Cornered

by Turner, Linda; Weaver, Ingrid; Miller, Julie

  “You don’t suspect me, do you?”

  “A sassy little thing like you kill someone? Did anyone else try to contact Extreme, Inc., for a rescue?”

  “No.”

  “Why call for help when you could get rid of all your witnesses by leaving them stuck up here, or use the tragedy of a lost expedition to mask your real target? You’re smarter than that.” He grinned in a way that aroused her curiosity and quickened her pulse. “Besides, you remind me of somebody I once knew. She couldn’t commit murder, either.”

  Though Rafe’s easy trust empowered her in a way praise from her family never had, Hannah adjusted her glasses to study the bemused expression that accompanied his odd statement. “Of whom do I remind you?”

  “Of whom? Exactly.” His smile broadened into a sexy, mysterious curve at the private joke which eluded her. And while his unexpected humor tempted her to smile along with him, he’d triggered a nagging need to know about that unnamed person from his past she resembled. Instead of answering, he shook his head and knelt down to roll up his sleeping bag. “You don’t want to know.”

  Who could it be? An old girlfriend? A current girlfriend? A wife? Her gaze dropped down to assess the ring-free finger on his left hand. Embarrassed by the relief coursing through her at the verification of his single status, Hannah turned her attention to other details. Rafe was packing up his bedroll and supplies. Here. By the firepit. He hadn’t pitched a tent of his own. She realized now he hadn’t even brought one. Hannah frowned. “You slept outside last night?”

  She thought she detected the first glitch in his amazing control when a shiver rippled across his back from shoulder to shoulder. Hannah shivered, too, thinking about how cold it must have gotten in the middle of the night with nothing but a few embers from the dying fire to warm him.

  An altogether different kind of shiver raised goose bumps along her arms as Rafe turned on the balls of his feet and stood up. Craning her neck to keep his face in view, Hannah fought the urge to retreat. The tension in his body was as rigid as the line of his mouth where his smile used to be.

  “Rafe?” she questioned in a small voice.

  The stiffness in him vanished like a popped balloon. “Considering yesterday’s events, I didn’t want any surprises sneaking up on me. Besides, it was a clear night and I enjoy watching the stars.” He tossed his sleeping bag up onto the table and began lashing it to his pack. “Tonight we won’t be so lucky.”

  He seemed awfully busy all of a sudden—as if the sexy smiles and teasing banter and unspoken trust between them had never happened. Why get so defensive? Why was it a big deal for her to know he’d slept outside? But if he needed to change the subject, Hannah would let him. For now.

  Looking up into the silver-blue sky, she took note of the line of clouds gathering just beyond the mountain’s peak. “You think today’s storms will last through the night?”

  “I called in to headquarters a few minutes ago. That’s what the forecast—”

  “Dude!”

  Hannah whipped her head around toward the shout from the trees. Rafe’s hands stilled their work for a split second. And then he was moving. He bounded to the top of a granite outcropping and dropped out of site into the ravine on the opposite side, heading toward Rowdy Trent’s anguished cry.

  “Oh, my God. Dude!”

  “Rowdy?”

  “Somebody help me!”

  Hannah dropped her mug and scrambled after Rafe. Landing on her bottom on the other side, she slid down the rockface until her feet hit relatively level ground. Swatting the dirt from her jeans, she followed the uneven excuse for a path—more of a gulley worn by wind, water and gravity—into the trees. Breathing hard in the thin air, she slowed when the canopy of evergreen branches marbled the sunlight and cooled the air by several obvious degrees.

  “What is it?” she rasped, spotting Rafe and Rowdy kneeling beside something golden brown among the gray shadows and rocks. “Is it a mountain lion?” she asked as the mass began to take shape.

  She could hear the others in the camp, stirring behind her. Muffled questions and panic in the distance. Footsteps hurrying their way.

  Rafe pushed to his feet as she approached. “Stay back, Kansas. It’s Hawthorne.”

  At first she mistook the dirty white she saw on the ground as a lingering patch of snow. But before Rafe’s shoulders could block the view, she blinked the tan jacket and white hair into focus. “Is he…?”

