by Linda Turner
As if sensing her distress, Grant slid his hand from her back and blindly found her hand biting into the soggy ground. Covering it with his, he linked his fingers with hers, giving her a part of himself to latch onto. Hang on, he seemed to urge her silently. We'll get out of this yet.
Katie started to believe him when their hunters moved off in the opposite direction, toward the highway, just as Grant had predicted. Relief shot through her, only to turn to terror when she heard a new set of footsteps. Slow, stealthy, creeping—and so close that she could feel the vibration of them in the ground. She shrank into the ground, praying for it to swallow both her and Grant. Was the foliage around them thick enough to conceal them?
Swearing at the Fates, Grant lay unmoving and watched a pair of scuffed combat boots come within three feet of his nose. For a wild moment, he thought luck was with them when the man continued on past them. Then he stopped, as if sensing he'd missed something, and turned. Every muscle in Grant's body froze as he watched the wrong end of an Uzi come to rest beside their pursuer's camouflage-clad leg. For the span of ten heartbeats, he just stood there. It wasn't until he spoke to someone off to his left that Grant realized the feet belonged to Cantu.
"We could spend all night doing this and walk right past them," the young hoodlum said in disgust. "Enough of this. Let's get the dogs," he ordered and whirled back toward the camp without once looking at the ferns near his feet.
Dogs! Katie almost cried out in horror at the thought. Only Grant's weight on her back, his fingers tightening on hers warningly, kept the sob of protest that welled in her throat from bursting free.
Long moments later, Grant cautiously lifted his head until he could see just over the tops of the ferns. Cantu and the search team were halfway back to the camp, their flashlights bobbing in the night. On the runway, Gallegos and the drug supplier kept the other thugs working at a feverish pace. They had already unloaded the cocaine from the plane and were quickly replacing it with the guns.
Jumping quickly to his feet, Grant pulled Katie up beside him. "This is the only chance we're going to get, sweetheart," he whispered in her ear. "We're going to have to run like hell if we're going to beat those dogs!"
She was already moving. Acutely conscious of the men who were only a stone's throw away, she followed Grant around the clearing as silently as possible, catching her breath every time a branch snagged at her clothes. But within seconds they skirted the runway and dashed into the deep undergrowth on the other side.
Time, the outside world, civilization, ceased to exist. With hearts pounding and their lungs straining, they kept a cautious pace until they were well into the thick, cloying trees. Only then, when they were sure that the sound wouldn't carry back to Gallegos, did they break into a full-fledged run.
Gasping, the acrid taste of fear on her tongue, Katie struggled to keep up with Grant's long legs. Dark images flew past her, registering in her mind only after she was long past them. The gnarled limb of a dead cypress tree, pointed at her like an accusing witch's finger. She saw the vines of a strangler fig choking a maple. A fallen log blocked their path. A deep grunt tore through the silence, followed by a splash.
"Oh, God," she whispered. "An alligator!"
"Maybe not," Grant argued tightly, never slowing his pace. "Could be a frog. Hurry, honey, I think I hear the dogs."
Her blood was rushing through her ears like thunder caught in a cave, but Katie heard them, too. The baying of the dogs. Deep inside her, her soul seemed to shiver. The animals were far behind them, but she could tell by the excited barking that they had caught their scent. The dogs wouldn't stop now until they had cornered them.
There was no time to talk, no time to fear what might be waiting for them in the uncharted territory ahead. There was only the constant barking of the dogs, a cadence in their blood that pushed them ever onward, driving them to the limits of endurance.
Katie never knew how long they ran, how far, or even where. Grant took the lead and she followed blindly, all sense of direction lost. Her brain was on automatic pilot and all her concentration was focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Again. And again. She never even noticed when her knees became wobbly or the stitch in her side became a hot fire. She gasped for breath, but she couldn't stop. Not yet. The dogs were drawing closer.
The vine that suddenly stretched across the ground in front of her wouldn't have tripped a two year old. Katie saw it at the last moment with eyes that were too blurred to see clearly. Crying out, she went sprawling.
