Hunted (4 page)

“You should take some, too,” she said. “Your back has to hurt from crashing through those tree limbs.”

It did, but there weren’t that many tablets left in the bottle. He’d save them for Chandler. “I’m fine.”

She sat down in the big rocking chair that he always used, holding the ice on her sore shoulder. She nodded at the book on the footstool. “You read Mr. Donovan, too?”

He nodded. Larry Donovan, Brody’s dad, had been a quiet man who stood a foot shorter than his son. He’d never heard the man raise his voice. Yet he wrote the most hair-raising, nail-biting suspense that Ethan had ever read. “Every book. He scares the hell out of me sometimes.”

“Me, too. I was afraid to even look at a chain saw after I read his last one.”

Molly crowded up next to her, just the way she always did to him. The dog whined and Chandler took the ice off so that she could reach out and pet her. She looked around the small cabin and smiled. “It looks just like I remember.”

He nodded. “Your great-grandfather knew something about building. Both cabins have really stood the test of time. They’ll be here a hundred years from now and probably look the same.”

She leaned back in her chair. “I’m grateful that you were here, that you were able to help me. Are you home on leave?”

He could tell her the truth, that he was on permanent leave because he wasn’t sure anyone trusted him anymore. Was sure that he’d lost
his
ability to trust. But he didn’t want to have that conversation. “I retired. Had my twenty years in.”

That made it seem simple. Reasonable.

She widened her pretty green eyes. “Really? So what’s next for you?”

“I’m not sure. My plans were to hang out here for a few weeks and then make some decisions.”

“Good for you,” she said. “Maybe you’ll go back to school?”

“Maybe.” There was no need to tell her that he’d acquired both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree online while in the service. With honors.

“Or look for work?” she continued on. “With your experience, you should be fine. I’m sure there’s a good job out there for you.”

Was that a note of wistfulness that he detected? Was her own job in danger? But that couldn’t be right. He thought he recalled Mack telling him that Baker had married Chandler’s boss. “How’s your work going?”

“Oh, fine,” she said quickly. “You know,” she added, waving her delicate hand, “if it was supposed to be fun, they’d call it play.”

He smiled. “I guess. You’ve been there quite a while, haven’t you?”

“Six years.”

“The company is a government contractor?”

“How did you know that?”

He shrugged, not wanting to admit that he always listened closely when Mack talked about Chandler. Maybe it was because he’d never had a little sister of his own. “I think Mack might have mentioned it.”

“We’re a vendor for the Department of Defense.”

“What do you do there?”

“I’m a computer analyst.”

“You followed in your dad’s footsteps,” he said, smiling.

“I guess. Computers have always just been easy for me.”

“I bet you’re good at it.”

She shrugged and then winced when it evidently hurt her shoulder.

“You want some more ice?” He hated that she was hurting.

“No.” She stood up. “But I am really tired. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll just go to bed.”

His mind conjured up all kinds of images it had no business doing. “I promised you a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich,” he said, grasping for the mundane. “And chocolate milk.”

* * *

C
HANDLER
SHOOK
HER
HEAD
. It sounded wonderful, but she hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she was tired. She hadn’t slept more than a couple hours over the past several days. “I’ll have it in the morning.” She walked over to the kitchen sink and dumped out her ice bag. “How do you think they’ll get my car out of the trees?” she asked, hoping her inquiry sounded casual.

“I imagine they’ll have to bring in a crane. It will take somebody who knows what they’re doing.”

Would it attract a crowd? Would the people who’d run her off the road have stuck around to make sure that she was really dead? What would they do once it was discovered that the car was empty?

Would they start looking around the area? How long would it take them to find her cabin? Ethan’s cabin?

She had to be gone by then. She couldn’t put Ethan in any danger.

“You don’t happen to have an internet connection, do you?” she asked.

He shook his head. “What do you need?”

One more look. Just one more chance to try to figure out if her imagination had been working overtime, like when she read Larry Donovan’s books. She didn’t think so. That’s what had sent her out of the office in a hurry just a few short hours ago.

