Mistaken Identity

by Shirlee McCoy

  God didn’t bargain.

  He didn’t only come around when someone was in trouble, either.

  He worked in His way and in His time, and Trinity was cool with that.

  She wasn’t cool with dying.

  She knew her eternal destiny, but she’d rather not have her body buried in the woods in Maine, her family spending the rest of their lives wondering what had happened to her the way they had always wondered what had happened to her older sister.

  Behind her, someone called out, the voice deep and masculine. There was an answer from somewhere to her left, and she knew they were trying to pen her in, come at her from two sides. Or maybe even three.

  She ran down a steep slope, nearly tumbling into a creek that burbled over rocks and old logs. She jumped over a narrow section, her feet sinking into mud on the far bank. She didn’t stop to smooth the prints away. She could hear her pursuer charging through the woods. Closing in. And she had no way of calling for help, no one flanking her, making sure she survived.

  She was alone.

  The way she’d wanted it, because she’d been tired of standing in the shadows of her brothers.

  Now she wished they were here.

  She wished she’d been more honest about her reasons for traveling to Maine and told them exactly where she planned to be. She wished a lot of things, but wishes were about as useful as umbrellas in hurricanes.

  She sprinted uphill and found herself on a narrow path that skirted a ledge. A hundred feet below, dark water shimmered in the moonlight. A lake! And, beyond that, house lights. She wasn’t sure how far. A couple of miles away maybe. If she could make it there, she could knock on a door, find a phone, call for help.

  If she could make it.

  Someone barreled onto the path a few hundred feet to her left. She didn’t think, didn’t hesitate. She lowered herself over the ledge, grabbing tree branches to stop her momentum as she scrambled down. If she’d had all the time in the world, she could have made it, but time wasn’t on her side, and she was rushing, moving from one handhold to the other, not checking to see if they would hold her weight. She felt one give. The earth was moist from recent rain, the roots probably barely clinging to the side of the steep hill.

  She kept moving, listening to the sudden silence. The thickness of it pulsed in the air, as alive and real as her terror. Had the guy pulled his gun? Did he have night-vision goggles? Was he aiming his gun at her?

  She grabbed a pine sapling, her feet slipping in her haste to escape. The sapling gave, pulling away from the ground and tumbling toward the lake, Trinity tumbling with it.

  And, she knew it was over.

  If the fall didn’t kill her, the gunman would, and then she’d be another statistic, another tragedy, another sorrow for her family to bear.

  * * *

  Going to an old friend’s funeral hadn’t been fun.

  Attending his own?

  Not something Mason Gains intended to do.

  He moved silently through the forest, following the trail of broken branches that led away from his house and workshop. Two-thousand acres of Maine wilderness usually kept people away. That was how he liked it.

  Tonight, someone had infiltrated his sanctuary, trespassed on his property and fired a shot that he’d heard loud and clear as he was returning home. If he hadn’t had the windows down, letting cold air sweep away the memory of blood and gunpowder and death that had chased him from Afghanistan and Iraq, followed him across continents and through years of therapy, he might not have heard the gunshot.

  But he’d had the windows down, cold air cooling the sweat that beaded his brow, and he’d heard it. He’d known exactly what it was, and he’d known it didn’t belong. This was private property bordered by a state park. No hunting allowed there. Even if there had been, it wasn’t hunting season, and he was certain he hadn’t heard a rifle. He’d heard a handgun. One quick, sharp, report and then silence.

  He’d parked the truck on the side of the long driveway, partially hiding it behind a patch of thick shrubs he’d planted with just that purpose in mind. Then he’d taken off on foot, skirting the edge of the driveway, keeping to the shadows as he made his way to the house. He’d noticed the lights first. Then, the SUV parked near his workshop; the open back door, a light shining beyond it. He’d called the police, and then done a sweep of the exterior. There’d been a Jeep parked at the far edge of the field near an old logging road that no one ever used. No other vehicles. No sign of anyone wandering around close to the house. He’d gone inside. Quietly. Just like he’d been trained to do in the military.

  There’d been one person inside the house, trying to push aside the built-in book shelves that served as a door to his office. It had taken about six seconds to disarm and apprehend the guy. Youngish with a beer belly and pasty skin, he’d blabbered on about not wanting to die. Funny how people were most remorseful after they’d been caught.

  Or not.

  He’d asked a few questions, made a few idle threats. Handguns were dangerous, and they were convincing. Mason always carried one, and the kid had spilled enough information to let Mason know that there were two other men. They were in the woods, hunting for Mason’s girlfriend.

  There was one problem with that.

  Mason had no girlfriend.

  So...three unknown people were wandering his property.

  The police were on the way, but Mason didn’t believe in waiting around for others to do what he could. He’d already tied up the kid and left him trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey, lying on the floor near the bookshelves.

  Now he was going to find the other players in the game.

  It shouldn’t be hard. They’d left a noticeable trail, and he was having no trouble at all following it. He eased through thick undergrowth, moving along the edge of the creek that cut through his property. There were footprints in the bank. Large boots and smaller sneakers. The woman who was supposed to be his girlfriend?

