by Rachel Grant
She pursed her lips and said nothing.
“Here’s the deal, Iz. You got us this far. I’m impressed you’ve found the proverbial needle in the haystack, but from this point forward, I’m in command. You will follow my orders, or I’ll handcuff you to a tree and leave you while I search for the cave. It’s that simple.”
“You’re bluffing. You don’t have handcuffs.”
“Wrong. I have two pairs in my pack. I grabbed them before I left the compound, because if there’s anyone in the cave, I intend to take them alive.”
She made a grumbling sound and said under her breath, “I should have known that if you remembered condoms, you’d remember handcuffs.”
He laughed. “I didn’t remember condoms. Those were already in my pocket. Lucky break. Now. Are you taking the deal, or do I need the cuffs?”
She met his gaze unflinchingly, then finally said, “Fine. But for the record, this is the only time you’re permitted to order me around like one of your employees.”
He grinned. “Honey, when we get back to my suite, you can order me around all you want. I’ll even give you control of the handcuffs.”
She paused. “What if in that situation, I want to be handcuffed?”
The thought of Isabel strapped to his headboard gave him an instant hard-on. “That can be arranged.” The words came out huskier than he intended.
She gripped the straps of his backpack and slipped her tongue into his mouth for a fast kiss, then said, “Sounds fun. My safeword will be…tiger.”
He had no clue what word he expected her to choose; all he knew was it wasn’t that. “Tiger? You called me that before. Why?”
“Because you’re the tiger king.”
“Tiger king? But tigers are solitary. No pride. No kings.”
“Tigers are sexier than lions, ergo, you’re a tiger.”
He laughed at that leap of logic and couldn’t wait to get back to his suite to discuss the issue in detail. “Fine. Your safeword is tiger, but when I have you handcuffed to my bed, you won’t want to use it.”
“I’m counting on that.”
He kissed her one more time, then took the lead in the trek toward the stream.
She was a dangerous distraction, but he’d never be this close to getting answers without her help, so he’d have to find a way to bury his libido as long as they were in this section of woods. It wasn’t safe.
They found the tributary and headed upstream as planned. Following his orders, Isabel trailed right behind him. They reached a flat basalt face that had been scoured by a glacier thousands of years ago. “Alec, that’s a petroglyph on the rock face.”
He studied the etched lines. “Not a lynx.”
“No. A hawk. I think. Ironic that it’s a raptor.” She paused. “It could be a prehistoric marker. A helpful note that a rock-shelter, cave, or storage pit is nearby.”
“Like a road sign?”
“Sure you can call it that. Exit twenty-two, prehistorically speaking.”
He smiled. They could use a sign right now.
He paced the edge of the face. Flat. Cold. No breaks, nothing to indicate a cave was nearby. He reached the edge of the sheer face, where it jutted out from a rock-sprinkled slope and rounded the bend. The face didn’t project from the slope in a solid, attached wall of rock; it was a massive boulder that had been pushed from the top of the foothill by a glacier thousands of years ago. What appeared to be a face was really a flat, hundred-foot-wide boulder that rested against a rocky hillside. A deep crevasse separated boulder from hill.
Isabel gasped. “The boulder is a capstone.” Astonishment filled her voice. “No wonder I missed it before. This was probably a simple rock-shelter—just a deep overhang—until the boulder landed in front of it.”
She turned and gazed downslope. “We came a different route up the stream today, but on Thursday, I’m pretty sure I walked through that stand of trees.” She pointed to the stand. “And I went up that ridge. Then I looked at my watch and realized I needed to get back to my survey area.”
“That’s when I heard you and came out of the trance.”
She took a step toward the opening.
He caught her arm to stop her. “I enter first. I’ll call out if it’s safe for you.” He could see she wanted to argue, to insist on blindly entering—as she’d have done if he hadn’t been with her. “We don’t know what’s in there. Do the smart thing, Iz. We’ve come this far.”
