Chilled (A Bone Secrets Novel) (3 page)

One to watch.

Brynn was still silently laughing at him. After the dog’s wagging tail, Brynn’s brown eyes were the only cheerful objects in the gloom. Almost sunny, Alex decided.
If brown eyes could be called sunny.
His chest warmed at the sight.

“Here.” Collins appeared and roughly shoved a heavy pack into Alex’s startled hands. “That’s my own seventy-two-hour pack.” He eyed Alex’s height. “Extra clothes in there should fit all right. You got a cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“GPS?”

“Uh…in my phone.” He had no idea how the thing worked.

There were snorts from the team. Collins mashed his lips together. “You’re not looking up directions to a party downtown. That’s gonna be useless out there. I meant a GPS unit with an altimeter and US Geological Survey maps.”

Alex lifted his chin. “Don’t have one.” He felt like he’d been caught with his pants down.

“Won’t matter, I guess. Everyone else has one.” The sheriff stood motionless for five seconds, his stare digging into Alex’s personal thoughts. “Your boss wouldn’t tell me much about that plane. I know it’s a Piper Cheyenne.”

Alex steadied his breathing, his fists tightening, and didn’t volunteer any extra information. “Are we ready now?” He needed to get to that plane ASAP. Away from this man who looked at him with the eyes of a psychic, digging deep into the darkest corners of his brain and finding him lacking.

Collins coolly nodded. “Jim will bring you up to speed.” Curiosity touched his features. “Damn, you look familiar. Name doesn’t ring a bell though.”

“I’ve got one of those faces.” He turned from the older man and lifted a brow at Jim. “I’m ready.”

Thomas and Ryan were already headed up a dirt—make that mud—trail. Jim grudgingly waved Alex on and then brought up the rear with Brynn pacing ahead of him.

“Kiana, go,” Brynn spoke. Her dog shot past Alex and out of sight between the trees.

Alex blew out a breath, wishing he cared as little about the rain as the dog did. To him, trekking in the great outdoors was as much fun as getting a prostate exam. And trekking in the
rainy
great outdoors was something he avoided like bad meat. But here he was, biting off more than he suspected he could chew. He stepped heavily in his new boots, splashing water onto his rain pants. He watched the drips roll down the waterproof surface. He could stomach a little rain for a while. Maybe this wouldn’t be too bad.

He glanced over his shoulder at the woman trudging ten feet behind him and tossed a question back to her. “Did Collins say seventy-two-hour pack? What’s that mean?”

“It means your pack is supplied to last for three days.”

“Three days?” He stumbled over nothing and her laugh echoed off the skyscraping firs.

“This isn’t TV. Did you think we’d find the plane before the first commercial break?”

He wished he’d packed that pill bottle.

Darrin Besand’s head hurt as if a grenade had exploded nearby. He shifted in his seat, trying to reposition his left shoulder so it didn’t ache like it’d been stabbed with a dull blade. He slowly turned his head to the right and tried to open his eyes, but they felt sticky. Like melted ice cream was gluing his lashes shut. Using his right hand, he brushed at his face. Because he was still cuffed, his left arm had to move with the right and he groaned at the pain. The goop on his eyes was warm and thick—definitely not ice cream. But why was he so cold?

Snow.

He forced his eyes open and stared at the ceiling above the seat in front of him. It’d been ripped wide open, giving him a
view of a dark gray sky, its light barely illuminating the interior of the plane. A half-inch dusting of snow over the seat backs and on the floor told him he’d missed a snowfall. He sat up straight in the wrecked plane, ignoring the scream of pain from his shoulder as memories of the crash rushed through him.

The ride had been rough. Wind and rain and ice had pelted the little plane, making the pilots double-check that everyone was belted up as they headed for the nearest airport. Forget the landing site in Granton. They were going to find whatever was closest. The original filed flight plan had been to land in Hillsdale just west of Portland. The undisclosed real plan was to land at the tiny airstrip in Granton, thirty miles south of Portland. That plan had been scuttled for whatever airstrip or airport was closest, as the weather whipped in with a blow strong enough to make the two pilots sweat.

