by Cynthia Eden
“Get on your knees...and put your hands up,” Bowen barked but his voice was sounding weak.
Macey moved closer to him, her shoulder brushing against his arm. “Let me take the gun,” she whispered to Bowen.
“See!” Jonah yelled. “She wants the gun because she knows you’ll shoot to kill! Macey won’t! Macey isn’t like you!”
Bowen’s body trembled harder. He staggered and she thought he was going to fall. Her left arm flew around his waist as she tried to steady him.
“It’s true, Mace!” Jonah called out. “That night in the dark alley, Bowen shot an unarmed man. He covered up the crime, and he’s been doing it for years.”
“Give me the gun, Bowen,” Macey said, voice stronger.
His head turned. His eyes gleamed in the darkness. “Want to...protect you...”
She could feel his blood soaking the side of her body. He was hurt so badly. Too badly. Macey swallowed. “You’ve always protected me.” It’s my turn to protect you. “Give me the gun.”
“It’s because she knows what you are now. You’re done, Bowen! Done! Dead man walking...”
Bowen still gripped the gun.
Jonah had bent to his knees, but his hands...his hands were inching toward the coat he wore. Was that a park ranger’s coat?
And what’s under his damn coat?
“Mace...” Bowen gasped her name. “Love...you.”
Her lips shook. “Give me the gun.”
Bowen’s hand slid toward hers.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Jonah lunge to his feet.
Bowen began to fall. His hand was still on the gun. Hers was around his. Her head turned, snapping toward Jonah. He was pulling out a weapon from beneath his coat.
Macey’s hands jerked around Bowen’s, but he was already firing. They shot together. He pulled the trigger. She aimed the gun.
The bullet blasted right into Jonah’s head. He fell back, his body twitching.
And then Bowen fell, sinking to his knees.
“Bowen!”
“Make sure...” Each word seemed like a struggle. “He’s...done...”
She rushed toward Jonah. His body was still jerking and a gun was just inches from his outstretched hand. Macey grabbed the gun and tucked it into her waistband. She could tell by the wound...
He’s done.
She ran back to Bowen. His hands were wrapped around the chunk of metal in his chest and he was trying to pull it out. “No!” Once more, her hands closed around his. “Don’t! He was right. Don’t pull it out now.”
“I’m...cold, Mace.”
And she was terrified. She wanted the metal to stay where it was because she feared it had hit his heart. But, oh, God, he was covered in so much blood. So many wounds.
“Meant it...” Bowen mumbled. “Love you...”
“And I love you and you’re going to be all right, do you hear me? You just—you have to stay calm. You lie still and I’m going to get help.” She ran to the battered SUV, looking for a phone. Please be there, please be...
The SUV groaned around her. Metal screeched and she snatched up the phone as fast as she could. The screen was broken, a rough crack like a spider’s web across the surface, but it still worked. It was glowing, giving her light, and she stumbled back, swiping her finger across that broken screen, and then—
No service. No fucking service. Because she was halfway down a mountain in the woods. In the middle of nowhere.
Macey rushed back to Bowen and she sank to her knees beside him. “It’s going to be okay,” she told him again as her hand curled around his.
“You...lie...like hell...”
Tears were sliding down her cheeks. “No, everything is fine. I’m a doctor, remember?” She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his lips. “I’ll take care of you.”
“Love...you...”
“And I love you.” Her hand squeezed his. “So if you think, even for a second, that I am not going to make sure that you stay alive, you’re wrong.”
He didn’t speak.
“Do you hear me, Bowen? You’re going to stay alive. You are going to stay—”
His hand was limp in her grasp.
Alive.
She pulled her hand away from his and began using the phone she’d retrieved as a flashlight so she could evaluate all of his wounds. Oh, my God.
They were bad. So bad...
Then her chin lifted.
And she got to work.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
SAMANTHA AND TUCKER rushed into the dark ranger’s station. The place was pitch-black. Samantha knew that was a sign of trouble, so they went in fast and hard and silently. If Jonah was there, getting help from Ranger Douglas, she knew the lights would be shining in that place. Since it was pitch-black...
Trouble.
And why hadn’t the ranger called for help himself? That piece of the puzzle had been nagging at her. She’d tried to get the ranger station again and again during her ride up there. Sure, phone service could be damn spotty, but she’d had the PD radio in.
No response.
No one was in the dark waiting area. Empty. She had a flashlight in her hand as she swept the scene. The flashlight was right above her gun.
Tucker kicked open the door that led to the office behind the check-in desk.
“Help...” A weak, pain-filled cry.
Tucker rushed in, and Samantha was right behind him. But their flashlights didn’t fall on Jonah’s haggard face. Instead, they illuminated the blood-soaked form of Ranger Zack Douglas.
“Help...” he begged again.
* * *
“BOWEN?” MACEY HAD his blood all over her hands. “I need to get help for you.” She bit her lip and looked up at the top of the mountain. But I hate to leave you. She was putting pressure on some of his worst wounds. She’d ripped her clothes apart and bound up the terrible gash in his thigh, the one that made her worry he’d nipped an artery. No wonder his legs had given way on him before.
