Wild on You (30 page)

Elrod seemed to consider what she was saying. Not that Risk bought that for a second. “It might work if I believed you. The problem is that you’re way too fanatical to let any of this go. Besides, I’ve been looking forward to this ever since you turned me in. And every day I sat in jail, I thought about how I was going to make you pay.” He tipped his chin toward Risk. “Wasn’t figuring on him, but I’ll consider him a bonus. You two relax in there. You’ve got a couple of hours before nightfall. Then the fun begins.”

Elrod pulled out his phone and dialed. When someone on the other end answered, he said, “Hey, Roger. It’s Walt. I’ve got a hunting opportunity for you. It’s class C, so no surprise, you gotta do it tonight.” Elrod punched a button and cued the guy up on speaker. “You hear me, Rog.”

“I’m listening.”

“This one’s going to be a challenge. He’s a former SEAL.”

Risk could hear the guy guffaw on the other end. “Elitist sons of bitches. I’d be happy to show him what Army can do. But how in the hell’d you get a SEAL? And I presume you mean the human kind and not the sea mammal.”

Elrod laughed, his gaze on Risk. “Look, it don’t matter how I ended up with him. I need him gone. But I figured I’d make it an opportunity for someone like you who’s itching for a real challenge.”

“Not to mention an opportunity for you to make some bucks. How much?”

“Twenty grand. Body disposal included. You hunt to your heart’s content and walk away with clean hands.”

“Twenty grand? You’re a fucking robber. It’s not like I’m going to get a trophy or bragging rights.”

“But you get to go hunting like you haven’t since you were court-martialed for shooting those civvies. Hey, I’m not twisting your arm. I have a couple of other guys who’d be happy to jump on it. I don’t offer this kind of shooting very often.”

Which meant he’d offered it before. Risk thought about the missing man. And the ex-wife, who probably had not sent Addie the link.

“Son of a bitch,” Roger grumbled. “All right, I’m in.”

“No crossbow. Too much blood loss at the kill site. But you can chop him up over at the pig yard if you want some bloodletting.”

That was how Elrod got rid of the bodies—fed them to the pigs. How many had he murdered here?

“Sounds good to me.”

“You want him wounded? Blinded? Drugged? He’ll be chipped, but we can’t let him get away. He’s not going to be some mechanic with minimal survival skills, like your wife’s lover.”

“I can take him full-bodied. Hell, I’ll have a gun and night vision goggles.”

Cold dread climbed up Risk’s spine. He’d be virtually blind while that son of a bitch was going to have a clear green view.

“Don’t get too cocky,” Elrod said. “Just to be on the safe side, I’m going to put you over in Quadrant Two, smack-dab in the middle of the property. He’ll have a long way to go before he gets to the road, and we’ll have him by then.”

“I like Three. There’s too many rocks and drop-offs in Two.”

“Makes it challenging. Besides, I’ll be hunting in Two. And I don’t want my prey dropping into some crevice and breaking her leg. I want her running till she can’t run no more.”

Addie. He was talking about Addie. That dread clamped around Risk’s throat and threatened to choke off his air supply. He met her fearful gaze.

Roger laughed like it was some damned joke. “ ‘She,’ huh? Is this another bitch threatening to take the kids and the house?”

“Nope. And that’s all I’m saying about it. Get here by nightfall. The hunt is on.” He disconnected and looked at his two thugs. “Sheriff said he has their friend in custody. He’s putting up a big fuss, demanding his phone call. Sheriff’s stringing him along, but eventually he’ll have to process him. Sheriff’s already told the guy how little Miss Wunder here escaped and is on the lam.” He chuckled. “A damned shame, that. Don’t she realize there are all kinds of predators in the woods?”

Doug pointed at Risk. “What about him? Someone’s gotta know he was coming here.”

“He got his license, as the boys can attest, but didn’t show at the pickup point. The only ones who saw our truck are Wunder here and the guy at the sheriff’s office. People die in jail, you know. They tussle with the deputy and get shot.”

Risk went even colder. Did Chase have any idea what was going on? If he didn’t hear from Sax soon, Chase would probably come up. By then it would be too late.

