He spotted it in a thin crescent of red sand shoreline leading into the pine forest. From his vantage point, the boat appeared empty. An ache stabbed through him.
Storming for shore, he rammed onto the sand next to the small runabout and looked down inside it, pointing the pistol. Laurel was gone. His heart busted into pieces.
Jumping overboard, he fell to his knees in soft, squishy sand with stabbing pain. He swore, thinking how he wished he'd listened to Laurel and taken better care of the leg instead of being so bullheaded—his macho act to keep her at arm's length. Everything had backfired on him. His health, his plan to catch Rojas on his own, even his heart. And it hurt far more than his leg. Laurel was his lifeblood. To lose her would be to lose it all. Even Tyler would never forgive him for this. Nor would Jonathon, looking down, and Cole wanted to believe in angels right now.
Picking himself up, he searched for tracks.
He soon found red stains littering the sand. His breathing grew labored. The bloody trail led off into the thick underbrush.
Cole stumbled onward, the ache welling up inside him at every red, grainy splotch already drying under the baking sun.
“Laurel Lee!"
Only the breeze moaned back through the pines. Throwing himself at the thick brush, he entered the deep shadows, but his leg immediately gave way to a searing jab in the muscles that were still healing. Gritting his teeth, he dragged the leg along, forcing it to function.
* * * *
SHE TROTTED ALONG in fits through the underbrush, with the man called Broderick yanking relentlessly on the rope tethered to her bound wrists. She was forced to taste her own blood filling her mouth as she sucked for air.
It appalled her that he carried her father's rifle. To see the beautiful wood stock polished to a mirror by her father now gripped in this scum's clutches sent waterfalls of ice into her stomach. He had some other sawed-off thing tucked in his belt.
Branches whipped at her face, the lacerations stinging while she spied every whichway hoping to see Cole lurking in the woods. The nylon rope sawed at her flesh, burning.
“Broderick, please, I can't go on."
He pulled harder. She stumbled, but he dragged them across lichen-etched rocks and through thick ferns. An occasional spot of sunshine up ahead gave her hope that it was the road where perhaps a car would rescue her. But each ray of hope disintegrated into splintered emerald shadows and thick understory.
Could Cole remember this woods enough to find her?
This portion of the woodland was virgin forest preserve, a place left pristine for growing populations of bears and wolves. It stretched into ravines, cliffs and caves, rolling hills, a stream that cut under the road and led to Deer Creek Gorge beyond civilization. Laurel feared that nobody would find her. Ever.
Broderick kept on, manhandling her when she stumbled.
“We can't do this,” she gasped hoarsely. “We won't be able to get on the train. Stop, Broderick, stop!"
He thrashed ahead, using her father's rifle like a machete to part briars. “The train'll take us to paradise. You'll do it."
“But the ropes. I can't grab on like this.” Brambles clawed at her T-shirt and bare arms. Beads of blood sprouted.
“I'll pull you up, like a fish on a line."
Crack!
A rifle shot echoed through the trees.
Laurel ducked instinctinvely.
Crack!
Then a sharp pain jerked her to the ground.
* * * *
COLE HAULED UP short against a tree, his breathing ragged. After the two shots, the forest grew silent.
Like a cancer, despair spread through him. He tamped it down. Stay focused. Laurel Lee needs you. If she was still alive.
Don't think it
.
Guessing at the rifle shot's origin, Cole crossed a small ravine, dragging his numbing leg up the next incline. With the flesh swelling against his snug bluejeans, the leg moved with all the élan of a pirate's pegleg.
Still, he forged on, desperate to beat the odds. The forest floor smelled dank, like death.
Don't think it
.
Branches pushed back, unyielding. He slipped on mossy rocks, getting swallowed up under arching ferns. He wished for the sound of the sheriff's search helicopter, but knew how useless it probably was for spotting anyone in this foliage.
On a rock outcropping, Cole spotted a wide patch of blood. Agony ripped through him. It hurt to breathe the innocent air.
With fists curled around the pistol and the knife hidden at his side, he traveled on.
Beyond a felled oak tree, he stumbled ... over a body.