  Rafe’s hands were on her shoulders, trying to push her away from the gruesome scene. But she wrapped her fingers around his forearms, planted her feet and lifted her gaze to let him know she could handle this challenge.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered, in that deep, protective pitch that had comforted her over the radio. “The tracks weren’t here earlier. This shouldn’t have happened on my watch.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Hannah reached up and laid her palm against the prickly contours of his cheek and jaw. She kept it there, despite the startled question in his eyes, reassuring the man she’d thought needed no kind of reassurance from anyone.

  A controlled burst of energy replaced the tension in him. With a quick nod, he pulled her hand from his face and reached for his radio. “I’m calling this in to headquarters.”

  Though she couldn’t help but feel dismissed, Hannah knew this wasn’t the time or place to stew in her feelings. As Rafe stepped away, she turned her attention to the real tragedy and squatted down beside the dead body crumpled amongst the rocks.

  “Poor William.” With gentle fingers, she brushed the snowy white strands of hair from his cold, ashen cheek. She felt almost as cold herself. Did a person ever get used to this? “He seemed to be the only one who was truly enjoying himself up here.”

  On the other side of the body, Rowdy sniffed back a noisy sob. “He left the tent a couple of hours ago to take a leak. When I woke up and realized he hadn’t come back, I went lookin’… Do you think he had a heart attack?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe the stress…” Hannah looked into Rowdy’s teary eyes, not liking how readily her compassion was tainted by suspicion. “When did you leave your tent?”

  “A few minutes ago.”

  Had she been so absorbed in watching Rafe that she hadn’t seen Rowdy sneak out of camp? She let her gaze slide over to the man on the radio. Even though he’d crossed several feet away and was absorbed in his proper “roger that” and “over” conversation with someone named Luke, Rafe’s gaze instantly locked on to hers. No, he was too sharp, too aware of people and his surroundings. Even if she’d been too distracted to notice Rowdy sneaking out of camp, Rafe would have seen him.

  Without answering the query in his eyes, Hannah turned back to Rowdy. He shivered as soon as she looked his way, though the impression of bristling in self-defense could be explained by his shorts and short sleeved shirt, and by the cool, rain-laden air.

  “Do you think it was his heart?” Rowdy asked, punctuating his question with a sniffle. “I found his medicine in the tent. They were the same pills he used to give his wife. He didn’t have them with him. Ironic, huh? That they should both die the same way?”

  Before she could ponder the irony of Rowdy using a term like ironic, Hannah’s fingers caught in something as sticky as cold molasses. She slowly pulled her fingers from Hawthorne’s hair and splayed them in the air. “I don’t think he had a heart attack.”

  Blood. Dark red. And plenty of it soaking into the ground beneath his head.

  “Oh, dude.” Rowdy scrambled from his knees onto his haunches and landed on his bottom in his haste to retreat. “He must have tripped and hit his head on that rock.”

  A deep voice resonated above them. “I think the rock hit him.”

  Hannah suddenly felt herself cocooned in a circle of warmth as Rafe knelt down, wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to his side. She needed the solid contact and comfort, and couldn’t help leaning in to his indomitable strength and abundant heat.

&nbs
p; “Look.” He pointed to the lichen-encrusted edge of the fist-sized rock, then flipped it over to reveal its smooth, weather-worn side. “This has been moved.”

  Murder number two. Not a heart attack. Not an accident.

  “But why?” Hannah blinked back the tears that stung her eyes. “Who would want to hurt a sweet man like that?”

  Rafe’s arm tightened around her and she wanted to turn and bury her face in the security and strength of his chest. But just as her nose began to nuzzle, Rafe shot to his feet, startling her an instant before she heard footsteps skidding to a halt behind them. “Hold up,” he warned.

  A woman shrieked. “Oh, my God.”

  “Not again.”

  “What the hell is going on around here?”

  Hannah got the sense that Rafe was protecting her, though maybe that was wishful thinking. He might just be blocking the view of the body the way he’d tried to shield her from seeing it. Either way, she didn’t feel quite so alone in dealing with yet another senseless murder.

