Seeking Worthy Pursuits: A Dark Romantic Suspense Novel (Alace Sweets Book 2)

by MariaLisa deMora

Without missing a beat, he rested his open blade on his thigh and plucked hers from its resting place, giving the double-edged knife a cursory swipe against his jeans before he went back to mincing jerky into the oatmeal. “I’d say they’re about the same.” Finished with the preparations, he tested the edge of the metal with the pad of his thumb, raking it sideways. Then, quick as a thought, he flicked the blade back her direction, the tang once again sinking into the earth with a thud, handle quivering. If she were to measure it, she suspected it was the exact distance from her boot that it had been from his. “Thanks for the loan.”

  Alace sat up and retrieved the knife, wiping it carefully before replacing it in the sheath. Just the movement made her stomach do a slow roll, and she wished for the ability to control her body as easily as she did her weapons, mentally rolling her eyes at the idea. If she’d learned anything over the years working gigs like this, it was to control what you could and manage the fallout of the rest. She’d just gotten accustomed to being more in control than not.

  Her gaze fell to the objects from the killer’s cache, hidden under a swath of tarp they’d flipped over to protect the items from the overnight dew. She didn’t know if she could blame the barely there pregnancy for her mental lapses yesterday. Missing the belt wasn’t a big deal, but the wig? Not paying attention to the specific victims was a blunder of epic proportions. She’d lain awake for a long time last night going over each piece of evidence. There was something about the wig that kept bubbling up, coming close to focus but never quite getting there.

  A mug appeared in front of her and Alace jerked backwards, the hammock swaying. Owen had gotten close, inside her defenses, without even a twinge from her radar. He stared at her, an expression of the same surprise she was feeling etched on his face. Wordlessly she accepted the oatmeal and settled herself. It smelled good, the combination of complex carbohydrates and protein undercut with something sweet. Lifting a loaded spoonful to her mouth, she delicately touched the tip of her tongue to the food, tasting apples and cinnamon.

  At her question, communicated with a look, he laughed in response, this time the involvement of his eyes immediate, signaling true amusement. “I added my own oatmeal to the mix. I’ve got a sweet tooth like nobody’s business, and on hikes like this, it helps if I indulge early in the day.”

  Alace allowed one eyebrow to lift, mentally marking the preference to include in her file for Owen.

  They ate in silence, neither allowing the spoons to clink against the mug sides or bottoms, but when she handed hers back, his hand out in an unspoken demand, she saw Owen’s mug was as scraped bare as hers. He cleaned up and then set himself to tidying the few items left out after making breakfast. Alace stood, stretching before she took down her hammock. “I’m going to take the wig back with me. I don’t think I’d get anything from the rest of it; the items are too common for them to provide much in the way of location.”

  “Agreed. Something’s off with it, but I can’t put my finger on what’s tweaking my head.” His overly communicative response pulled her attention and she saw he was otherwise occupied, having unpacked most of his backpack, and was looking through things with a thoroughness that surprised her. Then he shocked her again by verbally acknowledging the same thing she’d been thinking when she offered the food. “Since you’re going back, if you have more jerky or other protein, that’d be welcome. I didn’t pack for more than a couple of nights, and if I stay longer, I risk running short. I can hunt if needed, but carcass disposal on federal lands is always dicey. No reason to chance it.”

  She nodded as she bent to her pack and dug, coming up with two more bags of jerky and a handful of protein-rich bars in addition to two freeze-dried meals. She picked up the satellite Wi-Fi and balanced it in her hand, finally deciding having the ability to communicate with him long term was far more critical than the chance of her needing to connect before she could get into normal coverage range. It was her turn to startle him, walking up behind him and waiting, staring down at his dark head bent studiously over his pack. He froze in place when she cleared her throat. She held the items out and said, “Take these.” Owen lifted a hand without looking back, accepting the items.

  “Thanks.” No telling inflection in his tone, but from the tension straining his muscles, keeping his unprotected back towards her was taking all his focus, evidenced by how the hand with the new foodstuffs didn’t move, lying on his thigh where it had dropped.

