Smoky Ridge Curse

by Paula Graves

She hung up the phone and stretched across the gear column to unlock the driver’s door.

  “This is how you want your brother to find us?” Brand asked drily.

  “He’ll be shocked either way,” she answered. “And this way, I don’t have to get out to move the seat forward so they can get in.”

  Two jacket-clad figures glided out of the woods, staying low but moving at a clip toward the Camaro. Seth reached the car first and gave a quick knock on the window before opening the door.

  He bent and looked inside, freezing as he locked gazes with Delilah. His mouth dropped open.

  “Get in, and hurry,” she commanded. “I’ll explain once we’re all safely locked in.”

  Seth swallowed whatever questions he had and pushed the driver’s seat forward, backing away to let Rachel climb into the backseat. Rachel’s blue eyes widened at the sight of Delilah straddling a stranger’s lap, but she slid across to the far side of the narrow seat, giving Seth room to climb in behind her.

  “I can explain,” Delilah murmured with a sly grin at her brother.

  “Does it require me to kick his ass?”

  “No,” she answered, wriggling back across the gearshift and sliding into the driver’s seat. “Rachel Davenport, this is Adam Brand.”

  In the rearview mirror, Rachel’s mouth formed an O, but she managed to recover quickly, murmuring, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  Brand slanted a look at Delilah. “I’m sure you have.”

  “I know there’s not much room, but I need you both to get down as far as you can. Make yourselves invisible. If they’re waiting in ambush, they may not bother us if they think it’s just Brand and me.”

  She waited until she could no longer see her brother or Rachel in the rearview mirror before she started the car. Easing around the circle, she headed back out the way she’d come, toward the highway.

  Her heart skipped a beat as they rounded the curve and saw the red taillights of the Ram 3500, parked on the right side of the road, just off the pavement.

  “They’re going to have a good look inside,” Delilah warned. “Stay very, very still and quiet.”

  Brand turned in his seat toward her, placing the back of his head toward the window. No one in the truck would be able to get a good look at him. He showed Delilah his Ruger. She waved the Sig in her right hand at him, then lowered it to the gearshift, hiding it from view.

  She took care not to slow her speed as she passed the truck, allowing herself only the slightest of sidelong glances toward the vehicle, enough to see that mud caked the license plate, obscuring most of the letters and numbers from easy view. The truck’s windows were closed, their dark tinting hiding the occupants.

  She pulled to a stop at the T-intersection with the highway. Seeing no traffic approaching from either direction, she eased onto the highway and headed east, away from Bitterwood and toward the North Carolina state line. She waited another couple of minutes before she spoke. “They didn’t follow us. You can get up now.”

  She kept her eye on the road, which had become even more slippery since she’d made the detour down the side road. Snow was falling in fat clumps now, forcing her to turn on the windshield wipers.

  “We’re not going back to Bitterwood?” Seth asked from the backseat.

  “I’m not sure,” she answered. “I just know we can’t go back the way we came. If that truck’s still sitting there watching and they spot us coming back, they might get a little curious as to why.”

  “We can go back to Bryson City,” Rachel suggested. “My uncle could probably put us up for the night.”

  “I don’t think we can risk that,” Seth said. “Whoever ambushed us could have picked us up in Bryson City, which means they may know exactly who your uncle is.”

  “Cherokee, then?” Rachel asked.

  “If we circle around on Highway one-fifteen, we can be back in Bitterwood in four hours,” Seth said.

  “They’ll know where to find us there, too,” Rachel protested.

  “I think my name is still good enough around Cooper Security to get us some help getting you out of town,” Delilah said.

  “What, you’re going to ask your old company to fly the cavalry up here to the rescue?” Seth protested. “In this weather?”

  “There’s the cabin,” Rachel said.

  “If they know about your uncle, they probably know about the cabin,” Seth disagreed. “But if we can get back to Bitterwood, we can take Rachel’s car and drive out of town.”

