Deadly Hunter

by Rachel Lee

  “Then I’ll do that.”

  But having his ego stroked didn’t make Rob stupid. When he’d finished up and went to resume his post, he rose, then paused to look at her. “You wouldn’t be thinking of doing something idiotic, Allison?”

  Her heart stopped. Then she managed to shake her head. “I might carry it with me. You know I got shot at yesterday, Rob. I’m not feeling exactly safe.”

  “We’re watching you.”

  “I know. But it’s my feelings we’re talking about here.” Which was true, if misleading.

  “All right, then. If it will make you feel safer. Just don’t carry it loaded in the car. It’s dangerous. Wait until you have both feet on the ground, okay?”

  “Is that what you do?”

  “In my own car. In the patrol car I have a dash lock for my shotgun. If it goes off, the worst it can do is give me a sunroof, okay?”

  “Got it.” She gave him a wan smile.

  He shook his head a little, as if none of this was quite adding up for him, but finally he just left.

  Relief filled her. If he’d kept questioning her, she wasn’t sure what she might have said, simply because her own determination hadn’t yielded a useful plan yet.

  All she thought she knew was that Jerrod was probably going to head up into the mountains after dark. And she intended to be there in case he needed help.

  She had a gun now. She also had a sheriff’s radio keyed to the emergency frequency. If nothing else, she could call for the cavalry.

  What she could not do, no matter how much common sense argued with it, was wash away the guilt over having sent him off with those words. Since he’d already left, she had no other choice.

  She had hurt him, she was sure. If she died in the attempt to make up for it, so be it. She just couldn’t leave it this way.

  Foolish, aching heart overrode sensible mind. She knew it. She just didn’t care.

  Chapter 12

  The snow complicated matters. Jerrod stood at a barn window, watching night settle over the world. There was no moon, the snow wasn’t deep enough yet to cover the taller thatches of grass and the occasional tumbleweed that seemed frozen in time, but it still made for a difficult situation. He needed to get across a lot of open ground without being spotted. Once in the woods, blending in would be a whole lot easier.

  The barn door opened and he turned. Jake stood there. “I can help.”

  “Jake...”

  “Just wait. I have some cattle at the western edge of my property, near a river crossing. I’ll drive out that way and drop you off. You can’t possibly cross all that open ground without being spotted.”

  “I don’t want you dragged into this.”

  “Sometimes life just drags us in. You’re not going to tell me to stand aside, are you?”

  “Are all you locals so stubborn?”

  “Stubbornness is required for ranching out here. Look, I don’t know what you have in the way of gear.”

  “I’m going black, and I’ve got an AR and a couple of good knives.”

  “Heavy weaponry. You know black will stand out on that snow. Once you get into the woods it might cover you, but not on my range. I’ll drop you in my herd and you can use them for cover. With any luck, the clouds will move in and cut the light to nothing. They’re sure trying to. And,” he added, reaching for a dull gray blanket hanging over the edge of the stall, “take this. It won’t stand out as much.”

  So Jerrod added a blanket to his gear and finally agreed to let Jake drive him. “Allison’s stubborn, too,” he remarked.

  “How’s that going?” Jake asked as he threw the truck into gear and they began to jolt across the open ground.

  “Not well. She told me not to come back.”

  Jake ruminated for a few minutes, then remarked, “I know that woman. She didn’t mean it.”

  “She did when she said it.”

  “Well, she’s a stubborn cuss like all the rest of us out here.”

  “That’s what worries me.” And it did. He’d spent most of the day flipping between attention to the night that approached and memories of Allison. “You know, most women—hell, most people—would have backed off when I suggested that taking those soil samples could be dangerous.”

  “You told her that?”

  “Repeatedly. That was before I realized anybody might have an interest in me. I was afraid the guy who did the poisoning might want to stop her. She refused to believe it, mostly, and she kept right on taking samples. Frankly, most people would have washed their hands and said somebody else could take the samples.”

  “Maybe so.” Jake fell quiet for a few minutes. “I wonder if she would come out here tonight?”

  “I’m hoping like hell she won’t. Then I met you. You’re not backing off, either.”

  “That will complicate things.” Jake sighed. “I’ll tell you, I’ve got a fiancée who is a tigress when it comes to protecting those she cares about.”

  “I’m pretty sure Allison is a tigress, too. I just hope she uses her head.”

  “I’ll do what I can on my end. I’ll watch for her vehicle up the road a bit toward town, and I’ll have my hired hand ride around a bit.”

  “Thanks. I just hope she hasn’t already come out here.”

  * * *

  With a fresh hunting license tacked to her vest and a shotgun filled with ammunition, Allison had donned her orange gear and set out in the midafternoon. A little late for a hunting trip, but not too late. She’d managed to get away by lying to the cops, too. She had claimed she needed to work late on the samples. That had caused some rearranging in her keepers, and during it she had managed to slip the noose. So far she hadn’t seen any flashing lights behind her, or anyone else for that matter.

