Deadly Christmas Pretense

by Dana Mentink

  “Tink, did you hear that?” she whispered.

  A tuft of white fur, followed by a pink nose, popped out of the nylon dog carrier she had strapped to her chest. Tinker Bell sniffed the air before ducking back inside her cozy quarters.

  “Some help you are,” Mary Grace grumbled affectionately, but she didn’t blame her dog. Mary Grace’s own nose felt like an icicle and her toes were freezing to the point of pain. She owned decent outerwear, but nothing in her closet would have kept her warm in this brutal weather.

  She strained to hear something, anything, but the vast forest remained quiet. She turned and slowly moved upward, praying earnestly that she was headed in the right direction. Huge pine trees heavy-laden with snow-covered limbs towered above her like skeletons in the waning daylight. Shivering inside her ski jacket, she prayed she’d find Mountain Man soon—and what kind of a name was that?—because there was a real possibility of her and Tink freezing to death if she didn’t locate the cabin Sheriff Hoyt had described.

  It was her stepbrother’s fault that she was in this untenable situation, hiking into the wilderness in the dead of winter. The day after she found the note Bobby had left her, telling her she was in danger and needed to find the Jackson Hole Mountain Man, she’d sensed someone following her. On the way home from a press briefing at the White House that evening, a car tried to run her off the road. It was no accident. She was afraid to contact the police because of the warning in Bobby’s note, advising her not to trust anyone inside the Beltway.

  She’d tried repeatedly to get in touch with her brother, to no avail. It was as if he’d fallen off the face of the earth. His boss at Langley would only say that Bobby had requested a leave of absence, but as she well knew, the CIA was in the business of keeping secrets. And as a White House press correspondent for FBC, Future Broadcasting Company, it was her job to uncover them.

  Mary Grace stopped, took a deep breath and scanned the area. Visibility had dwindled even more. Nothing but snow, ice and trees surrounded her. A deep, scary-looking ravine dropped off to her left. There was no cabin in sight and she was chilled to the bone. What if once she found the cabin, Mountain Man wasn’t even there?

  With no signal for GPS, she pulled her compass out of her pocket and checked it once again. According to what the sheriff had said, she should be close to her destination.

  Tinker Bell popped her head out of her carrier and barked, and a split second later, Mary Grace heard the loud report of a rifle shot echo on the mountain. Before she even had a chance to run, fire ripped through her right side and she was thrown toward the deep ravine.

  Her eyes closed as she floated soundlessly through the air. It was an ethereal experience. She wondered if this was what heaven would feel like, all light and buoyant. Pain ricocheted through her body when she forcefully hit the side of the mountain and was once again thrown into the air. Time seemed to slow before she finally landed on her back in a deep snowbank. After she caught her breath, her dire situation came flooding back. She was alive, but the killer was still out there. Slowly, she wiggled her arms and legs to see if anything was broken. Everything was stiff, but no bones screamed in pain. Her dog! She’d only bounced off the mountain once and she prayed her precious baby was okay.

  “Tink! Tink? Answer me. Are you okay?”

  When she tried to push herself up, pain seared her side. She gently dropped back down and ran her hands across her chest. She breathed a sigh of relief when she identified the dog carrier still attached to her body. She dug inside the nylon bag and grabbed Tinker Bell. Her side burned like fire when she lifted the Chihuahua toward her face, but relief overwhelmed her when Tink snorted and growled.

  “You’re okay,” she breathed and hugged the dog close to her chest. But for how long, was the question. She touched the clothes covering her right side and groaned when her hand came back covered in blood. The reality of their situation was grim.

  She and Tink were stranded on a freezing mountain in the middle of winter. She had been shot. No one knew where they were besides the sheriff. She had no way to call him, and there was a killer out there who wanted her dead. The worst thing was that she didn’t even know why. What has my brother gotten me into?

  She tried to push herself up again, but almost passed out from the pain. She fell back into the snow as darkness blanketed the area. At least she and Tink were no longer easy targets with the night shadows and the huge snowbank somewhat hiding them. Maybe the shooter would leave, thinking she was dead.