His toe was snagged by the cuff of the jeans on the form sprawled half-hidden in the leaves and twigs. Taking one look brought him to his knees, where it took all his strength to swallow back the bile. He forced himself to look again.
It wasn't Laurel. A man he'd never seen before—Rojas's new right-hand man?—lay with half his face blown away, staring with one crazed eye up at the sky.
Then he saw the sleek wood sticking out from under the man. Recognition flickered. There was no mistaking the fancy rifle that had been pointed at him once. Gripping the stock, he pulled the gun from under the dead man. Though scratched up, the rifle looked in usable shape. He pulled the bolt and checked the chamber. It was loaded, but with only one round left. One bullet. A chance.
Anger spiked down Cole. The rifle shot that killed this goon must have come within inches of Laurel. Rojas could have killed her, too, but had chosen not to. Bile threatened his throat again.
A ferocity of spirit, of destiny, whipped through him. He would take Rojas in his bare hands, then squeeze his traitorous, slimy neck just to hear the man whimper for mercy. Rojas had gone insane for sure. He was a madman, but Cole could match that now.
He breathed fire. Blood for blood. Justice in the end.
Then Cole heard the far-off, long, moaning call of a train. He suddenly feared where Rojas's game would take him.
* * * *
LAUREL KNEW HE was Marco Rojas, despite the ugly dye job on his hair to disguise himself. She saw it in the sick smile. He was like a cat about to play with its catch before crunching its bones and swallowing it, leaving not a trace.
“You're prettier than I expected,” he said, leaning toward her face with curled lips. They sat hidden by a boulder to catch their breaths. “Mr. Sanchez Wescott's taste is finally matching my own. Perhaps my plan will need to change, seeing how beautiful you are.
Que bonita
."
“What plan?” she said, her mind reeling.
“To kill him while we make love."
Her stomach lurched. “You're sick."
The flesh at the corners of his eyes jerked, his gaze shrinking to hauntingly dark under the cap of spiked yellow hair. A rabid wolf was handsomer. “Not sick,” he growled. “Only in control. Not like Wescott. How can he do this to you? To allow Broderick to hurt you like this?"
“Let me go."
The tic at his eyes returned. His gaze lowered to her bound and raw wrists. “I do not care for imperfections, my
querida
."
“Then take me to the hospital in Dresden."
“Ah, but you are a fiery one. I like that. No, I will take you with me, to my ranch in Venezuela. It is time I leave this country and do other things with my life."
Her bones quivered. “No airline would take a screaming woman aboard."
This time he laughed. The thick foliage muffled the sounds. “My
querida
, I have any number of private planes at my disposal. And besides, you will want to come live with me. If you fight me, I will send someone to visit your mother."
Laurel's chest grew tight. The air so stale. “You'd murder my mother? If I don't go with you?"
His nod was like a match, igniting terror in her.
After he stood, securing his rifle in one hand and the rope connected to her in the other, she had no choice. She got up, put one foot in front of the other, submerging into the deep forest.
* * * *
HE WASTED NO time in getting his prey to Deer Creek Gorge. Laurel's legs ached from running and her cheeks stung from the branches they'd whipped through. A faint whistle sounded in the distance toward Dresden. A fist tightened in her stomach.
They skirted the woodland, following the railroad bed. Laurel shuddered at the acrid smell of the sun-heated creosote ties and the shiny tracks where tons of steel promised to slide over.
Rojas, with a firm hand clamping her elbow, hurried her over the Deer Creek trestle, then down the hillside toward the creek and flat marshland. They splashed through the icy springwater swirling by, then stumbled along the bank until stopping under an ancient oak tree where the land leveled out near the rail line.
Her wrists aching in their bonds, she looked around for any mode of escape.
Fidgeting with the cocked rifle, Rojas winced and wriggled his shoulder around. Was he hurting? What if he dropped the rifle? Could she run? But he kept the end of her rope twisted in his other fist. Her wrists pulsated, the fingers turning blue.
Looking him in his weasel eyes, she said, “See my fingers? If I fall, it'll be another murder on your hands. You won't have me to serve your every whim."
“If you fall,” he growled, “it'll be your fault."
Something snapped inside her. She'd taken enough. She knew her life might be ending and she couldn't let him get away with it. “Like it was Broderick's fault he fell into your bullet? Like it was that Texas woman's fault? You killed her. She was spotted on your yacht and she was found dead after that."
