Boneyard Ridge (22 page)

“Asa must have been the one doing all the talking tonight.” Hunter pushed his hand through his short-cropped hair, wincing as his fingertips brushed over the painful lump at the back of his head. “He mentioned a tribunal tomorrow at ten. They’re actually pretending to put her on trial?”

“Some of these old hill families see themselves as the law in their own little enclaves. You ought to know that, growing up in Bitterwood.”

“So we have until ten in the morning to get her out of there.”

“You ready for that backup I offered?”

He thought about it. “I’d like them in position. I’m parked at an overlook right now that could work as a staging area. It’s far enough from Laurel Bald that I think they’d be safe gathering here. I need to go in alone, see if I can get her out of there without raising a big ruckus, but it would be real nice to have backup close enough that they can help us get out of there if things go bad before we can get to safety.”

“Give me the coordinates and I’ll get everyone in position. You’re going in now, I presume?”

“Yeah. I’ve spotted a turnoff about a quarter mile from the bald that should give me a place to leave the SUV and strike out on foot.”

“You up to that? You took a hell of a knock to the head. I saw the lump. That wasn’t a love tap.”

“I’m fine,” Hunter answered. It was mostly the truth. His head hurt, yes, but primarily on the outside. He wasn’t dizzy or confused. The past few days of hiking had actually built up his stamina, rather than reduced it.

And even if none of that had been true, he would still be heading up the mountain after Susannah.

“Backup’s on the way. You have Sutton Calhoun’s cell number memorized?”

“I do.”

“He’ll be the point man, then. Call him and he’ll take care of getting the backup crew where you need them.” Quinn hung up without another word.

Pocketing the phone, Hunter started the SUV engine and pulled out of the overlook parking area and back onto the two-lane mountain road.

* * *

W
HAT SHE NEEDED
was an ax. She could chop through the weathered wood of the cellar door without worrying about the padlock if she just had an ax. Unfortunately, Asa Bradbury hadn’t seen fit to leave such a tool at her disposal. Nor could she have tried unscrewing the hinges—not that she had a screwdriver—because the hinges were on the outside of the door.

No ax. No screwdriver. No hope.

She backed down the cinder-block stairs and settled on the musty old sofa, tears of despair pricking her eyes. She fought against them, both the tears and the despair, determined not to be paralyzed just because she hadn’t yet found an easy solution.

A quick glance at her watch told her she still had several hours left before the tribunal. Part of her, the bleary-headed, gritty-eyed part, wanted to spend that time asleep. Surely the only thing worse than running out of time was spending what was left of her time on earth futilely beating her head against a cinder-block wall she had no hope of tearing down.

But what if Hunter needed her? What if he was still lying on the floor in the hotel basement, his brain swelling past the point of no return? What if she could save him if she could just find her way out of here and reach a phone?

A soft, swishing sound coming from outside the cellar door drew her attention back to her current problem. The sound grew closer, then stopped. For a long moment, there was no sound at all except for the thudding of her pulse in her ears.

Then she heard the faint rattle of metal against metal.

Someone had just moved the padlock.

Panic setting in, she reached for the handcuff dangling from the chain and slipped it around her wrist, stopping just short of clicking it shut. If her visitor outside was Asa or one of the other Bradburys, maybe they wouldn’t look too closely at the cuff.

As she waited, breathless, the furtive metal-on-metal noises continued, barely there, and she realized whoever might be working on the padlock outside, it wasn’t anyone who had a key.

Which meant it wasn’t one of the Bradburys.

Slipping the cuff from her wrist, she quietly crossed to the stairs and climbed until she could put her eye against the narrow slit between the double cellar doors. She could see almost nothing through the narrow space, the darkness outside nearly complete.

But she could hear someone breathing, a soft whisper of respiration that seemed so familiar she almost thought she was imagining it.

Was she hearing what she wanted to hear? Panic could play terrible tricks with a person’s mind, and she was about as scared as she’d ever been in her whole life.

But she had to take a chance. If she was imagining things, if there was nobody out there at all, what could it hurt?

