“Hvor skal du?” he asked.
“Dombås Motell,” Ian replied.
A motel! Normally Leah was picky about where she slept considering the whole bedbug epidemic, but she was so tired she would have happily crawled into a fifty-gallon drum if it had a pillow and blanket.
The cab turned onto European Route E6 and Leah wished it were light enough out that she could enjoy the scenery. She could smell that the ocean was near, but except for a brilliant show of stars overhead, the horizon was cast in darkness. It was her first trip to Norway, a country she’d been dying to visit ever since she was a little girl and her music teacher had relayed stories of trolls and pies from her annual trips, and so far all she’d seen was the airport, Northern Wolf Services, and a handful of train stations. She vowed that next year she’d come back and enjoy it properly, with maps and hotel reservations and the dorky tourist camera.
Fifteen minutes later the cab was cruising on a deserted stretch of E6 where the pavement sliced a path through a dark valley, when Ian leaned forward and said to the cabbie, “Pull over here.”
The cabbie was appalled. “But this is nowhere!”
“Pull over.” Ian’s command was final.
The driver did as he was told, the headlights of the cab bouncing across the tree line as the wheels hit the dirt shoulder of the highway. Ian handed over a wad of folded bills that Leah knew amounted to far more than what the meter on the front console read.
“You never saw us.”
The cabbie appeared about to protest, caught a glimpse of the top bill, and nodded eagerly.
Ian and Leah climbed out of the cab. Once her luggage was sitting in the dirt at her feet, the cab took off. Leah watched the taillights recede into the distance and then turned to Ian. “You do realize he’s correct and this is the middle of nowhere?”
Ian didn’t reply, the noises of the night punctuating his silence. Insects buzzed in the tall grasses and night creatures of the four-legged variety rustled nearby. Leah had been raised in rural Pennsylvania so she wasn’t afraid of a few animals, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be hanging out in the dark with them at three in the morning. She hoped to God Ian didn’t expect them to walk the rest of the way to this mysterious destination.
Before she could demand an actual response, a pair of headlights appeared in the direction from which they’d just come. Ian withdrew his gun from the holster at his back and nudged her behind him, keeping the weapon at his side and pointed to the ground. With his free hand he pulled an object from his pocket—a small flashlight—and turned it on and off three times in quick succession. The vehicle drew closer and then the headlights cut to the right as it slowed and pulled to the side of the road ahead of them.
She could see that it was a dark-colored pickup truck of the type Ian tended to favor. The driver left his headlights on as the door opened and a pair of long legs swung out. The door slammed, ringing into the darkness, and a man started walking toward them.
Leah peered from Ian’s side to study the man backlit by the headlights. His face was hidden in the shadows but he had the swagger of a cowboy. As he neared she was able to make out a heavily lined face and keen, quick eyes. Before he’d even reached them he’d surveyed the entire scene, his gaze sweeping over Ian, Leah, the luggage, and any other potential places a person could be hiding.
The man stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back on his heels. “Didn’t think I’d ever see you round these parts, Haugen. From what I hear you’re a city boy now.”
Ian grinned. “You can take the man out of the mountains but you can’t take the mountains out of the man. You have any trouble getting what I asked for?”
The older man shook his head and spit a stream of tobacco on the ground. “Nah. Lucky for you I know the best smugglers in town.”
Leah suspected they were talking about firepower, such as the weapon Ian had re-holstered at the small of his back. As far as she knew Norway had strict weapons regulations, which meant that for men like Ian to get their hands on guns, Tasers, pepper spray and the like, they had to know smugglers. She thought it was interesting that the good guys had to break the law in order to protect others.
“It’s all behind the driver’s seat.” The man withdrew a set of keys from his pocket and tossed them to Ian.
Ian snatched the keys from the air. “Thanks.”
“Thought you might like to know there was a shooting at the Oslo airport tonight. It’s been all over the news. The apparent targets fled the scene and police are scouring the country looking for them. The man is described as tall and blond and in his early thirties, and the woman as having dark hair and bangs. Just heard on the radio they found the couple’s truck dumped down by the waterfront. All the damned windows were shot out and the entire thing was wiped clean of prints. It was registered to Ewan Macgregor, who, it turns out, doesn’t exist. Curious, wouldn’t you say?”
Ian lifted his brows. “Huh. I hadn’t heard about the shooting.”
“Riiight.”
As they talked the two men walked to the truck and Ian let down the tailgate. Nestled in the bed was a lightweight motorcycle and a set of steel ramps. The men used the ramps to unload the bike, and the older gentlemen lifted a helmet from the truck bed. He straddled the bike and kicked the ignition over, the bike’s engine leaping to life with a low growl.
He turned to Ian and said, “Watch your back, brother. If you need me, you know where to find me.” Before Ian had the ramps and her luggage loaded into the truck, the man was out of sight and Leah could only faintly hear the high-pitched whine of the bike.
When they climbed into the truck Leah found the leather seats already heated. It may have been July in Norway, but the nights were still cool. Ian shifted gears and steered the truck back onto the highway. The entire exchange had taken less than ten minutes.
