Chapter Eighteen
Where the hell is she?" Hunter yelled at Borys, who stomped to the front door of the cabin.
Like Abbie would be sitting on the cabin's front steps?
"Front door alarm is still active," Hunter told him, and swung around to the coat closet.
"Door's still locked, too, but if she ain't in here, she has to be outside." Borys punched the wall monitor, clearing the alarm system, then ran up the stairs. "I only stuck my head in her bedroom earlier. I'll search it, but she ain't here."
"Goddammit!" Hunter slammed his fist inside the closet and hit a panel in the only spot that would make the hidden shelf drop down to reveal a Kahr K9 9mm. He shoved the stainless steel weapon inside his waistband at the small of his back.
"Climbed out the window with sheets," Borys yelled, pounding back down the stairs.
"Who turned off the upstairs security?" Hunter roared, snatching a down jacket from the closet.
"Me! I like to crack the damn windows sometimes." Veins stuck out on the sides of Borys's neck, pulsing. "We never set the upstairs goddamn security! She couldn't've gone far."
"I activated the traps on the way in last night."
"Ah, shit. What the hell were you thinking? You never do that when you have a guest. She could be laying out there with a broke neck."
"She's not a guest!" Hunter snapped. Borys was lucky he didn't have time to strangle him. He wanted to kill something right now. "Stay here in case she comes back and don't fucking let her out if she does."
"How about fucking telling me what the deal is next time you bring a woman home so I can keep her hemmed up? You must've really pissed her off--"
Hunter slammed the door and stared at the frozen landscape. Miles of treacherous terrain so chewed-up a bear would be tough to track. He narrowed his choices down to the least-steep direction leaving the cabin. She couldn't have hiking boots... unless she stole some from Borys that fit. Would she take the sharp downhill incline ahead?
No. She was going for the Jeep.
He rounded the cabin to where the land sloped away less aggressively with breaks that might look like paths squiggling between swatches of pines that stair-stepped down the mountain.
An innocent-looking route.
Except for several narrow chasms where loose rocks and land would break away unexpectedly.
A fall out here could be fatal.
If she didn't fall on her own she wouldn't know to sidestep traps he'd set to stop anyone who made it past his outer security perimeter undetected.
If that didn't worry him enough, the trails down this side led to where he'd found a mule deer killed by mountain lions.
Joe waited on Gotthard to finish at the computer terminal, wishing this private room, which connected to the electronic surveillance and research division for BAD, had more than fifteen feet square of open area so he could pace. But the room had been constructed specifically for small groups and private meetings within their mission headquarters beneath downtown Nashville, Tennessee. The building affectionately known as the Bat Tower housed an insurance company front for Bureau of American Defense, connected to the underground operations center by a warren of tunnels.
Gotthard finished closing a file he'd opened while videoconferencing with Hunter and swung around. He propped his meaty elbow on the edge of his desk and rested his chin on his thumb. "Opinions?"
Joe had several but preferred to hear his men out first. He turned to Retter, his most dangerous agent and the only other person Joe had allowed to listen in on the videoconference.
Retter's chest barely moved with a breath. Black hair hung to his shoulders, still damp from showering. He scratched his freshly shaven chin, his guarded gaze studying the floor. The decision weighed on all of them, but Retter had taken the lead on watching Hunter. He leaned his butt against the edge of a stainless steel table adjacent to the one Gotthard sat at where monitors and electronic equipment lined one wall. Retter finally shook his head. "I never saw any change in his normal demeanor all the time I've shadowed him on ops for the past four years. Same hard-ass attitude, proficient as he is lethal. He had me convinced he'd moved past Eliot's death... until now."
"Me too," Gotthard agreed. Disappointment slumping his shoulders said even more.
Joe rubbed his temple, willing the headache not to turn into a migraine. "Shit, I believed he was over Eliot's death, too. But I can't be sure. Hunter didn't exactly take the bait about the connection between the JC killer and the attack in Kauai. Hard to say for sure what he's up to right now."