“Help me,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

For a second, the world around her went thick with silence again. Then she heard a whisper in return. “Susannah?”

Her knees wobbled, forcing her to grab the inside handle of the door to keep from tumbling backward down the cinder-block stairs. “Hunter?”

“It’s me, baby. I found you. I just—I don’t have anything to pick this lock. Your friends took my gun and my knife, and stupidly, I didn’t pack another one.”

“I did,” she whispered back to him. “I found one at Quinn’s place, and I didn’t have room in my pack, so I stuck it in yours. But I forgot to get it before we hiked to the hotel. It’s in one of the inner pockets.”

She heard a rustling noise and then a soft murmur of excitement. “You wonderful, wonderful woman.”

“Don’t try picking the lock. Use the screwdriver blade and just unscrew the door hinges.” Tamping down the flood of excitement that threatened to swamp her senses completely, she added, “But be careful. The Bradburys may be on the lookout for an escape attempt.”

“I’m keeping an eye out. And I’m not alone. There are six other agents from The Gates out here in the woods behind me. I called in backup.”

She heard a new rasping sound, coming from the right side of the door. He must be attacking the hinges now. She settled on the steps, listening to the sounds of his handiwork, and realized she’d been wrong about miracles.

Being snatched from the hotel parking lot and hauled off into the woods by this maddening, marvelous man had been one of the most miraculous things that had ever happened to her.

Considering how slowly time had been passing since Asa Bradbury had dumped her in this cellar, it seemed only a few seconds later that Hunter whispered through the door, “Let’s give it a go.”

She turned to watch as Hunter eased the door away from the hinge. The padlock didn’t allow the door to move much, but the narrow opening provided enough space for Susannah to slide through and scramble onto the grass outside.

Before she had a chance to say a word, Hunter had scooped her up and started running with her. A heartbeat later, the sharp bark of a pistol explained his sudden flight.

Someone was shooting at them.

* * *

A
SA
B
RADBURY HAD
been eighteen years old when his brother Clinton broke into Myra Stokes’s neat little cabin with the intention of claiming Myra’s granddaughter for himself. Asa had had one foot out of town, a hardship scholarship to Tennessee in his pocket and visions of a life outside the claustrophobic rock bluffs of Boneyard Ridge when his mother had walked into the bedroom he shared with his older brother and informed him that Clinton was dead.

“You’re the head of the family now,” she’d said, her voice like steel beneath her tears. “You know what you have to do.”

Oh, he’d known. But he hadn’t liked it.

Still didn’t.

But that’s what came from being trapped in a life he didn’t want. His choices had been stripped away that cold November night. Just as he had no choice now but to go after the McKenzie girl and the man who’d stolen her away.

He didn’t waste time wondering what would happen if he called off the pursuit. He might be the alpha dog in this pack, but there were hungry young curs circling his position, waiting for any sign of weakness.

There was no walking away from the life he’d inherited. No different path available to him, the way it had been available so briefly, a tantalizing prize just out of his reach, until Clinton’s death.

Murder, he thought. He should call it murder. That’s how the family still spoke of Clinton’s death, as if it had been an act of evil perpetrated by a selfish, venal, young temptress.

But Asa drew the line at lying to himself. He knew what Clinton had been like. The impulse-control problems. The colossal sense of entitlement that had come with inheriting control of the Bradbury family business long before he was ready for it.

Asa hadn’t been ready for it, either. But at least he’d been smart enough to do whatever it took to learn how to be a ruthless mountain drug lord before the circling wolves could take him out.

One of those lessons was about the folly of mercy. Mercy was a sign of weakness. There was no place for mercy in the world in which Asa and his family lived. So the girl had to face the tribunal. And her protector had to be eliminated.

That was the law of the hills. The law of the Bradburys.

Swallowing a sigh of frustration, Asa reloaded his Winchester .700 and followed his kinsmen into the woods.

* * *

A
BULLET WHIPPED
past Hunter’s ear and hit the tree beside him, sending wood and bark shrapnel flying. A splinter grazed his forehead but he kept running, pushing Susannah ahead of him as they scrambled through the underbrush, heading deeper into the forest.