She wanted to try to remote into her desktop. Not that she expected to be able to. If what she suspected was true, her computer privileges had already been revoked, all permissions associated with her username shut down.

Not having access would be a little more proof.

But then what would she do with it?

Confront her stepmother?

Tell her father?

Call the police?

She realized that Ethan was waiting for an answer. “Nothing important,” she said. “Well, good night.”

“We’ll have to put sheets on the bed in the spare bedroom.”

“Just a blanket is fine.”

He ignored her and proceeded to pull a shallow plastic container out of the closet. He took the lid off and then gathered up a bottom sheet, top sheet and a pillowcase. Then he pulled out a blanket.

She helped him put the bedding on the mattress—at least as much as her injured shoulder would allow—and she was struck by the easy familiarity between the two of them. It was as if they’d been making beds together for years.

“Thank you,” she said. She locked eyes with him and was pulled in by the intensity of his gaze. “I know how lucky I am that you were here tonight. I appreciate it, I really do.”

He stared at her and she felt her skin grow warm. The bedroom was small, dimly lit by just a bedside lamp.

“Ethan?” she said. Did he feel it, too?

He hesitated. “Just make sure you let Mack know that I was helpful,” he said, his tone light. He turned away. “Good night, Chandler.”

* * *

E
THAN
NORMALLY
ENJOYED
a beer around five o’clock, especially if it had been a particularly warm afternoon. And maybe with dinner, in the right surroundings, he’d have a glass of wine. He rarely drank late at night, though. But, he rationalized as he stood in the small kitchen, popping the top of a pale ale, the prospect of sleeping ten feet away from Chandler McCann would be enough to make a teetotaler reach for the whiskey bottle.

Why the hell couldn’t Mack’s little sister have grown up ugly? Or at least plain.

No. She was gorgeous and had a nice personality to boot.

She’d demonstrated tremendous composure when she’d been eighty feet in the air. Most men he’d known wouldn’t have been as brave. And her shoulder had to be hurting, but she wasn’t complaining.

She could have easily died tonight. That made the beer in his stomach roll and he set the bottle down.

He lay down on the couch and waited for Molly to jump up, to stretch out, to take up way more space than she should have. But she didn’t move away from her spot outside the door of Chandler’s bedroom. She rested her head on her paws.

He closed his own eyes, strangely content that both he and Molly were watching over Chandler.

He didn’t wake up until a blast, loud and sharp, had him literally jumping off the couch. For a second, he thought he was back in the military, flying at night, and that his bird had been hit.

He got his head back in the present moment, went to the door, opened it and looked outside. The snow that had threatened all day had started to fall. There were already several inches on the ground. But when he looked up, he could still see the smoke. He judged the distance and whirled when he heard a noise behind him.

Chandler stood in the hallway. Her dark hair floated around her shoulders and the T-shirt that he’d given her hit her mid-thigh. Molly stood next to her, her nose in the air, her body on full alert.

“What was that?” Chandler asked, her voice rusty with sleep.

He stared at her. There wasn’t any easy way to say it. “I could be wrong, but I think your cabin just blew up,” he said. He ran his fingers through his short hair. This was all his fault. He’d known there were people who held grudges. He’d read the anonymous letters.

Had one of them snapped?

He was supposed to be staying at the McCann cabin. His mail was still getting delivered there. A reasonable person would have assumed he was there.

She still hadn’t said a word. He couldn’t blame her. If he was right, she’d just lost something that had been in her family for generations. She would hate him when she learned the truth.

She slowly walked toward the door and looked past him. Smoke was continuing to billow up into the sky. Molly crowded in next to them but the dog, finally showing some sense, stayed inside the cabin.

Finally Chandler turned to him. Her eyes were dark with pain. “I think I’m in trouble. Real trouble.”

