truck. “I’ll catch up with you later at the motel.” He didn’t wait for them to answer, sliding into the cab of the truck and starting the engine.
The radio was tuned to a rock station out of Knoxville; Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” was about halfway through the guitar and drum riff. He turned it up and pulled out into the light traffic on Magnolia Street, heading right.
He spared a glance in the rearview mirror. Riley and Hannah stood by their own truck, Cody still on Riley’s hip. Jack felt like a jerk for bailing on them, but the truth was, he didn’t want to be talked out of approaching Mara Jennings one more time.
He owed her a hell of a lot more than the seven thousand dollars with interest he’d taken from her.
But money was all he had to offer.
* * *
SHE USUALLY WORKED until five, but around three Quinn told her to take the rest of the day off. He could probably tell she was too wired to be any good to anyone at the agency, and she could always use the extra time at her cabin to work on the side project Quinn had given her.
It was why she was working at The Gates in the first place.
The mild afternoon warmth had abated with the arrival of storm clouds brewing in the west, and a crisp chill edged the breeze blowing at her back as she crossed the road to where she’d parked her little blue Mazda car. At least the car’s interior was still warm; she snuggled into the seat as she pulled away from the curb and headed east toward the mountains and the cabin she rented on Deception Lake.
She’d thought the seclusion would be just what she needed. No nosy neighbors, no loud music coming from apartments next door. Deception Lake’s power grid seemed stable, and her connection to the internet was solid. It was really the prime situation for her side project, and until she’d run into Jack Drummond at the diner, she had felt relatively safe.
Funny how one unexpected encounter from the past could knock your whole world off its axis.
The cabin was on the eastern edge of the lake, butted up to Fowler Mountain, where bigger houses dotted the mountain face, vacation homes and rentals that probably brought in a pretty penny for the landowner. She was renting from Alexander Quinn himself, however, so he’d given her a break on the rent in return for her putting in some hours as an assistant at The Gates.
That was her cover story, she knew. Quinn didn’t always like to share information even with people he had trusted enough to hire.
She parked her car on the gravel drive outside the cabin and cut the engine, sitting in the ensuing silence and just listening. Later in the summer, there would be families out on the water or inhabiting the cabins farther along the lakeshore, their happy cries and laughter drifting over the water to encroach on the quiet. But not yet. March was too cool for swimming, and most of the best spring fishing could be found in other parts of the lake, so boats rarely made it this far down the water.
Nobody knew she was here. She was as safe as she’d ever been.
So why, when she stepped out of the car and started toward the low front porch of the cabin, did she feel as if she were being watched?
Don’t be stupid, she scolded herself with an upward tilt of her chin. You’re Mara Caroline Jennings, and you don’t attract crazies the way your sister, Mallory, did.
She reached the porch and put her hand out to open the door.
But it was already opening.
A man dressed in dark forest camouflage stepped out on the porch and pushed a large pillowcase down over her head, wrapping her up in a tight grasp that squeezed the air right out of her lungs.
As she gasped for breath, trying feebly to struggle against the iron grip, she realized with a rush of fear that she’d never get away from Mallory Jennings, no matter how far she ran.
Jack kept several car lengths back as he followed Mara Jennings out of town onto a winding rural road leading eastward, toward the mountains. They were still mostly in the foothills here in Purgatory, and for a man who’d grown up with the Grand Teton Mountains practically in his backyard, the softly rounded peaks of the Smoky Mountains might have seemed a letdown if it weren’t for the fact that the whole area was hilly and lush green, even in March before the spring growth had had a chance to bud completely.
Up in the higher elevations, evergreens like spruce, firs and pines maintained their verdant splendor all winter, lending the mountains a soft blue-green hue filtered by the ever-present haze of mist. Even down here in the lower elevations, the hardwoods were starting to sprout the first leaves of spring, and within a few short weeks, the place would be alive again after the long winter.
But there wasn’t enough greenery to hide him from the woman in the Mazda car a hundred yards ahead of him, so he stayed as far from her as he could until she turned off the highway and seemed to drive straight into the woods.
Slowing the truck as he neared the point where the Mazda car had disappeared, he saw there was a narrow two-lane road leading through the woods to points unknown. Probably the lake, he deduced, having caught a glimpse of sunlight sparkling off the water’s surface just before the woods grew denser, blocking the view.
Even as he turned onto the two-lane road and followed it, he wondered if Hannah and Riley had been right to worry about him. What the hell did he think he was going to accomplish by following her from work? Was she going to be more receptive of his need for restitution if she thought he was nuts?
He started looking for the first place he could turn the truck around and head back out of the woods, but as he drew close to what looked like a gravel driveway, he spotted the little blue Mazda car parked in front of a small cabin nestled in the center of a tiny clearing in the woods. The woods in front of the cabin thinned out until they reached the sandy shore of the lake about fifty yards from the cabin.
He pulled the truck to a stop at the edge of the driveway and let the engine idle a moment as he considered his options. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted movement on the cabin’s front porch.
It took a second to process what he was seeing. A second more to let his sluggish brain catch up with the adrenaline rushing through his body like water pouring through a breach in a dam.
Then his cowboy instincts kicked in and he was out of the truck and running toward the violent struggle playing out on the cabin porch.
Jack wasn’t currently armed, his Colt M1911 stashed in the locker in the bed of his truck. But the man struggling with Mara didn’t appear to be armed, either.
And Jack didn’t plan to give him time to go for a weapon if he was.
The sound of his boots crunching across the gravel didn’t seem to have any effect on the wrestling match going on between Mara and her captor, but when Jack hit the first porch step, the man in camouflage froze for a moment.
That was when Mara struck, first with an elbow straight to the man’s solar plexus, then followed up with a hard stomp on the man’s instep and a simultaneous fist to the groin.
Slipping free of the man’s suddenly floundering grasp, Mara flung herself away, giving Jack a clear shot. He hit the larger man at a full run, slamming him back into the cabin wall.
But a second later, the man in camo fought back, knocking Jack away with one brutal punch in the center of his chest. Jack fell backward, tumbling hard down the porch steps. His head hit the gravel with a jarring thud, and what air was left in his lungs after the man’s first punch exploded from his chest on impact against the hard-packed soil.
For a second, Jack could see nothing but stars on a deep black field. But slowly, the sparkling darkness faded into waning daylight filtering through the thick canopy of trees surrounding the cabin.
And in the center of his vision, the barrel of a big, lethal-looking Smith & Wesson M&P40.