"Katie!" Grant was beside her in an instant, his face dark with concern as he bent over her. "Are you okay? Let me help you."
Her knees were so weak, she doubted if she'd have been able to make it to her feet without his help. Even then, it was only the reassuring strength of his arms that kept her from sinking back down to the ground. Her breath straining through her lungs, she leaned against him gratefully, shuddering. All the while the wild baying of the dogs drew closer. Her fingers bit into Grant's arm. "Grant," she gasped, panicking. "The dogs…"
His breath was hot and quick against her cheek as he brushed her damp hair back from her face. "I know. They're right on our tail, but if you can just make it a little farther, we may be able to lose them. Come on, sweetheart, you can't stop now," he pleaded, pulling her after him. "Just a little farther…"
It could have been twenty feet, a hundred yards, a half mile. Her feet felt leaden and her muscles burned as she stumbled after him. He suddenly veered to the left and pulled her through a thick growth of wild hibiscus and custard apple trees. She didn't even blink when she found herself up to her calves in the dark water of a creek hidden by the low, overhanging branches.
They struggled up the middle of the creek, slipping and sliding on the slick bottom, before he stopped abruptly and pulled her against him. "Shh," he warned when she started to draw in enough air to ask him why he had stopped. "Listen."
He stared back at the way they had come as his labored breathing eased. Somewhere off in the trees, the excited barking of the dogs carried easily in the ensuing silence, and he could almost pinpoint their exact location. They weren't quite to the cutoff to the creek yet.
"Come on," he urged them grimly. "Go past it, you bastards. Lose us in the water."
As if they'd heard him, the dogs' frenzied barking suddenly changed to bewilderment as they rushed past the hibiscus bushes and abruptly lost the scent. Swearing floated on the night air.
Grant didn't have the strength to laugh in triumph. He gave Katie a tired squeeze and reached for her hand. "D'you hear that, sweetheart? We lost them!"
She wilted where she stood, but before she could even sigh in relief, one of the dogs let out a cry of excitement that sounded like it came right out of hell. They'd found their trail again.
"No!" she whispered hoarsely. "No!"
Grant swore viciously and quickly dragged her out of the water to dry ground. The dogs were already splashing in the water two hundred yards behind them. "This way," he ordered tersely. "It's our only chance!"
He clawed his way through the low hanging branches, cursing them as he towed her after him. There was no need for silence now. The dogs were too close and Katie was fading fast. Grant shot her a worried look over his shoulder. Her face was a pale blur in the darkness, her wet clothes plastered to her slender body, her legs heavy. Grant couldn't think of another woman he knew who would have held up as well as she had, but the hell she'd been through today would have taxed the strength of an Amazon. If she had to go much farther, she'd collapse.
"We're almost there," he coaxed, tightening his grip on her hand. "You can make it. I know you can."
Make it? she thought, nearly sobbing. Where? Where was he taking her in this godforsaken place? Didn't he know they couldn't outrun the dogs? If she could just stop, just for a minute…
Katie hardly heard Grant's exclamation of smug satisfaction when they suddenly burst through the trees and found themselves on the low-lying bank of a
river. Dazed, she stared at the scene before her, convinced it was a mirage.
The lazy, slow-moving water was two hundred yards wide and as black as the night. Huge cypress trees, dripping in Spanish moss, towered majestically over both banks and reached for a midnight sky that was studded with stars. But it was the island in the middle of the river that drew her eye.
There, on a spot of land that was hardly bigger than a sand bar, squatted a rough-hewn log cabin that looked as though it had been there since the beginning of time. Wide, paned windows stretched across its narrow front, the light that gleamed from them spilling onto a porch that wrapped all the way around the small building to the back. This tiny bit of civilization surrounded by the encroaching wilderness beckoned like a candle in the darkness.
Grant quickly tossed down the Uzi and started to kick off his shoes. "Come on, we're going to have to swim for it."
She couldn't have looked at him with more dismay if he'd told her she was going to have to walk on water. She stared askance at the two hundred yards of dark water that separated them from the cabin and knew she'd never make it. She was a mediocre swimmer when she was at her best, and right now she didn't have the energy to spit!