She frowned but nodded.
He took her face between his hands and kissed her. He released her and pulled his gun. Isabel pressed a canister of bear spray into his other hand. He nodded in thanks and stepped into the crevasse between boulder and hillside.
The opening was low and narrow, a tight squeeze for Alec’s shoulders. An adult bear would have difficulty squeezing through, giving him hope none would have taken up residence inside. He shuffled forward in a slow, careful gait, aware that if there was a human predator inside the cave, they could zap him with a torrent of infrasound while the slim crevasse constricted him.
Finally, he made it through, facing no infrasound attack. The space to his right widened while to his left was the flat, glacially carved boulder. The cave was the shape of an open pita pocket—no walls, just floor and ceiling coming together in a sideways vee.
He ran his flashlight beam over the jagged ceiling and floor. The space was empty except for a few sleeping bats hanging from the ceiling. It smelled awful, bat guano and something else—likely the remains of a carnivore’s dinner—but it looked like no human had ever been here.
“Alec?” Isabel’s shout was muffled by the thick rock wall.
He tucked away his gun as disappointment filtered through him. He’d felt certain this was the place, yet it didn’t look familiar. But then, there had been lights. The dream had been like an overexposed photograph, which was why he suspected his eyes had been dilated. “Come in, Iz.”
A moment later, she was by his side. She explored the ceiling and floor with her own light, then stepped deeper into the cave, ducking to avoid low rock protrusions. Finally she stopped and let out a relieved sigh. “There.”
Alec moved to her side, so he could see where her flashlight beam had landed. She’d found a smooth stretch of rock on the ceiling etched with a grinning catlike face.
Isabel felt a strange jubilation. Strange, because this room had been a torture chamber. Jubilation, because she’d found it at last.
The lynx petroglyph proved Vin’s dream was real. He’d been out hiking—probably not far from here—and he’d been shot with infrasound and dragged to this cave, and they’d tested their weapons on him.
She’d excavated in a rock-shelter like this in Eastern Washington about five years ago. It had been used for storage pits thousands of years before, and there’d been very little dirt. Excavation was mostly removing cobbles from the unit one at a time. Every time she removed a rock, she’d watch the dirt slip between the cobbles below, sinking ever farther down. Taking soil samples had been nearly impossible.
If a forensic team came out to look for evidence that Vin and Alec were tortured here, they’d have a hell of a time trying to collect it.
She ran her flashlight over the ceiling, pausing on the bats, then shifted the beam to the floor, seeking some hint as to who had hurt her brother and her…she didn’t really know what to call Alec.
Had Godfrey been here? He may have lied about where he’d found Vin. He’d resigned from Raptor on Thursday, leaving him unaccounted for when someone shot her cabin with infrasound and Airwave on Friday.
She took a step toward the back to see beyond the two-foot-high boulders that littered the floor. The strong stench of rotting meat intensified. She gagged and peered over a boulder to see what critter had played a fatal role in the food chain, and stumbled backward in shock.
Something—wolf, lynx, coyote?—had feasted here. Actually, probably several somethings, given that there was very little left. The shocking part was the pr
ey wore clothing.
And not just any clothing. Raptor forest camouflage.
“Alec!” His name was all she could choke out. She covered her nose and mouth, desperately trying not to heave.
He stepped beside her and froze.
She managed to get her stomach under control and breathed through her mouth to avoid the smell. “Do you think it was an employee they were testing infrasound on?” The thought made her belly roll again. Another victim, like Vin. Like Alec.
Alec said nothing. He could have been made of marble as he stood staring at the mutilated remains.
“Alec?”
He met her gaze, but his eyes were blank. “No. Not a victim.”
“How can you be sure?”
“It was me.”
“What do you mean?” Fear spiked. He wasn’t making sense.
