by Lauren Bach
Killed? She thought back to the newscast she'd watched at the clinic. "I thought he was serving time for stolen property."
"I know. Ain't it cool? He's good."
Bile burned the back of her throat as she thought of the times she'd been alone with Adam. Times he could have...
Lyle gave a weak laugh. "So if a seventh notch appears, that means they found his girlfriend's body. Hell, you may end up as number eight."
Outside, Adam was having trouble locating the cabin. The downpour didn't help. He swept the flashlight around several times before spotting a structure. He approached it cautiously. In the darkness and with all the rain, they might have taken a wrong turn.
When he got a better look at the place, he hoped that was the case. More shed than cabin, the structure was maybe twelve feet square with a door that hung by one hinge. He swept the light inside.
One wall had a broken window, letting water blow in. Part of the dirt floor had already turned to mud. This couldn't be right.
He started to turn, then spied a box covered with a blue plastic tarp. Swearing, he uncovered it. The box held bottled water and more peanut butter crackers, along with canned sardines, three apples, and a lone blanket folded at the bottom. A cryptic note indicated they should leave the Buick at the gate before five- thirty. That was barely twenty minutes from now. A different car would be left later, with more instructions.
How much later? Adam wanted to crumple the paper. Instead he lit the kerosene lantern hanging on a nail. The additional light made the interior look worse.
This place could barely be classified as shelter. By comparison, the barn they had stayed in looked like a palace. They'd be more comfortable inside the car than here.
He reread the note, not liking any of it. Especially the idea of being without wheels, without a means for escape. With Lyle injured they were sitting ducks. And what if Lyle took a turn for the worse, became sicker? How would Adam get him to a hospital?
To his surprise, Lyle was awake when he returned to the car.
"I heard we had a close call," Lyle said. "What happened?"
Adam told him about outrunning the cop. "And now we're supposed to leave this car back at the front gate. Which doesn't seem too smart since they probably have an APB out for it."
"If Nevin said leave it, it'll be fine. Trust me, no one will bother us here."
"I wouldn't bother us here. This place is a dump."
"Then I'm sure we won't be here long, but I'll try reaching my brother anyway"
Adam helped Lyle, then carried their supplies in before returning for Renata. While the distance from car to shed was minimal, they both got soaked.
The wind picked up, rattling the shed.
Looking around, she shook her head in disgust. "Lyle shouldn't stay here."
"None of us should. But we need a different car."
She lifted her wrists for him to unfasten her handcuffs.
Adam pointed to the tarp he'd spread on the ground. "Sit first."
When she complied, he knelt down, but instead of freeing her hands he bound her ankles with a piece of rope.
She tried to wrestle away but couldn't. "Damn you! Don't!"
"I'll untie you when I return."
"When will that be?"
"Soon."
"Don't worry. I'll watch her," Lyle said.
"No! Take me with you," Renata pleaded.
Her distress bothered Adam. He ran a hand under her jaw. She recoiled as if he'd struck her, repugnance etched in her features. He noticed Lyle paying close attention. Too close. Had the little prick been terrorizing her? Probably. And who knew what he'd said. Or done.
Adam shot Lyle a warning look. "I'll be right back."
As soon as he returned to the car, he pulled Renata's cell phone from his pocket. Unfortunately, Stan still didn't have it reprogrammed. He turned it off. In a true emergency, he could use the other cell phone.
He wondered briefly how close Ethan's men were, and whether they were the only two following. While exact details of the bust had yet to be finalized once Adam connected with the McEdwins, Ethan would lead a team to make the arrests. Which might get hairy considering the McEdwins had sworn not to be taken alive. Ethan would definitely need more than two men.
Adam reached the gate and climbed out of the car. Just in time. Headlights appeared on the road. He dropped back behind some brush to watch the approach of a boxy SUV The vehicle stopped at the gate.
