In spite of the unfavorable viewing conditions, they encountered a steady stream of tourists as they walked through the entrance and made their way past the gift shops and food center. As they emerged from the Hall of Flags onto the wide Grand View Terrace, Claudia’s gaze darted about for a ten-year-old boy in a blue coat and red cap, but there were no kids of any age or gender among the clusters of sightseers that mingled along the wall and railing.
The mist over the mountain was so thick only a portion of the presidents could be seen from the terrace, but Claudia barely noticed. She focused her attention instead on the series of paved and elevated trails that wound around the base of the mountain and through the lush ponderosa forest. If a boy in a blue coat and red cap was down there somewhere, she couldn’t spot him.
She turned back to Jack. “What do we do now? Are you sure this is where he’ll be?”
“Yes.” He walked to the wall and glanced out over the valley toward the monument.
“Do you have any idea where we should start looking for him?” she asked, trying to quash the nervous jitters in her stomach. Was she really doing this? Putting her life on the line for a complete stranger? For a claim that might not even have a basis in reality?
Apparently, she was.
Jack’s gaze rested on the monument and he frowned. “Is there a way we can get closer?”
“You mean closer to the faces? We can walk the Presidents Trail. That’ll put us right under the monument at some point.” Claudia gestured toward the side of the terrace. “There’s an elevator or we can take the stairs down to the visitor’s center…hey!”
Before she could even complete her explanation, he was already heading toward the stairs and she had to hurry to catch up with him. She had long legs, but there was no way she could match his stride without breaking into a trot.
At the bottom of the stairs, they made their way through the tourists milling around the visitors’ center and those moseying toward the museum, then set out through the dripping trees.
The crowds soon thinned. Maybe it was the thick fog or the stillness of the preternatural forest, but Claudia experienced a strange sense of foreboding. No one knew they were there, but she kept glancing over her shoulder to see if they were being watched or followed.
It’s just the eyes, she tried to rationalize. The sculpture had been ingeniously designed to make the eyes appear lifelike. The effect was at once awe-inspiring and a little unsettling. Today, however, the faces could barely be seen through the mist so that was a hard justification to swallow.
Jack’s intense focus didn’t help her jitters. If ever she’d seen a man on a mission, it was he. And there she was, blindly following him into only God knew what.
She stumbled, righted herself and kept going. The slope was deceptively steep and the dampness made the wooden boardwalk slippery. The intermittent steps and trail had been designed for a more leisurely hike, but Jack kept up the rapid pace, striding along with that fierce sense of purpose, shoulders slightly forward, head up and alert.
But even in his haste, there was something very stealth-like about his movements. Something very vigilant about the way he cocked his head from time to time, listening to the silence. An owl’s plaintive cry floated out from the woods and he paused, waited, then moved on.
Finally, he slowed again as they approached a viewing area right beneath the sculpture. In good weather, one could almost look straight up Washington’s nose, but not so much today. The fog was like a shroud, Claudia thought with a shudder.
As Jack studied their surroundings, she took the opportunity to observe him. He seemed so different out here, almost catlike in the slinky, predatory way he moved. The metamorphosis was truly stunning. Back at the cabin, he’d come across as confused and delusional, a man balancing on that thin tightrope of sanity. Out here, he appeared in his element. He stood taller, straighter, cloaked in an air of quiet confidence.
A puzzle wrapped in a mystery, Claudia thought.
She couldn’t tear her gaze off him.
Shoving her hands into her pockets, she huddled inside her coat. She was freezing, but in spite of his inadequate clothing, Jack seemed unfazed by the weather.
Is the man even human? she wondered.
“What are we doing here?” she asked, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. She stamped her feet to keep warm and to try and burn off some of her nervous energy. But no matter what she did, she couldn’t dispel the flutter of anticipation in her stomach and the shiver of awareness that whispered along her backbone.
Here she was, on a potentially foolhardy quest with an enigmatic stranger, and all she felt at that very moment was…what? Attraction? Excitement? The thrill of the hunt?
And some fear. Thank God for that. At least she hadn’t completely lost her mind.
“Well?” she prompted when he didn’t respond to her question. “What are we doing, Jack? I haven’t seen a single kid since we got here.”
He still didn’t answer. Instead, he rotated his head slowly from side to side, scouring the shrouded scenery. Then he glanced back toward the amphitheater and viewing platform. After a moment, he left the path and took a few steps toward the trees.
“Hey, come on now, you’re not supposed to do that,” Claudia said as she pointed to a sign that advised visitors to stay on the trail. “You’ll have the rangers down here on us.”
He didn’t even bother to glance back, paying no heed to her warning or the sign. He kept walking and soon disappeared into the thick forest of conifers that grew at the base of the mountain.
“That’s just great,” Claudia muttered. See what happens when you throw your lot in with a nut job?
That strange hush fell over her again as she watched the pale drift of mist through the trees where Jack had vanished. She could smell damp earth and evergreens and last season’s rotting leaves. The fecund scent reminded her not of growing things, but of death and decay. Of the approaching winter and her coming hibernation.
Loneliness gnawed at her gut but she tried to ignore it. She had more important things to concentrate on at the moment.
