Operation: Midnight Tango. Linda Castillo

was lovely against the backdrop of the mountain forest and night sky. But standing out in the middle of nowhere with an escaped convict who’d nearly gotten her killed removed any discernible pleasure.

      “We lucked out,” he said. “The chopper must have been grounded because of the storm.”

      “Oh, yes, I’m feeling luckier by the second,” she said dryly. “If we’re really lucky, we’ll be buried alive with snow by morning.”

      The look he gave her caused the hairs on her arms to prickle. A different kind of uneasiness rose inside her. Emily wasn’t familiar with his background or what he’d done. It had to be brutal, savage, for him to end up in the Bitterroot Super Max. She didn’t want to think about what he was capable of. Or what he might do to her…

      Refusing to let the thought spook her, she stuck out her chin and gave him a hard look. “So what do you propose we do now, Einstein?”

      “First and foremost, we stay alive.”

      That might be very difficult under the circumstances. Emily refused to go there.

      He sighed, motioned toward the tear in the sleeve of her coat. “At some point I’ll need to take a look at that bullet wound.”

      Between dodging bullets and crashing the snowmobile, she’d pushed the pain in her arm to the back of her mind. But now that he’d mentioned it, she could feel the stinging and burning of the bullet wound, the wet stickiness of the blood.

      “Why don’t you just make a run for it while you can?” she said.

      Her heart sped up when he stepped close to her. “Because I didn’t risk my life breaking out of that hellhole to run.”

      “You don’t need me,” she said. “Just go and leave me here.”

      “If they find you here or anywhere else, you’re as good as dead.”

      “They wouldn’t—”

      “They would,” he said sharply. “Do you think that bullet wound in your arm was an accident?”

      “I think the SORT team marksman was trying to stop you. I got in the way.”

      “In case you’ve forgotten what happened in the locker room, let me refresh your memory. Three men. One of them had a syringe with your name on it. He was going to shoot you up with some kind of truth serum, for God’s sake. Then who knows what was next on the agenda.”

      Emily wanted to deny it but couldn’t. She’d seen the syringe. She’d seen the looks on the men’s faces. And she’d known what they’d been about to do. But why?

      “They think I helped you escape,” she said dully.

      “They think you know something you shouldn’t.”

      “Like what?” she asked.

      “Like why inmates at the Bitterroot Super Max have been dying under mysterious circumstances for the last six months.”

      Something was going on at the prison. In the last six months, she’d personally known of at least two inmates dying unexpectedly. That was why she’d been asking questions. That was why she’d been in the infirmary that morning to begin with.

      But to believe the people she’d worked with for the last three years were capable of murder was unthinkable. How did Devlin know about it? There appeared to be a lot more to Zack Devlin than met the eye.

      “How do you know inmates have been dying?” she asked.

      “I know because for the last four months I’ve watched men systematically disappear. Healthy men who are sent to the infirmary. Most come back to their cells deathly ill. Some of them don’t come back at all.”

      Was Devlin just a smooth-talking liar whose very freedom hinged on manipulating her into helping him?

      But in her heart Emily knew something was going on at the prison. She just didn’t know what.

      Things aren’t always what they appear….

      “What’s happening to them?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

      He turned his gaze to hers. She saw a weariness that hadn’t been there before and wondered about its source. “Horrors you can only imagine in your worst nightmares,” he said.

      Emily stared at him, aware that she was frightened. And that the fear didn’t have anything to do with the man standing so close she could see the stubble on his cheek. Deep inside she knew that despite whatever this man might have done, he was not lying about Lockdown, Inc.

      “Who are you?” she asked.

      “I’m the man who’s going to try to save your life, if you’ll let me.”

      “You’re a dangerous fugitive. You’ve taken me hostage—”

      “And you’d be dead right now if I hadn’t gotten you out of there.”

      “You can’t possibly know that.”

      “They would have killed you the same way they’ve killed countless others in the last six months.”

      Looking suddenly tired, he raised his hand and touched the cut on his temple. His lips pulled into a frown when his fingertips came away red. He wiped it on his slacks and looked around. “Look, we need to put some distance between us and that prison. Then we need to find shelter. I have a feeling the weather is going to get worse before it gets any better.”

      “I deserve an explanation.”

      “You deserve to stay alive.” He turned to her, his expression tense. “They’re probably putting together a search team as we speak.”

      “No professional in his right mind would send out search teams in this storm.”

      “No, but a madman would. The people at Lockdown, Inc. have too much at stake to let us get away.”

      “You keep using the term us,” Emily choked out. “Unless you have a mouse in your pock—”

      “Like it or not, you are now on Lockdown, Inc.’s most-wanted list. Your only chance of coming out of this alive is to stick with me. If the storm doesn’t get too much worse, we might be able to outdistance them. Then maybe I can get us some help.”

      “Help from whom?”

      He looked away, his jaw flexing, as if her question had more ramifications than she’d intended. “We’ve got to go,” he said. “In another hour there may not be any visibility at all.” He shot her a look that made the hair at her nape prickle. “That’s the best-case scenario, Emily. If the weather improves, this area is going to be crawling with heavily armed cops with itchy trigger fingers. If they get their hands on us, we’re going to wish we hadn’t survived the plunge off that cliff.”