Adam's hopes rose. If they left the SUV, he'd drive it back to the cabin. Sleeping in a car beat the hell out of the tumbledown shack.
But the SUV's stop was temporary. A man jumped out of the passenger side and ran to the Buick. Not even bothering to look over his shoulder, the man cranked the engine and pulled forward, disappearing down the road behind the SUV
Disappointed, Adam memorized the tag number. He'd been unable to get a clear look at the men, wondered if they'd return soon with another car.
By the time he jogged back to the cabin, his clothes were waterlogged, his shoes muddy. Inside he found Lyle curled on the tarp. He was pale, his clothes and hair soaked. A dark stain spotted his pants where blood seeped through.
"What happened?" Adam asked.
"I needed to take a leak ... got dizzy," Lyle said.
"He almost passed out," Renata said. "Uncuff me."
Adam quickly released her then watched as she checked Lyle. While he wasn't running a fever, he was shivering. They all were, but Lyle's reserves had to be dangerously low.
"Those wet clothes will leach his body heat. Get him undressed and wrap him in that blanket while I get another IV started and change his bandage." She looked sharply at Lyle before continuing. "It's important that these dressings stay dry and—"
Lyle cut her off. "Yeah, well, your advice would be easier to follow if we weren't on the run, in the rain."
As soon as she finished, Adam helped her to her feet. "The storm's getting worse, so I suggest we go outside now if you need to."
Renata was almost too tired to care about basic body functions. She'd had little sleep in the last forty-eight hours, with maximum stress. The combination left her exhausted. And punchy.
She couldn't stop thinking about what Lyle told her earlier. She prided herself on being a good judge of people, and she honestly couldn't see Adam as a coldblooded murderer. Had he truly killed six people and gotten away with it? Or was Lyle simply tormenting her? And why did it matter?
Outside, Adam once again gave her rudimentary privacy, but there was no place to run. The rain fell in torrents, soaking her anew. When she finished she followed him back, nearly colliding with him when he stopped short of the door.
"Watch." He stood close to the eaves where the rain fell in sheets. Cupping his hands, he caught the water then scrubbed his face.
"Try it," he encouraged. "It's the closest thing to a shower we're going to get. And we can't get any wetter standing here."
Tentative, Renata cupped the cold rainwater and sluiced it over her face. It felt surprisingly refreshing. She repeated the motion, combing water through her hair, then wringing out the excess. She couldn't imagine what she looked like at this point—she'd been in and out of rain, living in the same clothes for two days. And she'd long ago lost the elastic holding her hair back.
She shivered as the wind gusted. The temperatures were cooler and when combined with the wind and rain, it felt downright icy. Even in July.
"Cold?" he asked.
"No."
"Guess that means you wouldn't be honest enough to tell me if Lyle's been bothering you, either." He turned toward her, his voice low. "If he's done something that's upset you, I want to know."
Her jaw tightened. "Upset me? He said you killed some men. And your girlfriend. And that you have scars to prove it."
Adam turned his face up to the rain, scrubbed it yet again, buying time before answering. He should have known Lyle would tell her that. To the kid's hoodlum mentality, killing someone was the
ultimate badge of criminal high achievement.
He could imagine how she felt hearing that. So how could he dispel her fears without destroying the myth he purposely created in prison?
"Don't believe everything you hear. Some rumors are baseless, but it's advantageous to let them stand."
"What about your girlfriend?"
"I make it a point to never discuss past affairs. But— just between us—last time I saw her, she was alive."
"Just between us? It sounds like you want Lyle to believe something different. How do I know you're not lying to both of us?"
"You don't. So trust your instincts. And if it's any comfort, I'll try not to leave you alone with him again." He drew close and caught her chin in his hand. "I will not let anyone harm you, Renata. You have my word. Now, come on. You're shivering." He held the broken door open.
Inside, the lantern light cast flickering shadows around the small enclosure. Lyle snored unnaturally loud, a clue that he'd helped himself to painkillers again. She checked his IV
When she looked up, Adam held out a bottle of water, then pointed to the box of supplies. "Sardines or crackers?"
