Ghosting (PAVAD: FBI Romantic Suspense Book 10)

by Brookes, Calle J.

  They lucked out. About twenty-five minutes of trudging up the gravel and mud road there was a small path. He made a quick decision. They had to find shelter somehow. The storm raged around them. And they faced a very real possibility of being hit by falling trees or struck by lightning. “This way.” She didn’t say anything, just followed along behind him. Docilely. That wasn’t his Kelly at all. “This way, baby.”

  To his everlasting relief, there was a small shed—old, boarded up—but it would be shelter. If he could get them inside. “Stay here for a moment.”

  She nodded. “I’m with you, babe.”

  “I know you are.” He didn’t waste any more time. There was a way into the shed; he just had to find it. It took some work, but he managed to get the backdoor open enough for her to slip inside. He was seconds behind her just as more lightning flashed around them. Yes, the place looked like something out of a horror movie, and any other time he’d have been like hell no, but it should be enough to keep them dry and out of the storm.

  Once inside, he poked around the shed, searching for anything they could use. There were a few old blankets that had a dusty animal smell, but they would keep them warm. As it was, Kelly was soaked and shivering. Josh had a dry shirt in his bag, but that was it.

  And they’d need something to set her arm. Supplies for that were much easier to come by. He settled for pulling some small pieces of old kindling out of a pile by the back door and grabbing one of the old blankets. He had his knife in his bag and some Tylenol. It wouldn’t be extremely effective against the pain of a broken arm, but it would help some. He hoped. The idea of her hurting made him almost physically sick. But she didn’t complain at all.

  In fact, Kelly was quieter than he’d expected. And that worried him most of all. She should be making snarky comments and telling him to hurry or something. Not just sitting there, quiet and still. Waiting for him to fix things for them both.

  He dug the shirt and the knife—and the Tylenol—out of his bag. “Here. I’ll close my eyes.” He tossed her the shirt.

  “You’ll have to help me. I can’t get my shirt off with this hand.”

  He tried, but every time he got near her left arm, he could tell it was hurting her. He settled for cutting through the dripping wet black cotton. Her shirt was ruined anyway. “Here. It buttons up.” He did his best to help her. Finally, she was buttoned into the shirt, and he had an old blanket wrapped around her shoulders. “All the comforts of home, huh? Here. Take these.”

  She dutifully swallowed the pills, using one of the bottles of water from their bags. “Do you think they’ll find us here? Those oh-so-not-rangers?”

  “I don’t know. They could just as easily have gone west when we headed east.” He hoped. There was always the chance that the rain had eradicated their footprints. And the bastards would be completely stupid to worry about him and Kelly instead of escaping. Or finding shelter of their own. “I’ve still got my gun and plenty of rounds if they do.”

  “Do you have the phone?”

  He’d already checked. “Even the best satellite phone signal isn’t going to do us a damned bit of good with a broken case. Unless you know how to put it back together again?” He went straight to work on her arm, trying to ignore how she trembled.

  “Tech isn’t my thing. I’d rather deal with DNA. Sorry.” She was holding herself as still as she possibly could, but Josh knew it was taking so much out of her. What could happen to someone with a broken arm that wasn’t immediately tended to? Shock? The bone hadn’t penetrated the skin anywhere he could see, but he wasn’t an expert, by any means.

  “I’ll just immobilize it. I don’t want to mess with it too much. I’ll just end up doing more harm than good.”

  She nodded. “Thank you.”

  He surprised them both when he pulled her closer. “We’ll get home. I promise you.”

  He meant it, but as the hours went by—mostly with Kelly sitting quietly next to him on the dirt floor—he wondered exactly how they would do that.

  Chapter 8

  The next morning her arm hurt so badly she wanted to puke. If there had been anything in her stomach, she might have done exactly that. The sun was up, and Josh had shaken her awake gently. It didn’t matter—as the night had worn on, the pain in her arm had only grown. There was no doubt in her mind that it was broken again.

  She sat up and grabbed the bottle of water and pack of pain pills he was holding out to her. He’d taken his shirt off, and wore only his white undershirt, and his hair had dust all in it.

  But they were alive. For now. They had no way of knowing if those faux rangers were out there, just waiting for them to step outside. That was a very real possibility, wasn’t it? Although if that was true, they would have had to spend the night outside in that storm. And it had been a nasty one, with high wind and hail battering at the shed off and on through the night. Did they have tornadoes in the mountains of Tennessee? If so, she’d bet good money that’s what she and Josh had gone through. “Figured out how we get home yet?”

