Killer Romances
Page 264
“So we would go the wrong way.” His brows drew together, sprouting wild hairs like exclamation marks. “Who the hell would throw us that kind of curve ball?”
“Exactly. And why?”
TEN
He yanked the thin wire so hard the two sticks snapped. Control. He had to maintain control. Control was one secret of a hunter. And stealth. Yeah, stealth and control. He breathed deeply, calming himself, centering himself.
How dare they behave like nothing significant was happening? They were supposed to be nervous, wondering what disaster would befall them next.
Instead the two of them were kissing. Kissing and whispering. So he couldn’t even hear their conversation.
They were all oblivious. Like bungled hikes and hornets’ nests were everyday shit.
The hornets were a mistake. He’d meant the nest for the bitch. The damn tents looked alike. No matter. The stingers sent them all directions like rabbits fleeing a pack of coyotes.
He scooped a handful of the forest floor and held it to his nose. Dead leaves, rotted bark, black loam—the smells of nature’s cycle. The mulch that would return to the earth the outcome of his next hunt. He smiled.
They didn’t know who they were dealing with. They didn’t know how he’d suffered. How he’d escaped. From her. They didn’t know how he’d become strong. Invincible. Free.
The very set-up of this canoe trip was hindering him. He was too restricted, unable to toy with them secretly. After this little demonstration, his tactics would change. Satisfied with his plan, the Hunter knelt to his task. With new twigs, he looped the wire, placed the corn kernels.
Yes, indeed. Time to up the ante. Up the ante for Annie.
A giggle erupted. He clasped a hand over his mouth.
His change of plans was her fault. She discovered him, named him, and then abandoned him. She left his story for others to tell, for others less competent, less perceptive. She shouldn’t have done that. She had to be punished.
Now it was time for her to be afraid.
Time for her to learn she was being hunted.
And who was hunting her.
ELEVEN
Sam heaved a pebble across the water. Skipping stones was the only kind of throwing he could do. Didn’t have much finger control for that either.
The diversion gave him time for the tightness in his groin to ease and his lust-fogged brain to clear. What the hell was that? The kiss that began as sweet exploration powered to a fevered urgency he hadn’t felt since... hell, he’d never been hit by such a blowtorch.
To jack the temptation even higher, she felt the jolt too. There she sat in jeans and a sweatshirt that covered up too much of the good stuff. Sexy as hell. Even more so with her face scrubbed clean and her cheeks pink from the sun.
He hadn’t heard her sneaking up on him either. It was more like he’d sensed her presence, detected her sweet-tart scent above the insect repellant. That kiss and his lust-induced behavior afterward shouldn’t have happened at all. Hell. Holding the line with Annie would require the will power he’d mustered to pull himself together. Ben was right, damn him, about not getting involved with a woman on the expedition.
Then they had this other freaky puzzle to deal with.
He stared again at the erasure on her notes. This episode had kinked his muscles like a rookie paddler. “Man, that’s way out in left field. One of us screwed with your notes?”
“And maybe with Frank’s. They went to the wrong cove first, remember.”
“I’m used to edgy game strategies, but this beats all. Whoever did this had to suffer with the rest of us.”
“If Frank’s numbers were changed too.”
He nodded. “Let’s suppose they were. We may never know. Who had the opportunity?”
“Anyone and everyone. Frank and I left everything on the picnic table when we packed up our snacks for the morning. So the next question is why.” Her smoky eyes shone with excitement. Or was it the repercussion of their kiss?
His gaze dropped to her lips, swollen and moist and tempting as sin. He had to wrap his hand around another stone to keep from pulling her away from the damn tree she was propping up and into his arms. He cleared his throat. “Carl’s sense of humor has an edge to it.”
“He trooped across that island like a kid let out of school for the summer.” Annie shrugged. “I can see him going that far for a joke. Or to get us riled up.”
“If that was his intent, it worked.” Sam rubbed his scars. Their itching was always a sign of trouble.
“What about Ray?”
“Moving from virtual adventures to tinkering with our real one? I don’t know. He has a thing about accuracy.”
