“You idiot.”
“Get your hands off me. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Land this damn thing,” Smith insisted.
“Now you want to land? I thought you were so hot to trot.” There was a moment of tense silence. Smith released his grip on Bobby’s wrist. A second later, Bobby swore.
“Are you kidding me? Put that gun away.”
A gun!
“Land the helicopter,” Smith said and now Chelsea, too, saw he held a dull black revolver and it was pointed at Bobby.
“You’re going to get us all killed,” Bobby bellowed.
“You’re overshooting the meadow,” Smith growled. “Land in the meadow.”
Chelsea glanced out the window. They were moving over the trees now. Green tops swayed just a few feet below but at least the chopper seemed stable. But why did Smith want to land? Wasn’t his whole point speed? And why in the world did he carry a gun?
Bobby suddenly lunged toward the armed man as though trying to grab the weapon. A shot reverberated in the small cabin, deafening, terrifying. Bobby grabbed his right arm as blood oozed through his fingers. “You—you maniac!” he yelled.
“Land this damn thing,” Smith repeated as he jabbed the air with the gun. As if sensing Chelsea’s horrified gaze, he turned to face her, pinning her to the seat, his once mournful eyes now cold and menacing. Chills raced along her spine as he turned his attention back to Bobby.
The helicopter moved sideways like a flying crab, tilting slightly on its left side. A sudden crash came from behind them, immediately followed by a rolling shudder that vibrated through the metal hull.
“We lost the rear rotor,” Bobby gasped.
“Land!” Smith demanded.
“It’s too late for that. Get that gun out of my face!”
The chopper spun, the nose lower now, and plummeted down through the greenery as Bobby obviously worked to accomplish a life-saving landing. His labored breathing played in her headset like a dirge. Seconds passed in blinding speed. Chelsea held on to the straps, her thoughts moving from the drama in the front, to the love she’d lost, to the future now slipping through her fingers.
A microsecond later, the skids hit the forest floor and all the cargo behind her shot forward like missiles, flying at her head and shoulders and at the backs of the two seats in front of her. She had a moment to assess the fact that she was still alive and then they were moving again, this time tearing through the underbrush, what remained of the blades crashing against tree trunks, skids catching on undergrowth, branches protruding through Chelsea’s open window then snapping and breaking, flying into the chopper, aimed at her. Everything came to a sudden, grinding halt. The windshield shattered as the forest invaded the front with the finesse of a bulldozer, pushing the passenger and pilot seats back toward Chelsea. The baggage that had bombarded her from behind now flew into her face, burying her.
Steven! her heart shouted as she lost consciousness without forming another cognizant thought.
Adam Parish took off his black-rimmed glasses and set them aside, pulled his shirt over his head and faced his image in the mirror. The bullet wound on his left shoulder looked better than it had. There would be a scar, but it wouldn’t be the only one on his thirty-two-year-old body, and at this point, who cared?
That sentiment—who cared?—had been his calling card for so long it had become a second skin. It had turned him cynical and suspicious—not suspicious enough as it turned out, but there was no denying his mother’s sweet, trusting little boy hadn’t made it into adulthood.
Except for a brief moment when everything had changed.
But like most miracles, his had come and gone like the sweep of a clock’s hands and he was back to square one.
He applied a clean bandage to his shoulder and taped the gash over his eye. His short beard softened his jawline while the spikey blond hair on his head always struck him as comical. He had one week to go before he cleared out of here and then he’d—
A thumping noise outside lifted every hair on his arms. Even before he separated the blinds above the bathroom sink and angled his head to peer outside he knew what he would see. A low-flying helicopter approached the cabin from over the meadow.
Oh, no...
Within seconds, he grabbed the glasses, shrugged on his shirt, rescued his gun from the top of the toilet tank and stuffed it into his waistband. He ran to the back door and snatched the loaded rifle he kept there, then let himself out and moved to the northeast corner of the deck, where he could track the helicopter.
One thought drummed in his head: they found me.
He expected the aircraft to land in the meadow, close to the house. He expected an army of men to disembark, guns blazing, Holton’s revenge swift and lethal.
He didn’t expect the helicopter to look so ancient. It wasn’t his adversary’s style. Was this flyby simply a matter of a stranger’s harmless curiosity about the old house or was it more than that? Had Holton employed mercenaries?
The helicopter didn’t land and that left Adam relieved and yet confused. It flew toward the river, gently descending above the water, where it remained for a minute or two. Then the aircraft tilted suddenly—that had to throw the passengers around a little. He stepped around the corner of the house to see better. The chopper moved away from the river, briefly hanging over the meadow, then it climbed eastward toward the forest, its movements jerky and unpredictable.
Engine trouble? Trouble of some sort, that was for sure, including trouble for him. Even if it disappeared over the far mountains, the fact that it had circled the house meant that it was time for him to clear out. It might have been reconnaissance for a ground-based unit who even now could be advancing via the only road connecting this cabin and the nearest town. He’d rigged a sensor down at the beginning of his twisting lane. Once activated, it would beep the monitor in his pocket and he would know he had about ten minutes to disappear.
A sudden noise caught his attention and he turned to see the helicopter’s aft rotor tangle with the top of the tallest tree. Parts went flying. The aircraft seemed to stall. Nose down, it disappeared into the forest. He jumped off the porch, the rifle still clutched in his hand. While his brain told him to get the hell out of there while he could, his heart said he had to see this through.
Crashes and thuds echoed from the forest. A fiery explosion seemed inevitable, but none came, just the continuing cacophony of breaking trees and mangled metal. He vaulted the rock wall and sprinted across the meadow, ever wary of a sniper but growing more convinced by the moment that what had happened was an accident and that lives were in danger.
And this meant other people would be coming, as well. Friend or foe, this crash would be investigated and that would bring killers and cops right to his doorstep. Turn around and go back—get out of here now. He ignored his own warning.
After the full light of the meadow, the forest seemed dank, dark, secretive. He’d been away from Arizona, his home state, for more than a year now, and never more than at this moment did he miss the open desert terrain and the warm, dry air. The underbrush was difficult to traverse. His own crashing noises echoed in the dense closeness as he headed in the direction he figured the chopper had gone down. There were few other sounds.
He finally emerged into a clearing of sorts, but that quickly erupted into a battered, mowed-down trail of broken branches and flattened saplings. It had to be at least thirty feet across, lined with scarred trees and pieces of metal strewn about. The faint smell of fuel urged him forward. And sitting at the end of the trail was the downed chopper, bladeless now, the rear end still mostly intact,