She hadn’t touched the metal in his chest. But her hands were shoving against the deep slice across his ribs. The slice that had cut his skin wide-open.
She needed help, needed to climb up that mountain. “You can’t move,” she whispered. “Understand? If I leave you, you can’t move at all.”
Her left hand swept over him once more, moving down to make sure that wound in his leg—
It was bleeding again. Too much.
Apply pressure, elevation, pressure points... She knew all the immediate ways to help and she was doing everything she could. But that was the problem—she had to keep working on him, almost constantly. If she left him, even for the few moments it would take to climb to the top and potentially get cell service or hail down a car—
He could die.
And if she just stayed there, doing the best she could with him—no medical gear, no tools...
Maybe I’ll buy him time this way. He’ll stay alive until others come.
Only...what if the others didn’t come?
* * *
SAMANTHA RAN BACK outside of the ranger station. “We need a medic in there!”
And the team who’d followed her and Tucker up the mountain sprang into action. They’d gone in silently, but there were cops there, EMTs, plenty of backup waiting in the wings.
But Jonah isn’t here.
They’d swept the rest of the station. It was clear.
“Where in the hell is he?” Tucker demanded as he stalked to Samantha’s side.
The assembled team had lights on in the small lot now—lights from the cruisers, from the ambulance. Her gaze swept the area. “Douglas would have kept his personal vehicle up here.” She marched around the building and there...her flashlight hit the fresh tire tracks. It had rained lightly and the ground was still soft. Soft enough for her to see the tire tracks left behind. Big ones, probably the off-roading type that a large truck would use.
She stared at those tracks and the fear in her grew worse. “Macey and
Bowen should have been here by now.”
“I still can’t get either one of them on their phones. My call just goes to voice mail.” Tucker’s voice was grim. “I don’t get it—they would have needed to drive up the same mountain road we did. There’s only one way up to this station.”
Yes, one way. And Jonah had made sure that they were all coming that way. Had he known that Macey and Bowen would be coming first?
Of course. He called Bowen directly.
The perp they were after had been calling Bowen from the very beginning. Taunting him. Challenging him. Watching him.
Because Bowen was always a target?
“Bowen was in the way,” she said as she turned sharply and rushed back for her vehicle. She could just see the faintest tendrils of light beginning to streak across the sky. The night was finally ending. “He was calling Bowen at first, challenging him, because he needed to prove he was better.” She was almost running as she ran for her rental. “Now he’s going to eliminate Bowen because he stands between Jonah and the one he really wanted all along.”
Who was closest to Bowen? Who did Bowen protect?
“Macey.” Tucker jumped into the vehicle with her. “Fuck, that’s why the Doctor was the first victim. It was about her. All along—her.”
She cranked the SUV, revved the engine and got the hell out of there even as the local cops shouted for her.
I have to find my team.
“We thought it was Bowen. That the focus was him, but Jonah was just taunting him. Macey... Macey was his end game.”
And Samantha was very, very afraid the end had come.
They rushed down that mountain, with Tucker still trying to get Macey or Bowen on the line. Faint rays of light cut through the treetops, and as she rounded a curve—
Her headlights—it was still dark enough to need them—hit the broken guardrail. Samantha slammed on her brakes. “Did you see that on the way up?”
“I could barely see any-fucking-thing on the way up.”
She reversed the SUV and parked it near that broken railing. When she jumped out, her flashlight automatically swept the scene...
And she saw the big truck that had been parked off road, partially hidden behind a patch of trees. “Tucker,” she snapped, warning him with a motion of her hand.
His gaze immediately zeroed in on the truck. He rushed toward it with his weapon drawn.
“Empty,” he barked.
It was empty. There was a freaking car-sized hole in the guardrail, and her two agents—her friends—weren’t answering their phones. They hadn’t arrived at the ranger station because they couldn’t.
She and Tucker immediately began scaling down that mountain. Their lights swept out, and she could smell gasoline.
Hold on, Macey. Hold on, Bowen. We’re coming.
Down, down they went, slipping and falling because it was so steep. Rocks tripped her and branches cut into Samantha and then—
Her light hit the wreckage. She staggered to a stop. Oh, Jesus. Sweet Jesus. Tucker was right beside her. His flashlight swept to the left and there—covered in blood—they saw Macey.
She blinked against their light, for a moment looking lost. Blood soaked her—her shirt, her hands and—
“He can feel everything.” A sob shook her body. “But I didn’t have a choice! He was dying! I had to work on him!”
Bowen lay on the ground before Macey. A chunk of metal was in his chest. A tourniquet was wrapped around his legs and the blood...
“Get back up the mountain,” Samantha ordered Tucker as she ran to Macey. “Get help!”
* * *
“YOU CAN LET him go, ma’am,” the medic said as he secured Bowen. “We’ve got him!”
They were airlifting him to safety. She should take her hands off Bowen. Macey knew that. The scene was chaotic around her and the whoop-whoop-whoop of the helicopter blades filled her ears.
Bowen was still alive. His eyes hadn’t opened. He hadn’t looked at her. But he was alive.
She’d made sure of it.
