She Can Tell (39 page)

She continued her climb, aiming for an outcropping that rose from the slope above. A twig snapped behind her, and she quickened her strides. The trail flattened out into a small clearing. A narrow crevice separated two enormous boulders. She stuck her head inside; the crevice continued, but it was too dark to see how far. If she couldn’t see the end, then David couldn’t either. Sweat broke out on her freezing skin at the thought of wiggling into that small space. The fit would be tight for her. David would never be able to squeeze through.

She glanced behind her again. What choice did she have? Even injured, David was closing in on her. She couldn’t outrun him. She wasn’t exactly in prime condition.

Something rustled.

Options? Chicken out because of an irrational fear or die.

She turned sideways and eased into the crevice. The rock walls scraped her back through her the soft cotton of her shirt. The space tightened. She pushed forward. She was going to get stuck. She’d be trapped. He’d find her and kill her while she was helpless and unable to defend herself.

Her heart beat loudly enough that David would surely hear it if he passed. She exhaled and sidled a few more inches into the crevice. Almost there.

Underbrush rustled. Closer.

Tucked three feet into the fissure, Rachel peered out into the darkness. She heard him before she saw him, the snap of pine needles that could’ve been an animal but wasn’t. David limped into the clearing, his bulk casting a long shadow across the ground. He passed her hiding spot and kept going, moving out of her narrow field of vision.

She breathed shallowly through her mouth, her fear of the tight space momentarily overridden by the terror of discovery.

Light illuminated the crevice.

“There you are.” An arm reached for her.

Rachel’s heart went ballistic as she pulled backward as far as possible. She was trapped. Her hiding place had just become her grave.

Headlights off, Mike eased to the side of the road. David’s cabin was ahead. A small timber structure with a wooden front porch. The forest closed in so tightly around the building that the canopy met over its steeply pitched roof. Sunlight wouldn’t touch its cedar shakes, not even at high noon. Even with the moonlight that had broken through the clouds, David’s place was dark as sin.

“I’m here,” Mike whispered into his cell.

“Wait for me,” Sean demanded. “I’m ten minutes away.”

“Can’t. She could be dead in ten minutes.” Fear clamped down on Mike’s chest. “She could be dead already.”

“He snatched her for a reason,” Sean reasoned. “Wait for me.”

“If it were your wife, would you wait?”

“Fu—”

Mike snapped the cell closed and switched it to silent. Glock in hand, he slipped out of the SUV and approached the dark cabin from the deep shadows of the trees. Pine needles and wet moss underfoot silenced his steps. The cabin was dark and still. Mike eased up to a side window and strained his ears for sounds. All he heard was the wind rustling through the pines.

“You bitch!” The male shout came from the rear of the house.

Staying in the cover of the woods, Mike circled around. Fifty yards away, at the rear of the cleared area between the house and the lake, David was climbing to his feet. Too far away for a clean shot. David hobbled into the darkness of the nearby woods. Beyond, the terrain rose sharply.

Mike followed the tree line to the spot where David disappeared. A clump of thick trees gave way to a rough path cut into the steep slope. Mike climbed the narrow trail. The woods opened up, more rock, fewer trees. A section of wet earth gave way under Mike’s foot. He slid sideways and lost his grip on his gun. Dirt and stones tumbled down the incline. One hand shot out and grabbed a tree branch, stopping his descent. He righted himself as the gun bounced down the slope and into the lake below with a small, final splash.

His gut clenched as he moved on without it.

Mike climbed up to a small, flat clearing around a clump of rock and boulders. A form shifted within the shadow of the rocks.

“There you are.” David was reaching into a crack between two huge boulders, where Mike assumed Rachel was hiding.

Mike closed in. David’s head whipped around. His eyes widened. He raised his hands to his chin and threw a hard right. Mike ducked and slipped left, then dropped
and shot in at David’s hips. Mike caught the bigger man around the thighs, turned, and took him to the ground. David hit the ground like a felled oak. But he moved fast for his size and managed to kick and roll out of Mike’s grasp. His heel caught Mike’s lip. Blood seeped into his mouth.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Rachel emerging from the rock crevice. “Rachel, get out of here!”

Jumping to his feet, David’s gaze darted in Rachel’s direction. His face tightened as his eyes tracked her movement. He circled the clearing, his intent clearly to intercept her escape.

Mike maneuvered between them. “Oh no you don’t.”

With an angry hiss, David swung out with a looping left hook. Mike blocked the punch and drilled him in the jaw. David’s head snapped back, and he stumbled to the side. Crazed fury lit his eyes.

David was no trained fighter. He dove in for a sloppy tackle. Mike sprawled his legs backward to block the takedown. He wrapped his arms around the larger man’s shoulders. David threw him off, staggered back, and pulled a knife from his jacket pocket. Leading with the knife, he lunged forward.

The blade swiped through the air at Mike’s midsection. He tried to move left, but the uneven, sloped ground under his feet shifted. But David came in again with a low thrust. Mike grabbed the wrist of the knife-hand and cocked his other arm to punch David in the face.

