“Sorry, mate.”
The cop had come around and was glaring at him furiously, but also looking at the old guy with worry.
“He’s not hurt,” Daniel assured him. Although the old coot had wanted him dead. Who the hell was he anyway? Daniel picked up the gun off the floor and checked to see if it was loaded. It was. The cop’s eyes flickered.
“I didn’t kill Sylvie Watson and I’m not running away.” He ignored the skeptical eyebrow of the man whose wrists were lashed to his ankles. “Listen. Cameran Young has diabetes and she hasn’t returned to the ship we are stationed on. She’s alone in the woods and she could die if she doesn’t receive medical attention.” He stared at the old man who lay on the bed, watching him. “I didn’t kill Sylvie, and I’ll turn myself in after I make sure Cam’s safe.” He was about to ruin his life. Again. “So if you start a manhunt, do it between Mitshishu Falls and Mitshishu Pond and be on the lookout for any sign of Cam or an ATV.”
He went to the doorway, about to commit the serious crime of escaping police custody. Dammit, he’d already assaulted a police officer, and unless Bobby Riley was waiting down at the airstrip—not likely, considering it was full dark now—he was about to commit grand larceny. And when he gave himself up, or got caught—whatever—he’d be deported back to the UK after serving a considerable amount of time in prison. He’d never fly again. He’d never see Cameran Young again. Even the thought tore holes in his gut.
But it beat the crap out of her dying cold and alone in the bush.
He went back and checked that the cop and old man could breathe okay and then went out the door, locking it behind him. He peeked into the main part of the police station, but it was empty. Moving fast, he tossed the keys and gun on a desk. His bags sat on a nearby table and he grabbed them, ignoring the shotgun because he didn’t want to be considered armed and dangerous.
Quickly, he headed out into the night and went looking for a helicopter to borrow.
Chapter Nineteen
I’ve Not Yet Begun To Fight USS Bonnehomme Richard
“You think he’s telling the truth?” McCoy didn’t look willing to believe Fox’s story.
They were in the bar where they’d arrested Fox earlier, but it wasn’t as though there was a big selection of eating establishments in town. There’d been a buzz of conversation when they’d first walked in, but since they’d refused to give any details, people had stopped approaching them with questions. It was natural for a small community to be concerned about a killer in their midst. But Griff wasn’t convinced Fox was their man.
“Arnie Winter’s prints are all over that knife. Fox’s prints overlaid Winter’s.” Griff pressed his lips together. “Exactly the way they would have if Fox was telling the truth.” So maybe someone was trying to frame him for murder. “We don’t even know if that was the murder weapon—”
“It had Sylvie’s blood on it,” she whispered the last with her eyes darting around the room in case anyone was listening.
Griff shrugged one shoulder. It wasn’t jiving for him. Maybe if the semen on Sylvie’s body came back as Fox’s he’d be more convinced, but even that was circumstantial. The killer might not have left any semen behind. “I spoke to Fox’s old CO and his troop commander. They both have the highest regard for the guy. I got the feeling everyone thought he’d taken the rap for something he shouldn’t have.”
He finished his burger and downed the last of his soda water. He checked his watch. Eight o’clock. There was a flight from the mine company heading out of here in about thirty minutes that he could hitch a ride on, and if he just accepted the initial forensic evidence and went with the flow, he could be home by midnight in time to save his marriage. But he didn’t believe Fox had killed Sylvie, and he didn’t want to charge a decorated war hero unless he was one-hundred-percent certain he had the right guy.
“How old are your kids?” McCoy asked, out of nowhere.
The pressure tightened around his throat, reminding him of everything he stood to lose if he didn’t save his marriage. Marcia wouldn’t stay on the island. “Fourteen and sixteen.”
“You must love them a lot.”
He raised his brow, wondering if his thoughts were that obvious.
“Johnny—” She coughed and her ears went scarlet. “Sergeant Leland told me they were good kids and you were devoted to them.”
