by Lora Leigh
“Can you tell how many people are inside?”
His jaw pressed tightly against her temple as he squinted against a sun that glinted off the silver and white engine housing. “I’m seeing two heads.”
“Devine and the pilot. So he hasn’t picked up the boys yet.”
“No place to set down the bird around here. Besides, Devine’s probably so pissed at them for letting us get away, he’s most likely given orders for them to scour the area on foot and find us or else.”
“So Jake and Benny could show up any time, too,” Elena concluded, feeling suddenly like they were about to be flattened between two slices of bread in a bad-guy sandwich.
“They’re pulling out.”
She followed the direction of Seth’s gaze, then watched with a tentative sense of relief when the chopper did a one-eighty and resumed its search in a slow crawl up the length of the river.
“Another bullet dodged,” he said and gave her shoulders a squeeze.
“But for how long? We can’t hide from them forever.”
Seth rose slowly and helped her to her feet. “Even if we could, we wouldn’t.”
His jaw was set as hard as the canyon walls when Elena turned to face him. Her heart flipped like a trout in shallow water even before she asked, “We wouldn’t hide? Like there’s an alternative?”
“The alternative is the unexpected. They’ll expect us to hide. So we’ll do the opposite. We’re going on the hunt instead.”
“The hunt,” she repeated, unable to hide the trepidation in her voice. “For help?” she suggested, thinking, hoping, he was figuring on the possibility of a boatload of rafters or something.
“There’s no help coming, Elena. We’re going on the hunt for the hunters,” he said with a resolute determination that made her blood run cold.
Oh God.
“Okay, um, would now be a good time to point out that they have guns and a helicopter and that you took a really bad rap on your head?”
He managed to look like he was in total control of all of his senses—which he obviously wasn’t. “But we have the element of surprise on our side.”
“Element of surprise,” she repeated, practically choking on her skepticism. “Surprises are for birthday parties … and … and … EPT results. Surprises are not for a drug lord with a vendetta.”
He actually grinned. “Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
Yeah. And she was the Easter bunny.
They were going to die.
EIGHT
“I KNOW THIS PART of the Canyon,” Seth told Elena after the chopper disappeared, resuming its search upriver and around a bend. “There’s only one place near here big enough for the bird to set down. Only one place close enough for Devine to rendezvous with Jake and Benny in this area.”
He led her to a spot on the bank where soft dry sand gave way to wet. Using a stick, he scratched out a rough map.
“We’re here.” He pointed to the map with the sharp end of the stick. “The chopper came from here.” He indicated a winding path through the canyon. “We last saw Jake and Benny here—about a half mile upstream.”
When she nodded, he continued. “While cell towers can’t catch a signal, they’ve probably got radios or SAT phones that work here in the bottom of the Canyon. So they’re talking now and Devine knows where we parted ways with the boys. He’s not stupid so he’ll figure the river took us downstream—just like it did. So he’s probably ordered Jake and Benny to scour the area ahead of where we went in while the chopper heads upriver just in case we doubled back.”
“Which means, they’re most likely around here somewhere.”
“But above us. On the cliffs. That way they’ve got both areas covered. The chopper searches down here, the boys up there.”
She shot a nervous glance toward the jagged terrain above them while he continued.
“When they don’t find us, they’re going to double back, right?” he pointed out. “Keep looking. Only we’re not going to be here. We’re going to follow the river to the spot where the chopper will put down.” He X’d a spot on the sand map. “It’s got to be their rendezvous point. We’re going to be waiting for them when they get there.”
She drew a deep breath. “And we’re going to manage this without them spotting us how?”
He touched a hand to her hair. “You like the water, right?”
She closed her eyes and felt herself go pale. “I live for a good near-drowning experience. Can’t get enough of it. And dry clothes are highly overrated.”
He hugged her hard. “You’d have made a good cop, Martinez. You’ve got guts. And you’ve got try.”
“Yeah, well, right now, I’m about to get a bad case of the screamingohmygods. That a desirable cop trait, too?”
He turned her in his arms. Squeezed her shoulders. “Lady, there’s not a damn thing about you that’s not desirable.”
She grunted. “Said the man with the concussion.”
He laughed. Hugged her again. “Come on. We’re going to walk a ways past these rapids before we get ourselves wet again. No use taking any unnecessary risks.”
“No unnecessary risks. Right. I would laugh,” she said, not sounding one bit amused, “at the incongruity of that statement in the face of the risks we’ve already taken, but I lost my sense of humor about the time you pushed me off the cliff.”
Fifteen minutes later, they’d made marginal progress down the riverbank, sometimes walking the bank, sometimes wading the perimeter when the terrain got too rough. No sign of the boys. No return of the chopper. Not yet at any rate. But Seth knew they’d have another close encounter before long.
On cue, the whoop, whoop, whoop of helicopter rotor blades drifted to them on the faint breeze.
“We’ve risked being spotted as long as we dare,” he said when they reached a spot in the river where the water had quieted and the roar of the rapids was behind them.
He’d hoped they would have reached an area on the bank where they could find cover without taking the plunge. No such luck. They were as exposed as electric wires on a frayed cord—and their situation was just as combustible.
