Spirit Of A Hunter

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“Frisk him. He might know something.”

“You’re a riot, Boggs.”

“Keep looking.”

“We’ve already disabled her car. Let’s just leave her and come back after we find the kid.”

“We don’t know who she might have met here. I don’t like to leave loose ends behind.”

Nora’s throat pistoned against Sabriel’s shoulder.

Shh. It’s okay. I’ll get you out of here.

The footsteps faded and disappeared. Sabriel didn’t move. He kept listening to the sounds of the woods, much too aware of the woman wrapped around him like a second skin, imprinting herself into his flesh.

Five minutes. Ten.

Only when the high-pitched chip-chip-chip of a chipmunk resounded nearby and the watery toolool of a blue jay rolled above did Sabriel relax. “They’re gone.”

“How do you know?” A hint of cinnamon rode on her breath, and he wanted to taste her.

“The birds.”

Her breath whooshed in a gust. “They’re singing again.”

He eased out of the rocky fissure, surveyed the woods, then offered her a hand, which she ignored. She slapped at the dirt sprinkled on the shoulder of her sweater, making the stingy strings of sunlight poking through the trees weave through her brown hair in golden ribbons. “What if they come back?”

“We make sure we’re not here.” Sabriel cupped her elbow, aware of her delicate bones, of her heat, of her fear, and turned her toward the trail. With Boggs in the mix, finding Tommy was going to be hard enough. He didn’t need this extra liability.

As he walked, he reached for his phone and placed a call to Falconer’s private number. When Falconer answered, the wedding reception boomed in the background. “Everything okay?”

Sabriel’s jaw tensed, and the words ground out with more bitterness and resentment than he’d intended. “I need help.”

He gave Falconer a synopsis of his afternoon.

“I’ll alert Kingsley to fire up the computer,” Falconer said. “Liv’ll have a room waiting for your friend.”

Sabriel had no choice but to open what he thought of as a closed chapter in his life to Falconer. He couldn’t leave Nora in harm’s way. He knew the wrath an angry Thomas Camden could wreak. The goons’ guns weren’t there simply to prove their manhood. Their orders were to hurt her.

He crushed his eyes closed against the piercing pain of the video he’d watched so often he knew every frame by heart—the drooping hair, the limp body, the bloody foam.

His conscience couldn’t stand another death.

Chapter Four

Nora scrunched down in the Jeep’s seat, spine rounded, legs pressed together, arms tight against her sides, keeping still and quiet. She’d spent a great deal of her childhood quivering in fear, making herself invisible, yet fear had taken on a new dimension when she’d delivered Scotty and known unconditional love for the first time.

The thought of being pregnant, a mother, had petrified her. She wasn’t ready. Tommy wasn’t ready. Things were too unstable with the resurgence of his illness and their uncertain future. Then, when the nurse had laid this innocent little creature into her arms, all she’d wanted to do was to knit him back into the protective cocoon of her womb, away from this harsh world’s dangers.

She’d tried to protect him, whipping toy trucks and Lego pieces from under his dimpled feet, distracting him from the greenhouse of tempting plants with which his grandmother decorated every room, shielding him from the Colonel’s unreasonable expectations.

Love that fervent didn’t make you brave, she’d learned, it made you afraid—of everything. And the thought of losing her son—the best part of her—now terrified her like nothing before.

Her only job had been to keep her little boy safe. A job she’d done with a fierceness that bordered on obsession. He would have a happy childhood, if that was the only thing she accomplished.

Overcompensation, she knew. For all the good it had done.

Where was he? Was he warm enough? Was he hungry?

Was he breathing?

What would happen to him if the Colonel’s men followed their orders and she met with a convenient accident?

On the verge of tears again, she turned to the window. She frowned as a road sign zoomed by. “Shouldn’t we be heading north, not south?”

“I’m taking you to a safe house.”

She strained against the seat belt. “No! That’s not going to work. I can’t abandon my son when he needs me.”

“I’ll find him.”

“His medicine—”

“I’ll get it to him.”

“Do you know anything about kids?”

“I’ll bring him back.” Sabriel’s iron hand squeezed hers. “Safe. I promise.”

The rigid lines of his face, telling their own tale, negated any reassurance she might have gained from the warm gesture. “Like you did Tommy during Ranger School?”

His hand shot off hers, stinging her with ripped-flesh rawness, and gripped the steering wheel as if he needed its steadying balance.

“I’m sorry. That was out of line.” Her cutting comment had hit a still-fresh scar, and she wanted to smooth the hurt. She’d been on the receiving end of cruel words often enough to know better. But her worry for Scotty trumped all and brought out a ruthless streak.

She reached toward Sabriel, but his aura vibrated with an electric-fence intensity that would fry her if she dared to cross its boundary. She folded her hands into her lap. “You’re trying to help me. And I’m being ungrateful.”

As the Colonel never ceased to remind her whenever she defied any of his orders. And like the Colonel, Sabriel was taking over without asking, expecting her to fall meekly in line and obey.

The worst part was that letting him take over would be easy—too easy. Her spine curved in as if it had lost its anchoring guy wire. She needed his help. He was fit and strong and knew his way around the mountains. He knew how to find Tommy. He knew how to bring Scotty back to her.

Something she could not do for herself.

She flattened her palms on her thighs, shoring up her resolve. She couldn’t let fear rule. Not this time. And she couldn’t continue to let other people make decisions for her. Especially not when it came to Scotty. Maybe if she’d taken a stronger stand against the Colonel’s intrusive meddling, then Tommy wouldn’t have felt he had to take Scotty.

“The Aerie’s a safe bunker,” Sabriel said.

“The Colonel—”

“Won’t be able to get to you.”

“I’m tougher than I look.” Her chin flagged up. “I won’t complain. I promise.”

“You’ll slow me down.”

The Jeep bumped over a dip in the road, forcing her to grab onto the dashboard. “I’ll keep up. I swear.”

“You’ll muddle the tracks.”

“I’ll stay out of your way.”

“The best thing you can do for your son is to let me find him. Alone.”

He spoke to her as if she were a kindergartner who was having trouble learning how to tie her shoes. Her back stiffened. “Do you know anything about asthma? What if Tommy can’t cope? Can you handle him when he’s in a manic phase? Or, even worse, when he’s scraping the bottom of the depression barrel?”