by Becca Van
Phillip had made sure to keep well back from the slut so he didn’t draw attention to himself, and when she’d turned into the driveway to a ranch, he continued on for another mile before pulling over onto the side of the road and walked back to the gated entrance. He’d nearly shit himself when he’d seen two big men escorting her out to a truck and his heart had flipped in his chest when the vehicle had headed in his direction. He hadn’t been spotted though because he was smarter than all of them. He’d dived to his belly under a small bush and held his breath until the truck had passed and turned out of the driveway.
He'd hurried back to his car and decided to book a room in a cheap motel so he could clean up and buy some groceries to cook. He was the best chef in the world and could make an a la carte meal from practically nothing.
When he was fed and rested, he was going to come back and spy on the bitch and the two men and plan out his moves. He was going to have to be careful because that slut had somehow snagged the attention of the two sheriffs, but from what he’d seen of them so far, the two lawmen couldn’t be that bright. They were probably small town hicks and didn’t have a clue on how to investigate anything. That had to be the reason those two assholes and the other officers hadn’t caught the killer yet.
Phillip rubbed his hands together and hurried back to the car. He wasn’t leaving town until that bitch and the manager of the resort got what they deserved.
* * * *
Misha sighed as she glanced in her rearview mirror. She’d spent Sunday night making love with Clay and Spence, even though she’d had every intention of leaving last night so she could get to work with plenty of time to spare the next morning, but she hadn’t been able to leave them.
Spence and Clay were such kind loving men, and after their picnic Saturday and the impromptu lovemaking session—which she knew wasn’t impromptu at all on their behalf since they’d come prepared to take her together—they’d spent the next hour massaging all the stiff sore muscles in her legs and working out the kinks in her back and shoulders.
She’d ridden back to their house across Clay’s lap, and when they’d gotten back, Spence had run her a bath. They treated her as if she was a princess, tending to her every need and not letting her lift a finger. They’d cooked her steak on the grill for dinner and added the leftover salad dishes from the picnic as well as a baked potato with swathes of butter and tasty cheese on top. When she’d tried to help clean up the dishes, Clay had sent her into the living room with a glass of wine and orders to pick out a movie to watch.
She’d chuckled over the action movie selections and picked a Bruce Willis movie. Clay had seated himself on one side of her and Spence sat on the other, their bodies pressing against hers, warming her with their heat as they’d watched the movie.
Misha didn’t even remember falling asleep, and though she’d felt Spence carrying her down the hall and both of them divesting her of her clothes, she’d been too tired to help them. She’d woken up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, and when she’d come back to bed, both of them had been awake. They’d made love to her until she’d screamed out their names and had drifted off to sleep as they soothed her with soft caresses up and down her body.
Sunday had been an eye opener, too. Tanner, Cooper, Dawson, and Kent had arrived from their own houses for a barbecue lunch, which thankfully she’d been able to help them prepare, and she’d met Jasmine Urban briefly.
Tanner and Cooper had barely taken their eyes off of the FBI profiler, and from the covert glances she’d been giving them, the attraction was mutual. When she’d made excuses about having work to do and taking off before anyone could say any differently, Misha had seen a little of herself in the other woman. She just hoped that nothing bad had happened to Jasmine, but from the haunted sad look in her eyes, she suspected it had.
She’d liked her men’s four friends, even though Cooper and Tanner weren’t talkers. Dawson seemed to be the jokester of the group, but she thought that might have been a front, because although his mouth had smiled, his eyes hadn’t.
Misha drew her mind back to the present and squinted into the rearview mirror. The sun was coming up and while she had sunglasses on, the glare was right in her mirror, making it difficult to see. She thought she caught the silhouette of a car behind her in the distance but couldn’t be certain.
Misha smiled and sighed happily, humming along with the radio as she drove, pushing the other vehicle from her mind. She had just reached the halfway mark when she noticed the vehicle that had been behind her had caught up, which meant the driver had to have been speeding.
“What an idiot. Doesn’t realize how dangerous this road is with all the curves.” Misha began to get worried when the car got even closer and was scared they were going to hit her. She reached into her purse for her cell phone, placed it in her lap, and swiped her finger over it without taking her eyes off the road. After a quick glance down, she touched the phone icon and hit speed dial one. She didn’t even know if the call went through to Clay or not, because in the next second, she was screaming as the car behind her slammed into hers. She pressed her foot down on the accelerator and hoped like hell she made it around the next curve without skidding off the road.
She screamed again when the car slammed into her as she tried to make the bend. The car behind hit her right side quarter panel and her car spun. The passenger side of the car hit the guardrail and the impact sent her careening across the road. The front of her car smashed through the guard rail on the opposite side of the road, and the sound of metal scraping was so loud it hurt her ears. She held on to the steering wheel as tightly as she could and tried to steer into the spin and control her car, but she was too late. Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, but it was probably more like fast forward. The guard rail must have had a weak spot, or maybe her car had somehow managed to go over the top of it, because she slid down the steep embankment, heading straight for the North Fork Shoshone River.