"If you could have read him that easily over a video monitor, he wouldn't be working for BAD," Retter pointed out.
"I know." Joe gave up on his aching temple and pushed his hand into his front jeans pocket. "We need him if he comes up with a viable plan to get inside the Kore Women's Center."
"I'll second that," Gotthard interjected. "We don't have the time to build a profile to get someone in the front door and any agent we sent in wouldn't have backup."
Joe asked Retter, "Korbin's sure he saw Hunter leave with Blanton from her apartment? He's not letting his dick talk after Hunter punked out Rae in the mission room, right?"
"No." Retter gave a quick shake of his head. "I questioned Korbin myself. He's solid. Besides, no one on this team would put a target on an agent who didn't deserve it."
"Didn't say they would." Joe didn't pull punches and wouldn't now, but there was no reason to take the head off one of the men helping him sort through this mess. "We still have to confirm Hunter's tracking the killer on his own. In the meantime, we'll give him two hours." He took in the grim faces of both men. Not a thing any of them could do yet. Not until Hunter made a clear move across the line Joe drew for every agent the day they entered BAD. Elite operatives couldn't use their skills and intelligence access to fulfill vows of vengeance. "If Hunter has a viable plan, we let him go through with it."
"If not?" Gotthard asked.
Joe never minced his words. "Then I'll give him one chance to bring in the girl and turn himself in before I send a team after him." He never wanted to take down one of his own, but he would give the order to drop a rogue and every agent knew it.
Chapter Nineteen
Abbie picked her way carefully between snow-crusted evergreen bushes and scattered boulders blocking the easiest route off this frozen mountain. She'd traded in her oversized flight suit from last night for a less oversized pair of worn-but-clean jeans, two long-sleeved T-shirts, a dark green cotton sweater, thick socks, and boots a size too large she'd found in a bedroom down the hall from the one she'd slept in.
The bedroom Hunter had shown her to early this morning when they arrived and ordered her to stay put until he came to get her.
Yeah, that always worked well with her.
Did he really think she'd just sit there for a week or more? He might have all kinds of time, but she didn't.
First, her mother was dying, dammit.
Second, what about her job? Stuart would be foaming at the mouth by now, fielding questions from other media outlets, and the board and slow-but-not-stupid Brittany wouldn't be far behind wondering why he'd given Abbie an invitation to the Wentworth event.
Third, what if the police wanted to ask more questions about Gwen's shooting? Would they think Abbie had skipped out or would they think she'd left against her will?
Fourth, fifth, sixth... her mother was dying, dying, dying.
She kicked a loose rock that disappeared in a snowdrift. A beautiful but desolate landscape she could better appreciate with a down coat. She might have hunted for one before leaving if the sun hadn't been shining outside and she hadn't been worried over getting caught sneaking around downstairs. If she'd gone to that trouble she'd have left by the front door instead of climbing down a knotted-sheet rope like a teen on a hormone adventure.
No alarm went off when she opened her bedroom window on the second floor. Landing in a pile of snow had been fortunate, except for ending up with w
et jeans.
And if she didn't get out from under these evergreens and back into the sun she was going to turn into a Popsicle.
Suck it up and keep moving before Hunter found her missing.
He wouldn't be happy, but that was his fault.
When she arrived at his cabin last night, she'd asked when she could get back to her mother. Hunter's blunt "Not any time soon" had severed her last patient nerve. But, not to go off half-cocked, as her dad would have warned, she'd asked what he intended to do with her. He'd answered, "Depends on how much information you give me."
She kept coming back to one thing.
He was a trained operative of some sort. He could have been lying to her about everything last night and manipulating her by pretending not to hand her over to WITSEC. She had little information left to trade, so the minute Hunter figured that out, what would he do with her?
He couldn't let her just walk away after what she'd seen.
Her best bet was to locate the Jeep. Soon.
