Czytaj książkę: «Undercover Refuge»

Chapter 1

Detective Rush Atkinson was sure of two things. One. Someone was following him. And two. They were going to be sorry.

Gritting his teeth, he stepped a little harder on the gas. The Lada protested immediately. The lumbering old vehicle—built in 1972 and seemingly held together by sheer willpower alone—had a strong preference for moving at a slow and steady pace. It was good on the back roads and got the job done, and it usually suited Rush just fine. Of course, he wasn’t usually being stalked up a mountain road. If he’d thought that was even the vaguest possibility, he would’ve grabbed his second-favorite vehicle. A monster of a motorcycle that he’d pieced together with his own two hands. A source of pride.

“A source of speed, too,” he muttered as he took another quick glance in the rearview mirror.

He knew his look wouldn’t yield anything. Not on the straight patch of road. So far, he’d only caught glimpses of the car on the wider bends. It was a silver hatchback. One of those hybrid electric vehicles, Rush thought.

Strange choice for a stalker.

He didn’t really have time to muse on it. Or the desire to, as a matter of fact. He was supposed to be meeting with his “boss,” Jesse Garibaldi—aka the man he was trying his damnedest to put behind bars—in just under five minutes. He should’ve been early. Would have been early, if some fool wasn’t tailing him. No way was he going to make it on time now. He’d been trying to give the silver hatchback the slip since the second he realized it was following him.

“For your own good,” he grumbled at the unseen driver.

Really, he was doing them a favor. Garibaldi wasn’t the kind of man who welcomed uninvited guests. Not on this side of things, anyway. Inside the small town of Whispering Woods, he might be thought of as a businessman and philanthropist and an enthusiastic lover of tourists, but Rush knew better. The man was a murderer.

Fifteen years earlier, when they were both barely more than kids, the other man had killed Rush’s father and Rush’s friends’ fathers. Garibaldi had set off a pipe bomb at the Freemont City police station in order to destroy some kind of evidence. He’d been successful, and the three men who died were nothing more than collateral damage to him. A good lawyer had seen to it that he got off. Now, a decade and a half later, Garibaldi was entrenched in the small tourist-driven economy of the mountainside town. A pillar. But all of the goodwill and investment were a front for something more sinister. Using the truly good people of Whispering Woods, Garibaldi had set himself up with a tidy little drug empire. In came the heroin. Out went a series of doctored paintings, laced with the deadly mixture of opiates and paint, and no one was the wiser.

Except us, Rush thought grimly as he swung the wheel and veered off the concrete road and headed onto a small dirt-packed one.

Just a couple of months earlier, he and his partners had discovered Garibaldi’s out-in-the-open hiding place. They’d pieced together his method. Now, with two of his three partners holed up in Mexico, and the third on hiatus in Europe, it was Rush’s job to put the final nail in the coffin. Something he was eager to do. It was going to happen any day now, too. Garibaldi was organizing something big. A meeting with a buyer, Rush believed.

It was the perfect moment to make the bust. All he had to do was to get his pseudo-boss to trust him enough to disclose the details and include him in the exchange. He was well on the way there. In the short time since Rush had used his connections to secure a position on Garibaldi’s crew, he’d already risen from grunt man to enforcer to errand-runner.

Gonna be hard to get any higher than that if you’ve got a stalker tagging along.

He guided the Lada around a corner and took yet another look in the rearview. He wasn’t surprised to see the flash of silver through the trees. He still dropped a curse as he slowed down. Being wrong wouldn’t have been so terrible in this case.

Just up ahead, the road ended in a wide circle. It was a popular spot for seasoned hikers to the head up into the mountain. At the moment, Rush just wanted to use it as a U-turn. He’d circle back around, catch sight of whoever was at the wheel of the hatchback, memorize the details of their face, then head back into town so he could place a call to Garibaldi. His boss would be unimpressed that he hadn’t shown up, but it was better than the alternative, and Rush would come up with a good excuse. He was a smooth liar. A natural by-product of spending his entire career in undercover roles.

He tapped his finger on the steering wheel as he reached the wide crescent-shaped end of the road and used it to turn the Lada around. He pushed his foot to the gas again—more gently this time—and got the vehicle up to cruising speed. His hands tightened a little on the wheel, but other than that, he kept his body perfectly relaxed, betraying no hint of apprehension at the encounter that he knew was coming any second.