She wrinkled her nose but took the water. "I see the menu's no better than the accommodations."
"You expected a chocolate on your pillow?"
"Right. And French-milled soap in the bathroom." She struggled to remove the cap on her bottle. The cheap plastic threads had stripped, leaving it to spin uselessly.
Adam offered the bottle he'd just uncapped. Shrugging, she traded with him.
He gave her the crackers while he ate a tin of sardines. "We'll save the apples for later."
When they finished eating, Adam lowered himself to the tarp-covered ground close to where Lyle slept. Sitting with his back against the wall, he pointed indicating she should do the same.
Renata tried to step away to the opposite side, wanting to be closer to the door but Adam caught her hand and tugged. Balance lost, she pitched forward.
He caught her, pulling her onto his lap. His hands closed over her hips and forced her back against his chest. No part of her touched the ground.
"Get some sleep."
"I... I can't sleep like this." She tried to rise.
Adam locked an arm across her abdomen, holding her in place. "You can. And you will. I won't hurt you, Renata. Just relax."
"Let me sit beside you. Then I'll relax."
"If I'm not holding you, I have to handcuff you."
"Fine," she extended her wrists. "Do it."
He sighed. "You've been bound too long. And short of shoving Lyle off the tarp, I've got the only available dry spot, though there's no guarantee how long it will stay that way."
As if to emphasize his point, thunder echoed, low and heavy.
"Seeing as we're both soaked that's a moot point," she snapped.
"Regardless. For now I'm your makeshift mattress. I'm also the best chance you have at getting warm."
"I'd rather freeze."
Adam ignored her remark. "If you prefer we can lie down, side by side."
"No!" She bucked her body, trying to get away.
He wrapped his other arm across her chest and tightened his grip. "If you don't quit wiggling we're going to do exactly that."
Immediately she stilled. The last thing she wanted was to lie next to this man. One second passed. Then two.
She heard his slight snore and wanted to scream. How could he do that? Fall asleep so deeply, so completely? So totally unbothered by the fact someone sat in his lap?
She waited for him to relax his hold. He didn't. His heavy arms remained wrapped across her breasts and stomach in an impersonal manner, his thighs solid beneath her buttocks. Some mattress.
To her chagrin, her shivering subsided. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, the man did radiate welcome heat. Waves of it.
Rain pounded the metal roof, the sound hypnotic. She leaned her head back. Drowsiness overwhelmed her so completely she felt sick with the need to close her eyes.
I'll just close them for a second, she thought, shifting slightly. Just a second...
Adam had started to wonder whether Renata would ever let herself fall asleep. When struggling against him proved futile, she had tried to hold her body rigidly away from his, as if he'd contaminate her. That hadn't lasted long either. After two nights of no sleep, she simply gave in.
He had known the minute she'd succumbed; her body slumped against his in a boneless unconsciousness. He shifted her slightly, studying her. Wet, her hairlooked black as ebony. His eyes dropped. He noticed the way her nipples pearled beneath her wet shirt and bra.
In sleep she squirmed, snuggling deeper into his arms, her mouth open slightly. Damn if he didn't want to kiss her again. Which she'd never allow.
Hell, she hadn't liked the fact he'd insisted on holding her. He also knew she'd have preferred the mud to his arms, so he hadn't bothered allowing her a choice. Besides, he'd been looking for any excuse to touch her again.
In prison, touch was associated with punishment. Or a demeaning act. It brought a sense of fear. Dread. In some small way, holding Renata healed that.
Relaxing slightly, he drifted in and out of consciousness, not sleeping, continually monitoring his environment. It was a habit he developed in the army. He'd enlisted the day he turned eighteen, spending ten years working covert ops with Special Forces before joining the FBI.