  She backed away, then returned to her pack, stowed the hammock and food sack, and packed the wig into an emptied bag. She wrapped the brittle hair around the mesh, protecting the wire ends as best she could. Packed, and water supply checked, Alace turned to face him. Everything about this in-person partnership had been strained, harder than it should have been because of who they were. What we are. When he stood and faced her, she studied his expression, seeing the same stress on his face that she felt inside.

  “It’ll take me most of a day to get home.” More if she didn’t push herself, but she didn’t offer that up. Showing weakness in his presence felt like letting a wild animal sniff an open wound. A risk that had no purpose and a wise woman would say wasn’t worth taking. So wise. “You get a hit on something, go ahead and upload it, don’t wait for me to ask. Once we’re done in this area, I’ll sort out how best to call it in. We’ll get those girls home to their families.” When they’d gone through the remaining areas Owen had marked yesterday, they’d had the unwelcome but expected appearance of two decaying bodies. Only two. Could have been worse. He dipped his chin once, clenched muscles holding it firm. Neither of them had been happy leaving the discovered bodies lying in their cages, but it was the best way to protect them from additional damage. Of the pits discovered, only those two had shown signs of usage, which had become a point of confusion for Alace. Why had the killer abandoned this field, or was it abandoned? Did the monster move between different clearings? Would this become a repeat location at some point in the future? Nothing in the workup on the killer indicated anything along those lines, but something she’d learned in all her years was that people were unpredictable in the best of circumstances.

  This was far from the best.

  Alace swept Owen with a glance. With his rigid stillness everywhere else, the restless movement of his fingers surprised her, a slow stroking along one edge of his pack’s shoulder straps. Down, and then back to the same place, followed by a side-to-side brush as if checking something. As if checking to ensure nothing had changed. She shifted to one side and caught a glint of something metallic in that place, and in the split second she allowed her attention to remain on it, saw a loop of wire.

  That’s why he was so quick to reclassify the leather as a belt instead of a garrote.

  One mystery solved, she locked gazes with him, giving him her best do-not-fuck-with-me stare. “Keep me in the loop.” At the edge of her vision, she saw his fingers stutter in their movement, returning to where the choking wire was before completing the normal full sweep down the strap. Now, to ensure he knew she’d seen, something he’d wonder about if she didn’t, eventually deciding her words would have been a coincidence. Instead this would reinforce all the reasons to fear her. Trust only goes so far. “So to speak.”

  “Yes.” He hesitated, and she thought he’d retreat to the honorific she’d forbidden in an effort to invoke humor. Or, he might use the role acknowledgement he’d settled on a while ago, ending each check-in call with that damned “boss lady.” Owen surprised her instead, something she was coming to understand might become the norm in their relationship. “Alace. Travel safely.”

  Hefting her pack, she settled the straps on her shoulders, never letting their locked gazes drop even for a moment. “You as well.”

  A turn and dozen strides had her at the tree line, and she followed the edge of the clearing around to the closest point to the trail, exiting there and making her way to the cleared and flattened path. The only time she paused on her way back to the lot and her car was to
scoop up a piece of wood. Then, makeshift hiking staff and sometime web clearer in hand, Alace walked out of the wilderness.

  Chapter Ten

  Owen

  Briefly tracking Alace as she made her way through the woods, Owen stood staring at the last place he’d glimpsed movement as she walked out of sight. That had been the single most surreal moment of his life. Even more than standing in front of the officers of the courts-martial, unofficial though they were, and listening to them formally ending his military career.

  Alace’s nearly playful toss of the knife had signaled a change in their relationship, afterwards cemented by the way they’d both relaxed their environmental awareness enough to be taken by surprise. Then she’d exhibited his worth in her eyes, isolating herself until she got back to civilization as she offered him a connection to the world via the Wi-Fi. His fingertips teased the tiny wire loops. Threaded through the cording along the edge of the strap, it was easily removed and prepared, needing only two tiny sticks to create handles. When someone like them learned about a hidden tool, the instinct was to protect that knowledge, knowing it left the other person exposed by being even slightly in the dark. That she hadn’t, had woven it into a casual comment instead, settled him.