Pushing a branch out of the way, she dodged the clump of snow that smacked the ground, then she carefully moved forward, stepping on dirt patches and testing snow-covered areas for a hard bottom or ice before she put her weight on her foot.
If Hunter had been reasonable she wouldn't be out here freezing her bottom off.
She wanted to be angry with him for everything that had happened and blame him for the crazy guy in her apartment, but that guy had called her Abigail. He'd said she did a good job and admitted shooting Gwen, so was he thanking her for getting Gwen outside? That might have been coincidental if he hadn't known her name. He hadn't known Hunter by name, though.
She couldn't figure it all out and Hunter wasn't sharing a thing. She still couldn't reconcile this man with the one she'd met six years ago.
He'd looked different back then, but the animal attraction she'd felt for the hairy version of Hunter had been the same as what hit her last night at the Wentworth party. Her first impression of Hunter back then had been rugged and earthy with thick coffee-brown hair to his shoulders, clean but unkempt. He'd reminded her of men she'd grown up around in flannel shirts, brogan boots, and work gloves softened by hard labor.
And God help her, she sort of remembered asking--not begging--him to take her home with him years back. A pathetic memory she'd like to erase. He'd been exactly what she'd gone hunting for when she strutted into the bar looking for a man. Sweet, attentive, sexy in a scruffy way, and so very human. But the somber green eyes hadn't changed.
She should have realized at the Wentworth party why she recognized Hunter's eyes.
He'd seemed so free of cares that night long ago.
She couldn't reconcile today's suave Hunter with the hairy guy who hadn't appeared capable of affording a decent hotel.
He'd said very little about himself back then, only that he'd just finished a job she'd assumed was some type of manual labor--hah!--given his beefed-up size and that he wouldn't be staying a second night in Chicago.
One night. No ties. Perfect.
She'd thought.
She hadn't been quite so thrilled with her rash decision the next morning when she woke up in a hotel room hungover and lying next to a bohemian wearing Brad Pitt's naked body from Troy.
Based on waking up in her bra and panties with no indication of any physical activity, she had passed out on him.
She'd slinked from the bed and shimmied into the hooker-red slut dress that had looked sexy hanging in a store twelve hours before when she bought it during a moment of shopping rage. After pulling herself together, she'd tried to sneak out but made the mistake of taking one last look at all that buff body.
He'd been watching her the whole time, not saying a word.
They'd stared at each other silently for a while until he asked in a sleep-rusty voice, "Need money for a cab?"
She'd shaken her head, her iron-straightened hair swishing against her arms.
When he hadn't said anything else, like "What's your last name or phone number?" she'd backed out of the bedroom and fled the hotel, mortified to her curly roots.
She'd never gone home with a stranger before... or after.
Would Hunter believe her if she told him that?
Why did she care?
Because he'd surprised her last night when she'd been close to panic in the dark. He'd soothed her when he could have ordered her around. He hadn't handed her over to a bunch of strangers. Somewhere hidden inside that emotionally isolated operative was a man capable of tenderness even if he kept it well hidden.
She remembered being kissed, but alcohol had wiped out one amazing memory if he'd kissed her like that six years ago.
Inside that lethal package was a Hunter she wished she'd met under different circumstances.
And, yes, as long as she was out here alone with her thoughts, she'd admit one more truth. She'd like another shot at getting her hands on all that naked male for one night.
But if he'd been interested in her that way, he'd have taken advantage of what she'd offered six years ago.
Talk about a washout in bed. The charming and funny "Samson" hadn't jumped on what she'd offered, but the gun-toting, private-jet-flying, too-sexy-for-her-sanity Hunter sure as hell had kissed her.
She slapped a low-hanging pine branch out of her way. Melting snow sprinkled her head. When would this romantic hookup happen with everything she had on her plate, not to mention some lunatic who might be trying to kill her?
Oh, and she was currently heading away from Hunter, which would make any interlude a bit hard to orchestrate.