“I know,” she said when he glanced at her. “Into the deep freeze.”
He picked a spot where water washed over rock, stirring up the current, and yet was deep enough for them to submerge their entire bodies.
Even though the sun beat down and warmed the Canyon air to over eighty degrees, the Colorado’s average water temperature hovered just under sixty degrees in the main channel even in daylight hours. It was going to be hell. And they wouldn’t be able to stay in long.
“Ready?” He wrapped her hand in his.
“As I’ll ever be.”
With the chopper noise growing dangerously closer, they waded quickly into the frigid river. Her teeth were already chattering as they sank down until only their heads were above water.
“Here it comes,” he said. “Head down. All they can see is the back of our heads. Call on your method acting experiences. Be a rock. Be the rock.”
“You are so n … not funny,” she stuttered through chattering teeth, totally unimpressed by his feeble attempt at humor.
He drew her tightly against him, gathered her hair in his hand to corral it and started shivering himself.
They waited. Lips turning blue.
Several minutes passed. Several more.
And they still couldn’t move.
Hypothermia, Seth knew, would soon become a threat as the chopper continued a slow, low, back and forth crawl less than fifteen yards above the surface of the water.
“You still with me?” he whispered against her hair and clamped her trembling body tighter.
Her response was a weak, “Um.”
He’d take that for a yes. They had to get out of here soon. Adrenaline had pumped their systems full of heat last night and kept them from succumbing to the cold. They’d been full of calories and carbs from their pasta dinner. Today, without the benefit of food to fuel them, they wer
e more vulnerable to the stinging cold.
Seth could no longer feel his toes. His thigh muscles ached like deep bruises. It was getting harder and harder to draw a full breath.
Finally, thank you, God, the sound of the chopper drifted away. He chanced a very slow turn of his head. Saw the bird disappear around a cliff face. And didn’t waste a second.
Willing legs that felt like dead stubs to move, he half waded, half stumbled toward the bank, dragging Elena with him.
“I know, I know, baby,” he crooned when they dropped like bags of sand on the shore. She moaned, her lips blue, her limbs stiff as posts. “Hurts like hell. We’ve got to work it out.”
His heart damn near broke when he rubbed her arms with stiff hands and she bit back a cry that told him she was hurting as bad if not worse than he was. An ache so deep filled his bones that it felt like the marrow had frozen. A follow-up burn sizzled like fire as nerve endings slowly reawakened and shot heat-starved sensation into extremities ravaged by the icy-cold Colorado.
“Hang in there,” he murmured, fighting his own pain and fumbling with clumsy fingers that alternately ached like they were broken and stung like they were ablaze. “Deep breaths. Breathe through it.”
Her body shuddered as she forced herself to comply.
“Still with me?”
A determined nod was his answer as she fought her way through the pain.
“Can you stand?”
She clenched her teeth, rolled to all fours and pushed herself to her feet. Where she stood on wooden legs and uttered not a single word of complaint.
It may have been a cliché, but from his experience on the force, Seth knew it was true that you learned a lot about a person when things got tough. His years as both a beat cop and as a detective had taught him that the true measure of a man came to light when he was faced with danger and in how he handled pain.
The men he wanted at his back or at his side sucked it up, stayed the course, got the job done—no matter how they felt about the plan of action. No matter the discomfort.
As they warmed under the heat of a blazing sun, and he helped Elena work her way along the river’s edge toward what he figured was Devine’s rendezvous point, he was satisfied that she could watch his six anytime.
She hadn’t been happy about his plan of turning the tables on the Devine crew. But she accepted that he was making the calls, and after her initial hesitation, she’d tucked away her doubts and protests and put her faith in him to know what to do to rescue her. Hell, to rescue both of them. She’d sucked it up against the pain from submerging herself in icy water like a pro.
Yeah. He’d want her guarding his back anytime.
Ever watchful for the two-legged predators intent on killing them, he pushed her relentlessly on toward the rendezvous point, hoping to hell he didn’t let her down and get them both killed.
“DO YOU SEE ANYONE?”
They were hiding behind a natural windbreak of coyote willows and cattails.
Seth shook his head. Scanned the sandbar that time and rain and the relentless flow of the river had carved out of the bank. The sandbar was a perfect landing zone for a chopper. Flat, wide, dry. A well-used put-in for rafter and kayakers.
“This bend in the river provides fairly good protection.” They had hiked about two miles downstream from the spot they’d first jumped in. “We can set up and wait for the bad guys here.”
“Protection? I guess I’ll have to take your word for it. Because right now, I feel about as exposed as a centerfold in Playboy. And do not take that as an invitation to capitalize on the image,” she added hastily, making him smile.
“Can’t fault a guy for wanting to visualize that one,” he pointed out, and got a halfhearted glare for his efforts.
She was playacting. Keeping it light, keeping it real for his benefit and maybe a little bit for her own. Their situation was grim. She knew it. He knew it. And, bless her, she was doing her part to keep them both calm.
He’d deal with the centerfold image later, though. At his leisure, he hoped. Right now, they needed to get cracking.