Great, now he was being talked about behind his back. He waited as McCoy blustered her way through the moment.
“We weren’t gossiping. He was just telling me what a fantastic guy you were and to be frank, I think he was trying to warn me off.” She looked down and away. “He thought I had a crush on you and that was why…”
Ha. “Why you wouldn’t sleep with him,” Griff finished for her. He would have smiled except the irony wasn’t lost on him that he was sitting here with McCoy, attractive in her own flinty way, on his wedding anniversary. And nobody was getting any action.
She grimaced and leaned back, keeping quiet. She and Griff had formed an odd sort of bond over the aftereffects of Viagra. It usually took months of teamwork to establish this kind of easy rapport.
Griff glanced at his watch. Two RCMP officers had been sent to Frenchmans Bight to apprehend Arnie Winters and bring him in for questioning. Could he squeeze in a five-minute interview with the miner before he left? Get a feel for their next-best suspect before he ran home to placate his wife?
“The poaching incident occurred ten days after Sylvie was murdered,” McCoy pointed out, shoveling in a fry. She’d polished off a burger and was working her way through a mountain of fries. Griff didn’t know where she put it.
“So, if Fox is telling the truth, whoever planted the knife knew where the ATV was and is probably our killer. If it was Daniel’s knife, why would it have Arnie Winter’s prints on it, and why would he take it back to the ATV and leave it there? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Unless he wanted to get caught,” McCoy said.
“The guy I just Tasered did not want to be in a cell.”
“No.” They held each other’s gaze for a moment. “Do you think she’s all right? The biologist?”
Griff wiped a napkin across his lips. “We’ll get SAR out for her at first light. I don’t want anything to happen to her, but I don’t know what else we can do. It’s dark. We have no clue where she went…hopefully she hunkered down somewhere and will turn up safe in the morning.”
“And if she turns up dead?” McCoy asked.
Shit. Griff curled his fingers into fists beneath the table. “Let’s concentrate on the positive for now.” But for some reason he didn’t sound convincing, not even to himself. Maybe he should have let Fox go after her? But maybe he was wrong about Fox; maybe he was being deceived by a highly trained operative. But there was something tortured in the man’s eyes that he recognized…
Love.
Get used to the torture, buddy. Love and water-boarding had a lot in common.
McCoy finished and they both stood at the same moment. Griff grabbed a toothpick on the way out. Walking up the road, he worked at a piece of gristle stuck between his back molars. It was dark early tonight because of the lousy weather. It had been a shitty day all around. He was tired. He had to go home. But he sure as hell didn’t want to.
They got back to the station and McCoy used her key because it was after six. When they’d left, Sergeant-in-Charge Percy Roblin had been in his office, holding the fort. Everyone had been pulling overtime since the murder and they were short-staffed. They walked through the door and, though the man’s office light was on, Griff couldn’t see him anywhere. He was probably in the washroom. There was an old Colt .45 revolver on a desk next to a set of keys. Griff frowned at the firearm.
“What are we going to do with Fox?” McCoy asked.
Griff thought about it and checked his watch. He had to get home. “Release him for now.”
“Really?” Her eyebrows shot up and her lips parted.
“There’s no
motive and we’re still waiting on DNA. Let him go for now.”
She sighed.
He grinned. “You just want him where you can get your hands on him.” She gave him an irritated glare and then went through to the back where they had the ex-soldier locked up.
“Griff!” McCoy’s voice rang through the station.
Griff dashed to the cell. The scene that met his eyes defied belief. Red-faced, Charlie Watson lay on the bunk, hands cuffed behind his back as he tried to escape the sheets that pinned him. Sergeant-in-Charge Percy Roblin lay bouncing, pretzel-shaped, on the floor. The man’s gun was still in his belt. McCoy was trying to unlock the handcuffs, but Griff put a staying hand on her arm and ripped the gag out of the cop’s mouth.
“Daniel Fox do this to you?” he asked.
