by Geri Krotow
“This is where we’ve got a big disconnect, Abi. This case is about more than my department, more than the resurrection of my career. This is about justice and sending a message to every damned creep out there that Silver Valley isn’t going to be hurt anymore.”
“Riiiight. Which brings us back to why you think you can go with me on this?”
“What says I can’t?”
They stared at each other in the harsh light coming from the old bulbs in the barn. Abi shifted on her feet. “Look, it’s getting lighter by the minute out there. I have this timed so that I can disappear into the woods without being seen by anyone. If you have to come along, fine, but the minute you show any signs of not taking my lead, you’re back in your station waiting for the alarms. Got it?”
“Got it.” He gave in more quickly than she’d anticipated.
“I mean, no funny business out there. No heroic moves. I’m going in to take out wherever Wise is hiding out in between his propaganda sermons.”
Keith held up his hands. “Look, I don’t even have a weapon. I’m here to help and give you muscle where you need it.”
She stared at him. Keith was a proven hiker, and he knew this area better than she did, no matter that she’d memorized maps, but those had nothing on years of experience and walking the land, knowing how too much rain could make a creek turn into a roaring river, how too little dried up any reference points related to tributaries.
He smiled. “You know you need me.”
More than she was willing to admit, especially to herself. Not with a mission to accomplish.
“Yes, I do. But we have to agree to focus on the mission now. Can you trust me that we’ll pick this up where we’ve left it then?”
His eyes sparkled. “I trust you with my heart, babe.”
Abi steeled herself against throwing herself into his arms and making love to him again. Both of their lives depended upon her staying centered.
“Great. Well. I could use your historic knowledge of the area. You’ve been hiking and camping here for, what, almost twenty years?”
“Twenty-two. We moved here when I was twelve.”
She sighed. The weight of what they were about to embark upon dowsed her earlier excitement. “I certainly can’t beat that. I have two extra bikes—pick one. I’d suggest the blue one, it’s the sturdiest. Do you have a bedroll?”
He lifted his pack. “Good to go. I packed for five days last week when Colt gave us our marching orders. Just in case.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course you did. I’m packed for three, so let’s hope we’re back in one.”
“It’ll take longer to smoke them out, don’t you think?”
“Yes, I do. And that’s okay—as long as we get to them before Wise starts his finale.” She didn’t have to say Three Mile Island or risk of nuclear meltdown. They both knew what they were fighting for.
They rode the bikes as far into the base of the mountains as possible, for a total of twelve miles from Abi’s house. It took them almost an hour and the sun was over the horizon as they stashed the mountain bikes under a grove of Leland pines and took to their feet.
“I was hoping to be at a higher elevation by now.” She shot Keith a glare.
“Now, now. You’re just sore because I was onto you. Abi, we made love in a way I’ve never experienced before. Where’s the tender lover from last night?”
She was right here, her body begging for more. But she had to keep both their bodies intact, safe.
“On hiatus.” She hoisted her pack higher and kept walking, using her compass to guide her.
Keith chuckled behind her, low and sexy.
She paused and looked back at him. “We should probably keep our voices down, right? Our voices will carry in this still air.”
Keith looked up at the sky through the tree canopy. “Yeah. It’s going to rain, too. Pour, if the forecast is correct.” He leveled his gaze on her. Would she ever tire of those blue eyes?
“Abi, getting wet will slow us down. If it starts to drop, we need to pop up a tent and wait it out.”
Getting wet. Oh, God, she was really going to have to pull out all of the stops to stay on a professional track here.
“I know. Let’s keep going and hope we’ll get close enough to where I think they are before then.”
There wasn’t a track to follow like the Appalachian Trail as they were way off any established path, just as she suspected the True Believer hideout was. But the area they traversed, while overgrown, offered them a wide enough swath to hike side by side for the next hour. They quietly shared their observations and thoughts, and Abi had a sense of firm purpose when Keith revealed he thought she was on target for the cult shanty.
“You know these woods better than I do, Keith. I have a GPS coordinate I’m heading for, but you know what the area looks like. Is there going to be a place to stake out that will be close enough to get the information we need?”
“By information, you mean figure out who’s coming and going, how many extra officers you’re going to need up here?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see where on the map you think it is. I saw your drawings in the dining room—is that where?”
“Close enough.” She held out her phone.
Keith took her phone and looked at the screen, then turned it sideways and enlarged it.
“Yup, I know the perfect spot to go to.”
“You agree I’m on the right path?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. I’m sure whatever intel you have led you here, but I can tell you that it’s wide and flat enough for snowmobiles and ATVs. Many parts of the AT hiking paths, and other local trails, could never be traversed any other way than by foot. Especially the solid-rock walls and boulder-pocked way up the mountain. They’re not going to use anything as obvious as the ski trails.”
