A Dark Lure (41 page)

His left hand clamped down like a vise over her wrist. He pulled his finger out of her. She froze, chest heaving, sweat drenching her naked torso. And he fucking smiled, then licked his finger. Her heart dropped like a cold, heavy stone to her bowels. He raised his hand and cracked it across her face. The force flung her backward against the wood siding. She lay there, watching, blood leaking down her split cheek.

He extracted the knife from his torso. The blade came out red and glistening, and he clamped his left hand hard over the wound. Blood oozed through his fingers. He glanced at her again, and she braced for another impact. But he sheathed the blade. Lifting his jacket and the hem of his shirt, he examined the wound. Blood rushed down into his jeans. He reached for the sweater he’d cut off her, and balled part of it, plugging it tightly against the wound. He tied the sleeves firmly around his waist.

Then he turned to her, and the look in his eyes was death. He crawled closer. She edged backward, trapped by the rope in the corner, but a sound stopped him. His head jerked sideways, listening.

It was an animal—a wolf. No, a dog, yapping, barking, howling.

Eugene glanced at her, yanked on her rope to make sure she was properly tied, then lurched up for the shotgun he’d propped against the far wall next to a rifle. In a crouch, he moved toward the door of the cabin. He peered out into the darkness.

The animal howled again, the sound dying off into a series of whines. Olivia turned cold. She knew that sound. It sounded like . . . It wasn’t possible. She closed her eyes a moment, dizziness and blackness swirling.

Eugene stayed crouched like an animal at the gap in the door for what seemed an eternity, watching, listening. Then slowly, he creaked the rotted door open wider and crawled out into the snowy night.

Cole crept silently through the snow along the forest fringe. His aim was to try and circle through the trees along the edge of the clearing, and come up in the gully behind the cabin. He stilled for a moment, breath misting in front of his face. He studied the building. The orange glow of a small fire flickered faintly through cracks. He could smell the smoke, but couldn’t see it through the shroud of swirling flakes. It looked like a simple one-roomed structure. His bet was there was only the one door out the front. The windows appeared boarded up. Adrenaline crackled through his veins as he was besieged by a reckless urge to just run down there into the open clearing, and barge in headfirst.

If he did that, he’d be as good as dead.

Him being dead wasn’t going to help her.

Controlling the ferocity of his impulse, he crawled back into the cover of trees, and made his way quietly toward the bank knotted with deciduous trees.

Once hidden in the gully among the tangled, dry aspen, willow, alder, he studied the back of the dilapidated building through the snowy gloom. He could make out one boarded-up window along the back wall. He judged himself to be almost two hundred meters out from the building. Still a big, open expanse between him and that cabin.

Ace threw up another plaintive howl on the opposite end of the clearing. It echoed through the forest like the voice of wolves. Cole tensed as he heard a rough creak. The front door was being opened? He couldn’t see, or be sure from here.

He crawled a little closer to the edge of the clearing, lying flat in snow.

If things were going to plan, Burton would be waiting in a little hollow at the opposite edge of the clearing, not far below the forest fringe that hid Ace, who was tied to a tree. The intent was for the sound of the dog to draw Olivia’s assailant out of the shed and into the clearing where Burton could get a clear shot. Cole had given Burton the shotgun and slugs. He himself carried the pistols.

The instant Cole heard Burton’s shot, he was to race across to the cabin and try and come around from the back to free Olivia.

It was a crapshoot. But it was all they had. Sweat prickled across his lip, every muscle in his body coiled wire-tight as he waited for the signal shot.

Seconds seemed to tick by. Snow fell silently. It melted on his face, dripping into his eyes. More seconds passed. Then more. Fear licked through Cole. He heard no gunshot.

The dog cried again. Hairs rose on the back of his neck. Something was off.

Using her good hand for balance, Olivia crawled on her knees until the rope at her neck drew her up short. Still, straining against her noose, she had just enough line to reach a small hole in the siding. She peered through it. Eugene’s shadow hunkered slowly through the snow toward the howling dog. A dog who sounded like her Ace. But it wasn’t possible. Was it? How could it be?

She narrowed her eyes, trying to keep track of Eugene’s shadow as he was absorbed by the silent shroud of swirling flakes.

He disappeared from sight.

All fell silent. Just snow, lots of snow.

Time stretched.

She tried to swallow, shivering, her bare skin tight with goose bumps. He’d be back before long. She had to do something—find some weapon before he returned.