  Time passed, but instead of feeling cold, a circulating warmth enveloped her body. In the recess of her mind, she knew this wasn’t a good sign, but her eyelids grew heavy and she didn’t seem to care. She wondered if she would soon meet her Maker. Her grandmother’s face swam across her mind. Who would take care of the proud, independent older woman if Mary Grace died? Certainly not her own mother and stepfather with their gambling addiction. She didn’t even know where they were most of the time.

  As she lay there, halfway between sleep and wakefulness, she thought of her latest romantic fiasco. She’d dumped John Stiles after three months of dating. She couldn’t seem to make a relationship work, or rather she didn’t have a desire to after growing up in the dysfunctional household of her youth.

  Now she’d never get married and have a family of her own. She and Tink would die on this beast of a mountain in the middle of nowhere.

  A noise pierced the deep slumber she was descending into. It sounded like Tink barking. But maybe it was a dream. Or maybe the killer had found them, after all.

  * * *

  Nolan Eli Duncan, known to the world only as Ned, woke abruptly from a short nap in a cold sweat, fragments of the familiar, recurring nightmare lingering in his mind. The stench of blood and betrayal filled his senses. A soft bleep, bleep sound in the small cabin swept away the remaining splinters of his past, and with minimal movement and sound, he slipped out of bed and pulled on his holey faded jeans. He ignored the sting of the cold wooden floor against his bare feet.

  Opening a drawer in the kitchen, he pressed a hidden button. A well-oiled portion of the counter automatically lifted and his laptop and security cameras rose to counter height.

  Krieger, his long-coated, old-fashioned giant of a German shepherd, padded softly to his side.

  “Security breach. Probably a bear,” he grumbled, but his eyes narrowed when he brought up one of several security cameras and went to live feed. A large person dressed in winter fatigues wearing a ski mask came into view. “Or maybe,” he whispered, satisfaction flowing through him, “the person who betrayed me and Finn has finally come calling.”

  He tensed when the guy wearing the fatigues lifted a high-powered rifle to his shoulder and scanned the woods through the scope. “He’s tracking something...or someone, on my mountain.”

  Krieger went on full alert, ears pricked, ready to move on command. Ned’s breath caught when one of the roving security cameras slowly swept past a huge snowbank. Was that blood on the snow? It was getting dark so he switched to night vision. He typed a command on his computer and operated the camera manually. There! He stopped the motion and zoomed in. There were large splatters of blood on the snow. He followed the trail, but the snowbank blocked his view.

  Motionless, he stared at the blood, then glanced at the other camera, showing the guy in fatigues creeping closer to the ravine. He turned on the camera’s sound.

  When a sharp bark pierced his ears, he glanced back at the monitor showing the snowbank. His brows lifted when the smallest rat of a dog he’d ever seen popped onto the top of the snowbank. At least he thought it was a dog. It was solid white and had tattered limp Christmas bows attached to its ears. And if he wasn’t mistaken, the dog was also wearing a Christmas sweater. He shook his head at that bit of nonsense and focused on the matter at hand. That meant a person was stranded in the snowbank and his assumption was that the guy in fatigues wa
s an unfriendly.

  “Krieger, protect the civilian and dog. I’m right behind you.”

  With barely a whisper, his dog flew out of the hidden dog door and took off down the mountain. Ned donned his inner and outerwear quickly and opened a concealed panel on the cabin wall. It was all legal, but he’d compiled a small arsenal, waiting for his enemies to come after him.

  He slung a long-range rifle across his chest, stuffed a handgun into his pocket and shoved a large knife inside the holster strapped to his calf. He grabbed a first-aid kit and was out the door.

  The action wasn’t far from his cabin. He didn’t know if that was accidental, or if someone was searching for him, but he’d find out soon enough. His long legs and steady tread covered the quarter-mile distance with ease. He’d been living on this mountain off and on for several years and knew every nook and cranny. He’d spent a fortune on security. He had enemies, dangerous enemies.