His grin unnerved her. “Nobody found her body near me, remember? They found the body here, Miss Hastings, where Cole Wescott put it."
“Where your hired hitman put it for you!"
“She left my boat alive."
“Like all the other women you sold?"
He began to laugh, but a train whistle masked it, calling louder from Dresden way, though still heralding from far down the line. When it quieted, he said, “You'll like your new owner."
“I'm not going with the likes of you. And besides, Cole won't let you. He's coming. I know he is."
He coiled more of the rope around his hand, then used it to dob at the blood still sliding across her lips. “That's what I'm counting on. He should be here any minute."
Goose-flesh rippled down her body.
Stay focused
.
“So I'm the bait? You think Cole is that stupid to just walk out of the woods and into your rifle? Is that all the further you've thought this through? I'd rather have taken my chances with your hired piece of slime, Broderick."
Rojas cuffed her to the ground. Her face smashed into the oily dirt and cinders. When she gathered herself and looked up, it was into the end of the rifle barrel.
* * * *
WHEN COLE EDGED around a tree and saw Laurel hit the ground, he whipped her father's rifle up. But Rojas yanked her up in front of him, foiling Cole's hope. He eased back behind the tree several yards from Rojas. Taking stock of the situation, he barely recognized the yellow-haired man. Usually impeccably attired, proud of his dark looks and control, Rojas was dusty and dirty, and holding a firearm. He never did his own dirty work, which told Cole how desperate Rojas had become. How dangerous.
When Cole heard the train's whistle from a few miles off as it signaled its way through Dresden, it unnerved him.
He shot the pistol in the air. Rojas whirled in his direction, but didn't see him yet.
Cole demanded, “Let her go!"
“I've fallen in love with this one!"
The man's haughty retort twisted inside Cole like jagged wires.
The train's creaking grew louder, the ground quivering.
Rojas hauled Laurel nearer the tracks.
“Rojas!” He ran stiff-legged straight for Laurel and Rojas, sending off a warning pop with the pistol before hauling Gerald Hastings’ old rifle into position.
A startled Rojas swung around with Laurel flailing in his iron clutch. He poked his rifle at her chin.
The sight halted Cole in his tracks. His mind spun, dizzy with crazed hatred for the yellow-haired freak holding Laurel. Dirt and blood smudged her wide-eyed face. Twigs and leaves tangled in her loose, red hair. Her chest heaved in a desperate attempt for breath.
When Cole's gaze met hers, lightening bolts sizzled through the air between them. She was trying to tell him something. If it was that she hated him, Cole deserved it. If it was trust, Cole hoped she could cling to it a bit longer.
She called, “Get away! It's a trap! I'll go with him!"
* * * *
COLE RECOGNIZED what Laurel was up to. She wanted to win this game, too. She wasn't actually giving in to Rojas. She was letting Cole know what he was up to. Her courage stoked Cole's soul.
“Laurel, don't say anything! This is between Rojas and me! Let her go, Rojas!"
The train's engine rumbled toward them, pulling a slow and long snake of boxcars on its way out of Dresden. Once past this curve where the marshland met the forest and gorge, it would surely pick up speed quickly.
Rojas let up with the rifle, hid it, but kept Laurel squarely in front of him. The trainsmen would only think them a hunting party, maybe picnickers. It made Cole's stomach harden.
The engine rolled by, wheels whining. Rojas edged backward with Laurel, pulling her closer to the danger zone where the wheels’ vacuum could suck her under. Cole's hand squeezed around the trigger of the useless rifle. He couldn't take a chance on hurting her. She'd kept her focus on him, never wavering.
Against the rumbling of the train, Cole shouted, “Take me. Leave her here. It's me you want. You wanted to kill me with the explosion, but Mike got in the way, didn't he?"
Rojas, his spiky yellow hair tipping back and forth in the train-whipped air, yelled back, “It was an accident."
“The hell it was. But why, Rojas? What did you think I had on you?"
“You tell me. Your brother took off with copies of my records."
But where were they? Cole wondered. “Were you blackmailing somebody? Hiding something? Why kill for it?"