  “More death.” Irene Sharp circled around the body and laid a comforting hand on Rowdy’s shoulder as he shakily stood. “Just like Frank’s note foretold. This is bad karma. I knew this altitude was bad for us. I just knew it.”

  Ed Butler helped Charles Defoe sit his wife, Lydia, on the ground before she could faint. “Hawthorne was one of the founding fathers of our college. Along with Cyrus Randolph. Poor man. What a loss.”

  Keith Robinson walked a wide berth around Rafe and stood beside Rowdy. “At least he can be with his wife, Bernice, now. They were married what—fifty years? Spent most of that last year in the hospital with her.”

  Hannah nodded. “He seemed so relieved when her suffering ended.”

  Charles Defoe pulled off his hat to fan his wife. “Hawthorne was the first advisor I had at Randolph. I always remember he and Bernice and Cyrus hanging out in the administrative offices together. Like the Three Musketeers.”

  “Cyrus introduced William to Bernice,” Lydia added between noisy sighs, joining the reminiscences. “It will crush Cyrus to hear that the last of his old friends is gone.”

  “Where’s Copperfield?” Rafe’s succinct question halted the sentimental journey for a long, silent moment.

  Then everyone started talking at once.

  “Boinking his mistress. Where do you think?”

  “They’re probably planning ways to skim more money from the college funds.”

  “Those allegations were never proved.”

  “Did you get a raise this year? Were your programs and research cut?”

  “Don’t get me started.”

  “He’s losing his hair over this. Literally. Just because the money’s missing, doesn’t mean he’s…”

  The familiar arguments buzzed into white noise that swirled around her as Hannah’s focus zeroed in on the white paper triangle peeking from William Hawthorne’s slacks pocket.

  “Rafe.” She reached out and tugged on his pant leg. “Rafe?” Any lingering hope that Hawthorne’s death might have been a tragic accident vanished. “There’s another note.”

  He knelt beside her, and the group held its collective breath. “What does it say?” he asked.

  With a quick apology to the dead, Hannah pulled the folded paper from his pocket. Like the note in Frank’s shirt, this one had been neatly typed and properly punctuated.

  Trouthe is the hyeste thyng that men may kepe.

  Rafe was reading over her shoulder. “Translation?”

  “It’s Middle English. From Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Truth is the highest thing that men may keep.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Either someone believed Professor Hawthorne lied, and punished him for it,” She peeked over the top of her glasses to meet Rafe’s probing gaze. “Or somebody silenced him so he couldn’t tell the truth.”

  Rafe nodded, as if he had suspected as much, even without the cryptic note. He stood, wrapping his hand around Hannah’s arm and pulling her to her feet. “Let’s move his body into Frank’s tent. I’ll secure the area. The rest of you, pack your things.”

  “Oh, my God. Not William.” Dick Copperfield chose that exact moment to join them. As Hannah spun to face him, she couldn’t help but notice all the unspoken accusations flung his way by her colleagues. No wonder he fidgeted and blanched an uncharacteristic shade of pale beneath his artificial tan. “Our problems are worse than you think. Natalie’s disappeared. I can’t find her anywhere.”

  Tension radiated through Rafe’s fingertips into Hannah’s arm. “What the hell kind of game are you playing here, Copperfield? I can’t mount a search for her and take care of you people at the same time. Not with everything I’ve seen up here.”

  “I don’t want you to conduct a search. Think of me what you will, Mr. Kincaid—all of you.” A sheen of perspiration dotted his forehead. He shifted back and forth on his feet, looking as nervous as a sheep cornered by a pack of hungry wolves. “But you have to get us off this mountain. Now. Before somebody else dies.”

  Chapter 5

  “This has been cut.” Rafe had long since inured himself to the rain that plastered his hair to his scalp and trickled down the back of his neck. He ran his thumb along the smooth edge of the severed rope. “The core’s still dry,” he muttered to himself.

  The sabotage was recent.