  But that wasn’t the only reason he’d holed up on his mountain for months. He had somewhat become a recluse after the betrayal, much to his family’s dismay, and he no longer liked, or trusted, most people after everything he’d been exposed to during his clandestine missions. Everyone had an agenda and many would do anything to get what they wanted. He’d be content living by himself on his mountain after he rooted out the worm who had betrayed him and Finn.

  He picked up his pace as the thrill of the hunt coursed through him. After all this time, he hoped the carefully laid bread crumbs he’d left several months ago for the betrayer to follow had finally led the person to his mountain for a showdown. Although in reality, he knew the odds were low that the person who originally set the trap would do his, or her, own dirty work.

  When he closed in on the coordinates, he slipped his fingers under the cross-body strap and lifted his rifle into his hands. It was second nature and the weapon felt like an extension of his arms. He hid behind a large tree and listened. The soft crunch of boots came from a one o’clock position. He moved, following the sound. Experience had taught him how to walk in the snow without making any noise.

  Ned caught sight of the person several hundred yards ahead. He speculated, based on size, that it was a man, but in his line of work, it paid not to make assumptions. He wanted to subdue the person so he could question them, but someone was injured—maybe dying—in that snowbank, and he couldn’t take any chances.

  At least he had that much humanity left in him. Lifting his rifle—armed with a silencer, he scoped the guy. Even though Finn had lived through their nightmare, a gory vision of Ned’s best friend and comrade going down from a gunshot wound flooded his mind. For a split second, he aimed the gun at the man’s head, then lowered the barrel and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet soundlessly puffed the snow up at the man’s feet. The guy’s head snapped around and Ned moved from his cover into an open position, his rifle pointed straight ahead. The man’s eyes narrowed from behind the slits in the ski mask. Through the scope of the rifle, Ned snapped a mental picture of those blazing violet-colored eyes. He’d recognize them if they met again unless the man was wearing contacts. The guy lifted his own weapon and moved backward, keeping his gun trained on Ned. No question, the guy was a professional. Was he after Ned, or the person lying in the snowbank?

  Krieger popped his head over the top of the ravine. Ned gritted his teeth as he allowed the man to get away and followed his dog. He’d probably just blown two months of a carefully planned trap because of the person who had fallen into the ravine.

  He scooted down the steep hill and approached slowly. Krieger stood on alert at a caved-in portion of snow, but gave no indication of danger. As Ned stepped closer, the tiny rat dog he’d seen on the security camera at the cabin popped out from behind the freshly disturbed snow. The small dog barked ferociously at Krieger and Ned’s fierce, highly trained giant of a German shepherd went into a down position and whined. Ned did a double take. His dog never whined. The little mutt growled when Ned brushed away a mound of snow and discovered what had caused him to miss a possible golden opportunity to get a lead on his betrayer.

  He huffed out a frustrated breath. It figured it was a woman. A beautiful woman whose eyelids fluttered open after he jerked off a glove and touched her neck with his cold fingers to see if she had a pulse. In past missions, he’d met women who looked soft and vulnerable, but turned out to be killers in disguise.

  Her golden eyes widened in fear seconds before they flooded with determination and fury. “Go ahead and kill me if that’s your plan, but you better not lay a hand on my dog.”

  The woman passed out using the last reserve of her strength to protect the rat. An unexpected ping resonated near the region of Ned’s heart, but he ignored it. He pulled his glove back on and started gathering the woman in his arms, but the tiny dog ran toward its owner and buried itself inside the pouch of some kind of dog carrier, similar to a backpack, strapped to her front.

  Ned picked her up as if she weighed nothing and started climbing the steep hill. He didn’t know how long she’d lain in the snow, but he hoped she wouldn’t die. That could complicate matters. He ignored the small flame of hope that had sprung inside his heart when she’d opened her eyes and fiercely tried to protect the dog. Maybe she loved the animal, but there was a reason she’d shown up on his mountain, and it couldn’t be good. Everyone had an agenda and he didn’t trust anyone outside his family and Finn. Humanity, in his eyes, was a lost cause.

  Copyright © 2019 by Liz Phelps

  ISBN-13: 9781488040788

  Deadly Christmas Pretense

  Copyright © 2019 by Dana Mentink

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