During the wild turbulence, the US marshal across the aisle from Darrin had held his armrests with a death grip. Sweat had formed on his temples as his lips had moved in a silent prayer.

Darrin had been fascinated with the strength of the storm and the effort of the small airplane and pilots. It’d turned into a life-and-death contest, and he’d found himself siding with the weather. The thought of death didn’t bother him. Anything was better than returning to prison. He’d struggled to survive in prison. The dreary walls and rules and suffocating atmosphere had been slowly killing him. A fast death in a storm was preferable to a lifetime of slow rot behind bars.

He’d been a country boy growing up. He hadn’t realized until he went to prison that he needed access to nature to thrive. All those years he’d lived in big cities trying to forget his rustic roots had been a joke. He was a man who could castrate a bull, spend the day throwing hundred-pound hay bales
into a truck, or camp for a week in the dry flatlands of eastern Oregon with only a knife and a sleeping bag. When the plane had taken off he’d felt a surge of pure energy. Being able to see nature from the skies had powered fuel into his soul. Fuel he’d been starved of in prison. And the air had smelled a million times better.

He inhaled a deep breath of icy clean air and studied the silent marshal across the aisle. The agent’s skin was gray and his head sat twisted at an odd angle on his shoulders. Darrin couldn’t see any blood, but the man was obviously dead. Apparently, the marshal’s God had ignored his whispered prayers.

Darrin leaned into the aisle to look around the high seat in front of him to see into the cockpit. He caught his breath as ice stabbed his lungs. No cockpit. Just trees and snow.

There wasn’t just a hole in the ceiling of the plane; the entire front end was gone.

Where’s the cockpit? Where are the pilots?

His shoulder throbbed as he clumsily undid his seat buckle with cuffed, frozen hands. Standard operating procedure said he was to be transported in leg irons, waist chains, and cuffs. And with two marshals as escorts. But Darrin Besand wasn’t a standard transport. Cuffs and a single marshal were all he needed. And the cuffs were just a show for the pilots.

He stiffly straightened his body and stood in the aisle, swaying slightly. He stamped his feet to get some feeling back and swore as needles pricked his toes.

That pain’s a good sign, right?

He stared at the dead body. Odd to be looking over a dead body when he wasn’t the cause. He dug in the marshal’s inside jacket pocket for the key to unlock the cuffs. The agent was cold.

How long have we been down?

Darrin blew out a breath of air. The cloud of fog he created hung heavy before dissolving into the cold air. He fumbled with the key, dropping it several times and ineptly scrambling for it on the floor in the crowded cabin. His damned fingers were numb. The pinky fingers useless. Finally the cuffs dropped from his wrists and he relaxed as he rubbed at his wrists and hands. He threw the cuffs on the floor and roughly kicked them away. A rush of heat filled his veins as the cuffs slid across the aisle and out of sight under a seat.

Freedom.

With new strength, he opened the marshal’s suit jacket again and slipped the gun from the agent’s shoulder holster. He tucked it into his waistband and immediately hated the foreign feeling. It felt like the gun would drop down his pants. He wrestled the agent’s jacket off and removed the shoulder harness, buckling and adjusting the straps on himself, and hissing at the pain in his arm until the fit was good. He squared his shoulders, feeling the straps of the holster touch in odd places. He’d never worn one before.

He touched the butt of the gun at his side and practiced quickly drawing it out, annoyed at his clumsiness. He wasn’t real familiar with handguns. The only firearms he’d handled were shotguns as a teen on his dad’s farm. A shotgun didn’t take a lot of talent. To hit an offending crow or coyote he’d simply point it in the right direction and count on the wide spray of shot and loud noise to scare them off. Other than being on the wrong end of a handgun while being arrested, he hadn’t dealt with the smaller weapons. He preferred to use his bare hands on a victim.

Less mess. More personal.

Guns were impersonal. Darrin didn’t get pleasure from instant results. He liked his tight hands wrapped around a neck
and staring into the fading eyes. Then easing off and watching light and comprehension ooze back into their sight. Tightening the grip and watching them panic and fade again.

