She had to come up with a plan to survive.
Hypothermia might knock her out and then she’d either drown or freeze. At least, that’s what she thought would happen. So she’d stay awake, keep her eyes open, force herself not to give in.
At least she had a life vest on. She wasn’t likely to sink. Rescue crews would be able to find her. That was a plus in the midst of a whole boatload of negatives.
“Are you prepared to swim?” Mason asked quietly, the oars lapping at water that was getting closer and closer to the top of the hull because they were sinking deeper and deeper into the lake.
“Of course,” she responded because she was prepared to do whatever it took to survive and because she had no other choice. She certainly wasn’t going to float on the surface of the lake waiting to die.
“We’re probably a mile and a half out. It’s not a bad swim. It’s the cold that’s going to be a problem.”
“I’ll be okay,” she assured him even though she wasn’t sure she would be.
“I figured you’d say that.” He set the oars in the bottom of the boat and took both her freezing hands in his. “We stick together, okay? Side by side. Float on your back and kick. That’ll be the easiest way to swim with the vest on.”
“Okay.”
“There’s a marina near town and they’ll probably be sending rescue boats out from there.” He motioned to the left and she could see what looked like small buildings and smaller boats. She thought she saw flashing lights, too, and her heart jumped.
“I think I see a police car heading in that direction.”
He squinted then nodded. “You may be right, but they’re not going to get here before this boat goes down. We’ll be in the water for at least fifteen minutes, and we are going to stay together. I don’t want to be pulled out of this lake wondering whether or not you’ve been rescued.”
“Trust me,” she responded, looking into his beautiful dark eyes, his strong handsome face, “I feel the same.”
“It’s good to know that we’ve finally agreed on something.” He picked up the oars again, trying to paddle as the boat sank.
Trinity kept scooping water and she kept watching the shore, following the flashing lights as they drew closer to the lake.
Definitely police. Maybe an ambulance.
How long could it possibly take for them to get out on the water to stage a rescue? Fifteen minutes? Twenty? Hopefully not any longer than that because Mason’s end of the boat was slipping below the surface of the lake, water pouring in over the top, flooding the vessel. One minute she was sitting on the bench seat, the next she was gasping for breath, her body rigid with shock. She hadn’t thought that through, hadn’t realized just how quickly the cold would affect her.
She gasped, inhaling a lungful of water and coughing it out, trying to remember the plan.
“It’s okay. You’re okay,” Mason said, his hand wrapping around hers. “They’ve got a vessel in the water. We’ll be out of here before the boat hits the bottom of the lake.”
“How deep is the lake?” she asked, her teeth chattering so hard she wasn’t sure he’d understand.
“I have no idea,” he responded. “So, how about we stick to the plan and head for shore?”
The plan.
Right. Stick together. Float on your back. Kick.
She ran the words through her mind over and over as she tried to coordinate her body and do what she needed to.
“You’re okay,” Mason said again, and she realized she was gasping, inhaling gulps of air as if she were running rather than floating.
“I know,” she responded, finally managing a few kicks. She had no idea what direction shore was, so she went where Mason was leading, and she prayed that wherever they ended up, it was warm and dry and far, far away from any lakes.
She wasn’t sure how long they were in the water.
She wasn’t sure how close they were to shore. Eventually, though, she got into the rhythm of kicking and floating. Her breathing calmed and the cold felt almost warm.
That probably wasn’t a good thing, but at least she wasn’t shivering so hard she had no control over her muscles.
“You okay, Trinity?” Mason asked, and she nodded as if he could see the movement.
“Trinity?” he prodded, and she forced herself to speak.
“Great,” she said, the one-word answer all she could manage.
“They’re almost here.”
“Great,” she repeated, but she had no idea who they were or even where they were coming to. She wasn’t sure if she was really in a lake or if she was home in bed, tucked beneath a warm blanket, dreaming about water and about holding hands with a guy she might have fallen for if she’d met him at a different time.
“Trinity!” someone shouted, and she opened her eyes, looked into Mason’s face.
He looked furious.
“What?”
“We stick together, remember?” he growled, his face pale, his lips tinged with blue.
“We are together.”
“We’re not together if you’re off in some dreamworld while I’m swimming to shore,” he snapped.
Her sluggish brain realized that he wasn’t angry. He was concerned. He was also cold. Really, really cold. She could feel him shivering. That scared a little sense into her and she nodded.
“Okay. Right. Let’s go.”
She didn’t know how it happened, but they were moving again, legs kicking, fingers linked, floating through water that felt like an ice bath.
She thought she heard voices and she tried to raise her head, look around, but she only had the energy to keep moving forward.
“Trinity?” Not Mason. Someone else. She knew the voice but couldn’t place it, and she didn’t respond, just kept on kicking until something splashed in the water beside her. A life preserver. She grabbed on, still holding Mason’s hand as she was tugged to a boat and pulled to safety.