“I expect they’ll show up before long,” Seth said surveying the familiar walls of the Canyon and searching for a likely path the boys would have to take to get down to their level. He found it when he spotted an irregular cutout of stepping stones. That’s where they would come down. And that’s where he would set his deadfall trap.
“When they show up? What then?” she asked, rubbing the flat of her palm over her forearm and a red and bleeding welt from a scrape with a dead tree limb.
“When they show up, we’ll be ready for them.
“Come on.” He took her hand, promising himself he’d make up for all the pain she’d been through when he got her out of this. And he would get her out of it. He was going to make damn sure of it.
Even if it killed him.
“We don’t have much time. Let’s get you into position.”
“Position?” Elena pinned him with a look. “Position suggests you really do have a plan. Would now be a good time for you to tell me exactly what it is?”
He considered her, considered the cliffs above and around then. “Let me ask you this first. How’s your arm?”
“My arm? My arm is fine,” she said, moving it as if checking for pain.
“What I meant is, can you throw like a guy or do I have to go to plan B?”
“I throw like a girl,” she said, squinting up at him. “Like a girl who was the first team pitcher on an all-state softball team.”
Lord Jesus God, how did he ever get so lucky?
“You’re one amazing surprise after another, you know that? Tell me that, when we get out of this, you’ll marry me and have my children,” he said, hugging her and planting a quick hard kiss on her mouth.
He wasn’t altogether certain he was kidding. He’d sort that part out later, too.
“Yeah, sure. We’ll elope to Vegas. We’ll get an Elvis impersonator to do the deed. I’ll promise you anything if you can get us out of this alive.”
“Darlin’. Your golden, all-state arm just upped the odds of that happening by about a thousand percent.”
NINE
THE PLAN, ELENA DISCOVERED, depended a lot on luck, a lot on timing, and way too much on the accuracy of her aim.
Sweat tickled the indentation of her spine as she lay on her belly, still as the stone cliff above and beneath her, praying to God she was hidden from view of the chopper when it finally closed in on the LZ. Praying also that timing and luck smiled down on them today.
Rocks. She was supposed to take down the chopper with rocks. She judged the weight of the stockpile of stones they’d gathered. The rocks were the only thing joining her on her solitary perch on a six-foot-by-three-foot ledge jutting out of a rock wall approximately twenty-five yards above the Canyon floor.
Precarious at best. But the vantage point was perfect. According to Seth.
“A log or two would be better,” he had said as they’d scoured the shallow riverbed for weapons.
“A log?” She’d merely stared. “We both know that’s not going to happen, right?”
He’d just grinned, selected several big stones, tucked them into his shirt, then helped Elena climb up the cliff face so she’d be positioned above the chopper as it came in for a landing.
“Okay, here’s what’s going to happen,” he’d said, winded and panting, once they’d settled her in. “We’re going to hope the rotor blade is made of some fiberglass composite.”
“Do you know how often the words hope, luck and maybe have come up in the past twenty-four hours?”
He’d grinned again and went on. “Most rotor blades are made of fiberglass,” he stated. “Some aren’t. So we’re hoping with the odds. To pull this off, you need to drop or throw the rocks from above the bird into the main rotor.”
“Rocks. At the main rotor blade?”
“Yeah. Rotor blade. It’s the big blade that lifts the bird.”
That�
��s when her heart actually jumped to her throat, making talking—not to mention breathing—damn near impossible. “For God’s sake, I know what the main rotor blade is. What I don’t know is how you think I can hit it. And even if I could, how you think I can take down a helicopter with a rock.”
“Unless you’ve got a rocket-propelled grenade launcher tucked under your shirt, yeah. You can do it. And yes, you can do it with a rock. Look. All you have to do is nick the blade, okay? Just nick it. It could crash even if you don’t make a direct hit because the impact will still throw it off balance. That’ll spook the pilot. Maybe he’ll do something stupid—like crash all by himself.”
Sweet Lord.
“Be safe,” he said suddenly. Kissed her hard and took off.
So now here she was. Hugging the sun-warmed stone from toe to chin. Seth had scrambled back down the side of the cliff five minutes ago, leaving her here to contemplate the magnitude of what she had to do.
In silence she’d watched him as he’d sprinted across the sandbar, stopped abruptly when something caught his eye. After some digging and fishing around, he dragged a long rope out of the sand.
He’d turned to give her a grinning thumb’s up before wading to the other bank then scaling the opposite cliff.
At first she thought he was going to find a hiding place and wait, like her, but instead, he climbed over to a huge boulder, fussed around with some rocks and the rope, and then threw the loose end down the cliff face.
Before he was finished, he’d planted the remainder of the rope along the ground, then hidden his handiwork with sand and dried grass.
Laying a trap, she realized. Like she’d seen her brother lay for a poor unsuspecting rabbit once. Jake and Benny may be unsuspecting. But they weren’t cute, fuzzy, harmless little forest creatures either.
If she remembered right, her brother never had gotten that trap to work on a bunny. What were the odds, she wondered, that Seth’s trap was going to work on two very ugly, very mean bottom-feeders?
About the same as her odds of taking down a chopper.
With a rock.
And with hope