Besides, she had a higher priority than finding out what it would be like to peel Hunter down to that buff body again. Such as finding a way off this freezing-ass mountain.
Had to be a neighbor somewhere or hikers or a fire tower. Didn't they have radios in fire towers? She hadn't seen anything in the dark last night, but she was fairly certain this was the direction they'd come from after leaving the Jeep. The minute she found the truck, she was so gone. Her dad had taught her a lot about old trucks, like how to hot-wire the ignition.
Wind ruffled pine-needle fingers on branches behind her and cut through the layers of cotton shirts she wore. So damn cold.
She rubbed her hands and picked up her pace, squeezing through the next thicket of bushes, and picked her way six steps to the left before she could turn downhill again.
How far was she from the cabin now?
She took a step down. Something made a snap sound.
Loose sand and gravel fell away from beneath her foot. She jumped sideways to grab a swooping branch on a tree. The one-inch-thick limb bent with the strain and swatted her hands and face with pine needles.
Ground disintegrated under her backpedaling boot heels.
The branch creaked with strain, wood fibers separating.
"Don't you dare break," she worried aloud.
She flailed one hand for another branch just out of her reach and twisted her body. Her knee bounced against the ground. Pain shot up her leg. She snarled at the worthless piece of vegetation and lunged for the waving branch again.
And missed.
Blood pumped loud through her ears. She tried not to breathe hard for fear of disturbing her tenuous position, but hyperventilating required some amount of priming.
The wind cried her name.
She paused, listening, her heart thundering with hope.
Hunter might be pissed off, but he wouldn't let her fall to her death. Screw it. She couldn't help her mother if she ended up in a body cast... or worse.
Licking her dry lips, she opened her mouth to call out.
The limb snapped.
She took off down the hill like a bobsled.
Chapter Twenty
Abbie grabbed at anything to slow her down. She slid over snow, then hit rock and sand patches. The world barreled by at lightning speed. Momentum flipped her onto her back. All three shirts climbed up her body, letting the scrub-board-rough mountain scrape a
streak of pain along one side of her back.
She spun sideways, then slammed into a snowbank... hiding a boulder. The world wobbled unevenly, trying to level out. She gasped cold breaths that burned her lungs and groaned, but damn, what a good sound. Meant she was alive.
She lay there, gulping for air.
Talk about a huge flaw in her escape plan. She took mental stock of her body and considered sitting up, but not just yet.
"Abbie!" a voice roared from way up above her.
She covered her eyes to look up against the glare of sunlight. Hunter charged down that incline like an enraged bull, almost as quickly as she had, but he wasn't bodysurfing.
She took stock of the damage now that every raw nerve wanted to report in, screaming with pain. One patch on her side felt seared, but the layers of clothes had protected the rest of her skin. Her knee throbbed. She wiggled her feet, lifted her legs, and stretched her shoulders.
Hallelujah. Nothing broken.
Branches snapped above her. Boot heels pounded against rock-hard ground toward her. Interspersed with cursing.
Better get ready to face Hunter.
Using the hem of her shirt, she wiped her face, hands, and clothes. Blood seeped from the scratches on her palms and wrists, but not so badly.
She pushed up to a sitting position and tugged her shirts down, gritting her teeth when cloth touched that one abrasion on her back.
Hunter jumped the last six feet, landing in a skid close to her. "Did you break anything?" He sounded panicked, which sort of surprised her since he'd been so calm with the killer. He squatted down next to her and examined the tear in her stolen jeans, then gently touched her leg above and below the rip.
If he kept acting so concerned and careful with her, she'd lose her grip on her shaky control.
"I don't think I broke anything. Help me up." She meant for him to give her a hand, but he hooked his hands under her arms and lifted her to her feet. When she pushed his arms away to prove she could stand, she hissed at the ache in her knee.
"You hurt your knee," he accused.
"No worse than getting knocked around in a pen full of sows," she muttered.
"What the hell did you think you were doing?" Muscles along his neck flexed with each breath he shoved in and out.