Her body shook and bounced and she wondered why her air bag hadn’t deployed. The side of her head smacked into the driver’s window and she heard glass breaking, but the bang to her head had been so hard, she saw stars. She braced her arms so that when her car hit the water she wouldn’t be thrown forward, but that was a mistake. As soon as the front of her car met the water, the car slowed so much her right wrist bent the wrong way and she heard a loud crack. The pain in her wrist was so great, the moan that came out of her mouth was deep and guttural. She blinked, but there was nothing but darkness in front of her eyes, and she slumped against the door as she passed out.
* * * *
Clay pulled his cell phone from his pocket when it rang. After seeing it was Misha calling, he swiped his finger over the screen to answer. “Hi, baby, what’s up?”
When he didn’t get an answer but could hear the background noise of her car as she drove, he began to get concerned. However, he tried to convince himself that she’d accidentally called him without knowing. That was until he heard her scream.
“Misha’s in trouble.” Clay rose as switched the call to speakerphone so Spence could hear as well. He rushed into the kitchen, grabbed his keys from the hook, and raced toward the garage with Spence at his side. Just as he got into the truck, he heard Misha scream again, but this time there was the sound of metal scraping against something. His heart slammed against his chest and his breathing escalated as fear for their woman tried to take hold, but he pushed the emotion back and brought forth the trained soldier he was. He inserted the key at the same time he tossed his phone toward Spence in the passenger seat and moments later was spinning the wheels as he sped down the drive.
Fear tried to take hold again when he heard Misha’s car crash into something and he heard her groan when it sounded like her body had hit something. When he heard a deep guttural moan of pain, he pushed his foot down harder on the accelerator.
Thankfully, he, Spence, and all the other guys on his deputy team had taken an advanced driving
course, so instead of slowing down for the curves in the road he drifted the vehicle around each bend, not once touching the brake pedal with his other foot. He slammed the gear shift from gear to gear, up and down, as he drove around the road’s contours, and all the time they sped toward Misha, he prayed that she was still alive. He used the adrenaline in his system, enhancing his response times as he drove the dangerous road faster than he’d ever driven it before. Every minute felt as if it took an hour to pass and yet the time seemed to fly by. The scenery flew past his window.
Every single scenario of what could have happened to Misha flew across his mind, but the most prevalent thought that had his breath hitching in his lungs was that she’d been targeted by the serial killer.
“Faster,” Spence yelled from the passenger seat.
Clay didn’t bother to acknowledge his friend’s and partner’s order, nor glance his way because he didn’t want to end up killing both of them.
“Skid marks ahead,” Spence said. “Slow down.”
Clay shifted down gears and applied the brake. The air in his lungs exploded out when he saw the rubber tire marks on the road. No more than two hundred yards ahead, he pulled to a stop where the guardrail had been torn away. He was out of the car and running down the hill toward the river with Spence hot on his heels.
Misha’s car was half in the water, but the driver’s side door was still closed. That meant she had to be hurt or someone else had gotten to her before they had. His knees nearly gave way with relief when he saw that she was still inside her car, but she wasn’t moving.
“Call the paramedics,” Clay ordered. He ran into the water until it was at waist height. Misha was slumped against the door and there was blood on the left side of her forehead and it was running down her face.
“Paramedics are on the way.” Spence entered the water and peered in at Misha.
“We can’t open her door. If she has spine or neck injuries and she falls out, we could end up doing more damage.”
“I’ll go in from the passenger side.” Spence trudged back out of the water and entered the river on the other side of her car. He had to use all of his body weight to get the door open against the force of the water, but once he was in the front with Misha, Clay breathed a little easier. Spence placed his fingers against the pulse point in her neck and nodded at him. “She’s alive.”
“Can you tell what her injuries are?” Clay asked loud enough that Spence could hear him through the closed window.
“It looks like her right wrist is broken.” Spence shifted onto his knees on the front passenger seat, splashing water as he moved. He ran his hands up and down Misha’s legs beneath the river water. “Her legs seem fine.”
Just as Spence was running his hands over her torso checking for injuries, Misha moaned.
“Misha, can you hear me, honey?” Spence asked.
She whimpered and went to move her right hand up toward her head injury, but ended up crying out in pain.
“Misha, open those gorgeous blue eyes for me, sweetheart,” Spence ordered in a firm voice.
“Spence?”
“Yeah, honey. Clay and I are here.”
Clay was about to go around the other side of the car but stopped when Misha sat up straight away from the driver’s door. He didn’t waste another second. He yanked the dented driver’s door open, placing his hand on Misha’s shoulder so she wouldn’t fall over toward him. She turned her head toward him and slammed her eyes closed as she groaned in pain.
“Where are you hurt, baby?” Clay wanted to squat down beside her to put himself on eye level with her, but he bent over instead. The water would have been up to his chest if he’d gone down to his haunches. Poor Misha was shaking with cold or reaction or maybe both.
“My head and wrist hurt.”
“Do you have any back or neck pain?” Spence asked.
“No, but my chest hurts.”
“That’ll be from the seatbelt holding you in place when you crashed, baby.”