Annie’s mouth thinned. “True, but he caught on to the navigation stuff fast.”
“Computers are unforgiving.”
She cocked her head at him. “The voice of experience?”
“Don’t ask.” One of many disasters in his front-office fiasco. He unzipped the windbreaker. In her sexy presence and under scrutiny of his past failures, the garment was growing uncomfortably hot. “We were talking about Ray, remember?”
“Ray, right. Changing the numbers might be an attempt to increase the difficulty level. Like in his virtual world.”
“Damn, maybe they all did it. Nora would want Frank to succeed, so she would have changed only yours.”
Annie shook her head. “Nora seemed baffled by the whole map activity. I doubt she’d know how. Unless she was faking her confusion so her son would feel empowered.”
“Mama Bear protecting her cub. Yeah, she might do that. Unless you or I did it, now we come to the cub himself.”
“He has the obvious motive. Resentment at the adults for enforcing the chore rule. Resentment at his mom. At his dad.”
“At the world.” Picturing the boy this evening, Sam tossed another pebble. Frank enjoyed navigating and held onto his compass for the next day’s trip. A scrub in the lake left him with no colored spikes, just a thatch of naturally brown hair. “I watched him after supper. He squatted beside the fire and flipped apple chunks to a chipmunk.”
“He did that last night, fed corn to one. Nora said he wants to be a veterinarian when he grows up.”
“For obvious reasons we have a policy of not feeding the wildlife. I didn’t say anything. Let him be a kid.”
Annie smiled her agreement. “Frank’s like his name, open and honest for good or bad. Not devious like our saboteur.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“Everywhere and nowhere.” She sighed, pointing to his knife sheath. “I see you found your knife. At least that mystery’s solved.”
“I carry a spare. The other’s still missing.” He straightened. “Could the same person have taken my knife?”
Annie’s eyes flashed. “And planted the hornet nest?”
He didn’t like one damn bit where this was leading. “What the hell’s going on?”
Her gaze skittered away on a frown. Her mouth thinned as she pushed away from the cedar trunk. “Heck if I know. But it’s getting dark, and we’re not going to solve this tonight.”
The deepening shadows limned the concern on her face. What had occurred to her? “Is there something else?”
“No, of course not.” She looked up brightly as he rose to his feet. “What do you want to tell the others?”
Sam hated to disrupt the expedition. If he could, he wanted to keep the lid on, take care of the problem quietly, and not have to radio Ben for help. “Let’s keep it between us for now. If nothing else happens, we’ll let it go. Maybe our prankster’s gotten all his kicks.”
Annie nodded, but didn’t look like she believed it was over. He didn’t believe it either.
***
Friday
When the sun’s rays through the screened tent opening warmed her face, Annie kicked out of her sleeping bag. With distant coyotes howling and yipping, she’d spent a twitchy night wrestling with her sleeping bag and her suspicions.
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You’ll see me, but you won’t know me.
Paranoia wasn’t pretty, and she felt foolish even imagining that the Hunter might be the poltergeist plaguing the trip. No, the notion was as crazy as the Hunter himself. She considered telling Sam. But there was no sense mentioning the impossible.
How could the Hunter have followed her? One of the group would have seen or heard another floatplane, and the distance from Greenville prohibited any other fast means. She might as well suspect an alien landing. Silly pranks had never been part of the Hunter’s repertoire as far she knew. Why would he plague them with hornets and erased directions? It made no sense. Those were wild ideas born of little sleep and the early morning hour. They were in no real danger. Except for the compass reading changes, the other problems were merely accidents. Not worth further thought.
She’d make coffee and work on her tablet before anyone else got up. She had at least another hour on that battery. Resolved, she slipped on a sweatshirt and pulled jeans over the leggings she wore to sleep in.
On the way to the lounge, shadowed evergreen trees darkened the periphery and loomed mysteriously, but no wild animals seemed to lie in wait for her. No moose or bears or wildcats, oh my. A cedar smell like her grammy’s woolens trunk perfumed the air.
