Mountain Ranger Recon

Her gaze darted among the hikers gathered on the trail, their mouths agape. Who was missing from the group? She noted the absence of Ian immediately, along with his pretend wife, two other couples, and the German tourist.

God, please don’t let it be Ian.

“Wait here.” Meg charged through the group and headed toward the steep stairs leading to the viewing platform of the falls. Her hiking boots clumped down each wooden step, the blood thrumming through her veins. Like a herd of cattle, the hiking group thundered down the steps behind her.

The ease with which they ignored her instruction didn’t surprise her. They were a difficult bunch, and that didn’t even take into account the appearance of Ian on the tour with a make-believe wife.

As Meg rounded the last bend of the staircase, she froze, her foot hanging off the bottom step. The splintered wood of the broken railing that separated the lookout deck from the rugged mountain terrain resembled sharp teeth. Meg swallowed and held her hand out behind her. “Stop.”

She didn’t need anyone else going over…if that’s what had happened.

Meg crept up to the gaping rail and held on to a solid piece of wood as she crouched down. The white water swirled beneath her and a slash of red bobbed near an outcropping of rocks.

Red fleece.

A hand gripped her shoulder, and she twisted around to look into Ian’s stormy green eyes.

“I—I think it’s Kayla. Is she missing? What about the others?”

Ian’s hold tightened, his fingers pinching into her flesh through her layers. “It’s Kayla.”

“Oh my God, Ian. I’m so sorry.” She clapped her hand over her mouth. She’d called him by his real name and not the alias, John Shepherd, he’d been using on the hike.

No wonder he’d never trusted her with any of his secrets.

Within seconds, the rest of the hikers crowded behind them, gasping and crying out. They’d expect Ian to be wild with grief with his wife lying fifty feet below, snagged on the wicked rocks that tumbled along the riverbank. Meg knew more than grief would assault Ian at the possible death of his partner.

He suppressed those emotions behind his tight expression as he peered at Kayla’s still form below them. Then he covered his face with one hand.

“I’ll call for help.” Meg plucked the radio out of her pocket and slid into the familiar mode of enlisting Ian’s leadership skills. “If you can stay with the other hikers, I’ll attempt to climb down in case…in case she survived the fall. There’s never been an accident here before.”

As the others murmured and sobbed, Ian lifted his head and brushed Meg’s ear with his lips.

“This was no accident.”

Chapter Two

Meg’s skin blanched beneath her freckles. This was why he’d kept his business to himself when they’d been together. He’d never wanted to scare her or make her feel any fear.

Or put her life in jeopardy.

But, for her own safety, he had to make it clear that one of her tourists had just shoved Kayla through the wooden railing. Had Kayla’s attacker identified her as CIA, or just pegged her as a nosy tourist who’d stumbled onto something she shouldn’t have?

Ian covered his face with his hands and hunched his shoulders. He rocked forward, moaning Kayla’s name. Twisting his head to the side, he peered at the hikers between his fingers.

If the killer ID’d Kayla as an agent, he had to know Kayla’s so-called husband was part of the team. Which one of the shocked faces masked a killer?

Meg’s radio crackled as she reported the incident, her voice strong and steady. Whatever Meg felt right now, she’d do her job.

She turned toward him, her blue eyes wide. “They can’t send in a helicopter—too dangerous with the falls so close—but the El Paso County Search and Rescue is going to hike in and move her downstream. The sheriff’s department is sending in a helicopter to airlift her from that area.”

Ian shrugged off his pack. “I’m not waiting for some search-and-rescue team to get here. She might be alive.”

And if Kayla still had breath in her body, she’d identify her attacker.

“I can’t let you do that.” Probably wondering how far she had to carry the charade, Meg shifted her gaze beyond him to the group of shocked tourists, and Ian followed her line of sight.

The birthday girls huddled together whispering, while the honeymooning couple, stumbling on the scene late, clung to each other, faces white. The German tourist…snapped photos.

A burst of anger exploded behind his eyes, but Ian took a deep breath. He had to get down to Kayla. Meg knew he was just as capable of hiking down to Kayla and moving her body downstream as the volunteer search-and-rescue team on its way. More capable, since he’d been a member of the army’s mountain division before joining the covert ops team, Prospero.

Ian decided to make it easy for her. He raised his voice, a sob cracking his words. “That’s my wife down there. You can’t stop me.”

He launched over the side of the deck, his boots fitting into the footholds he’d scoped out minutes earlier. As he scaled down the rocky cliff side, he heard voices above him. Several minutes later, a shower of pebbles rained down on his head. He glanced up to see Meg following his path down the side of the cliff.

He tilted his head back and called to her, “Shouldn’t you be keeping an eye on your group?” Although, in all honesty, he’d rather have Meg down here with him than up there with a possible killer.

She responded in a tinny voice. “One of our guys in the area heard the radio call and just showed up. He’s going to get the group to the top.”

For the next several minutes Ian heard only his own heavy breathing and the roar from the waterfall. Meg, following his path, made a steady descent in his wake, occasionally dislodging pebbles that pelted his head and hands.

Reaching the bottom of the craggy cliff face, Ian jumped to the ground, his boots splashing in the river where it tumbled over slick rocks. He reached Kayla in two strides and crouched beside her lifeless form. Her blond hair floated in the water, and her eyes stared, unseeing, at the falls.

Ian checked her pulse. Nothing. He hadn’t known Kayla well, but she’d shown a fierce loyalty to Jack Coburn. She’d volunteered for this mission as soon as she found out about Jack’s disappearance. And she’d done so without the approval or knowledge of her employer, the CIA.

There’d be hell to pay for this screwup.

Meg panted over his shoulder. “Is she…?”

“She’s dead.” Ian passed his hand over Kayla’s eyes, closing them to the world for the last time.

Meg grasped his shoulder for support as she choked. “Who did this?”

“One of your so-called tourists.” He pointed his index finger toward the top of the cliff.

“Do you think Scott will be safe?”

“Scott?”

“The other guide who’s finishing the hike for me.”

“He’ll be fine as long as he doesn’t start asking questions. And why should he? But I’ll need a list of all the people on the hike.” The colonel had misjudged the enemy. He thought the terrorist scum would sneak in here in the dead of night to recover their lost property. Instead, someone had posed as a tourist, hitting on the same plan as Ian.

With deadly results.

“Why are you so sure Kayla was pushed? Maybe she fell.” Meg kneeled on the ground and felt for a pulse in Kayla’s neck.

“You told me yourself, nobody has ever had an accident on that trail. Kayla falling from the platform is too coincidental. She and I are on this hike looking for…something, and she winds up dead at the bottom of a cliff.”