  “Whatever we do, we may want to hurry,” Brand murmured.

  Delilah glanced his way. He was holding a cell phone, his expression grim in the reflected light from the display. “Are you crazy? The FBI can trace you to that phone!”

  He looked up at her, his eyes glinting. “Not this phone. Trust me.”

  Right now she was feeling too paranoid to trust anyone. But she had more pressing problems at hand than whether or not the FBI would find him through his phone. “Why do we need to hurry?”

  “The weather forecast says the snow’s going to be worse than anticipated.”

  “How much worse?” Rachel asked, sounding worried.

  “Well over a foot in the higher elevations,” Brand said. “And as much as six inches even in the valleys.”

  Delilah’s heart sank. Whatever way they took back to Bitterwood, they’d have to traverse some very high mountain passes. Her winter-driving skills were a little rusty these days, since she hadn’t had to deal with much snow in Alabama over the past few years. “What are the snow parameters?”

  “From west of Knoxville to Lenoir City, North Carolina.”

  In the backseat, Seth muttered a curse.

  “How much time do we have before it gets really bad?” Rachel asked.

  “The worst hits in an hour, but the situation is going to deteriorate steadily before then,” Brand answered. “How far are we from anywhere that might offer lodgings?”

  “Cherokee is twenty minutes from here in good conditions,” Seth said. “Even adding time to account for the weather, we can be there in under an hour. I know a guy who runs a motel right on the highway. If he has any rooms available, he’ll let us have them. He owes me.”

  Delilah squelched the urge to ask just what kind of debt Seth’s friend owed him. Given her brother’s colorful and often unsavory past, she didn’t want to know. “Okay, Cherokee it is.”

  She checked the rearview mirror to make sure the mystery truck wasn’t zooming up behind them. The highway in their taillights was dark and empty, while in their headlights, blowing snow was starting to pile up on the shoulder. It wouldn’t be long until the cold white stuff started accumulating on the blacktop as well, Delilah knew.

  She squelched the urge to put the pedal to the floorboard. As much as she wanted to get to Cherokee quickly, excessive speed in this weather was a damned good way to end up dead.

  Still, they entered the Cherokee Indian Reservation within thirty minutes, and not long after that, Seth pointed out a single-story brown brick building that looked like apartments. A fading white sign at the front of the building read Come Stay Inn.

  “This is it?” Delilah asked, her heart sinking.

  “It’s better on the inside,” Seth assured her, although he didn’t sound as certain as she might have hoped.

  She went with Seth to the office at the end of the building. All of the rooms appeared to be dark, but faint light emanated from the office. Inside they found a tall, narrow-faced man in his late thirties, with long, thinning black hair and deep brown eyes, manning the front desk. Beside him the only light was the hissing glow of a gas-powered lantern.

  “Seth. Long time, brother.”

  “Donnie. This is my sister, Delilah. Dee, this is Donnie Sims, an old friend. Donnie, we need a couple of rooms fo
r the night.”

  “You’re in luck, sort of. I have one room left. Of course, the power’s out, so I can’t promise it’ll be warm, but at least it’ll be shelter.”

  “One room?” Delilah looked at her brother.

  “Two beds,” Donnie added helpfully.

  “We’ll take it,” Seth said, returning her look with a slight shrug. He turned back to Donnie. “We’ll need some extra blankets. What’ll it cost us?”

  Chapter Seven

  “I’m sorry,” Brand said.

  Delilah turned her head from the motel-room window and looked at him. Power was still out, and they’d have to extinguish the borrowed gas lantern soon as well. At least Seth had coaxed enough extra blankets out of the innkeeper to keep them relatively warm during the winter storm.

  “What are you sorry for?” Delilah tugged the blanket draped over her shoulders more tightly around her.

  “For getting you any deeper into this mess.”

  She glanced toward the bed on the far side of the room. Seth and Rachel were curled up together, warmed by their bulky clothes and two extra blankets. “I’d be in it anyway. Someone’s after Seth and Rachel. I don’t even know which one.”