  Her cell phone rang before she got too far out of town and she answered it only because it was the sheriff. “Hey,” he said, “how’s it going?”

  “I’m going to be stuck in my office grading papers until hell freezes over,” she lied gamely. “What’s up?”

  “I thought you should know we have a confession about the poisoning.”

  She perked up instantly, and pulled her car over to the side of the road so she wouldn’t lose the connection. “Really? Who? Why?”

  “It was funny. I wish you’d been here. Fred Loftis all but dragged this skinny kid in by his ear. It seemed the kid was striking out for truth, justice and not living in sin. Unfortunately, he bragged about taking action.”

  “What in the world did he hope to achieve?”

  “Brownie points with Loftis, as near as I can figure. It backfired.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Allison?”

  “Yes?”

  “You wouldn’t do anything unwise, would you?”

  “Since when has grading papers become unwise?”

  A pause, as if he didn’t quite believe her. “Sometimes,” he said quietly, “it’s better to stand aside.”

  “I’m grading papers,” she repeated.

  “Let’s keep it that way.”

  She was relieved to disconnect. Lying wasn’t easy for her.

  She hiked in from quite a distance away, but she had made good time. She didn’t know exactly where this was going to play out, but she suspected it would be somewhere around the area where earlier events had happened. It was the likeliest place for Jerrod to go, and thus the likeliest place for someone to look for him.

  Just what she hoped to accomplish, she didn’t know. All she knew for certain was that her heart wouldn’t rest unless she did this.

  Her parting words to him thundered in her ears and heart. Yes, she’d told him to stay safe but she’d also told him not to come back. She had rejected him in lesser ways before, and she had seen his reaction, alm
ost as if he closed in on himself. And she had sent him off on a deadly mission with a rejection like that on his brain.

  Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he didn’t care in the least what she said or thought. Maybe she was just a cipher for him, a woman he had loved for one night and would leave behind.

  None of that mattered against her own sense of iniquity. That she could have said something like that to anyone made her feel loathsome. Despicable. It was even worse than not meeting her parents in Minneapolis. She should have been on that plane with them. She could have saved at least her mom. Well, she wasn’t going there again, not going to live with regrets, especially one so ugly.

  Following what her dad had taught her so long ago, she paused from time to time, as if she was looking for nibbled plants. When she reached the right area, she climbed a tree to keep watch. Just like a hunter, with her shotgun ready, her orange cap and vest identifying her.

  She released the safety lock and prayed that a deer wouldn’t cross her path. If one did, she’d have to shoot it to carry out her ruse, and she didn’t want to. Not at all.

  Once she felt watched, but only briefly. The feeling was ephemeral, possibly imagined. But if it wasn’t her imagination, then the attention had moved on, dismissing her.

  Sitting still as the day waned, she grew chillier but ignored it. At sunset, hunting ended for the day. The only question was how she was going to manage it. Leave and start walking away? Ditch her safety gear? She didn’t know.

  So she sat there pondering as the light began to fade, wondering if she had totally lost her mind.

  She certainly seemed to have lost something else.

  * * *

  The hunter saw the woman with the gun. At first he was annoyed and considered removing her from the picture. But then he remembered he didn’t want to leave a trail. When she climbed the tree and settled in, blazing orange, he concluded that she really was there to hunt. And she was most definitely alone.

  He dismissed her. She’d leave at sunset and be out of the picture completely. He’d seen other hunters on the mountain over the past week, and while she had been hanging with Jerrod, she wasn’t with him now. Apparently Jerrod hadn’t been able to slip the leash the cops had on him. The woman alone presented no threat whatsoever. He’d just check back at nightfall to make sure she was gone.

  Then he’d wait for Jerrod Marquette, who would definitely come by night.

  * * *

  The blanket and the cattle proved to be nearly perfect cover. Keeping low, Jerrod moved among the herd. He didn’t seem to disturb them at all. Steers and cows grazed placidly together, or just ruminated while they stared off into space with an almost dreamy look. They huddled fairly closely, probably for warmth, but a few wandered away, looking for more to nibble on. A big bale of hay had been broken up not far away, and that drew a few more of them.

  He wished he’d had cover this good on some of his past missions. As cold as it was, with the blanket over him he doubted he was casting enough of a heat signature to stand out from the warm-bodied animals. He also soon discovered an interesting tendency: when he moved toward the stream, a lot of them edged along with him.

  He wondered if he was wearing eau de cow or something.

  Finally he was at the river’s edge. He shucked the blanket, leaving it in some snow. He waited, allowing himself to cool down more to reduce his heat signature in case his foe was using infrared goggles. He had a pair himself and slipped them on, scanning the far bank. Nothing. Nothing at all.

  Pulling them off, because he preferred his own night vision under most circumstances and the infrared emitted light that would worsen it, he waded across the water, wincing once when some sloshed into his boot. It wasn’t much, but a trickle of ice ran down his calf to the bottom of his foot. It didn’t take long for it to warm up to his body temperature.

  On the far side, he melted quickly into the woods. The promised clouds had begun to move in, turning the night to near pitch as he moved deeper into the trees.