Chapter Four

He closed the door. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know you asked me earlier if I was in trouble. And I said no. I lied, okay? And we can talk that to death once we’re out of here. But now, we have to go. Once the fire spreads, the road out will get blocked.”

He shook his head. “I hope not. This snow will help. Plus, we’ve had rain all week, leaving the ground pretty much saturated. We may get lucky.”

Please, please let him be right.
If the fire spread, not only would it make escape more difficult, but the Donovans would lose their cabin, too. One more senseless loss. It made her sick to think that her family’s cabin was gone. They had spent so many good years there. Mack would be really upset when he heard.

Of course, he’d have been a lot more upset if she or Ethan had been inside when it happened.

“I hope you’re right,” she said. “But even if it doesn’t spread, it’s going to get some attention. I know there aren’t any other cabins near here but I think that blast could have been heard for miles.”

“No doubt.” He looked at her expectantly.

He wasn’t going to be happy until he had every last detail. Great. Maybe it would start to make sense if she verbalized the thoughts buzzing in her brain.

“What would cause that kind of explosion?” she asked.

“I’m not an expert on that,” he said. “But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s one of two things. Somebody may have launched a small device into the cabin and it exploded upon impact. Or, maybe somebody placed a bomb at the site, set on a timer.”

Had the people who had run her off the road known the location of the McCann cabin? Neither it nor the Donovan cabin could be seen from the road.

Her stepmother had never been there but she’d certainly heard about it. Maybe had put two and two together and come up with four.

Had Ethan’s invitation to spend the night at the Donovan cabin screwed up Claudia Linder McCann’s math?

It would have been a safe bet to assume that Chandler was headed toward the cabin. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that her stepmother had somehow managed to get a bomb planted at the cabin in advance of Chandler’s arrival. This was a woman who had turned a small at-home business into a multimillion-dollar operation. She was smart. She got things done.

Had someone planted the bomb and been headed back to the interstate when they’d happened to pass her on the road? Had they improvised? Figured that the mountain road presented an opportunity that they couldn’t ignore?

They wouldn’t necessarily have gone back to remove the bomb. That would have been a big risk if somebody had heard the accident and come to investigate. They’d probably just kept driving.

Or had they?

Ethan’s other idea of how the fire might have started scared her to the point that she could hardly form a coherent sentence. A bomb launched from somewhere? That had to mean that the bad guys were somewhere close, perhaps watching the area. If she and Ethan tried to escape, would they see them and realize that they hadn’t killed Chandler?

It made her want to hide under her bedcovers. But that was even more dangerous because the explosion had probably already been reported. Responders would be on their way. She couldn’t wait around for somebody to realize that nobody had been inside that cabin.

“I promise that I will tell you everything I know,” she said. “But, please, can we just get away from here first?”

He stared at her, his dark brown eyes intense. Then he gave her one short nod.

She ran for the bedroom to get dressed.

“Grab your sheets and blankets,” he yelled after her. “No need to advertise that we were here.”

That was smart. She pulled her jeans back on. She tucked in Ethan’s long T-shirt, which kept the still-damp denim away from her skin. Then she pulled on her shirt.

After yanking the sheets off the bed that she’d made just hours before and hastily folding them and the blanket, she went back out to the living area and saw that Ethan had already pulled out the tote and put his bedding inside. She dropped her armful in and started to push it back into the closet.

“Leave the sheets on the floor. Keep the blankets in the tote,” he said. “It’s supposed to get really cold tonight. We may need them.”

“Okay.”

He walked into the small bathroom and she could hear him opening and closing drawers. Within a minute, he was back in the living area carrying a small duffel bag and a backpack, both slung over the same shoulder. He had the towel that she’d used when she’d showered wrapped around his neck.

It was crazy but it made her warm to think that the same towel had been pressed up against her naked body just hours earlier.

He set the duffel bag down, unzipped it and pulled out a dark sweatshirt. Along with it came a banking envelope that appeared to be stuffed with cash.

“Wow. What did you do? Rob a bank?” she teased.