“The sonofabitch went crazy and attacked me. Get me out of these!” Roblin glared at McCoy, who started fumbling with her keys again.
“Wait,” Griff told her. He went over and pulled the sock from Charlie Watson’s mouth. “What are you doing here, Charlie?”
“Let me out of these cuffs, McCoy, or your next evaluation is going to recommend psych appraisal.” Roblin’s face contorted with rage.
McCoy took a breath and then fumbled her keys and dropped them. “Sorry,” she muttered.
Griff used the distraction to help the old man upright. “Who let you in here, Charlie?”
The old man’s eyes darted to Roblin on the floor.
“Keep your mouth shut, you fool!”
“But the man said he didn’t kill Sylvie.” Charlie’s eyes filled with confusion. “After he tied us up, he could have killed us both. But he said he wasn’t running away, he was going looking for some girl who was in trouble near Mitshishu Brook and would turn himself in when she was safe. He said he didn’t kill my baby.”
“And you believed that pile of bullshit?” Roblin spluttered.
But Griff did believe it, and from the look in Charlie’s eyes he’d believed it too.
“You had a gun?” Griff rested his hand gently over the old man’s clenched fists. That explained the Colt lying on the desk. McCoy had undone Roblin’s cuffs and was working on the shoe laces while the man writhed and polished the linoleum.
He nodded. “Fox took it, but he didn’t hurt either of us.” Shock whitened the old man’s face. Dammit.
“Why’d you come here today, Charlie?”
The old man looked away, the inner corners of his eyebrows pulled up in an expression of extreme guilt.
“I didn’t know Charlie brought a frickin’ gun with him, he told me he just wanted to look his daughter’s killer in the eye,” Roblin protested, finally getting his feet beneath him and stamping the blood back into his limbs. “Fox is armed and dangerous.” Roblin bent down and fixed his laces. “I’m going to nail that sonofabitch and put him away for so long he’ll be a drooling geriatric before he sees freedom.” He pulled out his firearm and checked the magazine. The metallic snap echoed around the room with grim finality as he chambered a round.
Griff climbed to his feet.
Daniel Fox wasn’t armed or dangerous, but he’d humiliated Roblin. He was a wanted man and would get no mercy or pity from the Sergeant-in-Charge of this detachment. Daniel had broken out of custody—for love, it seemed. If it wasn’t so friggin’ serious, it would have been sweet. Griff now had half an hour to save his marriage, his kids, and Daniel Fox.
***
Hunger picked at her bones with sharp canine teeth. It was dark and so cold the tips of her fingers tingled in that deceptive prelude to numbness. She wiped her nose on the cuff of her jacket, shivers racing over her body. Despite the frigid temperature, she was sweaty and clammy, and doggedly ignoring the lightheadedness that spelled disaster.
She needed a plan.
An owl hooted. The primeval sound lodged in the fear center of her brain and made her freeze as her heart pounded. There was a loud crack of a branch, but she didn’t know where the sound came from or what it was. The blackness was impenetrable and she held back a cry.
What should she do?
The buzz of insects filled the air as they fed off her blood. She slapped them away, pulled herself to her feet, gingerly testing her weight on her injured knee. It hurt like hell. Tooly planned to kill her, and if she didn’t come up with some sort of survival strategy, he was going to succeed.
She swayed. How could she have been so rash and naïve? Normally she was cautious, too scared to take risks. Life was planned and plotted, every angle considered and all eventualities covered before she tiptoed in. But not today. Today she’d grabbed it by the proverbial horns, and it had grabbed her back by the jugular.
She tripped over a briar, crashed to her knees, the pain so excruciating that moisture ran from her eyes and her stomach heaved. But there was nothing to throw up. No food, just insulin hunting down every molecule of glucose in her body.
Dammit. She hauled herself to her feet again, using the limb of a tree, shielding her face because the branches scratched like sharp claws. She didn’t know where she was or where she was going. Blindly she staggered on.
Daniel.