Her body ached because her muscles had been clenched with tension for so long. She’d had to do things to him...hold his veins, fight so hard...
No anesthesia.
She’d hurt him. She knew it. Daniel had once promised her...
I’ve made sure that you will feel everything that happens to you... I’ll start slowly, just so you know what’s going to happen. I keep my slices light at first. I like to see how the patient reacts to the pain stimulus...
“Ma’am, you have to let him go.”
Her hands slowly lifted. “I’ll see you soon, Bowen,” she promised him.
But he didn’t look at her.
Because he couldn’t.
* * *
“MACEY.”
She blinked. She was sitting in the back of an ambulance. A female EMT was cleaning the wound on her face, and the scene around her seemed completely surreal.
The night was gone. The sun had poured into the mountains. She was back on the road, away from the wreckage. She could see a team hauling up a body bag.
Jonah. They’d found their missing agent.
“Macey, tell me what happened.” Samantha’s voice was strained.
“Bowen is going to be all right.”
“Macey—”
Her head turned as she stared at her boss—and her friend. “Bowen is going to be all right?”
Samantha hesitated, and Macey felt as if her heart had just been clawed out.
“You took care of him,” Samantha assured her softly. “No one else could have done what you did. You kept him alive, Macey. Now he’s going to the hospital. They’ll work on him. They’ll do their best.”
“Removing that metal is going to be tricky. They have to be sure—”
Samantha’s hand closed around hers. “You kept him alive.”
A tear leaked down her cheek. “Even wounded so badly, he got out of the vehicle because he wanted to save me. I don’t know how he did it. Shouldn’t have happened. But he got out of that wrecked SUV. He pulled a gun on Jonah. He stopped Jonah.”
“So Bowen is the one who shot him?”
Give me the gun. She’d asked him that, again and again. Because Macey had known exactly what she needed to do. “I did it.” She’d been the one to aim. Bowen had been too weak then, he’d been falling. “I shot Jonah in the head because he was going for his weapon.” That weapon had been taken from her. “You have it now...it’s proof...”
“About Jonah’s gun...” There was a hesitant note in Samantha’s voice.
Macey stared at her.
“It wasn’t loaded.”
Her breath choked out. “He...he forced us off the road, nearly killed us both...” And his gun wasn’t loaded? Her eyes squeezed shut. “Just like his father.” Oh, God. He’d been so much like his father. Killing everyone and then...
Killing himself. “Jonah wanted to die.” Because the end had been there for him. Only, he’d wanted to take out Bowen, too. He’d wanted her to see Bowen for what he was.
And I do. Bowen is the man I love. The man I’ll always love.
“Did he confess, Macey?” Samantha pushed.
The EMT cleared her throat. “She really needs to get to the hospital.”
The hospital. Yes. Macey nodded, still feeling dazed. Adrenaline. Fear. Pain. She had to get to the hospital because Bowen was going to be at the hospital. She needed to see him. “Bowen is going to be all right...”
“Did Jonah confess, Macey?” Samantha asked once more.
Macey realized that she’d closed her eyes. Macey opened them, blinked. “He admitted to killing Daniel Haddox. He even... Jonah was the one who slit the throat of Gale Collins.”
She heard a dark curse from her right and realized Tucker was there, too.
“She was bait,” Macey explained. Her hand rose and pointed to her eyes. “Because she was like me. Jonah used her, made her think...” Nausea was rising in her, but she swallowed it down. She
was an FBI agent. She could do this. She’d give her statement, even covered in Bowen’s blood. Bowen! She’d tell them what happened. She’d wrap this scene...
“She needs a hospital.” The EMT sounded angry now.
“Jonah used Gale. Convinced her that...convinced her that she was working with the FBI. Then he killed her...” Her breath rushed out. “His program worked. Said he’d...he’d found Patrick. Took him out, too.”
“Did his fucking program predict Curtis Zale, too?” Tucker had moved closer.
She strained to remember on this part. “Yes, but he...needed help finding the victims.” It was hard for her to think clearly. She’d asked him if Wesley had helped but...
I’ll never tell.
“Where is Wesley Kaiser?” Samantha wanted to know. “We noticed there were bind marks around Jonah’s wrists and ankles. Was that staged?”
“No...he said...said Wesley had taken him, but that he’d gotten away.”
Tucker and Samantha shared a long, hard look. “So they were working together.”
A shudder worked along her body. Was everyone as cold as she was? No, no, of course not. Shock. “He said... Jonah said he was the only one at the FBI who listened to Wesley’s story.”
“Where is that kid now?” Tucker fumed. “If Wesley’s still out there, the public is in danger.”
She shook her head. “He...he took Jonah. Jonah said the guy...that Wesley was trying to...to stop him.”
Tucker gave a low whistle. “Wesley went to Jonah seeking justice for his sister. Looks like he got a whole lot more than he bargained for.”
“I—I need to see Bowen,” Macey whispered. “I need him.”
Samantha nodded curtly. “We’ve got this scene.” She motioned to the glaring EMT. “Take her to the hospital.”
“About time,” the woman muttered.
They loaded Macey into the ambulance and right before those doors closed—