Dangerous Lover (12 page)

God, how she wanted it. But it didn't matter, not now. Tessa mattered. And Chet. Two lives snuffed out before their time. How could she even think about her own problems at a time like this?

She closed her eyes, and let her tears soak into Cory's shirt at the shoulder. She felt his strength surrounding her and tried to absorb some of it into herself. When the sobs began to wrack her body, he held her even tighter. But eventually, he lifted his head, and whispered, “People are starting to notice us. We should get out of here.”

She nodded, her face moving against his shirt. “This time I really do need you to drive.”

“All right.” He took her to her side, opened her door, and helped her get in. Then he went to the driver's side and got behind the wheel. “Where to? Back to the cabin?”

She couldn't seem to stop the flow of tears, but she nodded anyway. “But not for long. They know I called Tessa before I took off. It won't be long before they find out her husband had a cabin and come looking for me there. We should pack up some supplies and get out of there and warn my friends.”

He nodded. “And then what?”

“Then we're going back into those woods. And we're going to find anything that might need finding there. Anything the police might have missed. Anything that will lead us to the sonofabitch who stabbed you and murdered my best friend.”

“And then?”

She lifted her head, stabbed his eyes with hers. “And then he's going to find out what a huge mistake it is to piss off a Witch.”

“Damn. Remind me to make a note of that.”

“I'm not kidding, Cory.”

“I don't think for one minute that you're kidding Selene. Not when your eyes are practically burning holes in my skull.”

She turned and stared straight ahead, visualizing her friend's killer in her mind's eyes, and began to chant;

Her chant sent chills racing up and down Cory's spine. He literally shivered in the car. It wasn't just what she said, but the way she said it. The icy-cold, dead-calm tone of her voice. And the steely, faraway look in her eyes—as if she were staring into the face of the man she addressed with her curse. As if he could hear her.

Hell, maybe he could.

Cory reminded himself that he didn't believe in Witchcraft. Or at least, he was pretty sure he didn't. But right now, he thought, he would hate like hell to be on the receiving end of whatever kind of magic she was working. Because he had a feeling it was going to
do
something. And he didn't think it would be good.

 

Selene was moving at warp speed through the tiny cabin, gathering items up and shoving them at him while he stuffed them into the car. A pair of sleeping bags she'd found in the closet. An armload of Chet's clothing for him. Her backpack and a bag of food from the kitchen. A twelve-pack of bottled water. A pair of walkie-talkies. He loaded it all and came back for more.

She stood motionless in the middle of the living room, a pair of flashlights in one hand and binoculars in the other, her eyes wide and fixed on nothing.

“Selene?”

She blinked out of her stupor, shook herself. “Go. Go, go now!” And before she finished speaking she was running for the door.

He didn't have time to do more than follow and dive into the passenger seat even as she was slamming the car into gear. The tires were spinning before he got his door closed, and then they were in motion.

“What's wrong?” he shouted.

“They're coming.” At the end of the driveway he expected her to turn left, and head back down the dirt road as they had earlier. But she didn't. She veered right instead and took off as if the devil were behind her. She sped over the dirt road, heading uphill, swooping around sharp curves as they moved higher. And then she jerked the car into a bare spot on the shoulder, yanked the binoculars off the seat, and turned to aim them through the side window.

He followed her eyes and saw the cabin spread out below them, giving them a perfect view. A second later, she handed the binoculars to him.

Frowning, he took them and looked. “I'm not sure what I'm looking for…holy hell.” As he focused on the cabin, he saw two vehicles skidding to a stop in its driveway. A red sports car and a green Jeep. Men got out of the cars—he counted five of them—all of them carrying weapons. Shotguns, he thought. They fanned out, surrounding the place and moving in.

His shoulder slammed against the seat as she jerked the car into motion again, then he lowered the binoculars and turned to face forward. “How did you know?” he asked without looking at her.

“I don't know. I just did.”

He turned to stare at her as she drove. Her face was intense, her entire being, focused. “Where are we going?”

“Away.”

“From here?”

“From everything.”

“Don't you think we should call someone?”

“No signal from here. Check if you want.”

He didn't bother, because he was beginning to believe her. To trust her. More than that, he was beginning to believe she really had…something.

He reached around her, then, to fasten her seatbelt, which she hadn't taken time to do herself. When he did that, she sent him a look that was so tender he knew she'd read way more into the act than he'd intended. He didn't want her to get herself killed. Hell, that didn't mean he was buying into her soul-mate delusions. Sighing, he buckled his own and settled in for the ride. She didn't slow down for miles, but eventually she seemed to relax, though she still kept jerking her gaze between the rearview mirror and the road ahead. He had no idea where the hell they were. She took winding back road after winding back road, twisting, turning log trails that cut from one to the next. And then, finally, she pulled the car right up to a barn in the middle of nowhere that looked on the verge of collapse. Its paint was long gone, its boards a deep shade of aging gray. Its theme was broken boards and half a sagging roof. The other half had collapsed. The door, or what had once been a door, was barely hanging from its rusted track.

