Mountain Captive (Love Inspired Suspense)

by Sharon Dunn

  Trapped in a blizzard,

  can he complete his rescue mission?

  Private investigator Jude Trainor won’t give up on finding a kidnapped little girl—even after the suspect runs him off a mountain road and sends bullets his way. But when Lacey Conrad steps in to help Jude, the criminal sets his sights on her. Can Jude and Lacey outlast a snowstorm and a person who will stop at nothing to cover his tracks?

  The sight sent a jolt of fear through her.

  “He’s back.” Lacey pointed at the snowmobile on the mountain. “And he has a rifle.”

  As they took cover in a snowdrift, Lacey pushed aside the panic that filled her.

  Jude faced her, but neither of them dared make a sound. They listened to the snowmobile grow closer. Just a few more minutes and it’d be past them.

  She looked up and her breath caught. “He has her! He has the girl!”

  “The roads must be open. He’s taking her out of here.” Jude reached for his gun. “We have to stop him.” He fired a shot.

  He jerked his head to one side. Before she even had time to look up the mountain to whatever had alarmed him, a thundering roar surrounded her.

  Avalanche.

  They bolted downhill but couldn’t outrun the wave of snow. In seconds, her body was picked up and tossed around. Snow cascaded around her, enveloping her, and stole her last breath.

  Ever since she found the Nancy Drew books with the pink covers in her country school library, Sharon Dunn has loved mystery and suspense. Most of her books take place in Montana, where she lives with three nearly grown children and a hyper border collie. She lost her beloved husband of twenty-seven years to cancer in 2014. When she isn’t writing, she loves to hike surrounded by God’s beauty.

  Books by Sharon Dunn

  Love Inspired Suspense

  Dead Ringer

  Night Prey

  Her Guardian

  Broken Trust

  Zero Visibility

  Montana Standoff

  Top Secret Identity

  Wilderness Target

  Cold Case Justice

  Mistaken Target

  Fatal Vendetta

  Big Sky Showdown

  Hidden Away

  In Too Deep

  Wilderness Secrets

  Mountain Captive

  True Blue K-9 Unit

  Courage Under Fire

  Visit the Author Profile page at Harlequin.com for more titles.

  Mountain Captive

  Sharon Dunn

  Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.

  —Psalm 30:5

  I cried by reason of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice. For thou hadst cast me into the deep, in the midst of the seas; and floods compassed me about: all thy billows and thy waves passed over me.

  —Jonah 2:2–3

  For Shannon, who brings so much humor and adventure into my life. So glad you are my son.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  DEAR READER

  EXCERPT FROM STOLEN SECRETS BY SHERRI SHACKELFORD

  ONE

  Private Investigator Jude Trainor gripped the steering wheel of his SUV as it hugged the upward side of the narrow mountain road. One small overcorrection and he ran the risk of sailing off the road and down the steep incline. Windshield wipers beat out an intense rhythm, wiping away the increasing snowfall. The radio forecast an unexpected blizzard, the worst Montana had seen in fifty years.

  He could just make out the red taillights of the car he’d chased for miles. The car matched the description of the one believed to have been used to kidnap an eight-year-old girl over a week ago from her home in North Dakota. There was no way to match it to the driver because it had been reported as stolen a day before the kidnapping.

  Was the girl being held in a remote cabin in these mountains? Jude doubted the suspect would lead him to the girl. What he hoped for was to take the driver into custody and get him to confess. But the driver had not stopped when they were on the highway. Now with only the two of them on this road, he must know he was being tailed. Jude prayed for an opportunity to stop or disable the car.

  The car had surfaced around various parts of Montana, but this was the closest Jude had gotten to the suspect.

  The road curved and the red taillights disappeared.

  Snow cut Jude’s visibility. He let up on the gas until he was moving at a crawl. Wipers cleared his windshield only to have it fill up again with snow. All he saw was white everywhere. The car couldn’t have gotten that far ahead of him. The wind blew with such force, he could barely make out the tracks where the other car had been.

  Headlights filled his field of vision. Adrenaline flooded his body. The other car had gotten turned around and was headed straight toward him on the one-lane road. He tensed, ready for a fight for his life.

  Jude shifted into Reverse. He drove more by feel and instinct than by what he could see in his mirrors. His car hugged the upward side of the road.

  Through the snowfall, all he saw was the glowing orange of the headlights as they loomed ever closer to him. He prayed for some sort of shoulder to pull off on. Bushes scratched the driver’s side window because he was so close to the bank.

  Though the other car was moving at a crawl as well, it closed the distance between them.

  He checked his mirrors and then craned his neck. The snowfall cleared for a moment, so he had a view of the road. He couldn’t see a safe place to pull over. He pressed the gas even harder, guessing at where the safest route was.