  “I got Seth into this mess, too.”

  “Rachel got him into it.” She turned back to look at Brand, her lips curving in a slight smile. “He was already keeping an eye on her before you ever asked him to do it.”

  “Really?” Brand looked over at the two on the bed and lowered his voice. “Seems an odd pairing.”

  “The heart wants what it wants.” She looked back to the window. No cars had passed in over an hour, but she’d stand watch all night if necessary. “What I don’t get is why Cortland would still be targeting Rachel,” she added, peering out at the falling snow.

  “Maybe it’s Seth he’s targeting.”

  “But why?”

  “Because Seth was working for me on this case.”

  Delilah turned to look at him again. “How would Cortland know?”

  “I think someone’s on Cortland’s payroll. Either someone at the FBI or someone at the Bitterwood P.D.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “I was hoping you might have an idea.”

  Frowning, she turned her gaze back to the window. “I’ve been wondering for a while whether someone at the police department could be on the take. It was too damned convenient that Paul Bailey died in the jail, for one thing. Whether he did it to himself or someone else killed him.”

  “And didn’t you tell me it took a ridiculous amount of time for someone to connect those murders, even though three of the women had worked at the same company?”

  “Right. The police seemed determined not to call them serial murders.”

  “Even then, nobody brought in outside help.”

  “If Ivy and Sutton hadn’t done such a thorough job of putting the pieces together, I’m not sure Rachel would even be alive now.” She glanced back at the bed across the room. Rachel’s eyes were closed and she seemed to be sleeping, but Seth’s green eyes were open, watching them.

  “I guess you have questions,” she said to Seth, keeping her voice low so as not to awaken Rachel.

  “A few,” he answered just as quietly, his gaze slanting toward Brand. “But they can wait.” He rested his chin atop Rachel’s head, spooned her closer and shut his eyes.

  Brand’s hand closed over her wrist, drawing her attention back to him. He nodded toward the window.

  Delilah looked out and saw a large black truck driving slowly toward the motel, its headlights slicing through the heavy snowfall. Her gut tightened to a knot as she and Brand each rolled away from the window, flattening their backs against the wall on either side.

  The headlights briefly illuminated the room through the space in the curtains, then passed. Delilah peeked through the curtains, getting a good look at the back of the truck as it went by. It was the Ram 3500, with the same mud-covered license plate with half the numbers obscured.

  Thank God, she thought, that Brand had suggested parking the Camaro behind the motel, out of sight of the road. If the people in that truck had seen the Camaro parked in front of the room, they might have decided to shoot up the motel first and ask questions later.

  “Do you think they know we’re here?”

  “I think they know we’re connected with Seth and Rachel,” Brand answered. “Maybe they’re assuming we went to Bryson City to shelter with Rachel’s family there.”

  “That means her uncle and aunt may be in danger.” She looked back at the bed and saw both Rachel and Seth staring back at her.

  “I have to call him,” Rachel said, wriggling out of Seth’s grasp. “I have to warn him.”

  “They might have a trace on your phone,” Brand warned.

  Delilah looked at him, frowning. “Can Cortland do that?”

  “He got someone to spoof my emails so well that the FBI still hasn’t seen through the subterfuge.”

  “Who’s Cortland?” Seth asked.

  “I have to call my uncle now,” Rachel said firmly, freeing herself from the bedcovers and rising to her feet.

  “Here.” Brand pulled his phone from his pocket and slid it across the bed to Rachel. She picked it up and started dialing.

  “No details,” Delilah warned. “Just tell him someone ambushed you and you think it’s possible they’ll come looking for you in Bryson City.”

  As Rachel started talking to her uncle, Seth wandered over to where Delilah and Brand stood, his eyes hooded with wariness. “What are we into here, Agent Brand?” There wasn’t much in the way of respect in Seth’s use of Brand’s title, as far as Delilah could tell. Her brother was angry, though he’d long ago learned to control his rage by hiding it behind a mask of sarcasm.

