Frozen (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (37 page)

These were big woods.

*   *   *

If there was
another law he could break, Bryce wasn’t positive he could think of what it might be. Trespassing … hell, he was doing that enough lately it wasn’t even a concern. Breaking and entering. Failure to report knowledge of a crime … and now reckless driving. He’d forgotten the exact penalty, but he had a feeling it involved handcuffs and jail time.

Could be worse. If they hit a deer right now—and on these winding tree-lined roads at dusk it happened all the time—it would be quite an accident at this manic speed. A detached part of his brain computed the statistic. An average citizen of the great state of Wisconsin hit two deer in his lifetime. Crap. He didn’t even have
one
under his belt yet. He was due.

He was also driving a police car, no less. There was probably another penalty for that, because while Jones had handed over the keys pretty easily, he might be off the payroll by now anyway and at a guess neither one of them should be driving it. Jones had the nothing-to-lose attitude of a man who thought it was all over. Case in point, breaking into someone’s cabin without permission or warrants, or whatever else Bryce unfortunately knew too much about since he’d decided to take this vacation.

“She’s still not answering.” Rick shook his head.

“Keep trying.” Bryce took a curve way too fast, barely kept the car on the road, and noted Jones didn’t seem to care much about a possible accident. Good thing, because he had no intention of slowing down.

The headlights flashed against the white slender trunks of hovering birch, the sturdier hemlock, and white pine, sprinkled with the occasional thick oak.

Almost there
.

When Ellie’s car flashed into view, he slammed on the brakes and stopped so abruptly his seat belt shoulder lock engaged. He missed her rear bumper by inches.

“She’s still here.” Jones had his weapon under his coat and checked it in a movement that was obviously automatic. “You’re sure you heard him on the phone?”

“Why is her car here and she isn’t answering?” Bryce didn’t wait, but slid out, the cruiser askew in the middle of the road. He’d put it in park—or he thought he had, but didn’t turn off the engine and ran toward the fallen tree. Let Jones worry about his squad car.

He went over the top of the fallen tree instead of around, tearing through the branches and sliding on the slippery bark, his boots thudding onto the lane, his heart pounding.

The rush of the woods as he went up the hill, the cold, the descending night … Bryce blundered into a pile of brush in the darkness and grunted at the impact.

A hard hand grasped his arm and a voice hissed in his ear. “I heard you coming like you were blasting a fog horn. You sound like a herd of rabid moose. Where’s Rick? At least he’s armed. Hathaway is out there.”

Ellie. Still breathing, warm, supple, safe … and after seeing Melissa’s corpse, still half frozen …

He wanted to collapse to the ground, with her in his arms, and either cry or laugh or both. “I—”

“Shh. Just listen. Don’t move unless I tell you to, got it? This isn’t a software seminar. Where?” she whispered tersely, not looking at him. Alert. Dangerous. She held a handgun with expertise and crouched there in the thin, distorted light. There was blood on her face and mud smeared on her coat.

“He’s right behind me,” he said as low as possible, easing up enough he could at least let his eyes adjust to the darkness and cast a quick look around. “Look, we can do whatever is it is you do … call for backup—”

“He’s not going to wait around for that.” In the shadows he could see the hard set of her mouth. “This isn’t your call. I’m nailing him. But I need to be close. Really close. My .45 isn’t all that accurate otherwise.”

Fine. He knew a lost argument when he heard one. She was right, this was her territory.

It was dark enough that he could barely make out her expression when she turned. The air was cold, the woods silent. “You already have a connection,” she said, her gun extended as they crouched behind the log. “He has some sort of a vibe with you that even I don’t understand, and
I
might be actually having a real love affair with you. Tell him about this new body.”

“What?”

“Tell him.”

“Maybe you’d better specify how you’d like me to do that.”

“Call out, but don’t stand up.”

“You
want
him to shoot at us?” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, I do,” she answered evenly. “And trust me, so does Rick. Hathaway is going to find us eventually anyway. Think about the noise you just made. He’s going to know you’re here. Just get him close enough for one of us to take him out. I need the sound of his voice.”