  He felt a thud against his front bumper.

  He set his jaw and gripped the wheel. No, this could not be happening. He was not going over that incline.

  Jude shifted into First. He revved the engine and pushed toward the other car, which was only a few feet away. If this guy wanted to play demolition derby, bring it on.

  The other driver backed away a few feet. Jude brushed his hand over the gun in his shoulder holster. For the kidnapped girl, he needed the suspect brought in ready to talk. Even if he injured him to capture him, it meant a delay in finding the child.

  An idea struck him. He turned off his headlights and continued to back down the mountain.

  The other car backed away, as well. Now he saw the flaw in his plan. The guy would back up until he got to the place where he was able to turn around and then take off. With his lights still off, Jude edged forward. The headlights of the other car faded in and out as an intense wind gusted.

  They came to a straight part of the road. The other car barreled toward him at a dangerous speed. He hit Reverse again. His windshield filled with blinding yellow light right before metal crashed against metal. The whole car seemed to be vibrating and creaking. His back end fishtailed. And then he was sliding sideways. His hand gripped the wheel. He pu
mped the brake. The car slipped off the edge of the road. He felt weightless as the seat belt dug into his chest and the car rolled twice before coming to a stop right side up.

  The crash had taken the wind out of him. Still numb, he unclicked his seat belt. His door was too bent to open. Though he was in pain, he didn’t think he’d broken anything.

  He pulled his phone out. No signal.

  Jude dragged himself toward the passenger side door. He clicked the handle and pushed it open. A gust of snow chilled his face as he crawled out.

  He heard the zing of the rifle shot before he heard it hit the metal of his wrecked vehicle. His heart pounded. He could just make out the silhouette of the possible kidnapper standing in the headlights of his car, aiming a rifle down the mountain at him.

  Adrenaline surged through Jude’s body as he crawled around to the front of his car for cover. His bright colored ski jacket would be easy to spot even in the storm.

  The freezing cold enveloped him. He’d kept his winter coat on, but he had no hat or gloves. He wrestled with the thought that he might die out here. That his life would come to nothing. And that the little girl would not be brought home safe. That bothered him more than the reality of his own death.

  Another shot rang through the air. Glass shattered.

  The possibility of bringing that little girl home safe to her parents had felt like a shot at redemption to him. He wasn’t a private investigator by choice. At the age of twenty-one, ten years ago, he’d washed up as a rookie officer when a domestic call he’d been sent on had ended in the murder-suicide of husband and wife. Their ten-year-old daughter had witnessed the crime. The last he’d heard she was under a psychiatrist’s care. Her life would never be the same. The guilt weighed on him every day.

  If only Jude had said the right words as he’d talked to the husband through the open window. If only he’d chosen a different tactic. If only...

  Jude peered around the side of his car. The man with the rifle was nothing more than a dark spot, but he was still there waiting to take another shot at Jude.

  The cold seeped into his muscles as he wondered if he had the strength to make a run for it into the unknown down the mountain. The winding road was the one he’d just come up in his pursuit. Maybe there was somebody down there, a hunter perhaps. For the first time in ten years, he said a quick and desperate prayer.

  Lord, send help or show me a way out of this.

  * * *

  Wildlife biologist Lacey Conrad put the binoculars up to her eyes and scanned the winter landscape until her view landed on a ridge where she expected to see elk appear within the next hour. She gripped the binoculars a little tighter. She wasn’t going to see anything with the storm moving in. Not a good day for research and observation. She let the binoculars fall around her neck. Even on days like this, she loved her job. She preferred being outside and the research allowed her to move around Montana. Since the death of her parents and little brother in a car crash when she was in college, she had lived like a nomad, never putting down roots anywhere. That was the way she liked it.

  The wind died down for a moment and movement much closer to her caught her attention. On the mountain road above her, a car had rolled off the road. She’d heard the muffled sound of a crash only moments before. Now as the wind died down, the noise made sense.

  She saw a man crouched in front of the car. Her heart squeezed tight. A man holding a rifle was headed down the steep incline. She’d thought the shots she heard before were from a hunter somewhere on the mountain.

  The man by the car bolted to his feet. She could see the bright colors of his ski jacket even when the wind picked up. Panic filled her body. It was the man in the ski jacket who was being hunted. The man must have seen the orange of her hunting vest. He made a beeline toward her.

  Another shot was fired. The man in the ski jacket fell in the snow. Her heart lurched. Had he been hit?

  She ran toward him. Her boots sank into the snow. She looked up the mountain seeing only white. The neutral colors the man with the rifle wore made it harder to see him.

  The man in the ski jacket got to his feet. She ran toward him, nearly crashing into him.

  He gripped her arm. The fear she saw in his face turned to relief.