"I can't."
At first Grant was sure he'd misunderstood her. But when she stood there, her shoulders drooping, and made no effort to remove her shoes, his eyes snapped to her, impaling her. "What do you mean, you can't?" he growled. "You'd damn well better or those dogs are going to be eating you for supper."
"I can't!" she wailed, tears of exhaustion welling in her eyes and running unchecked down her cheeks. "I can't even take another step, let along swim. Go on without—"
He never let her finish the sentence. Did she really think he would leave her? Clamping his fingers around her arms, he jerked her up on her toes and closed his mind to the dark shadows of fatigue under her eyes, the weak tears that she couldn't seem to stop. She was pushed to the limit, ready to crack, and he'd have given anything to pull her into his arms and just hold her. But he was as tired as she, and the dogs were drawing nearer, pushing him to desperation. He had to goad her into crossing the river under her own steam, even if she ended up hating him for it.
"So the great Katie MacDonald's giving up, is she?" he taunted, deliberately hurting her. "Giving up to a two-bit drug king who hunts her down like an animal."
Her eyes flashed in the darkness. "I'm not giving up—"
"No? What would you call it?" he retorted, running his eyes over her quickly. "Looks to me like you're ready to yell uncle. Good old Uncle Mike." He snorted contemptuously. "You think he'll cut you some slack because he used to bounce you on his knee? Think again, sweetheart. He's going to snuff you out like you never existed, and then he's going to play the grief-stricken uncle to the press. The papers will eat it up."
"No!"
"Oh, yes. It'll just be one more murder—no, make that two because I'm not leaving you—to sweep under the rug. Where does it stop, Katie? With you? Me? Maybe even with Ryan if he starts asking questions he shouldn't?"
"No!"
"Then you'd better make up your mind if we're going to be the ones to stop him, babe," he said grimly. "Those dogs are closing in fast."
In the silence that followed his ultimatum, she could hear the dogs crashing into the thick stand of custard apple trees that were the last barrier to the river. Her heart jerked like a jackhammer. She was so exhausted she could have dropped right where she stood, but she knew Grant was right. They had to be the ones to stop Gallegos or die trying.
Swearing, she kicked off her shoes and let the energy of anger sweep through her. "No, damn it," she muttered. "There aren't going to be any more murders." Without another word, she dived into the black water.
Within two strokes, she knew Grant was beside her, his powerful arms flashing in her peripheral vision as he easily kept pace with her, but all her concentration was focused on the fury that raged within her. At the outset, she prayed it would be enough to get her to the island; halfway across she knew it wasn't. Slowly, insidiously, her strength began to fade, her breath to labor, her muscles to knot with the strain. With every kick of her legs her water-logged jeans grew heavier, dragging her deeper into the water. Panicking, she knew she was sinking fast.
"Grant!"
His name was a soft cry on her lips, almost lost in the angry barking that erupted on the bank behind them, but he heard it. His own arms shaking with weariness, he moved closer to her, panting, "Roll over onto your back … that's it … relax … I've got you!"
Miraculously, he slipped his arm around her in a lifeguard's hold, tugging her after him through the silky water. His breath was a warm, reassuring rasp in her ear. Relief turned her body limp.
Long minutes later, they reached the bank. His chest heaving from exhaustion, Grant quickly helped Katie up onto dry ground, then glanced quickly over his shoulder. On the opposite bank, dark, armed shadows pushed through the trees after the dogs. Swearing, Grant didn't wait to see more. "Run, Katie! Get inside!"
He grabbed her hand and hauled her up the porch steps after him, but time suddenly seemed to be moving in slow motion. Her mind shouted at her to hurry, but her legs felt as if they were weighted with sand. A lifetime flashed before her eyes in the time it took to struggle up the steps and stumble onto the porch.
"Shoot, damn it! Shoot!"
Cantu's order whipped across the water behind them just as Grant reached the cabin door. Wasting no time in knocking, he threw it back on its hinges and pulled Katie inside after him.