  Every now and then he looked through his infrared sensor, but saw nothing bigger than a raccoon. The guy was probably waiting farther upslope. That was what he would have done. He’d have found a place to make a kill box, and a way to lure his quarry into it, but he’d want it to be far enough out of the way that it wouldn’t be found soon.

  Then he heard a twig crack.

  Spinning and crouching in one smooth movement, he brought the infrared to his eyes again. This time he made out a human figure working its way slowly through the woods.

  Damn, could this guy be that stupid? He waited, watching, then realized this was no trained person. A lost hunter?

  Not a good place for him to be right now. He debated whether to scare the guy off or let him be.

  He put his infrared away and pulled out his night-vision goggles. He needed more detail.

  He got it. And what he saw made his heart stop in his chest.

  * * *

  Allison winced as the twig cracked beneath her boot. The whole world out here was soft with pine needles and snow, but she had managed to find the dry twig to step on. She froze, listening, but the night remained silent, except for a quiet murmur of wind in the tops of the tallest trees.

  She had hidden her orange gear after making a big show of heading out of the woods. She hadn’t felt watched since then, but all of a sudden she felt watched again.

  Damn! What now? A thousand not-so-nice self-criticisms flitted rapidly across her brain. Stupid was the kindest of them. Stubbornness, guilt and an aching heart had driven her out here with only the slightest plan of what she might do.

  Had she checked her brain into storage or something? She prided herself on being reasonably intelligent, but she had proved today that she might be the world’s biggest fool. What did she hope to accomplish? Hear a gun report and call the cops on the radio she still had? Maybe. But as the darkness deepened, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she wasn’t going to find anyone who didn’t make some noise out here.

  But she’d just given her own presence and position away. Damn it, Jerrod, she thought as she crouched down. Why didn’t you at least wait until I could apologize?

  But would that have made any difference? She knew her own stubbornness, her own willfulness, and this time she had let them rule her, all because a man she cared about was out here facing a deadly enemy.

  But the best thing she could have done for him was stay at home. Now she might turn everything into a mess for him.

  Utterly without warning, a gloved hand clamped over her mouth and nose, and another arm locked around her shoulders, pinning her. She tried to draw a breath, but the hand prevented it. This was it, the fruit of her folly.

  “Shh,” came a sharp whisper in her ear. “It’s Jerrod. Don’t make a sound.”

  She closed her eyes, managed a nod and felt the hand drop away. Air at last. She tried to draw it quietly, but the hammering of her heart made that difficult.

  He didn’t release her shoulders. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Good question. For once she didn’t have a ready answer. “I was worried.”

  “This helps how?” He spoke so quietly she was sure the whispering pines were louder.

  His hold on her eased a bit, becoming gentler, but the question still hung in the air. She had no answer that didn’t involve a whole lot of mixed-up emotions and confused thinking that she couldn’t imagine explaining under these circumstances.

  “I said something awful to you,” she whispered. “And I didn’t mean it. I really didn’t mean it.”

  “I’ll survive.”

  The coldness of his tone seemed to pour through her like an icy river. She couldn’t blame him, but it hurt so badly to feel it. He had cut her out of his life, and now he was probably furious with her.

  “I was crazed,�
�� she admitted finally, the words barely passing her lips. But he heard them.

  “Clearly,” he murmured in her ear. “We’ll discuss it later. Right now I have to figure out how to get you out of here before that creep sees you.”

  “He saw me already. I think it was him. I was sitting in a tree wearing my orange vest and hat, like I was hunting. I felt someone watching, then it went away and didn’t come back.”

  He swore. The word managed to sound savage, even though it couldn’t have been heard two inches farther away. “Then?”

  “When it started to get dark, I headed back out of the woods toward the road. I got behind some rocks, stuffed the vest and cap inside my jacket and came this way. Then you found me.”

  Jerrod didn’t say anything right away. She felt his head swiveling, so she tipped hers so she could see him. He was wearing some kind of goggles.

  She touched them, whispering, “Infrared?”

  “Light amplification. Infrared creates light and would kill my night vision completely. These woods are too damn empty and quiet. A dead giveaway. He’s out there, probably upslope in a kill box. What the hell am I going to do with you?”

  “There must be some way I can help.”

  “Why?” The coldness remained in his voice.

  “Because I need to. Because I give a damn what happens to you.”

  “You being here doesn’t help anything.”

  No, she admitted to herself. Driven by her heart instead of her mind, she had merely complicated everything for him. Now he had something else to worry about. But she hadn’t expected him to even know she was there. She’d underestimated him, and overestimated herself. What had she thought she would accomplish? Had she even had a sensible thought at all? Driven by guilt, she had acted like an idiot. Another insight from this emotional ride with Jerrod: she could be an idiot. She swallowed that self-knowledge, but it tasted bitter. Her stomach turned over.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll head back to my car.”

  “Like hell. I can’t have you wandering around out here with that guy on the loose. I found you, didn’t I?”