“What happened?”
“I was hoping you could tell me that, Misha,” Clay responded. “You called my cell right before I heard you scream. Can you remember what happened, baby?”
“There was…” Misha paused to lick her lips as her eyelids fluttered open.
Clay could tell by the way she was squinting she was having trouble seeing, and he was worried that the knock on her head had given her a concussion.
“Someone was f–following me,” she whispered. “Oh god, they forced me off the road.”
“Can you wiggle your toes, honey?” Spence asked.
“Yes.”
“Good girl. Now move your legs for me, baby.”
Clay sighed with relief when she moved both of her legs.
"Did you recognize the car or the driver?” Spence asked as he released her seatbelt. “I think it’s safe to remove her. She’s not showing signs of whiplash or any spinal damage.”
“I can hear the ambulance sirens. They can’t be too far off.” Clay reached into the car, helping Spence to get Misha out of the seatbelt. When she was free of it, he carefully slid an arm under her knees and another around her shoulders. “Put her right arm against her chest.”
Clay glanced down only to find that Misha had her eyes closed once more. From her deep breathing, she sounded as if she was asleep, but she was also shivering so hard her teeth were rattling. However, when her breathing sped up and she began whimpering, he knew she wasn’t asleep, but had been trying to breathe through the pain wracking her body.
“Hang on for me, baby. The paramedics are here, but I have to carry you up to them.”
“O–okaay.” The word was drawn out due to her trembling and clacking teeth.
Clay eased her from the car and turned toward the shore as he straightened. He saw the paramedics opening the back of the ambulance as he stepped from the river and began to walk up the slope. Spence came up beside him and took hold of his arm to steady him just in case he lost his footing, and though Clay wasn’t a klutz by any stretch of the imagination, he appreciated Spence’s gesture. There was no way in hell he wanted to hurt Misha more than she already was.
He was nearly at the top of the incline when he felt her stiffen in his arms and she gasped loudly. “Phillip Smith.”
“What about him, sweetheart?” Spence asked.
“He ran me off the road,” Misha wailed. “Why would he do such a thing? Why wasn’t he in jail?”
Clay drew in a deep ragged breath before answering. “It was his first ever charge. The judge let him out on bond.”
“Why?” Misha’s voice had gone dull and cold and when he looked down again she had her eyes closed again.
Clay hated that he couldn’t see what was in her eyes, because he had a feeling she was blaming him and Spence for Smith’s lesser sentence. “We’ll talk about this later, Misha. The paramedics need to examine you.”
Clay eased Misha onto the portable gurney and stepped back to give the paramedics room.
“Can you give me a rundown, sheriff?” Crew Abbott, one of the paramedics, asked.
“She was run off the road by another vehicle.”
“Shit!” The other paramedic, Dray Goodwill, scowled. “Do you know who it was?”
“Yeah,” Spence answered. “I will send an APB to the others. They’ll probably have the prick behind bars before we make it to the hospital.”
All the time they’d been talking, Crew and Dray had been checking Misha over. “She’s got a cut above her right temple that’ll need stitches and her right wrist is broken. Other than some other minor contusions, she’s fine.”
Clay nodded and tossed Spence the keys to the truck. Dray and Crew pushed the gurney into the back of the ambulance and Crew jumped up into the back. Clay followed him in and was glad that the paramedic didn’t comment on his presence.
Clay wasn’t leaving Misha’s side until they reached the hospital and he knew that she was going to be all right. And even then he was probably
going to remain at her bedside until she was released. He hoped to never, ever, feel that kind of fear again. He didn’t think his heart and soul could take it.
Chapter Fourteen
He’d been watching and following his next victim, and if he hadn’t been so meticulously careful, he might have ended up being spotted. When he’d caught sight of the idiot chef spying on the assistant resort manager, he been surprised, and that was something he’d never felt before. He actually didn’t suffer the anomaly of emotions very often, which made his intricate work so much easier to plan. He had learned to copy expressions so no one suspected what a cold unfeeling bastard he really was.
That fuckwit chef hadn’t known that he’d dogged his heels as he’d driven around the town before stopping at a cheesy motel on the outskirts of the city limits. He’d waited in his car for three hours before he’d used the shadows to creep toward the prick’s car where he’d planted a tracker. When the car moved, an alert would be sent to his cell phone.
It was easy to go about his business without raising any suspicion. He had tinkered with all the latest spy gadgets he’d bought from the internet. He’d changed those devices and made them better than they’d ever been. He had minute cameras placed about the resort that no one else knew about, and he’d managed to get one into the manager’s and assistant manager’s office without one single staff member spotting him. There was a bevy of guests always coming and going from that place and he could pick his next victim as if he was choosing what to eat from a smorgasbord.
A smile tugged the corners of his mouth as he remembered watching from his hiding place as the sheriffs ran toward the woman and the crashed car. He’d never seen fear on either man’s face before and it had made him feel a twinge of excitement. He knew in that moment that she definitely had to be his next victim. The craving to see his knife stabbing into her soft flesh was a yearning so deep, he knew it wouldn’t be denied.