his gun again. But she wasn’t afraid of him this time. She was afraid for him. A shadow had fallen across the road behind him. And that soft click of metal must have been another gun, already cocking...
The bullet would hit the man first—before it hit her. He had positioned himself so that it would. He had positioned himself to protect her.
Maybe he wasn’t who or what she’d thought he was. Maybe he wasn’t the person who had hurt her. Maybe he wasn’t a monster. But how had he found her?
“Who are you?” she whispered. But she wasn’t asking for just his name.
“FBI,” he identified himself—not to her but to whoever had come up behind him. “Put down your weapon...”
A man uttered a ragged sigh of relief. “Agent Reyes, I couldn’t tell if that was you or not...from behind...and in a tux...but of course you were at the wedding...” The man’s sigh became a gasp as he peered around the FBI agent and saw her in the trunk. “Is that the bride?”
“No,” the agent replied. “Not the bride from the wedding I was at anyway. I don’t know who she is. I found her in the car we were pursuing.”
Unlike the agent who wore a tuxedo, this man was wearing a vaguely familiar-looking uniform. It was tan and drab like the dust coating the car, but he had a badge pinned to his chest. He was also a law enforcement officer.
She breathed a slight sigh of relief. Maybe she had been rescued—if only she remembered from what...
“Where’s the driver?” the state trooper asked. He was shorter and heavier than the agent—with no hair discernible beneath the cap of his hat.
The FBI agent gestured toward the woods. “He ran off before I could even get a look at him. And then I found her in the trunk. She needs medical help.”
She heard the urgency in his voice and knew her situation was as critical as she feared it was.
“Does your phone or radio work?” the agent asked the officer. “I can’t get a signal.”
The other man grabbed at the collar of his shirt and pressed a button on the device attached to it. “We need an ambulance.”
They didn’t need the ambulance. She did. She had been badly injured. All the blood was hers. No wonder she felt so weak—too weak to even pull herself out of the trunk. Too weak to fight anymore.
“Help’s coming,” the man called Agent Reyes assured her.
He had already helped her—when he had stopped whoever had been driving the car and opened the trunk for her. She wanted to thank him, but she struggled for the words—for the strength to even move her lips.
“Shh,” he said, as if he sensed her struggle. “You’re going to get medical attention soon. The ambulance is on its way.”
But she was afraid that it would be too late.