The straighter path to the place where he’d left the SUV would have been to head right over the bald, but the dearth of trees would have made them easy targets for whoever was behind them taking potshots. They were lucky to have gotten a head start; if the person snapping off rounds at them were better with that rifle he was wielding, they might both be dead already.

“Left!” Susannah threw the word over her shoulder, letting the cold morning breeze carry the word back to Hunter as she jogged left, into a dense thicket of mountain laurel bushes. He had to fight his way through, with no time for stealth or hiding their trail. He wasn’t sure there was any way to sneak out of these woods without the Bradburys following them.

But apparently Susannah had a different idea. Almost as soon as they’d reached the middle of the mountain laurel thicket, she stopped, tugging him to the ground with her. They crouched there, trying to slow their breathing and listen for any sign of their pursuers.

After a long spell of silence, Susannah reached for his hand, closing her fingers tightly around his. In the pale light of predawn, her eyes reflected the first faint rose hues of sunrise, dark with emotion. “I was so scared,” she whispered.

He cupped her cheek with one hand. “I know. I’m sorry I let them take you, but—”

“But you came after me.” She slid her hand over his, holding it in place. “I thought I saw your eyelids move, when you were lying there, but I wasn’t sure. I started to second-guess myself. I was so afraid you were really hurt, and I’d left you there to die—”

He touched his forehead to hers. “I’ve got a hard head.”

She fell silent for a few moments, just letting him hold her. Finally, however, she pulled her head away from his, drawing a deep breath. “They’re out there. I can’t hear them, but I can feel them.”

“I know.” He felt them, too, like a gathering storm.

“You said you have backup?”

“They’re on the way. I called them in as soon as I spotted the cabins.”

“How did you know where to look for me?”

“Honestly? I didn’t.” He’d never felt more helpless in his life than he’d felt as he crouched there on the edge of the clearing, wondering how on earth he was supposed to find Susannah and get her away from the Bradburys without getting both of them killed. “I was sneaking around the cabin, trying to see if I could find any sign that you were even there, when I almost stumbled over the root cellar doors hidden in the high grass. The door itself was faded and weathered, but the padlock holding it shut looked shiny and new. Got me to wondering.”

She flashed him a quick smile. “Smart man.”

God, he wanted to kiss her. It was the worst possible time for sentimentality, but he was so damn glad to see her still alive and well.

“I think we’re going to have to make a run for it. Before they have time to surround us,” he said.

“What if we’re already too late?”

He brushed her jaw with his fingertips. “It’s a chance we have to take. Ready?”

She stared at him, her eyes wide and scared. But her jaw jutted forward, her expression made of solid mountain granite. She gave a short nod. “Ready.”

He pushed to his feet, tugging her up with him.

And six rifles cocked in a stutter of metallic clicks, their long barrels surrounding Hunter and Susannah on all sides.

Chapter Seventeen

“Take her back to the cabin.” Asa Bradbury spoke in a low, bored tone that sent a hard, racking chill down Susannah’s spine. “I’ll take care of her friend.”

“No!” She took a rushing step toward Asa, but Hunter’s hand closed around her arm, pulling her back.

“Go with them,” he said quietly.

“No!” She wrapped her arms around him tightly, trying to surround him completely with her body. “If they’re going to kill us both, then they can damn well kill us together.”

“Very touching,” Asa drawled, as tonelessly as if he were remarking on the weather on a mild day.

She shot a look at him over her shoulder, hating him in a way she never had before. She’d been running and hiding from Asa and his kin for years, but she’d never hated him the way she’d hated Clinton. She’d always seen Asa as collateral damage, the Bradbury who’d gotten sucked into this blood vendetta against his will.

But looking at him now, seeing how little he cared about her life, one way or another, she finally understood what the philosopher Hannah Arendt had meant when she wrote of the banality of evil. Under any other circumstances, Asa Bradbury might have been an ordinary man, living an ordinary life, not hurting anyone and maybe contributing something meaningful to the world.