The ground slid out from under them. Both men slipped sideways in a miniature avalanche of loose mud and rock. David fell to his hands and knees. Mike tumbled backward.
White-hot agony burst through his leg as David plunged the knife into Mike’s thigh.

He grabbed David’s wrist and the hilt with both hands to keep the knife in his leg. If the blade came free, Mike would bleed like a slaughtered deer.

Mike held on to the knife, but his strength was fading. David would win and they both knew it. His eyes gleamed with excitement as he pulled. The movement of the blade in his leg sent waves of pain surging through Mike and pumped more blood from the wound.

Thwack
.

David’s hold on the weapon loosened. His eyes went wide, then rolled into the back of his head. His fingers opened.

Thwack
.

The huge man fell sideways. Rachel stood over him, red faced, panting, and wielding a thick branch. She nudged David’s body with a foot. Apparently satisfied he was no longer a threat, she dropped to her knees beside Mike and looked down at his leg. Blood welled around the protruding knife.

“Don’t pull it out.” The pain dimmed Mike’s vision, and a cool sensation drifted over him. “But you need to apply
pressure…” Mike sucked in a deep breath, “around it. Can you do it?”

Her face paled as she stared down at the wound. With a quick shake of her head, she stripped off her shirt and wadded it up around the knife.

“Cell. In pocket.” He wasn’t going to stay conscious for long. And at the rate he was bleeding out, he might not wake up. “Love you.”

She hesitated for a second. “I love you too.” She packed her shirt around the blade. “You’re going to be fine.”

He knew better. The way he was leaking, both his leg and life were iffy.

“Christ, I told you to wait for me.” Sean’s voice boomed over the clearing. “Son of a bitch. You had to go get yourself stabbed.” He nudged Rachel aside. “Let me in here.”

Mike’s body trembled violently. Sean spread his jacket over Mike’s chest. Cold washed over him like floodwater. He could barely feel Rachel’s fingers gripping his, but the tears streaming down her soot-streaked face said it all. Unfortunately, the numbness spreading though his body didn’t extend to the knife sticking out of his leg.

Sirens approached. Sean was working on the wound. He looked away for a second. “Rachel, take my gun.” Sean nodded at David’s prone body. “If he moves, shoot him.”

“He’s not dead?” Mike croaked.

“Unfortunately not. At least not yet. Remind me to never piss off your girlfriend.” Despite the joke, his friend’s eyes were serious—and worried—as he whipped out a cell and punched a key. Blood coated his fingers. He handed Rachel the phone. “Put it on speaker. I need both hands here.” Then he leaned over Mike’s face. “Hold tight. This is gonna hurt.”

The searing pain in his leg exploded until, mercifully, everything faded to a blissful nothing.

Curled into a ball on an armchair in the surgical waiting room, Rachel shivered in a state of numb disbelief. On the pale yellow wall next to her, a plaque read
In loving memory of Robert Taylor
. Death had funded the room. Death had bought the upholstered chair in which she sat waiting to learn Mike’s fate. Death owned this place.

Sean paced the navy carpet, as he had for the past two hours. The blood splatters on his clothes had dried to a dark, rusty red that matched the stains on the tank and jeans she still wore. Though the room was crowded with cops and some other people Rachel didn’t recognize, she was very much alone. The only empty chairs were the ones on either side of her. The group overflowed the small room into the hallway, but the silence was more crushing than the crowd.

Mike had filled the spaces inside her she hadn’t known were empty. If he didn’t make it, she felt like she’d wither and die. And wouldn’t care very much. In fact, right now she didn’t feel much at all. Her overloaded system had shut down, as if the overwhelming events of the night had tripped her circuit breaker.

A tall man with a cane entered. Sarah was right behind him. Wiping tears from her face, Sarah rushed to Rachel’s side and enveloped her in a desperate hug. “Oh my God. I’ve been looking for you.”

The tall man pulled out a phone. “We found her.” He touched Sean’s shoulder. “You didn’t answer your cell.”

Sean pulled his phone from his pocket and looked at it blankly. “Sorry, Jack. I didn’t feel it vibrate.”

Sarah pushed Rachel back to arm’s length. “Are you all right? Did a doctor look at you?”

Two women came through the door. Sean took the slim brunette in his arms and held her tightly. Or maybe she held him tightly. It was hard to tell who was supporting whom. Watching them, Rachel’s heart hurt more than the raw burns on her hands.

“There you are.” The other woman, a tall blond, took the empty seat at Rachel’s side. “I’m Claire, Quinn’s wife.”

Rachel nodded.

Shrewd but kind eyes sized her up, and obviously, didn’t like what they saw. Claire took a stethoscope from her pocket and pressed it against Rachel’s back. A minute later she produced a blood pressure cuff from another pocket. She took Rachel’s pulse, then turned her hand over and frowned at the burns that Rachel was ignoring. “Sean, didn’t it occur to you that she needed treatment?”

Sean shrugged. “Figured she needed to be here.”

Claire disappeared and returned a few minutes later with a blanket. She wrapped it around Rachel’s bare shoulders. Heat enveloped her. She didn’t realize how cold she’d been.