скачать книгу бесплатно
“I like to think of it as persuading you, David,” LaRouche countered.
“No, I’m done.” David started to walk away.
It seemed as if the conversation was over.
Then LaRouche darted around the fire, grabbed David’s arm and flung him...
Over the edge of the trail.
The chilling sound of a man crying out echoed across the mountains.
Sara gasped and took a step backward.
A twig snapped beneath her boot.
LaRouche and Harrington whipped their heads around and spotted her. They looked as stunned as she felt. The three of them stared at each other.
No one moved. She didn’t breathe.
Heart racing, she watched the expression on LaRouche’s face change from stunned to something far worse: the look of a murderer who was hungry for more.
“It was an accident,” Harrington said.
LaRouche reached into his jacket, no doubt for a weapon.
In that millisecond, her only conscious thought was survival.
Sara clicked on her headlamp and took off, retracing her steps over the rugged terrain. She was outnumbered and couldn’t retrieve her off-duty piece quick enough. She had to get safe and preserve the video evidence against them.
Shoving the phone in her pocket, she hopped a fallen branch and dodged the boulder on the other side. As she picked up speed, she heard a man grunt as he tripped and hit the ground behind her.
“Where are you going? We need your help!” Harrington called.
Beating back the tentacles of fear, she searched for a trail, or at least a more even surface. She’d left everything at the campsite but the clothes on her back, so her odds for survival weren’t great, especially considering the cold temperatures in the mountains this time of year.
Stop going to that dark place, she scolded herself. She had to figure out how to contact her boss and report the murder before the men reported it as an accident.
Call her boss, right, the man who’d ordered her to take time off. He didn’t even know she was chasing a lead he’d proclaimed was a dead end.
“David fell and we need your help!” Harrington yelled.
David fell? Is that what you call it when you fling a man off a cliff?
She sucked in the cool mountain air, pumping her arms, trying to get a safe distance away where she could get a cell signal and call for help.
“Let’s talk about this!” Harrington pressed.
Like they’d “talked” to David Price? The memory of his desperate cry sent shivers across her shoulders.
She found the trail, but if she found it, so would they. They were taller than her five foot three, their strides longer. It wouldn’t take them long to catch her.
And kill her.
They’d probably fabricate a story about how she was responsible for David’s death. That would wrap everything up in a neat bow—just in time for Christmas.
No. She wouldn’t let them win.
A gunshot echoed across the mountain range.
She bit back a gasp. How would they explain her body riddled with bullet holes? Unless they hoped wild animals would rip it apart, making cause of death that much harder to determine.
Suddenly she ran out of trail. She peered over the mountain’s edge into the black abyss below.
“Think,” she whispered.
She realized her rope was still hooked to her belt. She hadn’t planned to drift off to sleep earlier, so she hadn’t taken off her gear. She wrapped the rope around a tree root jutting out from the side of the mountain below the trail and pulled it tight.
For the first time in her life, she appreciated Uncle Matt’s insistence that she take wilderness survival courses, along with self-defense. She used to think he’d forced her to take the classes because her small frame made her a target for bullies. She eventually realized it was because of the nightmares. He thought the classes would empower her, make her feel safe.
Sara had never felt safe.
She dropped to her stomach and shimmied over the edge. Clinging to the rope, she let herself down slowly, hoping to hit a ledge or plateau where she could wait it out. She clicked off her headlamp. At least if she could disappear for a few hours until sunrise, she might be able to make her way out of Echo Mountain State Park.
She calmed her breathing, questioning her decision to follow this lead on her own. Was her boss right? Was she too determined for her own good?
Sara gripped the rope with gloved hands and steadied herself against the mountainside with her boots.
“What do you want to do?” Harrington said.
His voice was close, right above her close. She held her breath.
“We’ll send Bill to find her,” LaRouche said. “He’s got climbing experience.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we—”
“No, we need answers, like who sent her and what she heard. Then she needs to disappear.”
Disappear. They were determined to kill her. Sara’s pulse raced against her throat.
As she hung there, suspended in midair, she searched her surroundings, trying to see something, trying to stay grounded.
All she could see was a wall of black, which reminded her of...
Stay in here and don’t make a sound.
But, Daddy—
I mean it. Take care of your brother.
Suddenly someone tugged on the rope, yanking her out of the memory.