The dark-haired man just stepping out of the bathroom into the cabin's small living room stopped short in the doorway, his gray eyes flaring with recognition and alarm as they settled on Grant. "Sam! What the devil—"
* * *
Chapter 11
« ^ »
Stunned silence filled the cabin. Katie's breathing was ragged, and water dripped from her sodden clothes to pool at her feet on the bare wood floor. Impossible thoughts ricocheted in her head. Sam! Why did this man who apparently knew Grant call him Sam? He couldn't mean Sam Bradford. Sam Bradford was dead. Dear God, he was dead! Wasn't he?
She refused to even acknowledge her doubt. It wasn't true! Sam Bradford and Grant Elliot couldn't be the same man. She would have known? One had been a close friend, the other her lover, and they were nothing alike. Grant was twenty pounds leaner than Sam, gaunt and hard, with a voice like sandpaper and a face that looked as if it had been sculptured with a rough hand. He was attractive, but he would never in a million years have Sam Bradford's classical good looks.
Even as Katie tried to convince herself she was being ridiculous, she found herself staring at Grant, searching past the beard that concealed half his face for the damning similarities. His eyes were blue. So were Sam's. His nose was every bit as proud as Sam's, his smile, without the beard, as rakish. She swallowed, her heart jerking painfully in her breast. A sob welled in her throat as suddenly, inexplicably, she knew. His face was Grant's, the cheekbones, chin, and voice all different, but somehow, some way, he was Sam.
"Oh, God!" Her eyes huge in her pale face, she stepped away from him, shaking her head in denial. "How?" she whispered hoarsely. "It's not possible."
"Katie…" Sam Bradford reached out for her, but she flinched, wrapping her arms around herself as if she were chilled to the bone. The look of hurtful reproach she shot him stabbed him right in the heart. He swore, dropping his hand to his side, his face turning rigid. Damn it, he hadn't wanted her to find out like this! Not from someone she didn't even know, when he didn't have time to make her understand that he'd had no other choice.
Biting out a vicious oath, he turned to the man who still stood in the bathroom doorway. "I haven't got time to explain, Austin. We've got to get out of here damn quick or we're all going to be dead."
To his credit, Austin LePort didn't even bat an eyelash. A man of action who didn't waste time with questions, he immediately started for the back door to the cabin. "The
air boat's tied up out back. Let's go."
He took three steps when suddenly, without warning, an angry burst of gunfire peppered the porch. The front windows shattered; glass went flying everywhere. Sam dropped to the floor, his curses turning the air blue when he saw that Katie, still stunned, was only just now beginning to move. "Damn it, Katie, get away from that window!" he growled and jerked her down beside him.
Across the room, Austin dived for cover behind his reading chair just as another barrage of bullets struck the building. The lamp next to him took a direct hit and exploded in a shower of sparks. Darkness fell like a shroud. "Well, hell," he muttered in disgust. "You associate with the damnedest people, Bradford. Who is that?"
"Cantu," he retorted curtly. "Who else?"
"I should have known. You're still determined to get yourself killed over this story." Peering through the blackness, he could just barely make out the two, figures huddled under the windows. "You okay?"
"I'll be a hell of a lot better when we get out of the line of fire," Sam snapped, blindly searching in the dark for Katie's waist to help her up. But he'd hardly touched her when she stiffened, cringing. He swore savagely. "Katie, do you think I wanted you to find out this way?" he demanded, deliberately clamping her against him before she could struggle away. "I know you're hurt, and you've got every right to hate me, but you've got to let me explain!"
His fingers burned into her side like tongues of flame. She cried out, her mind suddenly blurring. "Grant, please—" A choked sob broke from her. "Oh, God," she whispered. "Not Grant. Sam … Sam…"
He jerked his hands away from her as if he'd been burned, her pain-thickened murmur lancing him like a knife. "What?" he demanded hoarsely. "What is it?"
His fingers were gone, but the fire in her side raged on like an inferno, and suddenly it was difficult to breathe. Gasping, she tried to touch the painful spot, but her limbs turned leaden as the strength just seemed to seep out of her. Still half-sprawled across Sam, her hand fell back weakly to his chest. "Left s-side," she managed faintly.
