to John Maitland. “You and I will take the ATV southwest. We’ll be working in conjunction with the Chaffee County Sheriff’s Office and dog team.” He scanned the team. “Let me reiterate. This operation is a Code Yellow. Search only. Use extreme caution. Subject is to be considered armed and dangerous. Gear up, gentlemen, let’s rock and roll.”
Abby Nichols figured she’d outdone herself this time. It wasn’t enough that she was freezing cold, that her fingers were numb, her feet aching with every step. Or that she was hungry, exhausted and scared out of her wits. To top it all off, she was finally going to have to admit she was lost. As if she needed that on top of the reality that her life had become one big disaster in the past year.
Then, just when she figured things couldn’t get worse, she spotted the man on horseback. A quarter mile away, she didn’t need to see his face to know he was a cop. She’d been around enough law enforcement types in the last year to spot one blindfolded. They had that look about them. Rigid. Uncompromising. Cold-hearted. Downright mean for the most part. The realization that he was tracking her shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did, and she felt the sharp stab of fear all the way to her very numb toes.
He was a sheriff’s deputy, more than likely—or maybe a bounty hunter. The thought of the latter made her shiver. That would be just her luck for some trigger-happy macho jerk to make it his personal mission to bring in the infamous Abby Nichols, the most dangerous female criminal since Bonnie Parker. The only problem with that analogy, Abby realized, was that she was innocent, Bonnie Parker hadn’t been. The Buena Vista Corrections Center for Women didn’t seem to care one way or the other.
She’d been tromping over clumps of buffalo grass and rocks the size of basketballs for nearly six hours. The cold, thin air burned her lungs. Her muscles quivered with exhaustion. But she didn’t slow down. She’d spent the past four months getting in shape for this little excursion. Physical conditioning went a long way when you were running for your life over terrain not fit for a rock climber.
Of course, no matter how good her physical conditioning, if Abby wasn’t heading in the right direction, she could end up in Omaha instead of Chama, New Mexico, where Grams was waiting with a hug and a smile and a place for her to spend the night before she began the lofty task of clearing her name.
She should have come across a road by now. Closer to the truth, she should have come across a road four hours ago. A narrow dirt road where Grams had stashed a pickup truck under an old, wooden bridge. A truck with a change of clothes, a cache of cash beneath the seat, and the ignition key in a magnet box under the hood.
Abby just couldn’t understand how she’d missed that road. She’d spent hours studying the map Grams had smuggled into the prison. All she’d had to do was follow the sun west from Buena Vista. Of course, come daybreak the sky had materialized as a smooth gray bowl and Mr. Sun had refused to show his face. That had been hours ago, and things weren’t looking any better. In fact, if the clouds roiling on the horizon were any indication, Abby figured she’d be trudging through snow in another hour—or, at the least, be pounded by freezing rain. She wasn’t sure which would be worse, but knew she was in for a miserable dose of Colorado weather one way or another.
Stopping to catch her breath, she leaned against a jut of granite and gazed out across the valley ahead. Pike National Forest spread out below like a page out of one of those fancy coffee-table picture books Grams was so fond of. One million acres of sparsely populated mountain terrain, white water streams and pine forests that stretched as far as the eye could see. Under different circumstances, she might have enjoyed the breathtaking scenery and mountain air. But considering she was on the run for her life, lost, and would soon find herself face-to-face with an armed man whose goal was to ruin her one and only shot at freedom, she figured her energies would be best spent putting as much distance between them as possible.
Sighing, she squinted at the figure on horseback as it wended up a trail she’d taken less than half an hour earlier. There was no doubt about it; he was gaining on her. If she didn’t think of something utterly brilliant in the next ten minutes, he was going to be right on top of her.
Forcing back the rise of panic, acutely feeling the quickly shrinking distance between her and the horseman, Abby looked around. Grams had always told her desperate times called for desperate measures. Abby had never put much weight in that old cliché. But as the seconds ticked by and the window of opportunity shrank, she figured now was as good a time as any to put it to the test.
Jake loosened the reins and let his mount pick its way up the rocky terrain. He’d been tracking his subject for the past hour. As soon as he sighted her, he’d radio RMSAR headquarters so D.O.C. and Chaffee County could pull in the perimeter they’d set up to the east. If all went well—and he fully expected it to—he would have her in custody and be on his way down the mountain before dark. If he was lucky, he’d be home in time to watch the Avalanche trounce the Red Wings this evening. He’d bet ten bucks on that one, and didn’t intend to lose the bet or to miss the game.
Jake was at home in the high country. He loved the hostile beauty, respected the unpredictable personality of the mountains. In the twelve years he’d been with RMSAR, he’d searched this rugged landscape for everything from lost Boy Scouts to Alzheimer’s patients. He knew enough about this vast wilderness to admire the tenacity of a person who could travel for six hours and not tire or panic. For a woman without hiking gear or backcountry know-how, she’d covered some rough terrain and made damn good time doing so. He wondered if she had a destination in mind; wondered what she’d expected to accomplish out here in the middle of nowhere.
The ground leveled at the top of the rise, and he urged the mare into an extended trot. Brandywine was a seasoned trail horse and as surefooted as a mountain goat. She was raw-boned and well muscled, possessing more sense than most of his friends and a heart that rivaled the size of Pikes Peak. He’d ridden her under some brutal conditions, both terrain and weather-wise, and the mare had always kept her head and come through for him. He trusted her with his life—and a good bit more than most people.
The leather saddle beneath him creaked softly as he took the horse down yet another steep incline. Behind him his mule Rebel Yell followed, his steel shoes clanking against the rocky ground.
The wind had picked up and was now coming from the west at a brisk clip. Jake figured he had another hour before heavy weather set in. November in the Colorado Rockies was unpredictable at best, particularly in the higher elevations. He’d gone on many a call-out, looking for weekend warriors who’d left eighty-degree temperatures in Denver wearing T-shirts and sneakers, hiked into the backcountry, and got caught in a snow storm without winter gear. Damn tourists. A little common sense went a long way in the mountains.
He traveled another fifty yards before realizing he’d lost the trail. Puzzled, he pulled up on the reins and backtracked. It wasn’t like him to miss something like that. Jake had been tracking since he was old enough to ride a horse—which was shortly after he’d learned to walk. From a long generation of horse and cattle ranchers, he was as comfortable on horseback as most folks were in their cars.
Fifty yards back, he picked up the tracks again. A sneaker imprint in moist soil. A trampled tuft of buffalo grass. A broken twig where the subject had brushed against it. Then suddenly nothing.
What the hell?
Remembering the corrections official’s warning that the subject could be armed, Jake scanned the immediate area, listening. It was so quiet he could hear the wind whisper through the pines. Beneath him, Brandywine grew restless, her bridle jangling as she tossed her head. The hairs on his nape prickled. It was too quiet. Why weren’t the birds chattering?
“Whoa, girl.” Wondering if his subject had doubled back, he realized he’d just made a rookie’s mistake. Damn.
Tugging on the reins, he nudged the mare’s sides with his heels, sending her quickly backward. Simultaneously he slid the Heckler & Koch .45 from his holster and swung it upward. Adrenaline cut through his gut when he saw a pair of dirty sneakers dangling from the branch of a lodgepole pine ten feet up.
“I’m a police officer.” He backed Brandywine