  She’d headed up the embankment. He followed.

  The steep rise led to a ledge that looked out over Whisper Lake. Beyond that, she’d have seen the lights of Whisper—the closest town. Just a pinprick on the map. Fifteen hundred residents on a good day, and exactly the kind of place Mason would have lived if he’d wanted to live close to civilization.

  He shopped in the little grocery store there.

  When friends came to visit, he took them to the tackle shop, the diner, the ice cream place. There wasn’t much in Whisper, but it was plenty to keep the residents happy.

  A pretty little place, but it was nearly fifty miles away. No way could anyone reach it on foot from his property, but he doubted his unwanted visitor knew that. If she’d been running from someone, she probably hadn’t even cared.

  He could hear sirens in the distance. Other than that, the woods were silent and still, eerie in their quiet. He’d bought the property for its solitude and for its view of the lake. He’d spent plenty of time sitting in the darkness, looking out over the water, praying for answers to questions he wasn’t even sure he could give voice to.

  He hadn’t found any, but he still enjoyed the view.

  He didn’t enjoy having people interrupt his work.

  He had three prosthetic limbs to design and create. His team would be there Monday morning. Just like always. Mason had planned to return Sunday night but John’s funeral had been a sad event with a handful of mourners, no church service, no celebration of life. Just the graveside service and John’s wife, Sally, crying quietly. She’d wanted Mason to stay for a couple of days. She’d offered him a room in the single-wide trailer she and John had shared. She’d actually begged Mason to stay, but their Nyack, New York, home had seemed claustrophobic.

  Or, maybe, it had been the memories that had penned him in.

  It didn’t matter.

  He’d returned two days e
arly and someone was on his property.

  Someone who’d been able to disarm the state-of-the-art security system. Someone who’d known there was an office behind the bookshelves.

  That narrowed the list to maybe three or four people who worked for him, a close friend who happened to be the town sheriff and John.

  He’d betrayed Mason once. It was more than possible that he’d done it again before he’d died.

  Mason skirted the ledge that looked out over the lake, eyeing the foliage below, the dark water beyond it.

  A small sneaker print was pressed into the path. He used that as his guide, easing himself over the ledge and finding his footing against the rock and damp earth.

  He could see evidence of hands grasping branches—snapped twigs, scuff marks in the earth. Toes pressed deep into dirt.

  She’d made it about halfway down when she’d fallen. He could see the uprooted sapling, the slide of her body in pine needles. He stopped, listening to the wind rustling in the leaves, the soft lap of water against the shore below him, the sounds of the sirens drawing closer. No branches breaking. No footsteps. He felt alone. Just like he should be.

  He took out his light, aiming the beam down the steep slope. He could see the direction her body had taken, the dirt and rocks that had tumbled with her.

  Near the bottom, the light fell on pale skin, light brown hair. Jeans. Jacket. A woman for sure. Motionless.

  Dead?

  He hoped not. She might be a trespasser, but she didn’t deserve to die for that. He tucked the light back in his pocket and the woman jumped up.

  “Hey!” he called. “Hold on!”

  She’d heard. He was certain of that.

  She didn’t listen.

  She ran toward the lake, moving quickly enough that he wasn’t all that concerned about her being injured.

  He scrambled down the rest of the slope, racing across pebbly earth. She was yards ahead of him, illuminated by moonlight as she waded into the water and dove below its surface.

  If he didn’t get her out, she’d die there, the cold stealing her strength and her life before she even knew it was happening.

  He moved along the shore, his light dancing across the dark lake. She’d gone down, and she hadn’t come back up, but he could see the small ripples on the surface of the water, subtle signs that she was moving beneath it. He shrugged out of his coat, his handgun zipped into an interior pocket, unbuttoned the dress shirt he’d worn to John’s funeral and dropped that on top of it.

  He waited until she surfaced, her head popping up as she gulped for air.

  That was it. All the opportunity he needed.

  He waded into the frigid water and went after her.

  TWO

  The water was freezing.

  That wasn’t something Trinity had been thinking about when she’d decided she could swim to the lights that glimmered on the far shore. Houses. Businesses. People. She was thinking about the water temperature now. She was also thinking about how far the opposite shore really was. Farther than it looked. She was a good swimmer, but the cold was already affecting her muscles, and her movements were sluggish and slow.

  She could turn back, but he was there—the man who’d been standing on the slope, shining his light down at her.

  She didn’t know who he was.

  She didn’t want to know.

  She just wanted to escape him, find some place to hunker down and think through her options. She’d have to swim parallel to the shore and find a safe place to exit the lake. Preferably before hypothermia set in. At the rate things were going, that wouldn’t be long. She was already shivering, her teeth chattering.

  Make a plan. Stick to the plan.

  That was one of Chance’s mottos.

  The problem was that he’d never explained what to do if the plan wasn’t working out. Probably because his plans always worked out.

  Trinity’s? Not so much.

