Dead Man's Curve

“You knew those men would die when they went in there. Why would you betray your own comrades that way? I never thought you were amoral. Wrong? Absolutely. Following a fool’s path? Certainly. But to kill nine men to fake your own death?”

“It wasn’t my doing,” he said, not sure how much he should reveal to her about what he’d done all those years ago. Some of it was probably still classified. He and Quinn had never discussed what he would have to tell the world if he were ever caught.

“Don’t get caught” had been Quinn’s oh-so-helpful advice.

Besides, she had already dismissed the truth as a possible explanation. What good would it do to tell her at this point?

“If it wasn’t your doing, whose was it?”

He took a deep breath. “I can’t say. There are other people involved. Some of them might still be in dangerous situations.”

Her eyes narrowed. “So you’re going with the ‘secret CIA double agent’ story after all? Really?”

He looked away from those sharp eyes, his gaze falling to her midsection, where her unbuttoned trousers were riding down perilously, revealing black panties, the luscious curve of her hips and the sleek plane of her flat belly. His body responded fiercely, a white-hot ache settling low in his groin. It had been a damned long time since he’d been this close to a woman. And this woman, in particular, had gotten under his skin in record time once before.

Clearly, in the eight years since, he hadn’t developed an immunity.

He cleared his throat and waved his hand toward her open fly. “You’re about to lose your britches.”

As she glanced down, he grabbed her wrist, moving the muzzle of her Glock away from his face. Her gaze flew up to meet his, her expression shifting between mortification and anger. But not fear, he noticed. For whatever reason, she didn’t seem to fear him.

Lust flared like fire in his belly.

He let go of her wrist. “I told you, I’m not going to hurt you. But I don’t like having a gun in my face.”

She jerked back from him, but she didn’t aim her gun his way again, he noticed with relief. When she spoke, her voice was soft and raspy. “How did you get out of Sanselmo without being caught? How did you make it back here to the States, for that matter?”

“Same answer to both questions. I had help.”

“From whom?”

“The good guys.”

“Good guys in whose eyes?” Her tone was acerbic.

“Interesting question, that.”

“CIA, I suppose?” She looked disappointed that he wasn’t coming up with a different story.

Too bad, he thought. You may not like it. Hell, I didn’t like it much myself. But the truth is what it is.

“I’m going to take a look outside. I think it’s dark enough to risk it.” He turned in the narrow confines of the tent and started crawling toward the exit. As he neared the flap, he felt the heat of her body scrambling up behind him. She nudged her way to his side, her body soft and sizzling hot against his. Another flare of desire bolted through him, making his arms and legs tremble.

He turned to look at her. Her small, heart-shaped face turned toward his, her eyes large and dark in the faint ambient light coming from outside. “This doesn’t require us both,” he murmured.

“I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

She was going to make his quest to find his sister a little more difficult, he realized. Because if there was one thing he’d learned about Ava Trent during that week they’d spent together in Mariposa, it was the depth of her sheer, dogged determination. She attacked every task she took on with the same pedal-to-the-floorboard pluck.

She wouldn’t be easy to shake. And he wasn’t going to hurt her.

So how did he plan to proceed?

The easy answer would be to somehow make her an ally rather than an enemy. But short of spilling a boatload of long-held state secrets, how was he supposed to do that? And would she believe him even if he told her every little piece of the truth?

He needed to talk to Quinn, which meant heading for the closest town to charge his burner phone. And the closest town was Poe Creek, about a mile through the El Cambio–infested woods. Poe Creek, where cops still swarmed about the motel crime scene. Where Ava probably had fellow agents beginning to wonder where the hell she’d disappeared to and whether it was time to call for reinforcements to go looking for her.

“How many people are with you?” he asked.

She frowned. “I’m not going to tell you that.”

“They’ll be looking for you. Don’t want to shoot the wrong people.”

“You won’t be shooting anyone,” she said firmly.

“We’ve already shot three people trying to kill us. I’m not going to stop trying to defend myself—or you—just because you’ve decided to make your name as an FBI agent on my bounty.”

She made a low, growling sound thick with frustration. “I don’t want to shoot you.”

“Good to know.”

“But you’re a fugitive from justice, and bringing you in is my job.”

“Why don’t we concentrate on getting out of these woods alive first?” he suggested, trying to sound reasonable. The grumble that escaped her throat at his words suggested he hadn’t entirely succeeded.

But she gave a short nod toward the tent flap in response. “Think they’re still out there, then?”

“Somewhere,” he affirmed. “But now that we know they’re looking for me, we can be more careful moving through the woods. I think we can stay a step ahead of them until we get back to civilization.”

At least, he hoped they could. Because one way or another, he needed to get word to Alexander Quinn. The spymaster had warned him something like this might happen.

Every man’s sin sooner or later came back to haunt him.

* * *

HER HIP WAS burning like fire, the pain as effective as a cup of strong coffee to keep her heart pounding and her adrenaline pumping. Without the pain, she might have been tempted to hunker down and wait for daylight, because sneaking through the woods at night was harder than she remembered.

She had grown up in a rural area, traipsed through her share of woods and mountains, but rarely at night, and never with five inches of bullet-grazed flesh playing a symphony of agony with each careful step. But, as she reminded herself in a silent litany as she followed Sinclair Solano through a tangle of underbrush, each step took them closer to civilization. Closer to a clean bandage, prescription antibiotics and painkillers.

Closer to the safety of numbers.

She had come to the conclusion that Sin was being honest about one thing—he didn’t intend to kill her, even if she tried to take him into actual custody instead of this parody of custody they were playing out at the moment. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try to stop her.

He’d been at this fugitive thing a long time. Clearly, he was good at it.

So the ball was in her court, she supposed. He might not be willing to kill her to maintain his freedom, but was she willing to kill him if he resisted her attempt to keep him in her custody? Was she willing to let Cade Landry shoot him? Or one of the local cops?

This shouldn’t even be a question, Trent. You’re an FBI agent. Taking criminals into custody is part of what you do.