Manhunt (A Rocky Mountain Thriller Book 1)

by Ann Voss Peterson

  “Don’t you forget it.” Linda pulled back and gave her a sad smile. “Where are you going? Where are you going to stay?”

  “We don’t know.” Jace pulled Linda’s phone from his coat and set it on the kitchen table. “You probably don’t want to have to lie about that anyway.”

  Linda nodded. “Right.”

  The doorbell chime echoed through the condo.

  Linda gestured to the sliding-glass door behind the dinette. “Go. I’ll stall them.” She left the kitchen.

  Shanna knelt down to Em. Tears clogged her throat and made her head throb. “You be a good girl for Linda, okay, Emily?”

  “You can’t go, Mommy.”

  “I have to, sweetie. But I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Can I go, too?”

  “No, baby. You need to stay here with Linda.”

  “But I want to stay with you.”

  “I know you do. And I want to stay with you, too. But I have to go for a little while longer.”

  “And then you’ll come back?”

  A shudder racked Shanna’s shoulders, as a sob tried to break loose. She struggled to force it back.

  “You’ll come back, won’t you, Mommy?”

  “Yes, sweetheart. I’ll come back.” She pulled her daughter close again, the last of her words muffled in the child’s hair.

  Jace slid the glass door open. “We have to go, Shanna.”

  She forced her arms to let Emily go and stood. “I’ll miss you, baby.”

  Tears spiked Emily’s eyelashes. “Mommy. Don’t go.”

  Shanna’s head whirled. How could she walk out that door? How could she leave when every cell in her body screamed for her to stay?

  Jace bent down and fitted his palm over Em’s little blond head. His hand totally covered her skull like a cap. “Don’t worry, Emily. Your mom will come back. Everything will be okay.”

  “You promise?”

  “I’m the red Ranger, aren’t I?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. She held out her red Power Ranger toy and pushed it into Jace’s hand.

  Jace took it from her and stuffed it in his pocket. “Then you don’t have to worry.”

  Shanna watched fat tears roll down Emily’s face as Jace slid the door closed behind her. She raised a hand and forced herself to smile, for Emily’s sake. “Bye-bye, sweetheart.”

  Then she turned away and followed Jace into the darkness without looking back.

  ______

  Shanna stood at the edge of the new Wal-Mart’s parking lot and watched the road for any sign of Palmer police or county sheriff’s cars.

  So far, so good.

  Jace had ventured inside the store while she waited on the edge of the parking lot. She couldn’t risk being caught by a security camera or recognized by the greeter. By the time he returned, laden down with three bags of supplies, she was so cold, she couldn’t stop shaking. “What next?”

  He reached into one of the bags and pulled out a bag of beef jerky. He stripped the plastic off one and handed it to Shanna.

  She bit into it, unable to chew and swallow it fast enough.

  Jace unwrapped a second stick for himself. “We need wheels.”

  She nodded. They’d had to leave the junker truck he’d bought in Copperville outside Linda’s place. “Any ideas?”

  He scanned the lot, as if expecting to find a convenient vehicle boasting a For Sale sign. Or maybe this time he was contemplating stealing something.

  The pit of her stomach hollowed out. She’d been a law-abiding citizen her whole life. The idea of actually being guilty of something nauseated her.

  And of course, she couldn’t shake the thought that Jace had actually done time in jail.

  “We also need a place to stay,” said Jace, “at least for the night.”

  A place to sleep, maybe even to shower. The thought made her mouth water as much as the beef jerky she was devouring. “A motel?”

  “The police and sheriff will be looking at the motels around here. Especially once they know we were at your friend Linda’s.”

  She thought about the scene at Linda’s. Her friend’s shock and fear. Emily’s tears. The toy she’d given Jace and the promise he’d given in return. “Thank you for being so good to Emily.”

  Jace pressed his lips in a grim line. He looked hard, like he had when he’d found her in his garage, when he’d grilled her in the truck. “You didn’t tell me you had a daughter.”