“Academia doesn’t prepare you for this,” he muttered.

“That’s why,” she said calmly, as if a serial killer wasn’t out there in the woods, her weapon gleaming in her hand, “the university doesn’t issue you guns. Now, do it. Tell him you found another body.”

Chapter 30

This was one of those moments. He’d always imagined it. Oh, hell yes, it was a rush to go after a good-size black bear with a bow, but … it wasn’t this.

The minute the pretty detective had walked up and introduced herself, he’d known she was next.

Would Grantham appreciate the gesture?

He thought he would.

In the dark, the Hunter smiled.

*   *   *

This wasn’t the
time for cold calculation, but knowing she had backup made all the difference in the world to Ellie as she crouched down and sharply inhaled the cold air. There was a reason Rick had not come running wildly through the woods. No one who had a modicum of self-preservation would have done it.

Except Bryce.

If they lived through this, he would get a lecture on the futility of desperate heroics.

At the moment, it was a toss-up whether or not he would ever live to hear it or she would live to give it.

Despite the tension and gravity of the situation, she had to have a flicker of introspection. Who knew she favored sensitive men? Not her. Maybe that’s why all her relationships had been a disaster so far.

The pile of three crisscrossed fallen logs was thick enough for cover, but rotten, and heavy with the scent of decay and probably wouldn’t do much as a shield. She tried not to think about it. The cold truth was, as she’d said, she needed Hathaway pretty damned close. His rifle against her sidearm was not an even match. Should she draw him in with Bryce, who was unarmed and inexperienced? No. She wasn’t supposed to endanger the life of a civilian, and on a personal level, especially not him. But on the other hand, she had Rick out there somewhere, and if she didn’t play this right, it could go south pretty quick. Maybe they’d even shoot each other. That would be some nice irony.

She couldn’t even be sure Rick had called in that they were out there and in trouble. Normally, yes, but that was before his girlfriend had been kidnapped by a serial killer and he’d decided to trespass, endanger the case by searching without a warrant, and otherwise lose his mind.

Fuck
.

Wet cold leaves surrounded her knees. She couldn’t see more than about twenty feet now, and the thin wind made enough sound that every crackle of the waving branches made her jump. “Tell him who you are and what you just found,” she said softly. “That’s enough. Then,
don’t
move. If he says anything back, don’t respond. Not a word.”

She had her gun. Rick was presumably armed. The odds had improved considerably, but she didn’t want to shoot Rick accidentally, and definitely didn’t want him to shoot either her or Bryce. He needed to know where they were, and maybe it would draw a response from Hathaway. If Rick could get in close, it would be enough. Maybe Hathaway didn’t even know Bryce hadn’t come alone.

“If you’re sure, here goes,” Bryce muttered, crouched next to her behind the logs, and raised his voice to a shout. “Hathaway, this is Grantham. I just found the body you hid at Jack’s cabin on the river.”

One of two things would happen now, Ellie calculated. Either Hathaway would take off through the woods to escape, or he’d try to slip around behind them for the best shot.

Something moved off to their left. Just a snap of a twig, a subtle rustle, but she heard it, and so did Bryce, his head whipping around that direction.

For the first time in her life, she wished she’d gone in for deer stands in the frigid early mornings and learned to gauge if your quarry was thirty feet away, or thirty yards. It was too dark to make out much in such indistinct light, the pall of clouds from the day hanging on. It didn’t help her heart pounded loudly in her ears, and she had to exert effort to control her breathing.

Leaves rustled. Wind? Or something else? She strained against the darkness, praying she and Rick were thinking along the same lines, because now Hathaway had a good sense of their direction, and so did Rick, but she couldn’t afford to wait until she figured out which one to fire at if all hell broke loose. By then it might be too late.

Then she caught it, a hint of movement in the black shadows, something a little darker, creeping through the trees but then moving fast all at once, circling, close enough she could hear the whistle of his breath …

But, dammit, he didn’t try and shoot, and until he did, she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t Rick. Bryce swiveled with the arc of the footsteps now openly cracking twigs and he made a small incoherent sound as they were now no longer protected by the barricade of rotted logs, but the mover was behind them, no longer caring if they heard him.