* * *
They’d been that close to dying.
That being too close for comfort.
Mason wasn’t happy about it.
As a matter of fact, he was angrier than he’d been in a long time.
He paced the hospital room he’d been admitted to, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders, his bones still aching from cold. He’d already removed the IV, put on the clothes Chance had brought him and downed three cups of coffee.
Now he was ready to find Trinity.
She’d been worse off than he was, nearly unconscious when they’d pulled her from the water. Ten more minutes. That’s what the doctors had told Chance. Ten minutes and Trinity would have been too cold to sustain organ function. Her body would have shut down and she would have died.
The thought filled Mason with pointless rage.
Anger didn’t solve problems. Thinking did. And, after thinking things through, he’d decided to find Tate, warn him and see what information he could offer.
First, though, he needed make sure Trinity was okay.
He took another swig of coffee, shuddering as the bitter dregs hit the back of his tongue. The hallway was quiet. The hospital they’d been transported to was three towns away from home, but not as big or as busy as Portland General. They’d almost been transported there, but Mason hadn’t liked the idea. The busier the hospital, the easier for someone to hide in it.
He’d asked Judah to bring his car when he came to take Mason and Trinity’s statement, because he wasn’t hitching a ride home with Chance or Cyrus. They didn’t plan to return to his house and he didn’t want them to. They were heading to the airport and going home. That’s the plan Chance had laid out. They had a secure building in DC where Trinity could stay until the threat against her was neutralized.
That worked for Mason.
He’d visit her after he found the guys who’d nearly kille
d them. All three men had escaped, but he had a feeling they hadn’t gotten far. As a matter of fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if they were hanging around the hospital waiting to get another chance at Trinity.
Judah had promised to have a deputy guard her room, but one of his deputies had already sold out. There was no reason to think another one hadn’t. The sooner Trinity was able to leave the hospital and go to whatever safe place Chance had planned for her, the happier Mason would be.
He walked to the nurses’ station, smiling at the young woman behind the counter. “Can you tell me what room Trinity Miller is in?”
She frowned, glanced at her computer screen and shook her head. “I’m sorry. That’s listed as private. We can’t give the information to anyone who isn’t on our list.”
“Who’s on your list?”
“Family,” she said quickly. “Which does not include boyfriends or significant others.”
“I’m just a concerned friend. It’s possible I’m on the list.”
“Name?” she asked with a put-upon sigh.
“Mason Gains.”
She looked up from her computer, her eyes wide. “You’re a patient.”
“I was. I’m checking myself out.”
“Have you consulted with the doctor about that?”
“Not yet.”
“It might be a good idea. You and Ms. Miller had severe shocks to your systems. There could be long-term side effects.”
“Am I on the list of visitors?” he asked, ignoring her comment.
“Yes,” she said. “But I don’t think—”
“What room is she in?”
She scowled, wrote something on a piece of paper and handed it to him. Room 410. One floor up.
Mason took the stairs because he was still cold and he wanted to force some blood back into his extremities. When he reached the floor, he followed the room numbers to the end of a long hall and saw a uniformed officer sitting in a chair near a door, reading a book. He patted his pockets, looking for his ID, then realized he’d left it at the house.
Fortunately he knew the red-haired, freckle-faced deputy. Six-foot-four of lean muscle, Sam Torrent coached football at Whisper Lake High School and raised his daughters as a single parent. Mason had seen him hiking through the woods a couple of times, two little redheaded girls bouncing along beside him.
He looked up as Mason approached and then unfolded his lean body and got to his feet. “How you doing, Mason? Thawed out a little?”
“Barely.”
“Not a good day for your boat to go down, huh?”
“It wouldn’t have gone down if someone hadn’t shot a hole through it.”
“I heard about that. Seems like you have a bull’s-eye on your back lately.”
“Yeah. It does.”
“You going in to visit Ms. Miller?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Any weapons on you?”
“No.” He’d handed the soggy Ruger over to Judah and asked him to take it to a dealer who could clean and repair it.
“Heard you had a Bowie knife and a Ruger when they picked you up.”
“I did.”
“I guess you’re like me. We like to be prepared. Chad wasn’t like that. He was more a go-with-the-flow type of person.”
“Chad Williams.”
“I don’t know any other Chad,” Sam said.
“You two were good friends.”
“We went to high school together, took a couple hunting trips together. We knew each other, but I can’t say we were buddies.”
“Was there a reason for that?”
“He was into some stuff that I’m not.”
“Can you be more specific?”
“Not without getting him into trouble.”
“He’s already in trouble.”
“You’ve got a point there.” Sam rubbed the back of his neck and shook his head. “He liked to smoke a little weed on occasion. He partied a little too hard. He drank a little too much.”
“That’s not uncommon.”
“It is when you’re closing in on thirty. By that point, most people are getting their stuff together. Not Chad. He still heads to Portland every weekend he has off. Goes to the clubs. Picks up the women.”