When she spied a doe grazing in a corner of the clearing, she gasped and froze, her hand on her mouth. Exhaling, she watched in awe until the creature melted into the underbrush. Well, hey. For once she didn’t scream and run like a ninny at the first glimpse of movement.
In spite of Mother Nature or someone’s tricks, the wild beauty was beginning to get to her. You knew, didn’t you, Emma?
Not that she’d admit it to Sam.
When she returned, Mr. Major League himself was emerging from his tent. His exaggerated yawns hinted he’d slept no better than she had. Even in his jeans and loose windbreaker, his stretching gyrations displayed his muscular form and wide shoulders. When he saw her, he blinked like an owl and muttered something unintelligible.
She grinned. Capable of only an inarticulate rumble, Sam needed fuel to start his early-morning engines. “I fixed the coffee pot last night. Give me a sec,” she whispered, not wanting to wake the others so early.
Sam rummaged in a cooler, and with a sigh of relief, withdrew a packet of orange juice. He tore into it and gulped.
Annie struck a match and lit the Coleman stove under the coffee pot. “Carl and I are making pancakes and sausage. At least, he said he knew how to do pancakes.”
A grunt muffled by a mouthful of oatmeal and raisin cookies was his reply.
“Yes, I know it’s a recipe you have already measured out.” This morning sluggishness didn’t fit with his usual energy and vitality. “Anyone would think you hit the sauce every night. You always wake up like this?” She turned down the flame under the pot.
“Always,” he growled. “Need coffee. Need sugar.”
“You sound like a caveman. Come to think of it, that’s not too far off base.” There. The flame was set. They just had to wait for the coffee to perk. It wasn’t her Chemex, but this primitive method made darned good coffee.
“Need woman.” This time the rumble was right behind her. His breath warmed her ear and thrilled down her spine.
When she turned, devilment danced in eyes golden and warm like the sun. The chemistry between them was pure alchemy.
The ascending sun filtered through overhead branches, splashing everywhere, blinding her to everything but Sam. His masculine scent, his bristled jaw. His sculpted mouth so close, so tempting. With the stove behind her, she couldn’t back up. Kissing him again wasn’t a good idea, no matter how provocative his mouth was. She’d get swept up in an affair she didn’t want, didn’t need, with the wrong kind of man.
Before her racing pulse changed her mind, she slid sideways and escaped to the opposite end of the table. “You need coffee, Sam, not this woman.”
“Damn. If I was more awake, you wouldn’t get away.” He peered at the percolator. “Come on, come on.”
She blinked in the sunlight. A glance at the table glued her in place. “Sam.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be okay after a few dozen cups of coffee.” He swigged more juice. “I always wake up like a zombie. When I was a kid too. Once all my circuits fire, I’m finest kind. I need caffeine and food to jump-start me.”
“No. No kidding around.” She stared at the table. “It’s a dead chipmunk. On the table.”
His shoulders straightened and alertness banished lassitude. “What the hell?”
In the middle of the table, on a spread-out napkin as if arranged for viewing, lay the small, furry body. The faint, sour scents of blood and decay laced the air. Where the head should be gaped a raw wound.
“Frank might have done some of that other stuff,” Sam muttered, “but could he do this? Is he angry enough to lure a wild animal close, then kill it?”
“This is the product of a sick mind, all right. But Frank?” She clutched at Sam’s arm. “No blood on the table. Killed in the woods maybe. Could some animal have killed it? Then somebody found it and put it here?”
“A two-legged animal. No claws or teeth slice that cleanly. Someone used a sharp blade.” He shook his head. “I’d bet my outfielder’s glove it’s not Frank.”
Annie pressed a hand to her stomach and willed away the bile that crept up her throat. “Whether the boy did it or not, I don't want him to see this abomination.”
“I’ll take care of it.” He carefully folded the napkin around the small corpse.
The coffee began to perk as it had every morning, puffing out the rich odor of the dark brew. The sun climbed and birds sang as though nothing odd were happening.