  If he had eyes in the back of his head, he couldn’t pinpoint any more accurately where each member of the Randolph group had positioned themselves. Eight drenched hikers waited on the path behind him through the trees, resting their bodies, catching their breaths and anxiously hoping that he’d found a shortcut to warmth and safety.

  But the fifty-foot expanse of the Osprey River gorge and the dubious means to cross it stood in their way.

  Rafe dropped the rope where it hung from a detached pulley and rose to his feet to check the rest of the rigging attached to the wooden platform. A rough-hewn beam anchored one end of a series of ropes that carried a bosun’s chair back and forth above the storm-fed river like a midair ferry.

  The remaining equipment seemed solid enough, but without that third line to anchor it, the hanging basket might not be able to sustain the weight of a full-grown man with a back-pack. Hell, unless he could get a look at the rigging on the opposite side to see whether or not it had been tampered with as well, he wouldn’t trust that basket to carry anything.

  “Trent, Robinson,” he called to the group. “Drop your packs and give me a hand. The rest of you stay put.”

  Shedding the weight of his own gear, Rafe grabbed the lead rope and pulled. Odd that the basket was at the far side of the river. Though Rafe had by-passed the gorge completely on his ascent yesterday, Frank would have brought the group up this way and left the basket on the Targhee Meadow side, closest to their camp.

  The loss of the line made the bosun’s chair heavy to pull across—even with the muscle power of three men. The rain spattered on the wood at their feet and in the branches of the surrounding trees, melding with the roar of the river crashing over rocks below them and dampening the sounds of wet rigging straining through creaking pulleys.

  “Can we still use it to cross the river?” Lydia Defoe shouted from her perch on top of her husband’s pack. “I don’t know how much farther my feet will take me.”

  Rafe bristled at her petulant tone and put his back into dragging the basket across. They’d only been hiking half a day, their pace slowed to a crawl since the sky had opened up an hour ago. Lightning still rippled through the clouds above them, filling the gray air with enough static electricity to stand the hair on his arms on end. Lydia’s feet had better take her a good five miles more today, or it’d be a week before they got back to headquarters.

  But Rafe bit back his retort. These people weren’t used to the altitude or terrain. They weren’t used to murder. “I’m not sure, ma’am,” he answered. “But I intend to find out.”

  “Should the basket be swinging that much?” Hannah
asked. Her voice at his shoulder told him she hadn’t obeyed his instructions.

  “Didn’t I tell you to stay put?” A crack of thunder splintered the air, ringing in his ears and giving his concern a lot more bite than he’d intended.

  “I’m only trying to help.”

  He glanced down to see her picking up his backpack. Despite the bill of her cap, raindrops dotted her glasses. Rafe battled the strangest urge to take his finger and wipe them clean so she could see clearly. He was even more tempted to remove them entirely so he could look deep into the steady depths of her eyes and apologize for jumping down her throat.

  But he kept his hands at their task and softened his voice instead. “Sorry. I appreciate you lookin’ out for me.” Her answering smile was more reward than he deserved. He nodded toward the clearing in the trees above them. “Now get back with the others so I don’t worry about you falling off the edge here.”

  “Yes, sir.” The arch of her brow gave her compliance a sassy twist. Rafe grinned. The spirit of Miss Chapman was alive and well. But coupled with that seductive voice and those amazing eyes, Hannah Greene was doing crazy things to his professional detachment and emotional equilibrium that his sixth-grade grammar teacher certainly never had.

  “It’s here, Kincaid,” Keith Robinson reminded him of their task.

  “Go.” Rafe pointed up the incline, telling Hannah to get her pretty little butt in gear. When he looked back, the bosun’s chair was weaving back and forth like a pendulum. That much movement on too few lines could certainly spell disaster. But if there was a possibility of shortening the journey…

  “Grab the basket,” he commanded, holding on to Robinson’s belt as the black man slithered close enough to the end of the platform to grasp a rope handle. Together the three of them tugged the high-sided basket onto solid ground. Already, Rafe could feel the unusual weight of the thing. What else had been tampered with? “Tie it off.”