Without looking at her, he grabbed the fat envelope and stuffed it back inside the duffel. Then held out the sweatshirt. “It’s cold outside. You better put this on underneath your jacket.”

He clearly didn’t intend to explain the money. No problem. She had plenty of other things to worry about. She slipped the sweatshirt over her head and rolled up the too-long sleeves. “Thank you.”

Ethan picked up Larry Donovan’s book. He walked over to the bookshelf, where there were at least forty other books. He squatted down and seemed to study the titles for just a minute. Then, very quickly, he pulled two books out and put them upside down at the end of the first row. Then four more upside down at the end of the second row. Two more upside down at the end of the lowest row.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

He just shook his head before grabbing an empty box from under the kitchen table and very efficiently emptying out everything that was in his cupboards and refrigerator. It wasn’t much but she saw the eggs and bacon and regretted that she’d turned down the sandwich earlier. It had been many hours since she’d eaten.

He carried the box and set it next to the door. Then he went to the closet. After pulling out his jacket and putting it on, he reached inside again and came out with a bag of dog food. He added that to the box. Then he reached for the top shelf and pulled down two guns and several boxes of bullets. He put the ammunition in the box, next to the ketchup and mustard.

She wasn’t surprised to see the weapons. Her dad had always kept guns in their cabin. It was an isolated area full of wildlife. Baker McCann had believed in being prepared.

She didn’t know if Larry Donovan kept the guns in the cabin or if Ethan had brought them there. She didn’t care. She was just thankful.

“Should we make sure they’re loaded?” she asked.

“They are,” he said with confidence. Again, he put his backpack and duffel over one shoulder and swung the rifle strap over the other. He gripped the handgun, keeping the short barrel pointed at the floor. “How’s the shoulder?” he asked.

“It’s fine. But maybe I’ll take a few more pain relievers. Just in case,” she added.

“Right.” He waited until she’d gotten a glass of water and taken her pills. Then he nodded his head toward the box. “Can you handle the tote and that box?”

She suspected that he wanted to keep his hands free to deal with whatever waited for them outside the cabin. She was grateful that he seemed to be firing on all cylinders because her mind was still whirling with the knowledge that she’d be dead right now if she’d been in her cabin as she’d planned.

“Absolutely.” She set the box on top of the tote and picked them both up. Then she went to stand by the door, immediately joined by Molly. She could feel the animal’s excitement, as if she somehow knew the situation had changed.

Ethan came and stood next to her, carrying the large flashlight that they’d used before. On a hook next to the door was a red lanyard. He removed it, attached it to the ring at the end of the flashlight and then hung it around her neck. In the process, the back of his knuckles brushed against her collarbone.

She sucked in a breath of air. Those same hands had guided helicopters in military combat zones, no doubt with razor-sharp precision and confidence. Now they simply felt warm and full of life and she desperately wanted to grab one and cling on.

It was a good thing that her hands were already full.

A quick glance around the room told her that they’d done a good job of erasing any sign that the cabin had recently been inhabited.

She shifted the box to one hip, freeing up a hand to reach for the door. He stopped her with a shake of his head.

“Turn the light off before you open the door. Don’t turn on the flashlight until we reach the truck. Stay close to the cabin and we should be okay.”

The knowledge that he was also worried someone might be close terrified her, but she swallowed hard, determined to stay calm. Her wailing in fear wouldn’t help anything.

He went out the door first. The snow was coming down hard, practically sideways. It would be very difficult for anyone to see them, even if they were close. That knowledge helped her to keep moving, one foot in front of the other. The air smelled of smoke but there was no visible fire, making Chandler think that Ethan had probably been right and the fire hadn’t spread.

He hugged the side of the cabin and she sensed, rather than saw, his progress. She stayed behind him and practically ran into the truck before she saw it. He opened the passenger-side door. “Get in,” he whispered.

She slid onto the seat, pushing several folded newspapers out of the way, and almost yelped when Molly jumped in and over her, taking the middle of the seat.