  Alace Sweets is pregnant.

  The idea was still a lot to unpack, but it was the only thing to fit all the facts. He’d bet money she hadn’t told her husband yet. Alace Sweets is married. Owen never planned on meeting the man, but having seen pictures of Eric with Alace that showed clear evidence of highly protective body language, Owen knew if she had informed him of the baby, there wouldn’t have been a field trip of this sort in Alace’s future, near or far. He hoped she got back to her car safely but would never have insulted her by asking if she wanted company.

  It took only a couple of minutes to return the cache to the pit. He restacked things into their original positions, lacking only the wig to complete the collection. Back at camp, he hefted his pack and angled through the woods away from the field, intending to rejoin the trail farther along instead of retracing their tracks from yesterday.

  The terrain changed and the incline grew steeply as he hiked along, ducking under low-hanging branches and avoiding spiderwebs. Once he hit that connection point, it was only about six klicks to the next location. Given the difficulty of the terrain, without pushing himself, he wasn’t going to break any world records getting there. No biggie. When he judged he was getting close, Owen pulled out his phone and brought up the map he’d downloaded during breakfast.

  A rocky outcropping seemed a good landmark, and he slogged onwards, only stopping when he stood in front of the corresponding cliff rising to the west of the trail. Consulting the map again, he oriented himself using his compass and observed the topography, getting a good sense for what lay between where he stood and the open clearing Alace wanted him to check out.

  Bending at the waist to balance his pack, he scooped up a thick stick and struck out, bushwhacking as Alace called it. This route wasn’t traveled, wasn’t an official trail, but halfway to the clearing, he stumbled on something that was a good deal more defined than he’d expected. Owen hesitated before putting a boot on the worn groove threading through the vegetation thriving in the shade of the tree canopy. Crouching, he angled his head to stare both directions along the path, identifying half a dozen animal tracks before he found what he’d been looking for. There was a distinct bootheel, followed by another, about half a stride beyond. They weren’t crisp, the impressions’ edges rounded by the light breezes that played at this elevation. But they were there, and light as they were, the footprints would have been washed away by even a drizzle, which meant they’d been made recently, since—if memory served—this region had seen a torrential deluge about two weeks ago, part of a cold front sweeping in from Canada.

  Staying to the underbrush, he paralleled the trail, identifying and noting each indication of manmade tracks. They were even, not struggling or stumbling, and not overly deep. When he found a pair of tracks, they were consistently about two-thirds to a full length of his normal hiking stride, which spoke to the lesser height of the person.

  The trail meandered north at an angle away from what his compass said should be a direct line to the clearing. It was following the path of least resistance, circumventing a broad thicket of brambles, wicked sharp thorns driving him to take his first step on the path. Owen felt exposed, and he’d only taken a couple of strides before he crouched low, head swiveling to cover the trail ahead and behind, peering through the vegetation on either side. His advancement continued that way, slower than he would have liked, but he catered to the short fuse of his nerves, trusting those senses he’d finely honed to keep him safe.

  Once past the brambles, he opted to remain on the path, keeping his steps to the hummocks of grass as much as he could, leaving little impression behind to mark his passage. Something about this trail had him spooked, and his mind kept pulling up images of that wig, blood-tipped twists of wire holding the hanks of hair in place. Something moved in the brush off to his left and Owen was prone instantly, watching as a doe stepped into view. She scented the air, head swiveling much as his had been, tick-tocking back and forth.

  With a sigh, he pushed up to his knees, surprised to see the deer stare at him without any attempt to flee. It was only when he rose to his full height that she leapt sideways and was away, tail flagging alarm as she ran. Owen expected his alert to fade after that, his nerves validated by the presence of another living, breathing being. He was wrong. The farther he went on the path, the tighter things inside him wound. It was worse than having Alace at his back yesterday. This was an oppressive feeling of dread, very much like…

  Stopping abruptly, he allowed his mind to follow that errant thought, because this did feel familiar in a bad way, like he was reliving something he’d rather not. Not in a flashback, because these woods weren’t anything like the jungles of Central America. Still, this felt way too much like one mission he’d taken that hadn’t turned out as expected, and instead of settling into his hide to track the movements of his target, he’d stumbled into a valley decimated by death, the entire village wiped out.