“Do you think that has something to do with what happened to him?”
“It’s hard to say. I know he’d been acting strange the last couple of weeks. I’d even mentioned it to the sheriff.”
“Strange in what way?”
“Nervous. Anxious. Twice while we were out on patrol, he pulled his gun for no reason.”
“What did Judah say when you told him?”
“He talked to Chad, and I guess he asked if anything was wrong. Chad said he was fine. He tried to be calmer after that, but he was still nervous.”
“Did you ask him why?” Mason queried.
“I did. He wouldn’t tell me anything and I wasn’t going to push. We weren’t that close of friends. Of course, now I wish that we had been. Maybe I could have stopped him from whatever stupid thing he was trying to do.”
“He was trying to kidnap a woman.”
“Maybe.”
“There’s no maybe about it.”
“Sure there is. We need a preponderance of evidence to convict someone, and a person isn’t guilty until the conviction comes through. Besides, Chad didn’t have his life together, but he wasn’t violent. He didn’t need to kidnap a woman to get her attention.”
“He might have needed to kidnap one to get some cash.”
“You’ve got a point. He did have $10-K in his account. Deposited it two days before he was shot.”
“How do you know that?”
“We subpoenaed his bank records. We got Sally Roache’s bank records today, too. Same thing. A ten-thousand-dollar deposit a week ago.”
A week would have been right around the time John had died.
“I’m surprised Judah didn’t tell me any of this.”
“The information came in a couple of hours ago. He’s been a little busy since then. He called a few minutes ago and said he was on the way, so you’ll probably have a chance to discuss it with him.”
“Thanks,” Mason said. “I need to speak with Trinity. I’m on the list.”
“Yeah. I know. Go on in. A couple of other guys are already in there.”
“Thanks.” Mason knocked, expecting either Cyrus or Chance to open the door.
Instead a tall, dark-haired man with dark blue eyes stood on the threshold. “Sorry. No visitors,” he said and tried to close the door.
“I’m on the list.”
“Mason?” Trinity called from somewhere in the room, and the guy stepped to the side, gesturing for him to enter.
“Sorry. I thought you were still hooked up to an IV under piles of warm blankets. Jackson Miller. Trinity’s brother.” The guy offered his hand and Mason shook it.
“Nice to meet you.”
“It would be nicer if it were under better circumstances. I flew out as soon as I heard about the...” He glanced at a bed piled high with blankets. Mason assumed Trinity was in it, but he couldn’t see her. “Incident,” Jackson finally said.
“Is that what we’re calling it?” Trinity asked. A few of the blankets moved and Trinity peeked out. Her face was as white as the blankets, her lips tinged purple.
“Would you rather we call it ‘the moment Trinity nearly died’?” Cyrus asked. He was sitting in a chair at the far side of the room, his back against the wall, his legs stretched out in front of him. Chance was a few feet away, shoulder against the wall, his eyes on Mason.
“I’d rather you all stand out in the hall and let me get dressed so we can get out of here,” Trinity replied.
“You can’t leave until your temperature normalizes.”
“It’s not going to do that while I’m lying in this breezy hospital gown,” she countered.
“It will if you stay under those blankets.” Mason grabbed a chair and sat next to the bed.
“You’re not under any covers,” she pointed out.
“I wasn’t ten minutes from death, either.”
She scowled. “Does everyone have to mention that?”
“Yes,” her brothers and Cyrus said in unison.
She cracked a tired smile. “I know, but how about you hold off until I can find a little humor in the situation?”
“There’s nothing humorous about it, sis,” Jackson said. “You almost died. That’s a serious thing.”
“Trust me. I know it is.” She shivered, pulling the blankets up to her chin, her eyes vibrant blue against her pallor. “But I’ve got a headache and all this talking is making it worse. Why don’t you all hash out your plans in the hall? Better yet, go down to the cafeteria, get something to eat and talk about me to your heart’s content. While you’re doing that, I’ll sleep.”
“There is no way we’re leaving you alone in this room,” Chance began. “You’ll get up, get dressed and leave, and we’ll be right back where we were a few hours ago.”
“I sure hope not,” she said with an exaggerated shudder. “If I never see the lake or a boat again, it will be too soon.”
“We’re still not leaving you, and as soon as you warm up enough to get out of here, we’re heading to the airport and going back to Maryland.”
Trinity stiffened, but Mason didn’t think her brothers noticed. They’d begun discussing the plan—how to get her out of the hospital without being noticed, how to get her to the airport in one piece. Transport from the airport to HEART headquarters in DC.
They were in the middle of the third round of How to get her to the airport without being run off the road or intercepted before we reach the car when Trinity touched Mason’s hand, the gesture a quick brush of fingers he thought he’d imagined.
He met her eyes and she mouthed, “Save me.”
Mistaken Identity Page 15