Abi did have intel, as Keith said, but couldn’t share all of her information with him. It was part of the Trail Hikers code, not unlike working for the government. You only received information that you needed to, and it wasn’t to be shared with anyone else, even a Trail Hiker, unless necessary.
“I know I was being standoffish about your role in the investigation. I’m sorry, Keith. You are the best person to have with me on this.”
He stopped and looked at her. “You don’t have to patronize me, Abi. I’ll still make love to you with wild abandon.”
She slapped her hands over her mouth to keep her laughter from echoing into the woods and alerting anyone unwanted to their presence. As Keith watched her giggling subside, she felt the familiar heat rise between them. Heat she’d thought they’d taken care of last night. At least for a while.
But it would never be enough with Keith. He was one of a kind, and the connection they shared was one she’d never experienced before. It was more than sex and hot kisses, more than the right line delivered at the right time to make either one of them laugh. It was deeper. A kinship.
This is what falling in love is.
Before she had time to mentally wipe away the awareness, Keith had his hands on her cheeks, cupping her face, lowering his lips to hers.
This wasn’t like any of the kisses last night, the kisses that brought her emotions and sensations to a fever pitch and gave her the most incredible orgasms ever. This was tender, sweet and...loving. His lips and his tongue let her know that he wanted her, cared about her, was here for her.
But was it enough?
He lifted his face and sought her eyes with his own. “Abi, we’ve only just begun to get to know one another. I never thought I’d say these words to any woman, not now, and not especially in the middle of a case like this. But I’ve never wanted a woman the way I want you.”
Want. He wanted her. Well, just great.
“Let’s keep our focus
on finding these losers, shall we?”
Chapter 19
Claudia lay on the thin mattress, the frame of the pullout sofa poking at her ribs and back as it had last night, and the night before. Her four roommates were in various stages of falling asleep. Only after she was certain they were in deep REM could she risk going out and leaving her message.
The quickly written note lay in her front pocket. She’d gone to bed in the typical nightgown they were all expected to dress in—the kind her grandmother used to wear. Plain, flannel and left her covered from neck to toe. She felt like she was in a psychotic version of Little House on the Prairie.
It had been easy assimilating into the cult, proclaiming she was a believer from way back of Leonard Wise’s crap. She even said she’d had a relative from upstate New York who was in the original True Believer cult and his cronies had believed her. She hadn’t met him, only seen him at the compound once since she’d been here, at “sermon” night.
It was an awful mix of pathetic human beings seeking more than whatever life had given them, with power-hungry, spineless men who were also child molesters, if not in deed, then as accomplices. They all supported Leonard Wise and his insistence that the “community” give birth to new hope for tomorrow and the ever after: babies born to young girls who’d been basically sacrificed by their parents to be there.
Lucky for Wise none of the girls had been forced to have sex with the old son of a bitch yet, from what Claudia had found out. But the “night of sacrifice” was coming and there was talk about a special place the girls would be transported to.
She’d written it all out on the note, and hoped Rio and Abi would be able to do what was needed to keep the girls safe from harm. If Claudia got wind of Wise doing anything sooner, she was still prepared to end it all for the cult then. She’d take them out herself, with her bare hands.
Creeping slowly through the cramped trailer, she stepped over two of the women lying in sleeping bags on the floor.
Wise had also made a haven for mentally ill and homeless people. They were vulnerable and needy enough to accept whatever his terms were to enjoy food in their bellies, a roof over their heads. Claudia hoped that the county services would take good care of these folks once the cult was disbanded.
“Where are you going?” A vicious tone charged the whisper from a young girl who stood in front of her. She must have crept up from behind the narrow hallway that led to the back bedrooms.
“Vivian, I need you to be quiet or you’ll wake the others.” Claudia faked a wheeze. “I have asthma and I need some fresh air.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Fine, but make it quiet and quick.”
They left through the door nearest the front room, being careful to not let it slam behind them. Once outside, Claudia turned and faced Vivian.
“How old are you, Vivian?”
“Fifteen next month.”
Claudia’s stomach sank. “You’re only fourteen? And last night you were up in front of the community as one of the women who will be sacrificing for new life?”
Vivian nodded quickly. She didn’t look at Claudia in the moonlight, but the glisten of a single tear as it tracked down the girl’s cheek said everything.
“Your mother brought you here, didn’t she?”
Vivian nodded. “It’s not her fault, Sister Claudia.”
“No?”
“No. She’s been trying to keep it together since my dad died in the war, and then my younger brother got sick, and she can’t afford the medicine. This is the best place for us to be.”
“But you’re not living with her or your brother?”
Vivian sniffled and wiped her nose with the hem of her nightshirt sleeve. “No, they’ve made me come live here with the other girls until...until—” She stopped talking and her shoulders started shuddering.
Claudia placed her hands on the girl, trying to calm her. “Do you want to be here, Vivian, really? Do you want to be with someone like Leonard Wise?”
“No, ma’am.”