Like wild animals.
Claudia had lived in the woods long enough to be accustomed to wary eyes and the rustle of leaves beneath scurrying paws. But in that eerie vacuum of silence, the sudden crunch of underbrush startled her, and she couldn’t help wondering what might be out there. Her imagination took flight as she pictured all sorts of predatory creatures—mythical and otherwise—sneaking up on her. The mist would hide them all. The bears and the mountain lions. The werewolves and vampires and the monsters who preyed on innocent children.
As the seconds ticked by, she grew more nervous. She was used to solitude, but this was different. Something about this place bothered her, and she didn’t like being there by herself. They’d encountered very few people on the trail and now that Jack had taken off, she felt exposed and vulnerable in spite of the mist. A sitting duck.
On clear days, the clamor of footsteps on the wooden walkway would have alerted her to anyone approaching, but the fog muffled sound so thoroughly that she was startled when a couple suddenly appeared out of nowhere.
Recovering from her shock, she looked for a boy in their company, but they were alone.
The woman smiled and the man nodded before vanishing back into the haze.
Claudia let out a breath. No bears or werewolves, thank goodness. Just a couple of harmless tourists. She stared after them, rubbing her arms to keep warm.
A few moments later, Jack clamored back onto the walkway, but for some reason, his sudden emergence from the mist didn’t faze her. It was almost as if she’d known when and where he would appear, but that was impossible. She wasn’t the pre-cog.
Maybe I just have really good hearing, Claudia thought. Or uncanny instincts.
She looked at him askance. “Where did you go off to?”
“I needed to reconnoiter.”
Reconnoiter? The word jarred Claudia. It wasn’t something
one heard in everyday life.
Did he still think he was Michael Alden from Coronet Blue? Was this all just a powerful delusion she’d let herself buy into?
And this newfound persona…the toughness, the stealth. Where had that come from? Or was it, too, a part of the delusion?
If so, Claudia had to say, it was pretty damn convincing.
“Why were you…reconnoitering?”
His gaze trapped her for a moment before moving on. But Claudia felt a tingle up her spine just the same. Three words came to mind as she stared up at him: tall, dark and handsome. A cliché had never been more apt.
“The tangos have the advantage because we don’t know anything about them,” he said. “But we can at least know the terrain.”
“Tangos?” she asked almost in dread.
His jaw hardened as he spared her a glance. “The enemy. The people who will come for the boy. We have to be ready for them.”
The steely conviction in his voice and the icy determination in his eyes set Claudia’s heart to pounding. Maybe this was all a delusion and maybe it wasn’t. She could say only one thing with certainty at the moment—Jack Maddox was a strange and powerful enigma. A compelling chameleon, who, in the space of a few short hours, had turned her world upside down.
“I’m glad you’re on my side,” she murmured, though not loud enough for him to hear. She would definitely not want to cross swords with the man she saw before her. He loomed over her, tall and formidable, and she could do nothing but gawk in awe.
He seemed oblivious to her scrutiny as he blew on his hands to warm them up.
“Here.” She took off her wool scarf and tried to drape it around his neck, but he grabbed her hand to stop her. His lightning reaction was so unexpected that Claudia actually jumped.
“What’s the matter?” she asked, her breath catching in her throat as his gaze clamped onto hers. His eyes were a deep, deep blue, like shadowed sea water. Mysterious and fathomless. So very dangerous.
“I thought you were—” He said nothing else as he searched her face. He seemed to be waiting, but for what, Claudia had no idea.
Then her mind went to the bruises on his neck and she winced. No wonder he was so jumpy.
He glanced away as he dropped her hand.
Claudia purposefully softened her voice. “It’s okay. It’s just a scarf. It’ll help keep you warm. You need it more than I do. I’ve got a coat and gloves. You must be freezing.”
“I’m used to the cold.”
“You are? Maybe that means you’re from the area,” she said as she tentatively held out the scarf. Although that was hardly a revelation, since he’d been on foot when she found him. He couldn’t have gotten far in a freezing downpour and inadequate clothing.
“I don’t know what it means.” He hesitated, then bent forward so that she could loop the wool around his neck.
His words sounded haunted and lost, and Claudia caught a glimpse of the same confused man who’d wandered into the path of her car the night before. But the betraying look was gone in an instant as his features hardened and his eyes turned back to steel. The transformation was breathtaking.
We can at least know the terrain.
We have to be ready for them.
Good heavens, Claudia thought. What have I gotten myself into?
She was no soldier, nor was she particularly courageous. She’d managed to survive as a hunted woman for the past two years, not from any heroics on her part, but out of sheer desperation.
Still, everything considered, she did have one thing working in her favor. Her survival instinct was pretty damn fearsome these days.
“You keep saying ‘they.’ What did you see in your vision?” she asked nervously. “How many will come for him?”
“Maybe one, maybe many—” He stopped, his eyes sweeping the countryside, and then he went on. “We have to be prepared.”
Maybe one, maybe many. That wasn’t much comfort.
Claudia shivered.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “They won’t come today.”
“How do you know?”
He tilted his head to the veiled monument. “Because you can’t see the faces.”