Her gaze darted around the cabin interior. It settled on the lone rifle still propped near the door. With her right hand she yanked hard in frustration on the rope that secured her by the neck to an iron rod in the back corner of the room. It was tied fast.
Shit—
she’d never reach the gun tied up like this. Panting, Olivia scrabbled back into her corner. She grasped the length of rod, trying to jerk it loose from its moorings. But it was fixed solid into a slab of concrete. It cut her hand. That’s when she noted how rusted and rough the iron was along the edges. Frantically she picked up the rope slack and started to work the rope against the sharp iron.

Very slowly, tiny strands of rope began to pop and fray. A gunshot boom
ed through the night. She froze, heart stuttering.
Dust fell from the ceiling.

Quickly, she crawled back to the hole in the siding, peered through, trying
to see what had happened. Had he shot the dog, or wolf? All she could see was soft, swirling snow.

Then suddenly his shadow materialized in the falling snow, a black, hobbling, injured shape.

Adrenaline, fear, exploded in her. She knew with every fiber of her being that if he didn’t kill her tonight, he’d set her out to be hunted come first light. He was out of time for anything else, out of his comfort zone.

She scrabbled back into her corner, grabbed the fraying rope, and began rubbing with all her might against rusted iron, burning her fingers, blood from the cut on her palm wetting the rope. Sweat dribbled between her naked breasts.

A few more strands popped. Perspiration leaked into her eyes. Breath rasped in her throat. She could hear him now—the squeak of his boots in dry snow, the crunch of dead leaves beneath. She rubbed harder. Faster. Pain in her body was consuming. She panted, working even more frantically as the noise outside drew closer. Almost free. She tugged. It still held.
Fuck
. Almost blind with panic, she sawed the rope some more, and finally cut through.

Scrabbling on knees with one hand, dragging the frayed end of rope behind her, she made for the rifle at the door.

She grasped the weapon and crawled to the half-open door. She peered around the opening.
He was almost at the cabin.

Heart in her throat, Olivia leaned her left side with her broken arm against the doorjamb for balance. She put the rifle stock to her shoulder, and, pressing her cheek against the butt, she curled her finger through the trigger guard and around the trigger.
Careful now
.
You have one shot. One good arm.
Part of her feared that even if she did hit him, he wouldn’t die. He’d just keep coming like some monster in a nightmare movie.

On her exhale, Eugene’s black shadow firmly in her sights, she aimed for center mass and carefully squeezed the trigger.

Click
.

Her heart bottomed out in her belly.

It wasn’t loaded.

In desperation, she squeezed again, and again.

Nothing.

Panic licked a hot flame through her stomach. No wonder he’d left the gun. It held no ammunition. Her mind raced.

If she tried to bolt out of the door in front of him and race for the forest, he’d shoot. If he missed, she might be able to outpace him in his injured state, but he was unlikely to miss at this range. He was a veteran hunter with an accurate eye. And he had 12-gauge slugs—enough to stop a charging grizz in its tracks. He’d blow a hole clean through her lungs before she took two steps.

For a moment, panic almost swallowed her brain, and blackness swamped in from the fringes of her mind. She felt her body going faint.

No! Think of Tori. You can’t let her down. Not now
. . .

She forced herself to focus. Slowly she edged up onto her feet as his shadow loomed into the quavering gold light spilling into the darkness from the doorway. She inched her back up the wall so that she was in a standing position almost behind the door.

Using both her good arm and broken one, she clenched her teeth against pain and raised the rifle high above her head. Mouth bone dry, limbs trembling, she waited.

As soon as Cole heard the shotgun blast, relief punched through his chest. He lurched to his feet and began to race across the clearing toward the boarded-up rear of the building.

He crouched down against the wall, heart thumping as he tried to peep through a crack. He needed to ensure Eugene had indeed been shot by Gage and was not still in the cabin. But from this angle, he couldn’t see much of the inside other than the small fire in the center of the room. He heard a few noises. A scraping sound.

He was about to creep farther along the wall when he heard something else in the muffled night. A faint cough. He stilled, listening, breath misting around his face. His pulse quickened at another cough—it sounded like it had come from
outside
the front of the cabin.

Then he heard the crunch of leaves under the thin cover of snow.

Footfalls
. His stomach clenched.

Burton?

But suddenly he had a bad feeling.

Quietly he crept around to the back corner of the cabin, his pistol held ready.