Untraceable (37 page)

“Leave me alone.” As I scoot across the sandy floor to get away from him, pain pulses through me, as if a burning knife is slicing open my gut. I lean my head against the stone wall and breathe.

Mo inches closer but doesn’t touch me. “You have to relax.”

 
“Fuck … you.” Then for some strange reason, I smile. For years, Wyn’s tried to trick me into blurting out those two little words, but I could only muster a
fudge you
or an F
you
. Now I realize Wyn was right. Two words
can
make me feel better.

Mo ignores my verbal breakthrough and holds out his hand. “Take these.”

I smack his arm away, sending two white pills sailing through the cramped space. My voice comes out sharp. “No.”

He picks them up and offers them again. “They’ll make you feel better.”

I turn my head away and purse my lips in defiance. “I don’t
feel
anything anyway. Besides, it’s probably poison.”

He smirks a little. “No. I couldn’t find any of that out here.”

“Why should I do
anything
you ask?”

His eyes try to bear into my soul, but I turn my face toward the wall. It’s like he’s Medusa and can only have power over me if I look him straight in the eye.

“You’ve got to trust me.” The cute English accent that once made him sexy, now makes me sick. I can’t even hear his voice anymore without thinking of him in his psycho mask with those crazy men.

“HA! That’s the line of the year. Look, I don’t need your stupid aspirin or whatever it is you’re trying to shove down my throat. And I certainly don’t need you.” I push back even further. Bolts of fire shoot through my stomach, and I double over in pain. “Ow.”

Mo points to the pills in his open palm. “You sure?”

I snatch them from his hand, knowing I want the pain to die down more than I need to make a point. He holds up a canteen of water, but I slap it away and chew the acidic medicine raw. Even when some of the powdery stuff glues to my throat, I still refuse his water. After several minutes, the pain lessons a tad.

“Where are we?” I croak.

“Don’t worry about it.”

I frown. “Is that why you didn’t tell me who you were? Because you didn’t want me to
worry about it.
Gee, you’re so thoughtful, Mo. What a great guy. What a
bloody good
catch you are.”

This time, Mo doesn’t smile. He remains serious. More serious than I’ve ever seen him. His muscles are tense. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

“Was there a better way for me to find out?” He opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off. “You’re a liar and a murderer.”

Mo doesn’t flinch. “You wouldn’t understand.”

I cross my arms in front of me. “You never gave me a chance to. You just lied. About everything.”

“I’m sorry.”

 
“Stop saying that!” I yell. “It doesn’t mean anything! You owe me more than that. You owe me some kind of rational explanation. You owe me the truth.”

“I didn’t choose this path. I want to be a geologist, for God’s sake.”

I push him hard, and he falls back on his butt. “
You
don’t believe in God. What you believe in is something crazy and absurd. You believe in killing animals, threatening people, and blood money.” I stop talking and catch my breath.

“That’s not true,” Mo says quietly.

Something shifts inside. Any feeling I have drains. I’m using logic with someone who’s completely illogical and irrational. Probably crazy too. My words come out flat and unemotional. “Then tell me. What is true …
 
Mo
? Or should I say,
Morris
.”

He gets up and paces. “How do you…?”

“I found an article online about you and your father. It was in my dad’s case file.” I stop suddenly, tired of talking, and stare at the guy in front of me. The guy I started to love. The guy who’s not the same person I kissed a couple days ago. Mo stares out the entrance. His confident posture refuels my rage and I egg him on, wanting so much to hurt him the way he’s wounded me. “Your dad would be
disgusted
with you right now.”

Mo glares at me. His piercing brown eyes reveal a hint of hurt. “You don’t know anything about me or my dad. Just because you read some article, you think you know everything now?” His eyes flip from anger into sadness before I can even blink.

I soften my tone, hoping to extract some information. “Then tell me … what’s going on?”

He sighs. “Last year, I was in the woods with my dad when he was shot.”

“Did you kill him?”

Mo spins around and slams his head on the low-rocky ceiling. “Ow! No!” He touches the small cut above his brow and winces. “How could you even say that?”

I keep my eyes on him, refusing to let him off the hook until he tells me more. “I don’t know what to think anymore, Mo.”

His body loses its posture and his shoulders curl forward in defeat. “My father was murdered. By these guys. In cold blood.”

“The article said it was an accident.”

Mo kneels down. “Grace, the article was wrong.”

Mo sits down across from me on a rotted log. “My dad was a special agent with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. He was investigating a major poaching ring that was sweeping across Tennessee. He was tracking these guys. They found out and killed him.”

I eye him suspiciously. “How do you know this?”

Mo’s eyes flash something I can’t decipher. “My dad told me everything before he died. Told me where his files were. All his notes on the case.”

I think about what he’s saying, trying to make some sense out of it. The image of him trying to revive his father sticks in my brain. He looks sincere, but how do I know he’s not snowing me all over again? “This sounds crazy. Why would he tell you that?”

“My dad said some of the locals were corrupt. Before he died, he told me to take all the information we’d gathered to the head of his squad. His leader would know what to do.”