Elrod stood next to the switches on the cave wall. “Miss Wunder, you’ve been trying to educate me on how I shouldn’t be hunting animals the way I do. Well, I’m going to educate you. You’ll get to experience exactly what they do.” He doused the lights. “See you two in a bit,” he called, as though he would be fetching them for dinner.

She clutched Risk’s shirt. “They’re going to hunt us!”

He moved his mouth next to her ear. “Shh. I want to make sure they’ve left.”

Footsteps and voices drifted farther away. They were talking about grilling up some deer sausage and steaks just before they faded to a murmur. Risk had been in dark places before, having to determine the enemy’s whereabouts with his other senses. He heard nothing else. “I think it’s clear.”

“What are we going to do?” Even through her panic, he heard hope. Good. She couldn’t afford to give up.

“Our best bet is to get out of here long before they come back. It looks as though the cage is sitting on the ground. Help me try to push it over.” He guided her hands to one side and placed them on the bars. “On the count of three. One. Two. Three.”

He put everything into it. From the sounds of exertion beside him, so did Addie. The thing wasn’t budging. After three more tries, he said, “Rest for a minute.” He felt his way to the corner of the cage and dug in to the hard dirt about an inch. “The bars go into the ground. Help me feel around and see if there are any loose bars. It looked pretty solid, but it’s worth checking. Watch your head. It’s not tall enough for me to stand.”

When he helped her to her feet, she stopped abruptly. “Me, either.”

“Go to your left; I’ll check the right side.”

He could hear her soft gasps as she put effort into the task. “They’re solid,” she said at last.

Not one sharp edge to cut his plastic ties with, either.

“Same here.” He sat down and trailed his finger along the solid edge of metal at the bottom of the cage wall. “Maybe not all the bars go into the ground.” He dug his finger in again and found a few minutes later that he was right. “We can dig under the flat bar in the middle.”

“Except the ground is as hard as concrete.” She made grunting sounds as she tried to dig. “I can use the edge of my cuffs as sort of a shovel, but it would take all night. And we don’t have all night.” He heard hopelessness.

He was having as hard a time as her, maybe more so because his fingernails were short. He pulled her close by looping his arms around her. She let out a soft breath and sank against him, her cheek on his chest. He kissed the top of her head. She lifted her mouth to his. He found solace in the feel of her tongue against his, her body next to his. And renewed determination.

“We’re going to dig. It’s the only way out.” He pulled her to a sitting position beside him. “Using our heels. Put your hip next to mine so we’re digging one hole together.”

Her body moved against his as she kicked at the dirt. At first it was like digging in concrete, but the earth loosened and started breaking free. Periodically he’d call a halt and feel their progress. Their fingers would collide in the dirt—and the hole.

“We’re doing it!” she said on a whisper.

Then they went back to work.

Addie kicked and shoved piles of dirt between the bars, Risk doing the same beside her. Every so often he leaned over and kissed her temple. That simple gesture said,
Hang in there. We’re going to make it. I love you
.

He hadn’t said that he was in love with her, not those exact words. But as she ran through what he’d told her about how being with her was a thrill more exciting than soaring off a cliff, a steady thrum, she realized that was his way of saying it without spooking her. Because yeah, this thing between them did spook her. Or had spooked her. Now all those reasons for not letting it happen seemed silly.

Because she was in love with him, too. Not just a little, a lot. Like as big as those mountains he jumped from. She
had
to live through this and explore what being with this amazing man would mean. Like living her life, taking something for herself.

“Yes! Finally,” Risk said.

Had she spoken her thoughts aloud?

“I bit through the cuffs,” he said. “Mine are plastic ties.”

“Your hands are free?”

“Yep. I’ve been chewing them the whole time I was digging. Let’s check the hole.”

She leaned forward next to him, and their hands explored the width of it.

“I could slip through there,” she said, excitement soaring through her. “Could you?”

“I could manage it. We had to squeeze through gaps that looked no wider than my thumb. I exaggerate, but this I can manage. Let me go first, so I can pull you out.”

She could hear him grunting as he pushed his way through. Even with her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she could see not a damned thing. Her chest was so tight with tension. She had no idea how much time had passed while they’d dug.

