Lawman On The Hunt

“I think it’s clean enough now,” he said, pulling away and lowering the shirt with a suddenness that made her wonder if he had read her thoughts.

She handed him the handkerchief. “You can clean that in the creek,” she said. “The water has probably boiled enough. If we put it in the creek, it will cool down faster.” She pulled the sleeves of her sweater down over her hands, intending to use them to protect her hands from the hot metal.

“I’ll get that,” he said, and lifted first one can, then the other, off the fire with the pliers from his multi-tool.

She followed him to the creek, where they waited while the water steamed in the cans. “As soon as we drink these, we should heat more,” she said. “And try to find some food.”

“I’m not comfortable spending the night by the creek,” he said. “If Braeswood and his men are hunting for us, they’ll know we have to have water. How well does he know the area?”

“He knows it pretty well.” She closed her eyes, picturing the maps of the Weminuche Wilderness he had taped to the walls of the room he used as his office. When she opened them, she found herself looking right into Travis’s blue eyes. That intense gaze—and the mistrust she saw there—made her feel weighted down and more exhausted than ever. “He had maps of the area,” she said. “He planned to escape through the wilderness if the Feds trapped him at the house.”

“Why did he come back when he did?” Travis asked. “We should have had plenty of time to search the place and get out before any of you returned from Durango.”

“The neighbor, Mr. Samuelson, called Duane. He said some utility workers were up at the house, but they looked suspicious. Duane had made a point of making friends with the old man. He asked him to report if he saw any strangers around the house. He used the excuse that he had a lot of valuables that burglars would want. After he got off the phone with Samuelson, Duane called my driver, Preston Wylie, and told him to take me back to the house and he would be right behind me.” If she and Wylie had reached the house first, she had considered asking the strangers, whoever they were, to take her with them. But she dismissed the idea almost as soon as it came to her. She knew Wylie had orders to kill her if she tried to get away. Duane almost never left her unguarded, but the few times he had risked it, he had made it very clear that he would hunt her down and kill her if she ever left him. He had the men and resources at his disposal to find her, probably before she had gotten out of the state. She had resigned herself to being trapped with him forever.

Then Travis, of all people, had pulled her from that car and risked his life to help her get away. Maybe he only saw it as protecting a prisoner, but the result was the same. No matter if he hated her, she would always be grateful to him for taking her away from an impossible situation.

“What can you remember about that escape route Braeswood had planned?” Travis asked. “Are there back roads or trails he intended to follow? A hideout where he thought he could hole up for a while?”

She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything. I only saw the map a few times, and I didn’t pay much attention to it then. He certainly didn’t share his plans with me.” If the time had come to flee the house, he would have assigned a guard to drag her along with them, one more piece of baggage he considered necessary, at least for the moment.

“I guess he didn’t like to mix his personal relationship with his professional ones,” Travis said.

“I think the water is cool enough to drink now.” She ignored the gibe and plucked one of the cans from the stream and drained it. Even warm, it tasted so good going down. As soon as she had drained it, she refilled it and carried it back up to the fire. “I’m going to look for something to eat besides those plums,” she said.

“I’ll come with you.” He added his refilled can to the fire and followed her.

“I told you, you don’t have to worry about me running away,” she said.

“Right now I’m more worried about you getting lost.”

“I’ll be okay, as long as I follow the creek.”

He fell into step behind her. “What are we looking for?” he asked.

“Berries, cattails, more plum trees. There are edible mushrooms, but I don’t know enough about them to risk it.”

“If I had line and a hook, I could try fishing.”

“We could try to make a string from grass or vines,” she said. “And you could try my earring hooks.”

“Maybe I’ll give it a go later, after we’ve found a safe place to camp.”

She paused beside a small shrub and began pulling off the bright red fruit. “What are those?” he asked.

“Rose hips.” She bit into one and made a face. “They’re supposed to be full of vitamin C. They taste pretty sour, but they’re not the worst thing I ever ate.”

He took one, bit into it, then spit it out. “I don’t want to know the worst thing you ever ate.”

In the end, she collected two more plums, a handful of rose hips and some wild onions. “I sure hope you can catch a fish,” she said. “This isn’t going to get us very far.”

“I’m determined to find a way out of here long before we have to worry about starving,” he said. “Let’s go back and get the water, then find a place to stay tonight. Then we need to figure out a route away from here.”

They headed back downstream. She smelled the smoke from their little fire long before they reached it. Not good, if Duane was tracking them. She hurried to retrieve the cans of boiling water and set them aside to cool. “We’ll need to scatter these ashes and cover them with dirt, then leaves, to hide the fact that we were here,” she said.

“I’ll get a branch or something to dig with,” Travis said, and moved off into the woods.

For the first time since they had stopped by the creek, Leah began to feel uneasy. They had remained in one place too long. It wouldn’t be that difficult for Duane to follow the creek in the direction he knew they had fled. Another man might have left them to die in the wilderness, but Duane didn’t take those kinds of chances. He was successful because he believed in controlling all variables. She was a variable he was most determined to control.

Footsteps behind her alerted her to Travis’s return. “The water’s cool enough to drink now,” she said, gingerly picking up the still-warm can. “Let’s empty them and take them with us.”

Strong hands grabbed her roughly from behind. The can of water slipped from her grasp as she felt a sharp sting, and then the pressure of a razor-sharp blade held to her throat. Duane’s gravelly voice whispered in her ear, “Where’s your friend the FBI agent?”

Chapter Five (#ulink_9abe4cc8-967c-5a91-b5a1-b4d37ec1e582)

Travis fought his way through a tangle of vines and was reaching for a stout stick that might serve as a shovel when a strangled squeak made him freeze. It might have been the distress cry of a mouse or a bird, it was so faint, but instinct told him the noise came from Leah, and she was in trouble.

Carrying the stick like a club, he moved as swiftly and silently as he could back toward the campfire. His first view of the area was of Braeswood holding Leah, but this wasn’t a loving embrace. Rage momentarily blinded him at the sight of the knife at her throat.

“I...I don’t know,” she stammered, in answer to something Braeswood said. “He was angry with me. He left.”

“Liar!” Blood ran in a thin line down the pale column of her neck. Travis had to grab hold of a tree trunk to keep from lunging forward. Setting the stick carefully aside, he drew the Glock from the holster. All he needed was one clear shot.

“No sign of him, boss.” One of the other men—probably Buck—joined Braeswood and Leah beside the smoldering fire.

“Where’s Eddie?” Braeswood asked.

Buck made a face. “He’ll be along in a minute. He’s out of shape.”

Duane unsnapped a radio from his belt. “Bobcat Two, do you read me?”

“I’m here, boss.”

“Any sign of those Feds?”

“Negative.”

“You got our location on GPS?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Meet us at the pickup point in two hours with the rest of the team. We should be finished here by then.”

“I’ll be there.”

Braeswood repocketed the radio. “By the time the Feds get back to the house, there won’t be anything left for them to find. And we’ll have taken care of Leah’s friend.”

“Maybe he really did leave her,” Buck said.