There was a flash of noise to her right and she pivoted on the balls of her feet, still crouched down, but nothing came close and there was still someone off to the left too.

Had she miscalculated, she wondered with a sense of panicked anger? If she and Bryce were caught in a crossfire exchange, that wasn’t going to be good either.

A bullet from a different direction tore through the sleeve of her coat before she even heard the retort, but it was answered so quickly by return fire—not hers, she still couldn’t tell which shooter might be where. By now Hathaway had to realize they weren’t alone. “Down,” she barked at Bryce, half rising, “You can’t help. Rick, where are you?”

Searching, searching, where the hell are you?

“To your right,” he shouted from the trees. “I can see you.”

So could Hathaway. Another flash from the left. This one grazed her thigh, she could feel the sting and the bullet thudded into the logs with a spat and chips flew.

God, he’s close, close
 … both she and Rick fired, the noise deafening.

Then … quiet.

Hathaway hadn’t fired back.

Eerie, drifting quiet in the aftermath. There was blood running down her leg, she realized, warmly seeping through her jeans. Her ears were ringing, her hands still tight around her extended weapon.

We didn’t get him
.

Rick confirmed it, coming out of the dark haze of trees, snapping another round into his weapon. His face resembled soapstone, gleaming with sweat in the cold, and white as a ghost. “He’s running. Going toward the road. I’m not letting that motherfucker get away.”

“You’re bleeding.” Bryce caught her arm as Rick ran into the darkness down the hill toward the road, yanking her back around. “Ellie, you’re hurt.”

She shook him off. “It’s a graze. Look, we need backup. My cell is in the cabin, right inside the door. Call Pearson, will you? His number is programmed in there. He’ll get things moving faster than 911. Tell him roadblocks on every possible access out of here. Do it!”

Then she plunged after her partner into the darkness.

*   *   *

There was glass
everywhere, and next to the front door of the cabin gaped a black square hole since the glass from the window was gone. For expediency Bryce managed to get over the sill with only several minor cuts from the jagged edges in his hurry. It was actually a good thing it was broken. The only keys he had were on the ring he’d given to Ellie for the search of his car and the second dissection of the cabin.

Bryce swore, plucking a piece of glass from the palm of his hand. It was so dim inside he had to grope across the floor to try and find Ellie’s cell phone, finally locating it as he accidentally swept it with his hand underneath a small table. That took another precious few seconds.

The screen illuminated as he scrolled down through her address book for Sheriff Pearson. He was still rattled from the impromptu volley of gunfire, and the sight of Ellie, her face cut, her leg bleeding. His hands shook.

“MacIntosh?” Pearson answered with impatient irritation almost immediately. “You were supposed to be here for a meeting at—”

“This is Bryce Grantham. Look, Sheriff, there have been shots fired here at my parents’ cabin … Ellie is wounded and last I saw she and Jones were chasing Hathaway through the woods. She asked for backup and full roadblocks on any way out of the area.”

“What the f— Hathaway? Are you sure?” Pearson’s voice was raspy now, deeper. “And what is Jones doing there? Don’t answer … we’re coming—” he broke off on an explosive exhale and the call ended.

The cabin was dead cold. Bryce shivered, wondering how much of the chill was inside him, still kneeling in broken glass, Ellie’s phone in his hand. It felt absurdly like he should call someone else, not just ineffectually sit there. He wanted to help, but unarmed, he was more of a liability and he knew it, but it chafed just the same to let Ellie run off in the darkness after a man who had killed five women.

I might be actually having a real love affair with you
 …

Heaving himself to his feet, Bryce put Ellie’s phone into his jacket pocket. He’d put new batteries into the flashlight and he took it from the shelf, flicking it on. Like a spill of shattered ice, glass lay in glistening disarray. He walked toward the ruined windows facing the lake. Everywhere his booted feet crunched glass, the icy breeze scented with pine. He felt as if he’d attended a rock concert, his hearing hollow from the gunfire.