  Look at her relationship with Dale. She’d had it all planned out. The two years of dating. The year-long engagement. The happily-ever-after.

  Only, two years had turned into three and there’d been no sign of dating ever becoming anything more. That had made her worry that maybe Dale wasn’t as committed to forever as she was.

  Turned out, he wasn’t.

  It also turned out that she would have realized that long before the three-year mark if she hadn’t been so committed to her poorly conceived plan.

  This plan? The one that had her swimming across the lake to safety? It was just as bad.

  She glanced back at the shore. She was a few hundred yards from it. No sign of the guy who’d been chasing her. He’d probably realized she was going to die without any help from him. Maybe he was sitting in the shadows of the trees, waiting for her to drown and make his job easier.

  She gritted her teeth to keep them from knocking together. There had to be a place that was safer than the beach, an area of thick foliage and deep shadows, but her eyes didn’t seem to be working well and her arms didn’t seem to want to paddle. Her legs felt heavy and she wanted to close her eyes and float for just long enough to regain her strength.

  If she did, she’d die.

  She was still coherent enough to realize that, but it wouldn’t be long and her brain would slow as much as her body had. She turned toward the beach, desperate to get out of the water before that happened. All thoughts of the man and the danger he represented were gone. She had more immediate things to worry about. Like freezing to death or drowning or—

  An arm wrapped around her, and she was yanked back against a hard body, her arms pinned at her sides. She tried to scream, but all that emerged was a quiet squeak. Tried to fight, but she was trapped by a steel-like arm and her own weakness.

  She kicked backward, trying to free herself.

  “Stop,” a man growled.

  But she kicked again, the icy water splashing up into her face.

  “You want us both to drown?” he asked, dragging her closer to his body. They were heading toward the shore. She could feel that, and she knew the exact moment his feet touched the lake bottom, because he hefted her up like a sack of potatoes, tossing her over his shoulder in a fireman carry that forced every bit of air from her lungs.

  She should have kept fighting, but the wind was howling, and she was freezing, her body trembling so violently, she thought she might shake into pieces.

  Seconds later she was lowered to her feet. Gently. Surprising since she figured the guy was about to kill her.

  “That was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen anyone do,” he said.

  “Not as stupid as firing a gun at an innocent person,” she retorted.

  “Equally stupid acts, lady. One will get you killed. The other could kill someone else,” he growled, grabbing a coat from the ground and pulling a handgun from somewhere inside it.

  Her blood went as cold as her body was, and she took a step back.

  “Relax,” he muttered. “If I’d wanted to hurt you, it would have been done already. It’s not like you’re in any shape to fight.”

  “I could fight if I needed to.” Maybe.

  “Hopefully, you won’t have to put that to the test.” He checked the safety on the gun, tucked it into the waistband of his pants and tossed the coat around her shoulders.

  It was still warm from his body, and she wanted to pull it over her soaked hair and huddle under it until some of the warmth seeped into her. She was afraid if she did, she’d close her eyes and wake up locked in a basement somewhere.

  Or, worse, not wake up at all.

  “Maybe you should think about that next time you decide to fire a shot and then chase a person through the woods. Not many people are going to take kindly to that, and most of them are going to do exactly what I did and—”

  “I wasn’t the one
who fired the gun, and I wasn’t chasing you anywhere.” He lifted what looked like a white dress shirt, shook it out and pulled it on.

  Unlike her, he’d been thinking before he’d dived into the lake.

  His pants were soaked, but his shirt wasn’t.

  She, on the other hand, was still shaking with cold, her wet clothes clinging to her skin. “Look, it’s freezing. How about we just call it a night? You go your way. I go mine. No harm, no foul.”

  “That,” he murmured, “is a matter of opinion.”

  “What’s that supposed to...?” Her voice trailed off because the moonlight was falling straight onto his face, and she knew him. Knew of him, anyway. Mason Gains. The guy she’d traveled six-hundred miles to see.

  “To mean?” he finished her question as he tugged the coat closed and buttoned the top three buttons, his knuckles brushing her chin and her jaw as he turned the collar up around her ears. “It means that you’re trespassing, and I’ve called the police. They’ll be very interested in hearing your story.”

  “My story is simple. I came to find you, and you chased me through the woods with a gun.”

  “I already told you, it wasn’t me.”

  “Someone chased me. I fell.” And she’d hit her head. The cold had stolen most of the pain, but she could feel it again, pulsing just above her right ear. She touched the area, felt warm blood.

  “You’re bleeding,” he commented, and she wanted to say something sarcastic, because she was cold, she was scared and she was in pain.

  She didn’t think that would win her any points, so she kept her mouth shut.

  He sighed. “Come on. Let’s go back. The police should be at the house by now.”

  “Good. Maybe they can find the guys who were shooting at me.”

  “How many?” he asked, taking her arm and leading her along the shore. They weren’t heading the way they’d come. That was probably for the best. She didn’t think she could climb up what she hadn’t been able to climb down.

  “At least two.”

  “Did you see them?”