Dead Man's Curve

“We need a distraction,” he murmured.

“Got any ideas?”

“Yeah, one, but I should have pulled the trigger on that option about thirty minutes ago,” he answered, his gaze still on the man creeping through the gloom in front of them. “Too late now.”

A streak of lightning lit the sky overhead, and the man in camouflage jerked in reaction, especially when a booming crash of thunder followed only a second later.

“Just great,” Ava muttered. As if the rain wasn’t enough.

“Just might be,” Sin said quietly.

She glanced at him. He was still watching the other man, his eyes narrowed in thought.

“What are you thinking?” she asked, uneasy at how quickly they’d gone from opponents to allies with the addition of the new intruder. She’d do well to remember that, no matter what help Sinclair Solano might be offering at the moment, he was still a wanted man. He was suspected in over a dozen terrorist bombings in Sanselmo, many of which had killed innocent civilians—men, women and even children.

But Sin wasn’t the one hunting her now, so she had to be pragmatic about the situation. He seemed to know where he was and what he was doing. And she was bleeding and growing stiffer by the minute.

Another flash of lightning cracked open the sky. This time, the thunder sounded right on its heels, stopping the man hunting them in his tracks. Ava took the opportunity for a quick look around for more men in camouflage. She didn’t see anyone else out there, but Sin was probably right. If Cabrera had bothered to send two of his top lieutenants to look for Sin, he’d have sent more than just three people. There might be a whole squad of killers roaming these woods.

Getting out of here wasn’t going to be easy.

“Next flash of lightning, I want you to run east, as fast as you can. Due east. About two hundred yards in that direction, you’ll find a tent covered with a Ghillie net. Get inside and be ready to shoot anyone who sticks his head inside.”

She shot him a look. “Even you?”

“I’ll say, ‘Alicia is missing,’ and you’ll know it’s me.”

“Alicia is missing?” she repeated, not sure if it was smart to admit she knew the connection between her kidnapping victim and the man beside her.

“She is, isn’t she?” His throat bobbed as he turned his gaze toward the man still creeping through the trees. “Cabrera’s people almost certainly have her. They took her as a way to put pressure on me.”

“Why would they think it would?” she asked, wondering if he’d tell her the truth.

“Because Alicia Cooper’s maiden name is Solano.”

“Your sister?”

He looked at her oddly. “You already knew that.”

She didn’t deny it.

He sighed. “I have to find her before they do something that can’t be reversed.”

“She’s with her husband. He’ll help protect her.”

Sinclair nodded. “If they don’t kill him first.”

Lightning streaked across the sky, one jagged crack after another. Thunder rolled in a continuous roar, and Sin gave her a nudge. “Now!”

She reversed position, clamping her teeth together as pain raced through her side to settle in a raw burn at the point of her hip. Staying low, she raced east. Or, at least, what she hoped was east. She heard a commotion behind her, gunshots stuttering through the drumbeat of rain.

Head down, she ran faster, deeper into the woods. Pain squeezed tears from her eyes, but she couldn’t slow down. Footsteps crashed through the underbrush behind her, but she didn’t look back.

The Ghillie shelter rose up in the gloom so quickly, she almost ran headfirst into the tent. Spotting the opening, she wriggled into the small tent and turned until she sat facing front, her knees pulled up to her chest despite the howl of pain from her torn hip. She held her Glock steady by using her knees as a shooting rest, willing her heartbeat to slow and her ragged respiration to even out.

Alicia is missing, she thought, trying to piece together the disparate shards of information she’d gleaned over the past half hour. Alicia Cooper was originally Alicia Solano. Sinclair’s sister. Chang had told her that much. But did Alicia know her brother was alive? Did she know why Cabrera’s men had taken her and her husband?

Was Gabe Cooper even alive?

“Alicia is missing.” Even without the code words, she recognized Sinclair Solano’s voice. “I’m coming in.”

The flap of the tent opened. She tightened her grip on the Glock, her trigger finger sliding down from where she’d held it flattened against the side of the pistol. She tried not to hold her breath, but air wouldn’t seem to move in or out of her lungs while she waited for him to appear.

Then, in the space of a blink, he was there, crawling inside the tent, little more than a dark shadow within the darker confines of the shelter.

“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“I think so.”

“I shot a third man when he shot at me. He’s dead. But there are others out there. I heard them calling to one another.”

She pressed one hand to her mouth, feeling sick. “And we’re sitting ducks in this tent.”

“We’re under shelter. There are alarms outside to let us know if intruders are getting close.” He reached for a blanket that lay beside her on the tent floor. She hadn’t even noticed it, hadn’t realized how hard she was shivering until he draped it over her shoulders. Warmth rolled over her like a wave, driving out some of the chills.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded. “I didn’t notice any alarms outside.”

“You wouldn’t have,” he said with a quirk of a smile. He hunkered down next to her, sticking close enough that the searing heat of his body was as good as a blazing fire. The only thing missing was the comfort of light. The tent remained dark and would only get darker as night continued to fall.

“So what now?” she whispered.

He blew out a long, slow breath. “We wait out the storm and hope those fellows don’t find us.”

Chapter Three (#ulink_f9d946a5-5f7f-5919-9b7d-561747e9bd00)

As plans went, waiting and hoping weren’t high on Sinclair’s list of great ones. But his burner phone had no juice left. He’d have to get to civilization to charge the phone, and even then, he wasn’t sure what, if anything, Alexander Quinn could do to help him find Alicia and her husband.

“I need to go back to the motel,” Ava said after a few moments of tense silence. “I have work to do.”

“You’re a cop?”

She gave him a strange look, then released a soft huff of breath that was almost a laugh. “Oh, right. I left the other jacket in the car.”

“What other jacket?”

He could barely make out the curve of her pained smile. “The blue jacket with the big yellow FBI on the back.”