Claudia glanced up through the tree branches. The fog was a thick, gray sheet pierced through in places by dark green boughs. “So?”
He made a little gesture of impatience. “When I saw the boy, I could also clearly see the faces behind him. There was no mist.” He paused again, frowning, as if trying to call forth other details of the vision. “And I saw light in the eyes.”
“In the presidents’ eyes? Oh, I know what that is,” Claudia said excitedly. “I read somewhere that the pupil of each eye is a shaft of granite. When sunlight shines on the flat end, the eyes appear to twinkle.” She grew even more animated. “If you can see light in the eyes, then that must mean the sun is shining directly on the monument when the boy is taken.”
He slanted a quick look of surprise. “That makes sense.”
“So what we have to figure out is the angle of the light. Then we can pinpoint the location.” Claudia turned and dipped her head toward the terrace and amphitheater. “It has to be back that way or else you wouldn’t get the ‘twinkle’ effect in the eyes.” She glanced up at the monument. “See what I mean?”
He followed her gaze. “Yes.”
“Then we should probably head back, don’t you think? We can retrace our steps or follow the trail all the way around to the other side. That’ll put us closer to the parking garage.” She stopped and studied him for a moment. “I don’t know how these things work…the visions, I mean, but if you can remember exactly how the monument is positioned behind the boy, it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out the location.”
A little silence.
He stared down at her, something hard and cold gleaming in his eyes. Something that tingled the back of Claudia’s neck.
“What is it?” she asked quickly.
“You go back. I’m not finished here yet.”
“What do you mean? What else is there to do?”
“Just go back.”
His insistence, along with his demeanor, was very disconcerting. Suddenly, Claudia was truly afraid of what he might be up to.
She looked at him with open suspicion. “What are you going to do? What aren’t you telling me?”
The dark eyes were inscrutable beneath the black brows. “It’s like I said before. Our best defense is to know the terrain.”
“So you’re going to reconnoiter some more? Maybe I should come with you. I need to know the area, too, don’t I?”
Another pause. “It’s better if I go alone. Go back and warm up. I’ll be there soon.”
Claudia didn’t particularly care for his dismissive tone, and she told herself she should just end the whole thing right then and there. Bid him adios and be done with the whole mess.
But instead she found herself asking, “How long will you be?”
“Not long.”
“And that’s it? That’s all you’re going to tell me?”
There was nothing dismissive about the way he stared down at her now. His eyes drew her in, made her want to believe him when she knew she should just walk away.
He said her name.
A little thrill shot up her spine. “Yes?”
Even her voice held a faint quiver. This was so not like her. What was happening here? Where was the kick-ass fugitive who’d eluded a brutal killer all on her own for two whole years?
There were no saviors and protectors. Even in her old life, Claudia had never been the type to rely on anyone else. And she’d never believed in fairy tales. She was smarter and much more sophisticated than that. Or at least…she’d always thought so.
This behavior…the trembling knees, the dry mouth, the thumping heartbeat…this was not her.
His gaze deepened. “I need you to trust me.”
No! Claudia wanted to scream. I don’t want to trust you. Why should I? I don’t know anything abo
ut you. I shouldn’t even be here with you.
But those eyes…
God, those incredible eyes made her want to believe all sorts of impossible things.
She hoped none of that showed on her face, but just in case, she tore her gaze away and took a step back from him. “All right, look. I’ll go find some hot coffee,” she said, in what she hoped was a perfectly normal tone. “I’ll meet you back on the terrace. If you’re not there in half an hour, I’m leaving without you.”
“Then I’ll be there.”
“You’d better be.”
She turned to go, but he caught her arm and she slowly faced him. For a moment, she could say nothing, and then she moistened her lips and strove for a careless, impatient tone. “What now?”
He removed the scarf from his neck and wrapped it carefully around her throat. “There.”
His fingers brushed against the underside of her jaw, shocking her, and Claudia said sharply, “Thanks.”
What it her imagination, or had his fingers lingered? Was it only wishful thinking, or had she seen a flash of desire in those dark, soulful eyes?
And then a brief smile flickered across his face and for a split second, Claudia forgot how to breathe.
Chapter Sixteen
The coffee helped revive Claudia, but the warmth was only a momentary reprieve. As she waited on the terrace, she could feel the cold seeping through her coat and with it, a certainty that something was very wrong. Jack should have been back before now. Where on earth was he? Had he run into trouble?
Maybe he’d been mistaken about sunlight on the faces in his vision. Maybe this really was the day the kidnapping would take place, and he was down there right now, dealing with the hostile “tangos” on his own.
Or…maybe he’d just up and run off, leaving her high and dry.
Wouldn’t be the first time she’d been stood up. Taking into account her old life, nothing much would surprise Claudia when it came to Jack Maddox. Everything about him was so truly bizarre, she had no measuring stick. Her brain told her what she should do, but her gut told her something else.
Logically, she knew she shouldn’t trust him—or anyone—and yet she couldn’t deny there was an attraction. She was drawn to him. What that meant or where it would lead, she had no idea. Only that when she gazed into those blue eyes, she wanted more than anything to believe him. She desperately needed for him to be one of the good guys.
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