She’d been too chicken to tell him she loved him. He was too big a risk taker and she was too damned scared of the consequences of falling in love with a man who mainlined adrenaline. But with sudden clarity she realized Daniel would never have let her go off alone like this. How ironic that the risk taker would have instinctively known the safer option when it came to her survival? And no matter how hard she’d tried, her grasping and feeble attempts to live her life to the fullest had resulted in nothing but stunted glimpses of that paradigm.
The flaw with her foolhardy little ideal was that she was too terrified of dying to really go for it. She was pretty sure Daniel had thumbed his nose at mortality more times than she’d had orgasms. And after the last few weeks that was saying something.
Was that why she was so attracted to him, because he was unafraid of her darkest fear?
Her vision swam, which was weird considering she couldn’t really see anything. She felt her way slowly onward through the night, hearing the sound of rushing water and forcing herself to take another slow measured step. She became aware of a change in the air around her. It took her a few seconds for her eyes to adjust but she was in a clearing full of large shadowy boulders, near a stream. Faint ribbons of starlight reflected off the dark surface of the water. She sank to her knees and sat panting on the unforgiving bedrock. She lay her cheek against a moss-covered boulder. God, her head hurt.
She just needed a little rest. That was all she needed, rest. Then she’d get up and go kick that old man’s butt. And she’d tell Daniel she loved him, even if he didn’t love her back because that was really living life to the fullest. Taking chances. The intense pulsing pain beat at her skull while sweat cooled on her skin. She closed her eyes just for a moment.
Flying in darkness with low vis might have given him a cheap thrill a few weeks ago, but right now it was just another obstacle in a long list of complications. Thankfully, he’d spent eleven years training for danger, disasters and impossible missions, and he was ready to use everything he had to make sure Cam was safe. And okay, he’d look pretty damn foolish if he found her drinking tea at Tooly’s, but he didn’t care about looking stupid. He didn’t even care about doing time. There was no other choice he could have made, because protecting the woman he loved was the right thing to do.
Honor.
He swallowed the emotions that constricted his throat. It was a small word, but Daniel realized it meant everything to him. And he’d lost it the day he’d killed that civilian cameraman. Now he was stealing it back.
But Cam’s life was more important than even his honor.
He’d found another of the company’s Bell 206B workhorses parked at the airstrip. He’d run a quick inspection and fueled her up and then he’d liberated the machine from her pilot, who was probably sneaking a beer in town. With a bit of luck Daniel would have
the bird back before sunrise and the pilot wouldn’t have a clue his helicopter had gone AWOL.
He headed north, using the instruments and staying high enough to avoid all possible fixed landmarks in the region.
He radioed the ship in case Cam had turned up. “Imaviaq. This is Daniel Fox, over.”
Captain Joseph Crane picked up. Inwardly Daniel groaned. “Daniel Fox, Imaviaq. What can I do for you, Mr. Fox? Over.”
“Is Cameran Young back aboard?”
“Negative, Mr. Fox. Imaviaq.”
She was in trouble. He knew it.
“Did the police let you go already? Over.”
“No, I broke out. What’d you think? Fox. Over and out.” He used sarcasm to cover the truth. Not that it made much difference, with the Mounties on his tail. They always got their man. Daniel just had to make sure it wasn’t at Cam’s expense.
Patrick had spoken to Cam at the falls. So that was where he headed first. Goddamn, he didn’t want to think about the pool where she’d nearly drowned. What if she’d fallen in again? He’d hurt her, pushed her away, because it was that or tell her the truth about the sort of man he really was. And now she was missing.
The clouds were breaking up and the moon cast a pale silver light that showed him the course of the brook. It was easy to navigate its course west.
He found the falls and hovered low over the site, looking for the ATV Patrick said she’d used.
No sign. His hands shook. He worked his way slowly along the upper reaches of the river, knowing it was almost impossible to see anything from the air at night without someone to help him.
Edge of Survival Page 25