“I mean I did it. I remember it all now. Right before I was hit in the head and knocked unconscious, I snapped this guy’s neck. I killed him.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Alec stared at the body. Adrenaline flooded his system. He’d killed this man. The memory punched him in the gut with enough force to make him wonder if he’d cough up blood.
He’d killed a man during the lost hours, and the memory had been suppressed, not by his own brain, but by the bastards who’d taken him. The hole in his memory was a violation. He felt no remorse over the killing. No, his outrage was over the memory gap, that something so important could be altered in his mind.
This kill had been self-defense. As a soldier, he’d killed. He didn’t regret those deaths. All Tangos had been valid targets. Threats to be neutralized.
He’d compartmentalized and moved on. But this… this was an entirely different kind of compartmentalization. His memory of this had been buried. Someone had seriously fucked with his mind.
I didn’t remember killing a human being.
His brain was his greatest asset. He might not be as smart as genius Curt, and he didn’t doubt Lee had a few IQ points on him, but he was no dummy and had a degree from Harvard to prove it. The idea that someone had screwed around in his brain enraged him.
Fight or flight surged through him—except flight had been trained out of him, so he was all fight with no one to rip apart.
He sucked in a deep breath. Flexed his fingers. Punching the rock ceiling wouldn’t do anything but break his hand and scare the shit out of Isabel.
Time to find out who this person was and get the hell out of this cave of forgotten nightmares.
In control again, he grabbed a bandanna from his backpack and crouched by the remains. There wasn’t much left. The face had been chewed on to the point of being unrecognizable and the few scraps of clothing had been shredded and matted with blood. Using the bandanna, he lifted the torn sleeve, exposing flesh and bone.
Behind him, he heard Isabel gag. “Look away, Iz. Anything we find won’t be pretty.”
“I can take it. Or I’ll puke. One or the other.”
The putrid stench of rotting flesh hit him in a wave. “I might puke with you.” Slowly, carefully, he lifted another section of cloth, revealing the man’s wrist and gloved hand. If this crime scene weren’t so damn remote—odds were more of the man’s body would be eaten before a forensic team could get out here—and if he didn’t know exactly who’d killed the guy—he’d never touch the remains. But right now he needed answers that couldn’t wait for FBI crime scene techs.
He stared at the small patch of skin on the wrist. The edge of a tattoo was visible. He looked up at Isabel. “Do you recognize this ink?”
“There’s not enough to be sure. A few operatives have full-sleeve tats, but only one hasn’t been around the last few days.”
Her words confirmed his thoughts. “Ted Godfrey.”
Isabel backed away from the remains as the full import sank in. Her heel caught on a rock, and she stumbled, falling on her ass on the rocky floor. A stone gouged her butt, but the pain didn’t register as her mind reeled from an entirely different source of agony.
Nicole, last night at dinner, her voice firm without a trace of hesitation: “I begged Godfrey to stay. Quitting without notice when the CEO was about to arrive was shitty as hell.”
But Godfrey hadn’t quit, not if he was here—and dead—which meant Nicole couldn’t beg him to stay.
“Nicole is one of them.” Isabel had always known it was possible, but she’d never wanted to believe it.
Unfortunately, it fit. Nicole could easily have given quotes to the Sun, her outrage this morning merely an act to deflect suspicion. She cleared her throat. “You need to ask Nicole to produce a letter of resignation. Proof Godfrey quit.”
Alec nodded. “She won’t have it. She’s part of this. She’s probably the leader of this whole operation.”
“But why? Why would she do this?”
“I don’t know, Iz. But we’ll find out.” He pulled out his cell phone and began snapping pictures of the remains. “We need to head to town and talk to the FBI.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
Alec nodded toward the remains. “That we think it’s Ted Godfrey, and I killed him while he was torturing me.”
“There will be questions. Doubts. It will destroy any chance you have of getting elected.” This would ruin him in a way that wasn’t fair. Not that she expected life to be fair—she knew better than anyone that there was no such thing as fair in this world. But still, for Alec to lose everything because he’d been abducted was wrong.