“C’mon, you little silver weasel,” he said under his breath. “Give me a good, five-second look.”

When the other vehicle didn’t immediately appear, Rush frowned. He was sure—so sure—that it had been tailing him. He would’ve bet his badge on it.

“So where the hell are you, buddy?” he muttered, slowing to a near crawl.

Maybe the driver’s trying to avoid a confrontation, he reasoned.

Lord knew he wouldn’t want to get in a fight alone in the woods with one of Garibaldi’s thugs if he could avoid it. And he was supposed to be one of thugs, so that was really saying something.

It wouldn’t be an easy feat to get away unnoticed, though. Aside from coming up the way he’d done himself—or maybe being pulled up in a spaceship’s tractor beam—there was no other way to simply turn and go.

Rush dragged his gaze back and forth, considering it. What would he have done if the roles were reversed? There were thick shrubs on either side of the narrow road, and deep ditches, too. He wondered if a smaller car could’ve managed a complicated turn. Or if the driver might’ve backed all the way out. He thought the latter would take too long, and the former would require both confidence and skill.

Or...you could just be wrong about being followed. He sighed and eased his foot off the brake pedal. Maybe the flash of silver was in your head. Or it was an animal. A gray wolf. Or a—

His thoughts cut off as he reached the end of the dirt road. There, hanging half in and half out of the ditch, was proof that his imagination hadn’t run wild. A silver Prius. And something unexpected. Someone unexpected. A woman, standing beside it.

Without meaning to, Rush ran his gaze over her. Toe to head instead of the other way around. Unconsciously drinking in her eclectic appearance.

On her feet, she wore a pair of flip-flops—dark brown and made of some kind of woven fabric. Her pants were loose, wide-legged, cinched at the waist with a string, and a color that reminded Rush of the beach. She had on a plain white T-shirt, which was far too large. She’d tied it in a knot just above her hip, and the collar hung off her shoulder, revealing a tantalizing expanse of skin.

As Rush lifted his eyes to her face, his throat went a little dry. He was close enough to see the frustrated look on her face. Close enough to note her perfectly arched brows and full lips. Her cheekbones were high and honey-kissed. Touched by a few loose tendrils of the darkest auburn hair, the rest of which was piled up in a loose bun. There was no denying her allure. So Rush didn’t bother to try. Especially since staring at her nearly made him lose control of his vehicle.

It was actually the jarring bounce as he hit a bump that made him come to his senses.

The woman wasn’t someone he’d met over the cantaloupe section in the grocery store. She wasn’t someone he’d locked eyes with from across the room in a bar. She was the person who’d stalked him. Followed him from who knew how many miles, for who knew what reason.

Maybe you should stop and ask?

The question pricked at him as he coasted by. It nagged at his conscience as he looked in the side-view mirror and saw her jaw drop open as though she was stunned by the fact that he wasn’t stopping. Her arms came up in a frantic wave. For a second, he wavered. He found himself fighting for a reason to stay. Then he forcefully reminded himself that as attractive as she was, and as helpless as she seemed, it was that very thing that made her all the more dangerous. Cynics like him knew that pretty packages didn’t always have pretty contents. And he stepped on the gas.

* * *

Alessandra Rivers watched, stupefied, as the man in the truck sped up, then kept going. She spun slowly to stare at the back end as it rumbled away.

Is he seriously just going to leave?

She stood still, certain he was going to turn around. He had to, didn’t he? Even if chivalry was out of fashion—and really, Alessandra wasn’t all that interested in being a damsel in distress, anyway—there was still some human decency to speak of, wasn’t there? What kind of person left someone visibly stranded on the side of the road like that?

And she was 100 percent sure he’d seen her. Even his mirrored sunglasses and his curved brim hat couldn’t hide the fact that his gaze had slid over her.

But the truck didn’t show any sign of coming back. No approaching engine. No renewed cloud of dust. And now Alessandra could feel a thick ball forming in her throat. Dread and worry. And threatening tears.

She drew in a breath and closed her eyes, trying to ward it all off. It was a hard sell.