He stared at her with speculation before turning to leave. “You thought of something last night, something you didn’t tell me. I figure it’s time to end the shutout.”
Uneasiness weighed like a stone in Annie’s belly.
At the edge of the woods, Sam turned back. “The others will be getting up. We’ll talk later. In the canoe. Be ready.”
TWELVE
Sam found a hollow space below a tangle of roots where he stashed the small corpse. A handful of beach rocks hid it from sight. Not that it mattered to the chipmunk, but Frank wouldn’t happen on it. If only Sam could rid himself as easily of the entire problem.
His return path circled to the rear of the encampment toward the latrine. He tripped and nearly crashed head on into a tree. “Dammit to hell!”
He aimed a kick at the offending object, but stopped when he realized what it was.
A trap.
A crude trap rigged from twigs and fine wire. A simple spring snare. Just the right size to trap a chipmunk. His left hand closed around the rough sticks, tighter, until the bark bit into his palm. This was deliberate.
Deliberately planned. Deliberately cruel.
Like steam in a locomotive, pressure built inside him. What the hell was someone doing this for? For kicks? To screw up his life even more than it was? He discarded that petty notion as soon as his brain conjured it. Nevertheless, if this week went all to hell, he’d have nothing. Not even the Scotch he’d already tried to dive to the bottom of. Lucky he didn’t have a fifth with him. He might be tempted.
Damn, he needed action, not a damned mystery. Generally guides avoided use of the radio except in emergencies. Folks felt more a part of the wilderness that way. But if he figured out who had the sick sense of humor, he’d radio Boomer to come yank the son of a bitch.
He wrestled with the idea of clearing the air, radioing his brother with the problem. What could Ben do? Zip. Until they reached the caretaker, they had no choice but to continue. Hell. He ought to be able to handle the matter. He was the guide. He would prove he could do it. Alone.
He kicked apart the snare, stomped on it, spreading the fresh scent of loam. He stuffed the wire in his pocket and flung the sticks farther into the woods. Shaking his head, he proceeded to the latrine. Who among them but hi
m had a clue how to fashion a spring snare?
On his way back, an outcry in the camp sent him running.
Sam found the others around the coolers. “What’s up?”
“Something got into the food last night.” From the littered ground, Nora picked up a shredded plastic bag.
One of their two coolers lay on its back, the lid a drawbridge for any avaricious invaders wanting to plunder its contents. Hunks of marinated beef formed a lopsided triangle in the middle of milk-soaked grass. Other perishables either were shredded, gnawed or gone. Smells of spoiling food tainted the aroma of coffee.
Earlier, when desperation for sustenance had him pawing through the nearer cooler, he’d been too groggy to notice. Annie hadn’t been close enough to see or smell their new disaster. Then she’d found the headless chipmunk.
“Dumped this and made off with the goods.” Carl righted the emptied cooler. “What do you think? A bear?”
Frank fingered the cooler’s latch. “Raccoons are clever little guys. Raccoons could open this.” Trust in his eyes, he gazed up at Sam. “Couldn’t they, Sam?”
Hell. Everyone was looking to him for answers, for leadership. All this before he was fully awake.
A coffee mug was shoved in his hand. The aroma permeated his fog and he gulped greedily. Damned good. Plenty of sugar. In a minute the caffeine would kick him in the head. “Thanks.”
Annie nodded, her mouth grim. She folded her arms and waited. She was counting on him too. Damn.
He swallowed more coffee, then cleared his throat. “Frank, I agree about raccoons. A bear would’ve torn through the camp like Attila the Hun and all his pillagers.”
Frank straightened his shoulders and basked in the praise.
Practical jokes, mind games, and now the food. The expedition was going down the tubes, but the kid was thriving. The silver fucking lining. “Anybody hear noises during the night?”
Shoulders lifted and voices muttered demurs.
“Yesterday wore everyone out.” Ray pulled a garbage bag from the supplies. “A 747 could have landed beside me and I would’ve slept through it.” He began tossing ruined foodstuffs into the bag. Nora bent to help.