  “I’m sorry, Seth. I didn’t know when this all started just how ugly it would get. I never would have brought you into this if I had.”

  “Yeah. Heard that one from you before.” He glanced across the room at Rachel, who was still talking to her uncle while pacing in a tight, tense circle. “I can’t take her back to Bitterwood, and clearly I can’t take her to Bryson City, either. Any suggestions?”

  Delilah looked at Brand. “I think we call Cooper Security in on this, like I suggested before. Jesse can provide a safe house and some guards for them.”

  “I’m guessing he’d be willing to give you a family-and-friends discount on this one.” Brand glanced out the window again, his brow furrowed. “The last thing I saw from the weather report, the snow should end before daybreak and the worst should melt off by tomorrow afternoon. Cooper could chopper up here and take the three of you back to Alabama by tomorrow night.”

  Delilah stared at him, realizing what he was suggesting. “The three of us?”

  Brand’s blue eyes met hers. “I can’t go. I’m a fugitive. It could cost Cooper his business and probably his freedom to help me out.”

  “So—what? You keep running and we go into hiding?”

  “I have to prove my innocence.”

  “Do you have to do it alone?”

  He glanced past her at Seth, then at Rachel on the phone. “I’ve put all of you in enough danger.”

  “How do you even know this has anything to do with what happened to you?” Seth asked. “Somebody’s been gunning for Rachel for a while. Somebody her stepbrother owed money to. We hoped it was over, but—”

  “That somebody, I believe, is a man named Wayne Cortland.”

  “Who?” Rachel crossed to the window and handed Brand his phone.

  “Did you reach your uncle okay?”

  She nodded. “He and Aunt Jeanine are going to bug out. He didn’t tell me where. I didn’t ask.”

  Delilah lifted an eyebrow. “Bug out?”

  “H
e was a marine for fifteen years,” Rachel said. “They have contingency plans for everything.”

  “Who is Wayne Cortland?” Seth asked.

  “That,” Brand said wearily, “is a long, sordid story.”

  * * *

  DELILAH MANAGED TO get some sleep that night, though it was fitful and plagued with dreams. She woke to the first gray light of dawn trickling through the motel-room window and a warm body pressed firmly against her back. Blinking away sleep, she spotted her brother at the window, sprawled in a chair with his jeans-clad legs stretched out in front of him. As she stirred, he turned his head slowly to look at her. “Mornin’.”

  She sat up and looked at the bed beside her. Brand was stretched out, his back to her, his chest rising and falling in a slow, even cadence. She eased off the bed without waking him and dropped into the cheap chair opposite her brother. “When did he finally go to bed?”

  “A couple of hours ago. I told him I’d keep watch.” He checked out the window again, moving the curtains just enough for Delilah to see that the winter storm had left a heavy covering of snow across the parking lot. “Are you sure you don’t want to come to the safe house with us?”

  “Brand can’t do this by himself. Not with someone gunning for him. He needs someone to watch his back.”

  “Someone like you?” Seth’s left eyebrow ticked upward.

  “I’ve done it before.”

  He lowered his voice. “What happened between you two?”

  “I’d had enough of the FBI, so I left.” It was a grossly simplified version of what had really happened, but it was true enough.

  “I get the feeling there’s more.”

  “It doesn’t matter what happened before. He’s clearly being framed now. There’s no way in hell Adam Brand would do the things he’s been accused of. And he needs someone to help him prove it.”

  “And, again, that someone would be you?”

  “I have the experience. I know this part of the world. And I believe him. I’m the best possible person to help him.”

  “What about your new job?”

  She frowned at her brother. “Delivering justice is part of my job, isn’t it? Wayne Cortland manipulated Paul Bailey into ordering the murders of four women and a man in order to get his hands on Davenport Trucking. Those four murders happened in Bitterwood, not Maryville, which makes them Bitterwood P.D. business.”