“Sara Long, is that you?” LaRouche said.
She was relieved they only knew her undercover name, Sara Long. That should keep them from discovering her true identity.
Then, suddenly, they started pulling her up. No, she wouldn’t let them get away with it, killing people, innocent people.
Killing her.
She released the rope and grabbed the tree root, then edged her way down the side of the mountain, grabbing onto whatever felt solid.
She grabbed onto a branch...
It pulled loose from the earth and she started to slide. Flailing her arms, she reached for something, anything, to slow her descent.
But it was too dark, and the fall too steep.
It wouldn’t surprise the guys in her field office if she died out here like this: alone, on some rogue assignment gone south.
She didn’t care. At least this time she’d taken on the enemy instead of hiding from him.
I’m sorry, Daddy. I should have done something to save you.
She came to a sudden stop. Her head whipped back, slammed against something hard, and she was swallowed by darkness.
* * *
Will Rankin approached the end of the trail and made the final turn. His breath caught in his throat at the stunning view, sunlight sparkling off the calm, turquoise water at the base of Echo Mountain, with the Cascade Mountain range spanning the horizon behind the lake. This was it, the perfect place to open his heart to God, hoping for peace to ease the resentment lingering in his heart.
Intellectually Will knew it was time to let it go for so many reasons, not the least of which being his daughters. They needed a loving, gentle father, not a bitter, angry one.
Will thought he had coped with Megan’s death pretty well over the past two years, but the dark emotions continued to have a stronghold over his heart. He was still angry with his wife for shutting him out as she battled cancer, and he struggled with resentment about his mother-in-law, who challenged nearly every decision Will made about Claire and Marissa.
I love my girls so much, Lord. Isn’t that enough?
Apparently not to his mother-in-law.
No, he wouldn’t think about that today. Today he’d commune with nature and pray: for his daughters, for emotional peace and for the strength to get him through the upcoming Christmas season, the girls’ second Christmas without their mom.
It was unseasonably warm at the base of the mountain. Although a recent light snowfall dusted the area around the lake with a layer of white, it would probably melt off by noon. He smiled, thinking about how much the girls were looking forward to playing in the snow.
Then something else caught his eye across the lake.
A splash of red.
Curious, he pulled out his binoculars and peered through the lenses. It looked like a woman in a red jacket, jeans and hiking boots. Her long brown hair was strewn across her face.
She looked unconscious, or worse.
Will shoved the binoculars into his pack and took off. He had to get to her, had to save her. He glanced at his cell phone. No signal.
Please, Lord, let me save her.
As he sped toward the unconscious woman, he wondered how she’d ended up here. Was she a day hiker who hadn’t brought enough hydration? He didn’t see a backpack near her body, yet even day hikers knew better than to head into the mountains without supplies since the weather could change in a flash.
By the time he reached the unconscious woman, his heart was pounding against his chest. He shucked his pack and kneeled to administer first aid. “Ma’am?”
She was unresponsive.
“Ma’am, can you hear me?”
What had happened to this fragile-looking creature? He wondered if she got separated from her party or had fallen off a trail above.
He gently brushed jet-black hair away from her face. She had color in her cheeks, a good sign. He took off his glove and pressed his fingers against her wrist to check her pulse.
“No!” She swung her arm, nailing Will in the face with something hard.
He jerked backward, stars arcing across his vision. He pinched his eyes shut against the pain. Gripping his nose, he felt blood ooze through his fingers. He struggled to breathe.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried.
“I’m trying to help.”
“Liar.”
He cracked open his eyes. She towered above him, aiming a gun at his chest.
“Please,” he said, putting out one hand in a gesture of surrender. “I’m sorry if I upset you, but I really do want to help.”
“Yeah, help them kill me.”
He noticed a bruise forming above her right eye and lacerations crisscrossing her cheek.
“You’re hurt,” he said.
“I’m fine.”
Will guessed she was frightened and confused. Maybe even dehydrated.
“I’m Will Rankin, a volunteer with Echo Mountain Search and Rescue.”
“Sure, and I’m Amelia Earhart.”
“Check my pack. My driver’s license is in the side pocket.”
It was worth a try, although he knew all the sensible conversation in the world may not get through to someone in her condition.
Narrowing her eyes, she grabbed his backpack and stepped a few feet away. Never lowering the gun, she unzipped the side pocket.