Darrin breathed deep and his eyes drifted closed as a narcotic-like lightness touched his brain.
The rush.
He lived for the rush.

But an impersonal handgun might come in handy out here.

He took the cell phone from the marshal’s belt and turned it on.

No service.

He mashed his lips together as he stared at the small screen. The phone was fully charged. Maybe he could find a pocket of service outside somewhere. A better clearing or up on a peak or something.

He stepped out of the ruptured plane and his boots sank into the powder. Utter stillness and silence. He glanced back into the plane and eyed the small drifts of snow that had formed on the floor and again wondered how long the plane had sat in the snow. He squinted in the direction of the sun. The sky was completely overcast, but a faint glow pushing through the gray over the high mountain range to the east indicated the sun’s low position. Early morning. The plane went down yesterday evening, maybe ten hours ago. He glanced at the roof of the plane and blinked.

Four inches of fresh snow sat on top of the plane.

Why didn’t the cold kill me?

Darrin rubbed a hand down the stomach of his bright orange jumpsuit with
prisoner
stamped on the back. He had on a full set of clothes underneath the baggy suit. Probably the fact that he was wearing a wool sweater and had yanked on a Blazers knit cap to annoy the Lakers-loving marshal had saved him from freezing
to death. The marshal had brought Darrin’s favorite Timberland boots to wear along with crispy new Levi’s. In the clothing he’d felt like a real man again. But then he’d had to cover it up with the orange suit. The damned jumpsuits were like wearing a plastic bag that itched and they’d made him sweat like crazy in his prison cell. In this case the synthetic blend material had done him a favor by trapping his body heat.

The marshal had been worried the pilots would notice the boots, but Darrin had no fears. He’d flown enough to know the only attention he’d get from the pilots would be sneers.

He brushed a thin layer of snow from a window, took off his cap, and studied his reflection, carefully touching the gash on his forehead and the drying river of blood it had left on his face. He rubbed at the blood on his eyebrows and eyelids with the hat. There’d been a padded seat in front of him. It wouldn’t have created this bloody gash no matter how hard he’d hit his head. Something loose in the cabin must have hit him. His fingers moved through his hair and he hissed as he touched a tender spot above his ear.

His eyes fought to stay open as a wave of dizziness smacked him.

Shit.
Something had nailed him in two different spots on his head. Not good.

What if he had a concussion or bleeding in his head? What would happen next? Could it kill him? Would it be painful?

He took a deep breath, letting the cold air pierce his lungs and drag him back to full alertness. He continued his trek around the plane. They’d landed at the beginnings of a dense forest in a huge clearing on the side of a steep hill. Glancing behind him and across the clearing he saw a group of firs with their tops sheared off. He blinked. Apparently, that was the way they had
come. The impact with the old growth must have ripped off the cockpit. Some of those trees had to be six feet in diameter.

Besides the missing cockpit, one of the engines had also vanished, along with most of a wing. The little plane had been ripped along an odd diagonal that’d stolen one of the seven cushy chairs from the passenger area. If Darrin hadn’t been seated as far from the cockpit as possible, he might have vanished along with the pilots.

He stared up the mountain at the steep expanse of pristine snow that seemed to climb for several thousand feet. No help that way. He checked the cell phone. Still no service.

He walked around to the downhill side of the plane and spotted the cockpit several hundred feet below him. Eagerly he stepped in that direction and plunged up to a knee in the snow.

“Fuck!”

He pulled out his leg and cautiously stepped to his right. That was better. The snow was very deep, but when he walked closer to the forest’s edge he found it had formed a hard crust under about six or eight inches of powder. He broke a very slow path down to the cockpit, sinking into the snow five or six more times. He pulled the marshal’s gun out of the shoulder holster, his finger on the trigger. As he neared the cockpit, he exhaled in fast pants from the snowy exercise and the tension rose in his chest. His ears strained for any sort of noise, but the forest was eerily silent. As was the cockpit.