The army, while tough, ultimately provided the only stability Adam had ever known. He recalled what he'd told Renata earlier about his childhood. It had been basically the truth. Except for changing the names and places, that part of his background had been real.
His parents' roller coaster marriage dissolved when he was eight. And while his father was brutally abusive when he drank—which was always—his mother had been no better. A drug addict, she had split, taking Adam's younger brother, Zachary, with her.
If Adam's childhood had been hell, Zach's had been no better. Zach had been only six when they left. Up till that point Adam had virtually raised his younger brother, protected him as best he could from their father's abuses and their mother's neglect.
His mother had resurfaced once, looking for money. She told them Zach had died in a car accident. Adam didn't see or hear from her again until three years ago, when he was notified that she'd been institutionalized. When he finally went to visit, she didn't recognize him. Worse, she thought he was Zachary.
And she apologized for selling him.
She had lied about Zach's death. From her ramblings, Adam pieced together the truth: that his mother had sold his, by then, eleven-year-old brother to a drug dealer.
Adam had searched without avail, until last year when he'd found Zach's flowers at their mother's grave and traced him through the floral service. It had been an awkward reunion.
Adam was on leave, recovering from the shooting. When he returned to active duty, he learned Zach's background was as shady as some of the outlaws he'd chased through Central America.
Zach offered little explanation for the years after his mother sold him, but from what Adam had gathered he'd survived a situation that few could. Compared to the drug dealer, their mother looked like a saint.
The haunting guilt over what his brother had endured never left Adam. Hell, it was part of the tangled reasons he'd taken this assignment. To clear his brother's name. As if it could make up for Adam's failure to protect him all those years ago. But what if Ethan Falco was lying about the information he had? Like he'd lied about the length of Adam's prison stay?
Uneasy, Adam slept.
When he next flicked his eyes open to check the cabin, he sensed something wrong. Taking care not to move or change his breathing pattern, he looked around and immediately discovered the problem.
His hand was under Renata's shirt.
He didn't question how it got there. And in spite of the fact that it was wrong... damn it, it felt divine. In sleep, she had curled into him, pinning his hand in place with her arm. The
weight of her breast pressed against his wrist. Pure torture for a man too long without. He needed to do something, fast.
Wind buffeted the small building, the rain drumming harder on the metal roof, warning of the approaching storm front. The deteriorating weather would wake her if he did not.
A movement caught his eye. Lyle? Careful not to wake her, he turned his head . . . just as something black and shiny slithered into the shack.
Chapter Nine
The large black snake was either searching for dry ground or a spare mouse. Perhaps both. Its effortless glide across the muddy ground halted as it sensed Adam.
The creature froze, but instead of retreating, it spit out its forked tongue a few times and copped an attitude. It considered them trespassers.
Thunder exploded shaking the ground and releasing an onslaught of hail. The ice chunks hitting the roof sounded like a barrage of gunfire. Renata jerked awake, frightened and disoriented.
"Shhh." He sought to calm her.
While it was actually the middle of the afternoon, the storm had darkened the sky, making it appear like night outside. The unsteady light from the lantern did little more than shroud the room in shadow.
"We have a problem here." Adam kept his eyes on the snake. Detecting movement, the creature had stalled its head raised alert.
"Problem?" Renata had just become aware of his hand beneath her shirt. She scrambled to get to her feet, but in her haste, she cracked him squarely in the chin with the crown of her head. The force of impact tumbled her back down in his lap.
Adam swore, seeing stars. He knew by the way she winced that she had suffered from the blow as well.
"Are you okay?"
"No, I'm not okay!" she snapped. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"
"You had my hand pinned."
She tried to rise again. "That is the lamest—"
He tightened his arms to keep her from head-butting him again, then quickly located the snake. It had moved away, toward the corner.
"Are you afraid of snakes?"
"If you're trying to throw me off, it won't work." She twisted to glare at him, saw him staring over her head. "Oh, God. You're not kidding, are you? Where?"