She’d been lost on the back roads of Whispering Woods for a good fifteen minutes before even spotting the rusted-out hunk of junk and the stranger who’d just abandoned her. At first, she’d been so glad to see him that she actually forgot to react. By the time she’d stuck her arm out the window, he was gone. And she’d tried—hard—to catch up. But her Prius wasn’t much good on anything that wasn’t smooth, and every few feet she seemed to hit a deep pothole that inevitably made the car bounce, her heart pound and her teeth knock together. It didn’t help at all that the guy in the truck seemed to be on some crazy mission to take as many weird turns as possible. Alessandra had been relieved when he turned up the dirt path with the no-exit sign at the front.

But the relief was short-lived. It went straight down into the ditch along with the front end of her stupid little car. And hope followed it. Or maybe not followed it. Maybe the hope disappeared up the road along with Mr. Blue Truck.

With a frustrated exhale, Alessandra turned back toward her vehicle. She had a sudden overwhelming urge to kick the door. Multiple times. It was an unusual sensation, and not just because it was such an aggressive thing to want to do. Alessandra prided herself on having a very even temper. On channeling inner calmness and on projecting an outer peace. She wasn’t much into relaxing candles, meditation or yoga. Those had been her mom’s things. But when life went wrong, a few deep breaths and a reminder than she had a million things to be grateful for was usually enough. And even when that didn’t work, she always had her own inner strength to draw on.

Except today, she thought. And maybe every moment of the last two weeks.

Or to be more exact, the last thirteen days. Not that Alessandra was particularly superstitious, but that did seem a little coincidentally unlucky.

Thirteen days ago, she’d found the letter in an old box of her mom’s stuff. Tucked in between a box of incense, a bundle of sage and a pile of tarot cards. She’d only opened it because she’d recognized her father’s handwriting on the outside of the envelope, and she’d known exactly what it was. A love note.

Throughout her childhood, her father had left them scattered in secret places for her mother to find. Her mother had requested that the notes be buried with her, lovingly explaining to Alessandra that they were far too private to leave out in the world.

But when Alessandra had found this one, she’d felt no guilt at opening it. Not an ounce. She saw things like that as kismet. Meant to be. And really, she’d just been hoping to hear her dad’s voice in her head. Her mother had only been gone for two years, but he’d passed fifteen years earlier, and sometimes it was hard to remember him.

As Alessandra had unsealed the envelope, she’d been excited. But a first glance had changed the excitement. She’d been unsettled. Then surprised. And finally, stunned beyond all reason.

The paper was like a patchwork quilt. A hundred tiny pieces, torn up, then painstakingly taped together.

For a minute, she’d just stared at it without reading it, wondering why it had been destroyed, then considering the amount of effort required to reassemble it. When at last she did read it, squinting through the Scotch tape at the faded ink to make out the words, her breath had stuck in her throat. The content was a shock.

Dear Mary,

I can’t imagine what my death did.

I’d undo it if I could.

Do you remember our honeymoon?

I’ll live there. Always

Love you forever,

Randall

As she recalled the words again, a renewed trickle of fear made Alessandra shiver, and anxiety sent her heart rate spiking.

She questioned once more if the note held any underlying meaning. A secret message of some kind. It seemed like such an odd thing to write, then destroy. Had father done it himself because he never intended her mother to see the letter? Or had her mother been the one to do it? And if so...why?

From the moment Alessandra read the letter, things had only gone downhill. There was a police report that resulted in a friend’s supposedly accidental death. Then a fire at the surf shop Alessandra called home. And finally, an unexpected invitation to meet with an old family friend. Jesse Garibaldi. Who’d informed her that he now called the small tourist town of Whispering Woods home. The very place her dad referred to in his letter. Where her parents had spent the weeks after their private ceremony, and where they’d joked that Alessandra had been conceived. What were that chances that it was a coincidence?

She shivered yet again, a chill running through her in spite of the sun overhead.

“Don’t think about any of that,” she ordered aloud to herself. “Focus on getting out of this moment, then think about the rest.”

But it was a little hard to maintain a cheerful outlook with her car hanging half in a ditch. She couldn’t even tell herself that it was half out, and somehow put a good spin on it. Especially when she was unable to call for help. The first thing she’d done when she realized she was lost was to go for cell phone. But at the exact moment she pulled it from her purse, she’d hit a bump. The phone went flying. As she’d tried to grab it, she’d knocked over her coffee. And of course, the coffee spilled directly onto the phone. By the time Alessandra pulled off the road—which she should’ve done in the first place—the phone was nothing but a dismal black screen of death. And it still showed no sign of magically self-repairing.