She stopped there and looked at him for the first time since he'd fastened her seatbelt for her. “We can stash the car in there. No one comes here. It won't be spotted.”

“And then what?”

“We hike to those woods where you were attacked.” She pointed. “This road borders the woods that are north of the falls. Other roads cut down to the eastern and western sides of the trees. So we check these out. See what we can find out here.”

“You think it's safe?”

“No.”

He frowned at her. She held his gaze. “But I don't think anywhere is safe for us right now. And it won't be. Not until we solve this thing.”

Lowering his head, he frowned. “You know, Selene, it's me these guys are after.”

“Not if Jimmy's theory is true.”

“Jimmy. Your sister mentioned him on the phone. He's a cop, right?”

“And my brother-in-law. He thinks these guys are looking to eliminate any eye-witnesses to that attack on you. He thinks they believe me to be one of them. And my friends, the women who were with me in the woods that night, they're in danger, too. As soon as we finish here, we have to get to where we have a signal and phone them. Warn them. I'm in this, Cory. And so are they. Nothing to be done about that.”

He was quiet for a moment. “I'm sorry. I really am.”

It surprised him when she touched his chin, lifting his head until he met her eyes again. “It's kind of pointless to apologize, Cory. This was fated.”

“I don't believe in fate.”

“Well, I predict that before this is over, you will.” She was beginning to doubt her own words, though. If he were going to feel anything for her, ever, wouldn't he have started to by now?

“Do you think we should go now, find a spot with a signal and call your friends first?”

“It does seem like the logical thing to do, but my gut is telling me this has to come first.”

“You always trust your gut?”

“Always.” Until now, she thought. He was making her begin to doubt herself for the first time. “Now let's see if we can get that barn door moved, okay?”

 

He nodded and got out of the car. Damn, he hated that she was still so convinced there was some universal force at work, throwing them together. Women and their romantic notions. He reminded himself of what she'd told him earlier. That she wasn't going to get all obsessed about him, that they should enjoy whatever happened between them for what it was, and let the chips fall where they would. And that they were going to have sex tonight.

That was, of course, before she'd learned about the murders of her best friends. Maybe that would cancel it out. Probably, he decided. She wouldn't feel like having sex when she was clearly in mourning, much less scared half out of her mind that she would be the next victim. Though she seemed far more concerned about her friends' safety than her own.

He got out of the car, and so did she. They moved to the barn door, which was hanging by one rusted roller. “I think if we pick up this side we can—yeah, that's it.” She helped him lift the door and they pushed and shoved the stubborn thing open until there was enough room to allow the car to pass. It wasn't easy, but she did her share. She was stronger than she looked.

They went inside the dark barn to make sure nothing was in the way. Old hay was scattered on the floor, and the air smelled musty and stale. As if it hadn't seen the sun in a very long time.

“Looks good,” he said.

She nodded and went back to get the car, then drove it inside while he waited there. She flicked the headlights on when she got to the barn door, pulled in slowly as he kept watch for any hazards. He signaled her when she'd cleared the doorway, and she cut the engine, shut off the lights, but didn't get out of the car. When he glanced inside to see why, she was removing clothes from her backpack, and putting other items into it. A couple of the water bottles, the flashlights and some other things.

Then she got out, slung it over her shoulder, and headed for the door. They managed to close it again with no little effort. Selene handed him her backpack, then snapped a branch off a nearby evergreen, and whispered a thank you—to the tree, he thought.

“What's that for?”

“Covering our tracks. We flattened the grass out here when we drove in.” She used the branch to sweep through the flattened grass, fluffing it again as best she could. She was thorough, and she was good.

When she finished she tossed the limb into a thick pile of brush, and reached for the backpack.

“I'll carry it,” he said. “So we're within walking distance of the falls, then?”

“Yeah. If you're used to walking.”

“I am.” He said it without forethought, and then wondered why. She only smiled knowingly, and led the way. He was surprised again when they emerged from the thick woods onto yet another dirt road.

“This doesn't look like the falls,” he said.

“It's not. But this road borders the stand of forest that ends at the falls, about three miles that way. The woods are triangle-shaped. The road near the falls forms the base, and this is the left side. Another road angles back to the falls road, five miles south.”

“So you figured we'd walk the boundary first.”

She nodded. “You're from out of town. You must have been in a vehicle at some point and you couldn't very well drive the car into the woods.”

“If it were sitting along the roadside, somewhere, the cops probably would have found it by now.”

“Probably. But I'm better at finding things than most people are. I'll see things—sense things—they might have missed. Trust me on this.”

He did trust her. More and more with every moment that passed.

“Before we go on, I need to do something,” she said. “If you can bear with me for a few minutes.”

He frowned, gave her a nod of assent, took a seat on a nearby tree stump. Selene came behind him and took something from the backpack. A pouch on a string. “What is that?” he asked.

“It was Tessa's. She left in such a hurry that night, she forgot it. The police got most of the things left behind, but this…I don't know. Somehow they missed it. I grabbed it before they took me in for questioning. I guess now I know why.”

“I don't.”