  The wind shifted, and he caught a whiff of what might be rotting vegetation or something much darker.

  Off the trail again, he worked his way through the woods, orienteering skills keeping him on point. Just over an hour later, he paused at the edge of the clearing, seeing where the trail dissected the trees to his north by about a quarter of a mile, picking up on the far side of the opening and disappearing into the woods there, turning back into a true animal track tunneled underneath the vegetation.

  That path only earned the most glancing of attention, his full focus on the clearing and what he saw there. If he imagined the open swath of land as a clockface, then sitting at two o’clock, about midway through the sweep of the hand, was the artifact.

  Incongruous and out of place, there was a half barrel.

  Chapter Eleven

  Alace

  Even in dreams the landscape never changed. Alace raced through the trees, chasing the disappearing point of the long-abandoned tracks. Red. Everywhere she looked, red.

  She jerked as she woke, head angled uncomfortably against the passenger door of the car. Sitting up with a yawn, she tried to rub the twinges of pain from her neck, groaning as she dug deep into the complaining muscles.

  A look at her phone said she’d slept an hour or less, and another jaw-cracking yawn said she’d come down on the lesser side of that equation. Gulping a few swallows from her bottle of water, she shook her head, trying to dislodge the lingering cobwebs of sleep. Squinting out the windows into the dark, she could make out the hulking outlines of the same trucks parked ahead and behind her as when she’d stopped, fatigue overcoming her desire to be home. The on-ramp had been a safer bet than a rest area, and tucked in between the semis as she was, it felt like her parking spot was even more protected.

  Shuffling back behind the wh
eel, she took another drink as she buckled and prepared to roll out. A peek at her phone showed she had signal for the first time since she’d started the trip home, and she opened the normal text app to find three messages from Eric, his messages colored in ascending levels of concern.

  Thumbs flying across the screen, she sent what she hoped was a reassuring text just saying she was headed home and would be there within a couple of hours. His response came before she could change apps, and she smiled at the bossy and demanding, Call me.

  “I’m fine.” She led with that when he answered, even before a greeting. “I stopped for a nap because I was tired, but I’ll be home soon.”

  “You’re okay? You were quiet for a long time, Alace.” The worry in his voice tore at her chest, opening tiny wounds that she’d caused him to worry. “Are you too tired to drive? Should you get a hotel?”

  “I’m good. I promise, Eric. I’m ready to be home. With you.” Alace’s lips curled because her voice was pitchy and soft, the love that filled her evident in every word. Such a sap. It made her inordinately happy to feel this way, because she knew he returned the love. Unreservedly. “Want me to wake you when I get there? We could have happy sexy times.” Unless I’m spotting again. Her brain was unhelpful at the moment, shoving that thought front and center, because during her speedy hike back to the car, she’d found evidence of blood each time she’d gone to the bathroom.

  “Just come home to me, Alace. I’ll be waiting.” He didn’t say goodbye, and knew she wouldn’t either, finishing with a husky, “See you soon,” before disconnecting.

  With a sigh, she thumbed back to the text string, sending him a heart emoji, the only one she ever used, and only with him. Words were less likely to be misunderstood, and all of her messages had direct consequences if the other party got it wrong.

  Another flick of her thumb took her to the secure log-in app that got her into her outer network, and another two-factor authentication got her into the next ring, where her email lived. Nothing of note there, all things that could wait until she was home and in her office. A different anonymous VPN connection took her to a page with a single, blinking cursor. She typed in the pass phrase, slow and deliberate in her exhaustion, because at this level in her network a single failed log-in resulted in a self-destruct sequence she couldn’t back out of.