“It’s Claudia. And you can drop the sister part, too. How would you like to help me put an end to all of this nonsense, and we’ll work together to get your family a safer place to live and medical help for your brother?”
Vivian nodded. “What do you need me to do?”
“Follow me for now, and keep to the shadows. There are security men where we’re headed and we can’t let them see us.”
Claudia led Vivian to the outskirts of the trailer park. Vivian did exactly as she’d been told and was a natural at keeping her footfalls silent, staying away from the parking lights and beams of light that spilled out of other trailers.
It figured. The trailers that housed the men were still lit from within. Apparently the brothers of the society were allowed to stay up as late as they pleased.
“Stop.” Claudia held up her hand. “The guards are right over there, by the entrance. Do you see them?”
Vivian peered into the night. “Yes. But who are they guarding us against?”
“Good question. It isn’t important right now. What matters is that I get across the highway without them detecting me. Can you stay here, and if they look like they’re onto me, make a distraction to bring them back here?”
“What should I do?”
“I’m hoping you won’t have to do anything. But if you see them move to leave the park and go across the main road, call out to them and tell them you heard noises in the bushes over there.” Claudia pointed to an area behind them. “They’ll ask you why you’re out. Tell them that you were only outside of your trailer in order to go to your mother, to see her, when you saw a large figure run across the compound. They’ll believe you as long as you act afraid.”
“I am afraid of having to face them!” Their conversation was in whispers but Claudia didn’t want to keep talking—it was too risky.
“Can you do it, Vivian?”
The girl’s bottom lip trembled. “Yes.”
“Good girl. Now stay here, and don’t fret—I’m good at this. They’ll never know I was in and out of the park.”
Claudia used the same route she’d taken the last two nights, skirting the guards and going around the last grouping of trailers that was either empty or full of women and pitch-dark. The darkness aided her escape.
She’d set it up with Rio to check the boulder on the main highway right before the trailer park. There was a clump of wild lilies next to it, and she’d dug a hole the first night to put the note there, up against the flat side of the boulder.
Getting out of the park was simple, and she breathed a sigh of relief once she had the note in place. Running through the tall grass, back onto the gravel that signified the park’s boundary, she allowed a rush of satisfaction to put a spring in her steps. Who said more mature, retired Marines couldn’t get a job done?
Turning the last corner to meet Vivian, she halted in her tracks.
One of the guards had Vivian up against a trailer, his hand covering her screams.
Claudia gave him a hard hit to his kidney, then the other as he fell. Once he was on the ground, she crushed his balls with her foot.
She looked up at Vivian. “You okay, honey?”
Vivian’s huge eyes stared at her. She nodded.
“Then let’s get back to the trailer.”
* * *
“The next time we camp together, let’s opt for a more scenic route.” Keith slapped his forearm against the early infestation of mayflies that had decided to swarm exactly where they sat, under a large pine tree and behind a grouping of bushes that hid them from anyone on the wide swath of land laden with ATV tracks.
“It’s worth the bites to be able to catch these idiots.” Abi wasn’t ready to call it a night yet, but so far they hadn’t witnessed anyth
ing untoward and the sun was rapidly sinking on the horizon.
“We need to get some rest. I think tomorrow will be a long day.” Keith looked steadfastly forward, using his binoculars to scan the trail and the side of the mountain as it fell away below them.
“I brought my smallest tent.”
“Which is why we’ll use mine. I packed a double.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“Hey, we don’t have to sleep together if you’d rather not.” He lowered the binoculars and looked at her. “Seriously, Abi, as much as I can’t wait to be inside you again, I’m at your beck and call for this stakeout. Or whatever it is we’re doing.”
“We’re staking out, for sure. And if we’re lucky, we’ll do some apprehending.”
“I thought you said the police would take care of that?”
“They will, as will the FBI, when we’re going for the jugular on the cult. Until then, we have to be ready to do whatever. Well, I do. You’re not officially certified to participate in anything legal-wise.”
“Yeah. Trail Hikers–wise, I’m pretty much an observer, too.”
She sighed. “I know that it sucks for you, and I feel your pain. Trust me, it’ll feel just as good when all the arsonists are behind bars and we have Silver Valley back to its usual sleepy-town self.”
“Do you believe that, Abi?”
“That we’ll catch them? Hell, yes. That Silver Valley will ever be sleepy again? Probably not. But we can hope.”
He kept looking at her and she elbowed him. “Quit it.”
“I can look at you as long as I’d like to, Abi. It’s not harming anything.”
Maybe not, but it was making her wish they were out here camping for other reasons than a stakeout.
Keith laughed, low and throaty. “I can’t help teasing you. You are so damned beautiful. Do you know that?”
She looked at him and for the first time in her life, she did know it. “I can’t believe otherwise when you’re next to me.”
“Then we’re going to have to do whatever it takes to keep it this way. To move forward, next to one another.”