  “I needed to protect her. Until I knew more about you.”

  She expected his expression to soften. It didn’t. If anything, his eyes felt as if they were drilling into her.

  “You should have told me. Before I brought you back to Palmer.”

  “Why?”

  “She makes things a lot more complicated.”

  “She has nothing to do with any of this.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong.” A muscle clenched along his jaw. He peered out over the parking lot. “Here we go. Our ride.”

  She followed his narrowed gaze, grateful not to be under those hard eyes, yet uneasy that she still didn’t understand what he was getting at.

  A pickup hooked to a fifth wheel drove into the parking lot. It stopped in the back of the lot and three men climbed out.

  Shanna glanced back at Jace. “You’re not going to—”

  He gave her a frown. “What? Steal their rig? No. We’re going to stow away.”

  Heat tinged her cheeks. Great. He probably figured that now that she knew he’d done time, she was waiting for him to break the law any moment. “How do you know where they’re heading?”

  “I don’t. Not exactly. But I can tell you that they’re on their way out of town.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Their clothes are too clean for them to be returning from a hunting trip.”

  Shanna watched the men walk toward the store. Jace was right. They wore pants similar to her insulated ones. The only difference was theirs looked almost new. She was a wrinkled, dirty mess.

  Though she was sure being prey was a dirtier business than the role of hunter.

  As the men disappeared into the store, Jace strode toward their camper. “We’ll let them drive us to the outskirts of town, someplace there might be some vacant vacation cabins or trailers. I figure you can tell me when we need to jump out.”

  Jumping out of a camper didn’t sound like fun. But then walking more miles didn’t appeal, either. Sleep. That’s what she needed. And a shower. Maybe then she could soak in what Jace was talking about. Maybe then she could make sense of it.

  Shanna watched as Jace pulled a screwdriver from his bag of purchases and fitted it under the door’s handle. He wrenched it to the side, using leverage to pit screwdriver against lock.

  The lock lost.

  Definitely criminal. But then, since she was already wanted by the police, maybe she should get used to it.

  She slipped into the camper, Jace behind her. It was dark inside, but her eyes soon adjusted to the parking-lot lights squeaking through the slits in the window blinds.

  Jace placed a hand on each of her arms and steered her down a pinched hall.

  She stumbled up a few stairs. Hunching under the low ceiling, she slid open a curtain. A bed filled the small room, stretching almost the width of the camper. She looked to the left and right, but an assortment of suitcases and bags left little space to walk around the bed.

  “Just climb on top.” Crouching low, Jace offered her a hand. “We’ll hide in here. In case they load their supplies in the trailer.”

  She took his hand and climbed on the bed. Jace slid the curtain closed before sinking onto the mattress next to her.

  Silence hung between them, thick and intimate as it had in the wilderness. Shanna bit her lip to keep herself from filling the void with words. There was no telling when the owners of the fifth wheel would return. The last thing she wanted to do was be caught yapping and give them away.

  The sound of male
voices rumbled outside. Doors slammed. An engine roared. The camper lurched into motion. Bands of light and dark moved over the bed, then faded to black as the camper left town and started its ascent toward the mountains.

  Shanna’s urge to speak faded. The silence still felt intimate, loaded in a way speech never did. But as their bodies swayed together on the bed, it somehow started feeling more normal. Minutes ticked away, one after the next. If she figured correctly, they were heading up along the river. They should be reaching the campground soon. She nodded to Jace.

  He must have caught her movement even in the dark, because he climbed off the bed. Again offering his hand, he helped her up and they descended the steps to the door.

  Shanna gripped the rail flanking the inside of the door and peered out the tiny window. Lights from Palmer sparkled behind them. To the left, the dark peaks of mountains rimmed the horizon. That put them somewhere in the winding foothills west of town. Her hunch was right. They passed what looked like the roof peaks of several cabins. The small campground scrolled past.