“Who was that?”

He pauses for a minute and sucks in enough air to state his answer. “I didn’t know at the time, but now I know it was your dad.”

His answer slices through me. I shake his words out of my head. “No, that’s impossible. My dad wasn’t a special agent. He was a game warden.” Actually, this crazy scheme is probably something Dad would get involved in, especially if it meant protecting or saving bears.

Mo remains still, no movement, and answers very simply. “Obviously not.”

“What did you do with the files?” I rub my temples, desperate to relieve the pressure that’s built up inside.

Mo fiddles with his shirt. “I took my dad’s case file and started hanging out at the local gun show in my town, chatting it up with a few guys in the group. By the time I’d gotten in with them and we relocated here, your dad had already been taken. So I hid them.”

“How do I know you are not lying to me again?”

He strokes my fingers with his warm hands. “Because you know me.”

I glare at him. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”

Mo shrugs. “I didn’t want you involved.”

“Is that why you packed up and left?”

He nods as he talks. “I didn’t really think about you being connected to all this until you mentioned your dad missing. But by then, I was already smitten. I thought I could keep it all separate until you mentioned his name that night at my camp. That’s when I knew I needed to stay away from you. It was the only way to keep you safe.”

I poke him in the chest. “Yeah? Well, you were wrong. I saw footprints and gun shells at your site so I got more worried. Found out Al was involved and assumed he found you and did who knows what.”

“Al’s involved, but he’s not in charge. Fields is the leader of this one group, but he’s in contact with someone on the outside.”

I skim through more questions backing up in my brain. “I think it’s my dad’s old partner, Les.”

Mo shakes his head. “I don’t know a Les. But I don’t know a lot of the guys’ names here. Most of them use an alias for obvious reasons.”

“Are there more camps like this?”

“Yes. There are a more in different parts of the States. It’s part of a larger operation. All mostly run by locals to avoid suspicion.”

“All for money?”

“Yes.” He leans in and cups my face in his hands. Even though I divert my eyes, he finds them and grabs their attention. “But this isn’t about money for me. It’s about getting justice for my dad. You know that, right?”

I swallow, afraid to ask my question. “Okay, but how
involved
are you? Are you killing bears?”

Mo wrings his hands. “No, how can you even ask me that? I’d never be able to do that.”

“No. You just let them die. Without doing anything about it.”

His eyes water. “I was just trying to get close enough to find out who was the top guy. I swear.”

I cradle my head in my hands. It’s heavy with the information bogging it down. Too many free weights have been stacked on my shoulders. “I don’t know anything anymore, Mo. Especially not about you. You’ve lied to me this whole time.”

Mo refuses to believe me. “Crumbs, you’re the only person who knows me, Grace. The real me. Everything that’s happened between us is real. Not telling you about my dad and this group was my way of keeping you safe.”

I point to the cave we’re sitting in, then to my swollen face. “How’s it working for you?”

He shakes his head. “I know. But I tried to warn you.”

I jerk my head up as the main question pushes forward in a long line of inquiries crowding in my head. “So these guys kidnapped my dad?

He refuses to look at me when he answers. “Yes.”

A wave of energy jolts to life and pumps throughout my body in tandem with my blood. My breath escapes in short bursts of air. “Is he alive?” It takes him too long to answer so I stand and push him with both hands. “Tell me!”

Mo remains stiff. “I don’t know. They had him at the camp for a while. He escaped a couple times but they caught him.”

I almost smile thinking of Dad getting away. Must have been irritating for them. “Did they kill him? Just tell me.”

“I really don’t know. I haven’t seen him since then. But I promise, I’ll help you find out what happened, either way. These people took both of our dads from us. I’m going to make sure they pay for it. Okay?”

I shackle down any escaping emotions. This is not the time to crumble. I have to keep it together until I find out what happened for sure. “So now what?”

Mo rubs his hand over his mouth. “I don’t know. I can’t go back. As soon as they find out I killed Chief Reed, they’ll know I helped you. And if they find me now, they’ll kill me, especially if they think I told you anything. I need to keep you hidden for a few days until they leave. Then we can go to the authorities.”

“You can’t keep me prisoner here.”

He tugs on his hair in frustration and grits his teeth to keep from raising his voice. “Bloody hell. Is that what you think I’m doing? I’m saving your life.”

“Or are you saving yours?” I let the words hang in the air before saying more. “Besides, I’m not going to hide from these creeps. Lets go see Carl. He’s the police captain, and we can tell him everything.”

Mo raises his voice. “No, we can’t trust anyone but us. The whole town’s dirty.”

I almost laugh. “Believe me, you can trust Carl.” I think about how much by the book Carl has always been. “The guy doesn’t even know what it means to break a rule. Trust me, I’ve tried.”

“Fine, but telling Carl only stops this group, and we may not find out where all the others are.” Mo thinks for a second. “I saw some maps back at the camp.”

I clutch onto his hand and squeeze. “If we can help Carl find these guys, we can shut this operation down.”