“How did he know to meet us there?” Leah asked.
“I made a few phone calls on the train while you were sleeping.”
That reminded her of his earlier conversation in French. “Who were you talking to on the phone in French?”
“Svein.” He rubbed his chin where heavy blond stubble had grown over the past thirty-six hours, his fingers long and tanned. Leah wondered what it would be like to have those hands on her again, to feel the rasp of his stubble against the sensitive softness of her skin, and her tired blood raced in response. “He picked up the PI that Sokolov hired to do surveillance on me.”
She leaned forward eagerly. “And?”
“And he’s not talking. Yet.”
“Will he talk? It’s not like you guys are the police.”
“That’s right. We’re not the police.”
The way he said it made her think it might be better for the PI if they were. She worried her lip between her teeth. “Won’t the police check the train station cameras for us? The train is the only logical source of transportation out of the city, especially if the truck was dumped. Will they be able to tell what train we took?”
“They’ll figure it out eventually, but they won’t find us.”
“I know you don’t want the police involved, but don’t you think they should at least be on the lookout for Sokolov? What if you called in an anonymous tip?”
Ian rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “Sokolov is dangerous, and if cornered he’d be lethal. The fewer people involved the better, and that means the police. It’s better for Sokolov to walk right past them then for some fool to recognize him and try and take him on.”
She supposed it made sense. Still, she couldn’t help wishing there were a thousand more pairs of eyes looking out for the Russian. “What else did Svein tell you?”
“Not much. The roof where Sokolov set up his rifle was clear except for a few scuffmarks where he’d positioned his tripod. The best Mia could tell, Sokolov entered the property in an airport maintenance vehicle and left the same way. She found the vehicle abandoned outside a carwash downtown where Sokolov exited on foot. The
last camera to pick him up belonged to the bank beside the carwash, and then he was gone.”
“So where are we going?” she asked, determined to press the issue if he avoided answering her again.
“Tosbotn.”
“Is that a town?”
“Yes. We’re going to hole up at an abandoned campground for the day.”
Okay, she could do an abandoned campground. It wasn’t like she needed a hot shower every day—or every sixty hours at this point.
“Then what?” It was the question that had plagued her from the moment they boarded the first train. Their situation ended in one of two ways: either Sokolov killed her, or Ian killed Sokolov. Ian had been clever about securing them transportation; the truck transfer had been out of the eyes of traffic cameras so there was no way to track them, and that bought them a little more time. But time to do what? They couldn’t run forever. Besides, she didn’t think it was in Ian’s nature to stay on the defensive for long; hunting was in his blood.
“I’m thinking on it,” Ian admitted.
“How far away is the campground?”
“About eight hours.”
“Eight hours!”
His blue eyes crinkled with amusement. “We’ll be on a fjord.”
She grumbled an obscenity. “Fjords do not make everything better.”
“This one will.”
“You’ve been there before?”
“A long time ago.”
Chapter 26
While Leah gazed in a trance-liked state out the window, Ian strategized. She was tucked against the side of the door, her knees curled to her chest. A strand of hair had fallen across her cheek and he wanted to reach over and brush it back but didn’t want to yank her from her zone. He was hoping she’d fall asleep again. She wasn’t used to the kind of adrenaline hits she’d taken and she needed sleep to recharge, because it was far from over.
They’d be temporarily safe from Sokolov at the campground. It was nestled in the mountains of Tosbotn, a once popular and scenic tourist town that now lay mostly abandoned and reclaimed by nature. When the Tosbotn train station had closed several years prior, the towns that had relied on the steady stream of summer tourists began to atrophy and die off like the vessels tied to a blocked artery. The Tosbotn campground had outlasted many of the local stores and motels, but even it had eventually succumbed and closed shop.
Ian had visited Tosbotn once before with an ex-girlfriend who’d dragged him upcountry for a weekend retreat of couples therapy, vegetarian meals, and “toxin cleanses” at a fancy spa. The relationship had fizzled two weeks after the retreat. It wasn’t because Ian was against therapists or vegetables, but because he and Britt had about as much in common as a carrot and a tank. The woman had been absolutely gorgeous but entirely humorless. He’d known it was over the day he made a pun about horses and she’d looked at him with dead, vacant eyes.
Despite the doomed couples retreat, he’d always wanted to revisit the town. Norway was rife with beautiful views and fjords, but Tosbotn was, in his opinion, one of the best. It was an absolute shame what had happened to it.
If he remembered right, and he usually did, the Tosbotn campground hosted dozens of cleared lots and lean-tos. He and Leah would have to rough it a little, but at least they’d have shelter and he wouldn’t have to worry about cameras. He didn’t doubt that Sokolov had people running his face through software designed to match him with security footage. It was what he was having Mia do, after all.
Now all he had to figure out was what the hell he was going to do with Leah. One option was to leave her in Tosbotn while he hunted Sokolov, but the moment the idea occurred to him he rejected it. There were too many variables and any one of them could go wrong. What if she went to the bathroom and ended up lost and wandering the Norwegian forests? What if a vagabond or hiker came across her? With her physical description all over the news, the last thing he needed was for some good civilian to call the police thinking they were helping.