  She turned to Jace, unable to see anything but his silhouette inside the dark camper. “This is as good an area as any.”

  “All right.” Jace gripped the door handle and raised his brows in her direction. “Ready?”

  She guessed she was as ready as she ever would be. She nodded.

  The van slowed further. Jace pushed open the door. Air rushed through, making a howling sound. Shanna could see mountain peaks rising in the distance. He shoved one of the plastic bags out the door. Top tied, the bag bounced and rolled into the ditch. He followed with the other. Jace turned to her and nodded. “We aren’t going fast, but it’s going to hurt all the same.”

  “Thanks for the warning.” As if her neck and leg and every other muscle in her body didn’t hurt enough already. She grasped the doorjamb and pulled herself to the threshold. Gravel and scrub brush whizzed by below her feet. Her muscles clamped down. Her pulse pounded in her ears. About the last thing she wanted to do was throw herself out of a moving camper.

  “Keep your knees bent. Piece of cake.”

  A surge rippled through her at the confident tone of his voice. She scooped in a deep breath and jumped.

  The first impact shuddered through her feet and up her legs. She toppled forward in a somersault, flipping and scuffing through the gravel. Finally she stopped, sprawled on her knees, her throat filled with dust and the scent of sagebrush.

  Farther up the road, Jace threw himself out of the camper and rolled, his exit looking much more controlled than Shanna’s had felt.

  She pushed to her bruised knees and brushed her hands along her thighs. Pain burned raw from her palms. Her sore neck and bruised leg screamed. At least those injuries would heal. Unlike broken bones. Or a bullet to the head.

  The camper hesitated at the corner stop sign and kept going.

  Shanna was on her feet by the time Jace joined her. She motioned back in the direction they had come. “I think I saw a couple of cabins back before the campground. This time of year, at least one has to be vacant, right?”

  “We might have our pick.”

  Shanna pulled her coat tighter around her shoulders and they started walking. Jace picked up two of the bags of supplies and she grabbed one. She tried her best not to limp. As they circled the bend in the road, the trees opened up. The lights of Palmer sparkled below, like a cluster of stars. “We’re still pretty close.”

  “Close enough to be able to get back and forth.”

  “It’s still a long walk.” For a moment, she actually wished Jace had stolen a car from the parking lot.

  “Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  “And find a car with the keys inside just waiting for our use?”

  “Or an ATV. I saw paths running parallel to the road that had to be made by some kind of sporting vehicle.”

  “Okay. I’m crossing my fingers for an ATV.”

  Sure enough, the next bend in the road was flanked by dirt ruts that could only have come from some kind of off-road vehicle. A half mile down the mountain, they ran into a cabin. Two three-wheeled ATVs sat in the gravel drive. Smoke poured from the chimney.

  “So what now? Do we steal them?” She couldn’t believe the words were coming from her mouth… and that she didn’t feel more guilt in saying them.

  “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves if we don’t have to.”

  They continued down the road. The rugged landscape seemed more sinister in the dark than it had under the sun. Every bend in the road or copse of evergreen set her nerves on edge. As if deep down she was expecting Mr. Barstow to jump out any second, rifle pointed at her head.

  At least the previous night, hunkered down with Jace in the mountains, the world had seemed big…too big for Mr. Barstow and the sheriff to ever find her. Now she felt like a girl at a small high school, bound to run into the class bully. And the fact that Palmer was her home and a place she’d once felt safe gave her the unsettling sensation that she’d never be safe again.

  “There.”

  She followed Jace’s gesture. Nestled between rock and tree sat a cabin. A house, really. The windows stared at them like black eyes. Shanna tried not to shiver. At least it appeared vacant. “Pretty fancy for a cabin.”

  Jace grunted. “Fancier than my house.”

  Her apartment, too. They walked to a door in the side of the garage. “You don’t think the owners just use this for a vacation cabin, do you?”

  “There’s no dead bolt, so let’s find out.” Jace stepped back from the door. He raised his leg and kicked right below the knob, throwing his weight into the effort.