He shrugged. “We have to tell them.”
“Why do you think they left Godfrey here?”
Alec snapped another picture. The cell phone camera flash burned the grisly image of human entrails in her brain. “In two more days, there’d have been nothing left for anyone to find, and whoever was with Godfrey had to figure out what to do with me first. He—or she,” he added pointedly, “probably figured no one would find this cave. They went after your computer and cell phone to make it harder for you to retrace your steps. It’s even possible they planned to return to take care of Godfrey, but have been too busy at the compound to get away.”
A chill shot down her spine, and she turned toward the entrance. “They could come back at any time.”
“Yeah. Another reason we need to get to town and tell Agents Upton and Crews what we found.” He tucked his phone in his pocket. “Let’s go, Iz.”
They trekked through the woods as close to a run as possible given the terrain, making it to the car in record time. Alec pulled out his cell phone and frowned at the screen. “A dozen texts just landed.” He scanned the contents. “Most are from Keith. Compound evacuation is underway.” He tapped the screen. “Shit. Brad Fraser quit.”
Isabel’s stomach—still queasy from the cave—did another flip. She liked Brad. Bad enough Nicole was a traitor. Were all her supposed friends involved in her brother’s murder? “What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know, Iz. He’s been on my short list of suspects from the start.”
Admittedly, hers too. But that didn’t mean she’d believed it. But then, she hadn’t believed it of Nicole either.
“Did Keith say why he quit?”
“No. He just said Brad’s gone to Tamarack, and there was no legal recourse to keep him in the compound or send him to Fairbanks with the others.”
“Send him to Fairbanks?”
“All compound personnel are being sent to hotels in Fairbanks on paid leave. If they want to get paid, they have to stay in Fairbanks. That way we can search the compound top to bottom, without whoever is playing with infrasound getting in the way. Anyone who rejects the deal is suspect.”
“And Brad didn’t take the deal.”
“Where would he stay in Tamarack? With the exception of the motel rooms for the FBI agents, I’ve booked and paid for every room in town through the end of the week.”
Isabel felt the blood drain from her face in a mad dash to her heart. “Jenna’s. He’d stay with the R
oadhouse waitress, Jenna.” She swallowed hard. “Do you think Jenna is in danger from Brad?”
“I don’t know. We don’t even know if Brad’s involved.” Alec typed a message on his phone.
“Let’s go to Tamarack. I want to see Jenna. The FBI agents are there, not at the compound, right?”
He tucked his phone in his pocket and said, “Yeah. Let’s go.”
On the ride to town, she slumped down in the seat. She was bone tired. She’d only slept in segments—granted the middle of the night therapy session with Alec had been well worth losing sleep over—but in all she’d probably only slept four hours, then hiked several miles, and experienced pretty much every emotion a person could feel in the space of a few short hours. Lust, heartache, fear, shock, horror, something deeper that was dangerously close to caring, then right back to fear and horror again.
Anger was back too. Plus she knew an abyss of grief waited for her. Grief over what Vin had gone through, and horror that a woman she’d considered a friend was the monster she’d been seeking. “Yet another reason to avoid making friends,” she muttered.
“What?” Alec asked.
“Nicole. Brad. Jenna. Two people who might have killed my brother, and a third I’m scared will get hurt. Making friends, caring about people, it’s the most awful thing in the world.” She closed her eyes, thinking about all the people she’d lost. After losing her parents, she’d moved so many times that by her junior year in college—after she’d transferred from community college in northern California to Washington State University—she’d decided to stop making friends. She was so sick of missing people; it was easier to have no one.
From there, she’d continued the moving pattern. Never setting down roots long enough to grow attached. Grad school had been difficult because it required staying in the same place longer than she usually allowed. But even so, she’d gotten her master’s from one school and had been working on her PhD at another.