Worst of all, what if he miscalculated and Sokolov found her before he found Sokolov? There was no way he was letting him near her again. He told himself the murderous rage thrumming through his blood at the very idea was for professional reasons: Leah obviously knew something about Sokolov that was worth killing her for, and Ian would be damned if he let that advantage slip through his fingers. He’d waited a long time for revenge and he would have it. That meant keeping Leah alive at all costs.
Of course he could always have Dag, Chani, or even Anders sit on her while he tracked the Russian. All three were competent and capable of keeping her safe, and yet he wasn’t entirely comfortable with that idea either, although his reasons for that were less clear. All he knew was that he had two conflicting desires: to be with Leah, and to sniff out Sokolov. Ultimately, he would have to choose one over the other.
Perhaps the most obvious solution to his problem was to use Leah as bait to flush out Sokolov. The only problem was that it would have to happen over his dead body. Ian had always been a little overprotective—his sister had called him The Boyfriend Repellent all through high school—but there was something vulnerable beneath Leah’s gritty exterior and it brought out his inner guard dog. She was beautiful, brave, and funny, and she hadn’t turned cynical or closed herself off despite what had happened with Sokolov. It mystified him to see such persistent optimism in humanity, especially since he knew in her job she must witness much of the worst in man. In many ways Leah reminded him of the scraggly flowers that insisted on growing through cement cracks: resilient, persistent, unique.
He would not allow Sokolov to hurt yet another woman on his watch, especially not his woman.
Ian grimaced at the last thought. Shit, she was not his woman, and when had he started thinking in such possessive terms? It was true that he didn’t share—he’d never been good at sharing. Any woman he’d been with in the past had been with him exclusively, and he with her exclusively. The idea of an open relationship or a polyamorous relationship flabbergasted him; he would never be okay with another man touching his woman. So maybe it made sense that since he’d kissed Leah his brain had thought he was laying claim, even though he wasn’t. Yes, the kiss had been combustible. Yes, if he’d had five more minutes he would have been fucking her against his office wall, but that hardly qualified as a relationship.
Besides, for all intents and purposes, she was a client now and he had a strict hands-off-the-clients policy. The reasons for that were multi-fold, but one of them was that people thrown into high stress situations together were at risk of developing fraudulent romantic feelings due to the environment. Almost always the relationship crumbled when the element of stress was removed.
That, Ian realized with a flash of insight, was exactly what was happening with him and Leah. He’d met her in a high-stress situation and had been in one with her ever since.
Pleased that he’d figured out the source of his intense attraction to her, Ian decided that every time Leah looked at him with those wide hazel eyes, or bit her lip and made him go hard with the desire, he’d remind himself that not only was the attraction built on stress, but that she was also a client. That should cool his libido a bit.
Leah sighed breathily and shifted. Ian imagined her making that breathless little noise while clenching around him, and his pants tightened.
The woman was going to kill him.
Client, client, client, he told himself.
To distract himself, he spent the next thirty minutes going over the steps he would have to take to secure the campground when they arrived. At some point Leah drifted off, so while she slept he attempted to put himself in Sokolov’s shoes. How would he track them down if he were Sokolov? How long would it take? How would he attack?
The last thing Ian wanted was to stage a defensive at the campground. The campground was simply a stopgap, a place for Leah to get her bearings and for him to get some sleep before moving ahead with the plan that was slowly forming in his mind. If he were in Sokol
ov’s position it would probably take him twenty-four to thirty-six hours to track them down.
Then again, he was better than Sokolov.
Leah stirred around eight in the morning and her eyelashes fluttered open. She arched her back in a long stretch and yawned. She looked over at him and he caught a flash of confusion in her expression before she remembered where she was. When she did, she gave him a sleepy, crooked smile that cut straight to his heart. Unexpected tenderness welled inside his chest.
He ruthlessly squashed it.
“Feel better?”
She nodded. “Yes, although I’m so thirsty I could drain a lake.”
“There should be a couple grocery bags of food in the back seat and a case of water. Help yourself.”
She unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over the console between them, her jean-clad thigh brushing against his arm. She’s a client, he reminded himself, even as he stole a look at her ass. She rustled through the grocery bag and there came a tear of cellophane before she sat back down holding two bottles of water and a bag of grapes. She handed him a bottle and they both drank deeply.
Leah popped a grape in her mouth, and after she’d chewed and swallowed said, “So, have you ever been to this abandoned campground before?”
“I did a drive through. Turned out the person I was with wasn’t keen on the accommodations so we decided on a hotel.”
Leah lifted her brows. “A girlfriend?”
“At the time, yes.”
“You’re not together anymore?”
“No.”
She tilted her head. “Are you with anyone else?”
“No.”
A flicker of relief crossed her face, and he was both gratified and displeased to see it.
“Tosbotn,” she said, repeating the name of the town. “Is it that your home town?”
Finding Lies Page 13