Smoky Ridge Curse

Not much got past her. “I can’t prove it, but the only person I’ve made an enemy of lately is a man named Wayne Cortland.”

“Cortland.” She rolled the name around in her mouth the way only a mountain girl could do. “Never heard of him.”

“Believe me, that’s by design.”

She cranked the car and set the heat up to high. Warm air wafted almost immediately into the back, and he sighed with relief.

“I’m renting a place just down the mountain,” she told him. “It’s a nice place, but it’s not far from the home of one of Bitterwood P.D.’s finest.”

“Aren’t you one of Bitterwood P.D.’s finest?” He winced as she started down the winding mountain road, seeming to hit every bump and pothole along the way. The car fishtailed for a moment on the slick road, flinging him off the narrow seat onto the floorboard. He growled a couple of heartfelt profanities as pain knifed through his injured side.

“Damn, we got really close to a drop-off that time.” Delilah’s voice had a jittery, amped-up quality he remembered well. Brushes with death had always left her a little giddy, as if the mere act of surviving was a wellspring of joy. He’d wondered, more than once, if she carried that same reckless abandon with her into the bedroom.

And then, one snowy night in West Virginia, he’d learned the answer.

“How did you know I joined the Bitterwood P.D.?” she asked curiously. “I just made the decision a couple of weeks ago.”

He didn’t try to lie on the seat again, settling for a low slump against the back of the bucket seat on the driver’s side. “Called Cooper Security and asked for you. Got a talkative receptionist.”

“I’ll have to mention that to Jesse,” she murmured drily. But she didn’t sound angry that he’d found her.

“Why’d you leave? I thought you were happy there.”

Her eyes met his in the rearview mirror. “How would you know?”

“I assume you know by now that I’ve been in touch with Seth.”

“Yeah, I know.” In the mirror, her eyes narrowed. “Why’s that?”

Because I wanted a connection to you, he thought. Aloud, he said, “I thought he’d be useful to the bureau. He had connections we could exploit. And when he went straight, he turned out to be a valuable asset.”

“He said you put him in some dangerous situations, like in Bolen’s Bluff. The Swains could have killed him if they’d ever found out he was working for the FBI.”

“I didn’t expect them to kidnap Isabel Cooper and put the whole damned mountain on red alert when she got away.” Brand grimaced as they hit another pothole. “I haven’t talked to him since I had to run. Did he figure out who was targeting Rachel Davenport?”

“It was her stepbrother,” Delilah answered after a long pause. “The police arrested him a couple of weeks ago, but he died in his cell. The autopsy was inconclusive.”

“Cortland got to him.”

“You make him sound like the bogeyman.”

“He is, in all the ways that matter.” Brand shifted position and regretted it immediately. “How much farther?”

“Almost there.” Was that a hint of sympathy in her tone? He was beginning to wonder if she had any left for him. So far she’d seemed more cautious than worried.

“I didn’t want to drag you into this mess.”

“I was already in it.”

They were off the mountain now, and the sleet had turned to rain, angling down from the sky in silver streaks reflecting the Camaro’s headlights. The steady swish of the windshield wipers and the comforting warmth of the car’s heater conspired to lull him to sleep, but he struggled to keep his eyes open.

They weren’t safe yet.

She parked the Camaro in front of a small bungalow nestled in the woods on a dead-end road. The houses they’d passed moments earlier were no longer in view, leaving her house isolated from the rest of the world, surrounded by woods and mountains as far as the eye could see.

“Long way from Georgetown,” he murmured.

She turned in the seat to look at him. “You have no idea.”

He let her help him out of the car, forced to lean on her more than he’d anticipated. She wrapped her arm around his waist, careful not to touch his gunshot wound, and eased him up the shallow set of stairs to the wraparound porch.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured when she settled him on a brown leather sofa in the front room.

“Don’t apologize unless you draw blood,” she muttered, parroting back a saying he’d taught her a long time ago. She grimaced as she took a closer look at his bullet wound. “Gonna have an ugly scar.”

“Won’t be my first.” He gritted his teeth as she plucked the fabric of his shirt away from the wound. “Got any painkillers?”

“Just the over-the-counter type. Want a bullet to bite?”

“I see your bedside manner hasn’t changed.”

Her dark brows arched, and he realized with dismay the double-edged nature of his quip.

“This is going to hurt like hell.” After digging in a nearby drawer, she returned with a soft-sided first-aid kit. “Be right back—I need more supplies.”

She detoured long enough to lock the front door and disappeared into another room. Brand let his gaze drift across the front room, curious whether he’d be able to find anything he recognized of the woman he’d once believed could rise all the way to the top of the FBI.

There were few decorations—an empty umbrella stand near the door, an old Smoky Mountains tourist poster in a cheap metal frame hanging over the fireplace mantel. The sofa and a pair of matching leather armchairs looked comfortably broken in, but the plain oak coffee table between them looked new, chosen for utility over beauty. The floors were hardwood, softened by a brown woven rug that matched the sofas. The built-in bookcases on either side of the fireplace were only half-filled, mostly with thrillers, classics and nonfiction.

Delilah came back into the living room carrying a bucket full of soapy water and a handful of washcloths. “Sure you don’t want that bullet to bite?”

“How long have you been living here?”

“Counting today? Two days.”

That explained the scarcity of personal effects, he supposed. At least he hoped it did. Because right now, if he had to profile her based on her home environment, he’d be leaning toward a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. And that definitely wasn’t the Delilah Hammond he remembered.

“You look good,” he ventured as she sat on the coffee table and dipped one of the washcloths into the bucket of suds.

One side of her mouth quirked. “Flattery won’t make me hurt you any less.”

“I was just commenting.”

She slanted a look at him. “You look like hell.”

He laughed, stopping immediately when his injured muscles protested. “I still clean up pretty well, I promise.”

Ten minutes of agony later, she smoothed down the last strip of tape over his fresh bandage and sat back, looking at him with dark, unfathomable eyes. “I hate to tell you this, but I’ll have to change that bandage first thing in the morning. But it won’t take as long or hurt as much, I don’t think.”