Blue Ridge Ricochet

“Son of a—!”

The man loomed in the Jeep’s headlights as suddenly as if the swirling mist had conjured him up, a tall, lean phantom of a man who turned slowly to face the headlights as she hit the brakes and prayed she wouldn’t go into a skid this dangerously close to a steep drop-off.

The Jeep’s wheels grabbed the blacktop and hung on, the vehicle shimmying to a stop just a yard away from the apparition gazing back at her through the windshield. For a second, she had a strange sense of recognition, as if she knew him, though she was pretty sure she didn’t.

Then his eyes fluttered closed and he dropped out of sight.

Nicki’s heart stuttered like a snare drum against her rib cage as she stared at the misty void where, seconds earlier, she’d seen the staring man.

Ghost, her inner twelve-year-old intoned, sending her heart rate soaring steeply for a few seconds before her grown-up side took charge. She checked the rearview mirror for coming traffic, saw only the faint red glow of her own taillights, and put the car in Reverse, backing up carefully until she could see what the front of the Jeep had concealed—a man lying in a crumpled heap in the center of the narrow two-lane road.

She pulled the Jeep to the shoulder on the mountain side of the road and parked, engaging her hazard lights and trying to calm her rattled nerves. The man could be hurt.

Or it could be a trick. Maybe she should call the sheriff’s department and let them handle things.

Except...

Buck up, Nicki. This is the life you chose.

Her weapons of choice these days were pepper spray and sheer nerve, and so far, she’d survived on their one-two punch. But something about the man lying crumpled on the road in front of her made her nerve waver. There was still something eerily familiar about him, a memory tugging at the back of her mind, trying to make itself known.

Holding the pepper-spray canister out in front of her, she approached the man, easing into a crouch just beyond reach. She shifted position so that the glow from the Jeep’s headlights fell across the man’s face.

He was younger than she’d thought, in his midthirties at most. His pallor, combined with the sunken cheeks and shadowed eyes that came with illness, had made him look older. He was still breathing, she saw with relief.

“Mister?”

He stirred at the sound of her voice, his eyelids flickering open to half-mast, then drifting shut again. He muttered something that sounded like a string of numbers, but she couldn’t quite make them out.

Gingerly, she reached out to check his pulse. Fast but steady and stronger than she’d anticipated. “Where are you hurt?”

He murmured numbers again. She made out a two and a four before he stopped.

She pulled her cell phone from the pocket of her jeans and tried to dial 911, then realized she didn’t have any reception. “Damn it.” She pocketed the phone and stared at him for a second, considering her options. Leaving him here in the road wasn’t an option. And without cell phone reception, calling for help wasn’t an option, either. The temperature was right at the freezing mark, and his skin was cold to the touch, which suggested he might already be suffering from exposure.

He was breathing. He was at least semiconscious. His heart rate was a little fast but steady as a rock, so he didn’t seem likely to go into cardiac arrest anytime soon. And he’d definitely been mobile before he collapsed in front of her vehicle, so he didn’t seem to have any spinal issues.

She had to get him warm, and the Jeep was the best bet. The old Wrangler had seen better days, but its heater still worked.

But how was she supposed to haul this man into her Jeep?

“Mister, think you can stay with me long enough for me to get you to my car?”

He opened his eyes, looking straight at her, and that niggle of recognition returned. “Who’re you?”

“My name’s Nicki. What’s yours?”

“Dallas.”

For a brief second, she wondered if he’d misunderstood her question. Then the memory that had been flickering in and out of the back of her mind popped to the front, and she sat back on her heels, almost toppling over.

Dallas. As in Dallas Cole, missing for almost three weeks now and presumed by most people as either dead and buried somewhere in the Blue Ridge Mountains or wintering somewhere on the coast of Mexico, a cerveza in hand and a pretty girl by his side.

The last place she’d figured on running into the missing FBI employee was on Bellwether Road in the middle of Dudley County, Virginia.

Now she could see the resemblance between the man lying in the road in front of her and the missing man whose disappearance had caused a stir all the way from Washington, DC, to the little town of Purgatory, Tennessee, where a man named Alexander Quinn ran a security agency called The Gates.

“Oh, hell,” she murmured.

A frown furrowed his brow. “Where am I?”

“Ever heard of River’s End, Virginia?”

His voice rasped as he answered. “No.”

“Not surprising.”

He struggled to sit up. Not quite sure she could trust him yet, she let him do so without her help, her gaze sweeping over him in search of injuries. She spotted healing bruises dotting his jawline and the evidence of old blood spotting the front of his grimy gray shirt, but no sign of recent injuries.

Mostly, he looked exhausted and cold, and while she was no doctor, she could help him out with those two ailments. “Think you can stand?”

He pulled his legs up and gave a push with his arms, wincing as his left arm gave out and he landed on his backside. “Something’s wrong with my shoulder.”

Could be a trick, her wary mind warned, but she ignored it, following the demands of her compassionate heart. He couldn’t fake the unmistakable look of ill health. Something had happened to this man, no matter what crimes had led him to this place, and the least she could do was get him somewhere warm and dry before feds came swarming into River’s End.

She started to reach for him, planning to help him to his feet, when her last thought finally penetrated her brain.

She pulled back, staring at him with alarm.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, slanting her a suspicious look.

“Nothing,” she lied, even as her mind started scrambling for a solution to her unexpected dilemma. There was no way she could leave him to fend for himself out here in the sleet. There was supposed to be snow before midnight, and the temps were going to plunge into the midtwenties before morning. Dressed as he was, without even a coat to ward off the chill, he’d never survive the night.

But if she took him to the hospital in Bristol...

She couldn’t. They’d call the FBI, who’d want to talk to her. There’d be a lot of terribly inconvenient questions and all her work for the past few months would be out the window.

Or worse.

But how to explain that to the hypothermic, battered man sitting in the road in front of her? “Look, I tried calling 911—”

“No.” His gaze snapped up sharply, catching her off guard.

“No?”

“I don’t need medical help.” His lips pressed to a thin line. “I’m okay. I just need to get warm.”

Well, she thought, that wasn’t exactly a comforting reaction.