Okay. Deep breath. Then make a list. What are the positives?

For a second, she couldn’t think of a single one.

“Well,” she finally said. “I’m not dead. So there’s that.”

But the thought was a little too dark to be truly humorous.

Alessandra looked down at her car again. She vaguely recalled things about ropes and pulleys and levers from high school science. But she had a feeling that trying to hoist a car out of a ditch was slightly more complicated than moving a paper airplane with a drinking straw and elastic band. A bit of a different scale.

“Okay, then,” she muttered. “I guess the only thing to do is to walk until I find some help.”

Wincing at the generally sorry state of her car, she climbed back into the ditch and leaned through the driver’s side door to grab her oversize patchwork bag from the front seat. She eyed her suitcase in the back seat, but decided to leave it. There was no way of knowing exactly how long she’d have to walk, and she didn’t want to weigh herself down too badly.

And besides that, she told herself, you’re going to be able to get help, and you’re going to get back here just fine. It’s not like a wild animal’s likely to come along and steal your clothes and toothbrush.

Feeling slightly more positive, she made her way out of the ditch back to the dirt road. She lifted her hand to shield eyes, glanced in the general direction of the sun and tried to gauge the time. Noon, maybe? And she thought she could tell which way was west. With a determined spin, she took a few steps. Then stopped almost immediately as a growl filled the air. Her eyes widened. She swallowed nervously and started to turn back to her car, half expecting to see that a bear or a wolf had taken an interest in her belongings. But aside from her familiar car, the ditch was as empty as it had been a moment earlier.

Then she clued in.

She closed her eyes and listened. The growl became a rumble, which grew louder and closer. And more familiar.

Slowly—not wanting to let herself give in to false hope—Alessandra opened her eyes and focused her attention toward the end of the road. Not really aware that she was doing it, she squeezed her fingers into fists and bounced a little on the balls of her feet.

Please, please, let it be him.

And suddenly, there he was. Or there his truck was, anyway. Barreling toward her at full, furious speed. Almost as if the fact that he was headed her way made the driver angry.

For a second, Alessandra’s feet stayed rooted to the spot, puzzlement outweighing worry. Why would he come back if it was just going to make him mad? As the truck got closer, dirt flying up hard, Alessandra’s brain gave her a little tap, and she realized that if she didn’t move, there was a good chance she might be mowed down. But she no sooner started to jump out of the way than the blue truck came to a grinding halt, and the driver’s-side door came flying open with a force that matched the speed at which the vehicle had approached. Quick and fired up. It was enough to freeze her again. It was also enough to send a sharp zap of curiosity through her. And the curiosity only deepened as the driver jumped out.

Alessandra watched as he planted his steel-toe boots firmly in the dirt and spread his dark-denim-clad legs hip distance apart, then just stood there, unmoving. She had the impression that he was assessing the situation. And maybe her, too. It was disconcerting, and an inexplicable sweat broke out on her upper lip. But she couldn’t seem to speak. So she just took advantage of the silent, still moment to look him over as thoroughly as he was looking over her.

He was lean, but not skinny. In fact, he had corded muscles on the lower half of his inked arms—just visible because he had his long-sleeved charcoal-gray T-shirt pushed halfway to his elbows. As she stared at the bit of exposed ink, a prickling heat built just under the surface of Alessandra’s skin. For a moment, the warmth threw her off. But it didn’t take long to realize the source. She—or her body, anyway—found him attractive.

She sucked in a breath, tried to calm her suddenly racing heart and forced her eyes to his face. He still wore the dark reflective glasses, and he had a ball cap emblazoned with a truck logo pulled down over his forehead. Even though his cheeks and chin were dusted with a salt-and-pepper beard, what she could see of his skin was smooth and at least as young as her own. The contrast, which created a slightly enigmatic look, did nothing to ease the quick thrum of her Alessandra’s pulse.

But then she spotted something that flew straight at her like a bucket of icy water.

One of the truck driver’s hands hung loosely at his thigh, fingers flexing. The other hand was poised over—but not quite touching—a shiny metal gun.