“I’ll take those now,” he said, reaching for the tote and the box. She handed them over and heard a scrape behind her as he put the items in the back of the open truck bed. When he got in the driver’s side, she realized that he’d put his duffel bag and backpack in the back, too. And the rifle. He’d kept the handgun and the ammunition and he placed both of them under his seat.

“Doing okay?” he asked.

Hell, no.

“I’m good,” she said. “Will your things be okay in the back? Nothing will fly out?”

“Not at the speed we’ll be traveling. It’ll be okay once we’re on the highway, too. I strapped everything down.” He started the truck and she heard him unzip his jacket. Then the towel that he’d had around his neck, which was still mostly dry because he’d protected it from the snow, was in her lap. “Dry off,” he said. “Then you may want to use it on Molly. Otherwise, every time she shakes, it’s going to be another shower for the both of us.”

“I’m going to be forever grateful to Molly,” she said, rubbing her face dry. “She found me. Are these newspapers for her?”

“No.” He flipped on his windshield wipers and cleared the windshield of snow. That’s when Chandler realized that the weather must have started with freezing rain or sleet because there was a thin layer of ice on Ethan’s windshield. He turned on the defrost. “I realize that it’s rather old-fashioned, but I still like to read a newspaper.”

“Me, too. My dad always read the newspaper. Front to back.”

“I know. Ready?”

She nodded.

“Good. Let’s get the hell out of Dodge,” he said. “I’m not going to use my lights. Can you shine the flashlight on the road? It should be enough for me to see a couple feet ahead but won’t be as visible from a distance as truck lights.”

Chandler couldn’t imagine that they were going to attempt to navigate icy, snow-covered winding roads with only the aid of a flashlight. They were dangerous on dry days in broad daylight—much less in a bad winter storm in the middle of the night. But she kept her mouth shut. She pulled the strap of the flashlight over her head, gripped it in her hand, leaned forward with one arm braced on the dash and lit the way.

It was barely a dent in the darkness, but evidently enough for Ethan.

When they passed the road that would have led them to the McCann cabin, she turned in her seat, wishing that she could have a closer look. “I wonder how bad it is.” Her father was going to be so sad about the loss.

“I’ll come back and check,” Ethan offered. “But first I’m going to get you out of here.”

She put her hand on his arm. “You can’t come back. It’s too dangerous.”

“Nobody will even know I was here.”

“I thought you flew helicopters. Not that you were some super-duper spy.”

He turned his head. “Super-duper? Not hardly.”

He was selling himself short. She didn’t know much about his military career, but she remembered overhearing Mack and her dad talking about Ethan and that he was frequently in the middle of heavy combat situations.

“If you’re going to circle back, I’m coming, too.”

He didn’t respond.

“Ethan,” she prompted.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I have to,” she said simply. “I have to see it with my own eyes.”

She heard him sigh. “Okay. But for now, we’re both getting the hell out of here. There’s going to be a lot of activity and I don’t want somebody to stumble over us by chance.”

When they came to a fork in the road, she expected him to go right. Instead he turned left.

“Where are you going? The highway is that direction.”

“This is the back way out. Emergency vehicles will come in on the other road and I don’t want to meet up with any of them. This road isn’t as good but the truck will handle it. I’m counting on the fact that most people don’t even know it’s here.”

She hadn’t known about the road but then again, it had been years since she’d been at the cabin. Hopefully whoever was after her didn’t know about it, either.

He was right about the quality of the road, which was really more of a path, with big ruts and snow-filled holes. Her car would have never made it. It was work just to keep the flashlight steady, and with each dip and sway, Molly’s wet body slid on the seat, crowding close to either her or Ethan.

They crept along at fifteen miles an hour for another mile or so. She knew it was the fastest Ethan could go without much light on a road that was almost washed out in places.

“I never knew you drove a truck,” she said. It was mindless chatter but she couldn’t stand the silence broken only by the
swish-swish
of the windshield wipers.