  The lock popped and the door snapped open.

  Shanna held her breath and followed Jace inside. The garage was empty, no cars. It was likely their impression from the outside was right. No one home. She let the breath she’d been holding stream through her lips. Now, if it could just stay that way.

  “Would you look at this.”

  She turned to see Jace bending over a couple of bikes. “Motorcycles?”

  He stepped to the side. “Dirt bikes. But it will do for getting back into town.”

  He moved on to the inside door. Unlocked, the knob twisted easily under his hand.

  They entered a cozy kitchen with butcher-block countertops. Yellow curtains framed the windows and yellow rugs lay scattered on the rich hardwood floor.

  “Nice,” Jace said.

  Shanna nodded. “If I didn’t feel so paranoid, I might even call this homey.”

  “It’s not being paranoid if people actually are out to get you.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s a little funny.”

  “How do you know someone isn’t going to be home? Someone could drive in any minute.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “How do you know?”

  Jace tapped the thermostat just inside the door to the garage. “The heat is turned down.”

  She’d gotten so used to the cold over the past two days, she hadn’t even noticed that the cabin was only a little warmer inside than a refrigerator. Of course, she was still bundled in her filthy hunting garb. “Were you able to find some clothing?” She nodded to the bags. She hadn’t even thought to ask when he’d emerged from the store.

  Jace strode into the kitchen. After dialing the thermostat to a livable temperature, he plunked the plastic bags he was carrying on the countertop. “I bought you many gifts.”

  She set her bag down and shrugged out of her heavy hunting parka. “What kind of gifts?”

  He pulled out a pair of jeans, a button-down shirt and a jacket that looked like shearling. He tossed her a bottle of shampoo and a T-shirt styled nightgown.

  “Oh, my gosh. These are fantastic.”

  “That’s not all.” He dipped his hand in once more. This time he handed her scissors and a small box. Hair color. “A whole new you.”

  Reflexively, she raised her hand to her hair.

  “You
r picture is going to be all over the state.”

  She dropped her hand and nodded. He was right. There was no way she could stay in Palmer when her photo was all over the news. “Okay. Chop it off.”

  He picked up the scissors. “Ready?”

  She wasn’t the same woman she was before this all began. Somehow it seemed fitting that she didn’t look the same. She picked up the box of hair color and studied it. Dark mahogany. It seemed to fit. Someone very different from her had hair the color of dark mahogany. Someone strong.

  Someone who wasn’t prey. “I’ve never been so ready in my life.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “How do I look?”

  Jace looked up into eyes that had become as familiar as his own in the last two days. But even though he’d cut Shanna’s hair pixie-short himself and picked out the color at the store, seeing her was a shock.

  Her eyes seemed impossibly big, her cheekbones as high as a model’s. It was as if stripping away her clouds of luxuriously feminine hair had only served to emphasize just how feminine and beautiful her features were all on their own. The color of the nightgown echoed the pink flush the hot shower had brought to her cheeks.

  He set down the sandwich he’d been eating.

  “Well?”

  “You look great.” His voice sounded husky, suggestive, not at all like he’d intended.

  “You think people will recognize me?”

  “If they look closely,” he admitted.

  She pursed her lips together in one of the sexiest looks he’d ever seen. “What else can I do? Sunglasses? Maybe a hat?”

  He grabbed a pair of sunglasses from the bag he’d been emptying and flipped them to her. “Try these.”

  She slipped them on. “Better?”

  He handed her a tube of lipstick he’d bought to complete her disguise.

  “Red lipstick? I’ve never worn red lipstick.”

  “Then I picked the right shade.”

  Shanna opened the package and applied it. She pursed her lips again like a movie star blowing a kiss. “Now, this is cool.”

  She was going to be the death of him.

  “The good thing is that most people don’t look closely at anything. Of course, the way you look, they probably won’t want to take their eyes off you.”