  A thousand questions raged through her head. Was this some sort of drug deal or other crime gone bad? Was she helping a criminal? Was the man shooting at a hunter who had lost his marbles?

  Another shot rang through the air. She scanned the landscape in the general direction the shot had come from, but she could see nothing through the blowing snowfall.

  The man in the ski jacket would have to explain later.

  The only thing that was clear to her was that his life was in danger.

  She tugged on his sleeve. “This way.” Her truck was parked down the mountain in a grove of trees.

  They half ran and half slid down the mountain toward the next section of winding road. She hurried through the evergreens to her truck. She yanked open the driver’s side door. The man in the ski jacket got into the passenger side of the truck.

  She glanced over at the stranger sitting across from her. Her heart was still racing from running from the shooter.

  He met her gaze. His eyes looked honest, anyway. “Thank you,” he said. “You saved my life.” He was still trying to catch his breath.

  She wasn’t sure what to think about this stranger. She pulled through the trees and out onto the road. The heavy snowfall on the unplowed road meant she had to go slow. “I’ll take you as far as Lodgepole where I’m staying. There’s no law enforcement there. Tiny town, only two hundred people.” Her voice dropped half an octave. “Obviously, you have something to report. There’s a sheriff in Garnet about fifty miles from Lodgepole.”

  He nodded but offered no further explanation. “Again, thank you.” He let out a breath. “I’m Jude, by the way.” His voice had a soft melodic quality.

  “Lacey. I’m a biologist doing research on elk.” She hoped he would return the favor and explain what he was doing up in these mountains.

  He nodded but didn’t say anything.

  She maneuvered the truck through the heavy snow that had already piled up on the road. An object hit the truck with a violent thud. Her heart pounded as every muscle in her body tensed. The man with the rifle had thrown something at the truck.

  “He must be out of bullets,” said Jude. “I think he threw a rock at us.”

  Lacey glanced out of the driver’s side window. The man was close enough for her to see his face. He ran toward them, rifle raised to be used as a blunt instrument. She saw him clearly. He was maybe ten feet away, a hulking mass of a man. The white-and-gray hair, the beard, the eyes that were filled with a murderous rage. A face she would not easily forget. The man looked right at her. A chill skittered over her skin.

  She pressed the gas even harder, accelerating to a dangerous speed. She swerved.

  Another blow struck the back end of the truck. In the rearview mirror, she saw the man raising his rifle to hit the truck again with the rifle stock.

  Lacey gripped the steering wheel and chose the path of least resistance where the snow wasn’t as deep. All the same, her truck drifted toward the edge of the road. She straightened her steering wheel, finally gaining control.

  “Good job,” said Jude. “That takes some skill.” He still had a white-knuckle grip on the dashboard as he glanced nervously out the back window.

  She had no idea what to think about this man sitting in her truck. He had a lot of explaining to do. She had never been a good judge of character. As her grandmother used to say, her people picker was broken. She did better with wilderness and animals.

  “You handled the whole thing really well,” said Jude.

  “Thanks. So was that guy some sort of crazed landowner or something?” She really wanted to give Jude the benefit of
the doubt, but she needed to know whom she had just rescued.

  He took a moment to answer. He ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair. “No, it’s a little more complicated than that. I’m a private investigator. That’s all you need to know.” He turned away and stared out the window.

  Okay, so he wasn’t going to tell her much. At least he was on the right side of the law.

  When she checked the rearview mirror, she could no longer see the man with the rifle. But his face was burned into her memory. Though she could not say why. She had the feeling she had looked into the face of a murderer.

  TWO

  Lacey could see the tiny cluster of lights that was Lodgepole as she drove toward the base of the mountain. By the time she pulled onto Main Street, the wind and snow had intensified.

  “Probably too dangerous to drive into Garnet to report what happened to you. Might have to wait until after the storm.” She searched for a parking space.

  “I suppose I can phone it in.” His voice lacked commitment as he stared out the window. He seemed distracted. His mind must be on something else.

  “If you can get a signal. Maybe we should do that together. I saw the guy pretty clearly.”

  Jude perked up. “Really?”

  Downtown Lodgepole was all of five blocks long. Many of the businesses did double duty. She rolled past a post office that was also an information center for tourists. The hardware store advertised that you could get your car fixed there. There was one café next to the hotel where she was staying.

  The Davenport Hotel had probably been the talk of the town when it was built at the turn of the century. Meant to be an elegant stopping place for weary railroad travelers, it was now run-down with only a few rooms still being used. Much of the hotel was boarded up and closed off. The railroad didn’t come through Lodgepole anymore. No one came through here except the occasional hunter or hiker. She glanced over at Jude. And the occasional tight-lipped private investigator.