“I’m through,” he said.

She felt for the hole, then dove in hands-first. He clasped her wrists and pulled her out and to her feet.

She could hear the tiger cub moving in his cage. “Tigs …”

“We’ll come back for him, I promise. We have to look out for ourselves first.”

She nodded, then, realizing he couldn’t see her, said, “Okay.”

“Besides, he’ll be safer here than out there with a bunch of guys shooting all over the place.”

He kept his grip on her as they followed the dim light spilling from the cave entrance. She should have felt relief, but it was almost dark. Time for the hunt. The hunters would be coming this way anytime, with their guns.

She squeezed his hand as she remembered something. “Risk. He said we were chipped.”

“Hell. Transponders. I heard him say that, but with everything else, it didn’t even register.”

“They use a pistol-like device to inject a tiny tube through a needle.”

They stepped out into the woods, and Risk stripped off his shirt and ran his fingers across a cut in the center of his shoulders. “Can you see where they injected it? I felt a stinging pain, like a cut. I figured it was another injury from fighting them.”

Yes, a small, deliberate incision, barely discernible in the early-evening light that slanted through the trees. She pressed her finger below the cut. “I can feel it. Let me try to push it out.”

She used the edge of her nail to push the tiny glass tube out through the cut. It popped out, and she grabbed it from the dirt where it fell. “They may know we’ve escaped already.”

“We’re not far from the cave, and I doubt the device is that accurate. Still, we have to assume that they’ve seen more movement than the cage will allow. Turn around and let me extract yours.”

She stripped off her shirt and pointed to where she thought it was. “It felt like they
were injecting me with something, and I expected to feel a drug. Then I didn’t, and they dragged me into a freakin’ cave. I forgot all about it. Especially when I heard your voice.”

She felt him running his nail across her skin, and then he said, “Got it. Drop them right here.” He surveyed their surroundings, woods and more woods as far as they could see. Not helping was the scant bit of light left. “I don’t hear any highway traffic. We must already be in the middle of the property.” He pointed to where the dirt had been disturbed, broken twigs and crushed rocks. Not a road but definitely a sign that vehicles had been here a time or two.

“Should we follow it?” she asked.

“Probably not, because that’s the way they’ll be coming. But we can parallel it while staying out of sight.”

The hum of a vehicle in the distance shot her heart straight up in her throat. She struggled into her shirt, her fingers rubber. “Either they know we got out, or they’re back as planned.”

“We’ve got to scram.” He grabbed her hand, and they tore off into the woods just before the vehicles were about to come into view. Angry shouts meant they knew about the escape. Fear on top of exertion made it almost impossible to breathe.

Risk had a death grip on her hand. She was holding him back. He could run a lot faster without her. She didn’t have the breath to tell him to go on and try to escape. Besides, she knew he wouldn’t leave her behind. So she ran even harder.

The crack of a rifle rang through the air. She dared a look behind. She could see nothing, which meant they were shooting wild. But when it got fully dark, they would have all the advantage. As if they didn’t already have enough, what with knowing the layout of the land and having weapons.

It felt like someone had stabbed her in the side. She pinched the cramp as she ran. Risk threw her an
Are you all right?
look. She managed a nod.

ATV engines rumbled through the distance. They would never hear the distant sound of the highway over that racket. There was no escape!

Don’t give up. You have a lot to live for
.

Including that precious cub sitting in a dark cave whose fate would be this.

The woods seemed to grow darker by the second. She saw a flash of color through the trees. The fluorescent orange that signaled the hunters so they wouldn’t shoot each other. How many of them were out here? She’d guess at least half a dozen.

The ATVs grew louder. Risk jerked her behind a large oak tree and flattened himself against the trunk, covering her from view. His breath sawed in and out. Hers gushed in lung-crushing gasps. She sank down, unable to stand anymore, but stayed directly behind the tree trunk as an ATV whizzed past. She jabbed her fingers into her cramped muscle, forcing it to relax. That was the idea, anyway.

Risk had a plan. She could see it in his eyes, the intelligence and cunning he must have tapped so many times in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he had survived, she told herself. Because he was good. Hope surged again, wishy-washy bitch that it was.