  She’d settle for just making it off the mountain at this point. Home could come later.

  “Hey, you know your father probably started going nuts about sixteen hours ago when we didn’t check in.”

  “So should we wait here? See if they find us?”

  No. Because that would make them sitting ducks, wouldn’t it? But the idea of walking back down a mountain wasn’t any more appealing. “What do we do, Josh?”

  “We can’t stay here. And your dad will be wondering. And I don’t have an unending supply of bullets, Kel. As much as the idea of going all Tarzan and Jane in the wilderness out here appeals…it’s not exactly practical.”

  And if they stuck around they ran the very real risk of the shooters—most likely the killers they were after in the first place—finding them. That wasn’t something she wanted to think about. “Let’s go, then. The longer we sit around here, the longer it takes us to be found.”

  He smiled at her, a soft, tender expression that told her she’d done or said something that pleased him. Made him proud.

  He fashioned her a sling to hold her arm immobile, and he helped her put it on. She shifted closer to him—Josh smelled so much nicer than the old coarse blankets they’d used in the night. More, he was a big sense of comfort for her. No matter what happened, she knew she could always depend on him.

  That was just the way it was—the way he was. If she had to get lost in the woods with anyone she was glad it was with him.

  But that didn’t make the idea of hiking around the mountains of Tennessee any more appealing. “If we’re going to do this we need to get going. Can’t wait around all day.”

  “No, we can’t.” He held out a hand for her uninjured one. Kelly placed her fingers in his.

  Just right then, just for a little while, she needed the connection.

  And she half thought he might, too.

  ***

  They walked for hours. Literally. Down the mountain, over roads that terrified her at their narrowness. Part of the problem was that they didn’t know where they were—and these were not the same roads they’d traveled up. As far as Kelly could tell they were most likely on the backside of the mountain they’d originally hiked up with the killers. Not that far away, but she and Josh had no idea where those original trails were.

  But they’d both agreed that every road that went up had to go down. They just had to keep walking. She lost track of how long they did exactly that.

  The rain started all over again. Kelly didn’t know how much longer she could go on without a break. Only the thought that there could be two killers right behind them kept her going. That, and Josh.

  He wouldn’t give up on her, and the warm hand he still had around hers was just proof of that. “How much farther, do you think?”

  “Until we get there.”

  “Not what I meant. And you know it.”

  “We can get lucky, and this leads straight down into a town. Or
we can get shit out of luck and end up in the midst of real nowhere. That’s just as much a possibility—”

  Before Kelly could say anything else, she heard a steady whurp whurp whurp. It sounded too far away for her to be certain, but her heart was afraid to hope.

  A helicopter.

  She fought the urge to cry. If they could catch the pilot’s attention, the guy could send help. But how were they to let the pilot know they needed it?

  “How do we get their attention?”

  “We can try.” He pulled his shirt off his head. She watched him move quickly. He grabbed a long branch about the diameter of a baseball bat. He cut two small strips into the fabric and tied the cloth to the limb.

  He waved it over his head, and that put the yellow cotton more than ten feet in the air. The helicopter flew directly overhead.

  Kelly’s eyes did water when she saw the bright white letters emblazoned across the bottom. FBI.

  Her father had come through.

  She threw herself into Josh’s arms and just hugged him.

  Chapter 9

  Merrick Cody fought the urge to pace around the forensics lab, instead forcing herself to focus on the evidence she carefully labeled. “Anything yet?”

  “No. Not yet.”

  How did Ally do it? How did she remain so calm, knowing Kelly was out there somewhere? Cody wouldn’t have been so calm if it was a part of her family out there.

  Not that she had much of one. She had her ex-husband and his new wife—strange situation, she knew—their daughter, and the little girl she’d adopted several months ago. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for Lucy.

  But Kelly was different, and maybe that was it. Even though Ally and Kelly were extremely close friends long before Ally had married Kelly’s father.

  Cody looked closer at Ally. And that’s when she saw the real worry. Ally was completely terrified, wasn’t she? “What are they doing?”

  “Dan grabbed whomever he could, and they took a helicopter to Tennessee. It’ll take them a while to search the area. But Kelly and Josh are smart and resourceful. They’ll be fine. And they are together. It’ll be ok.” Ally’s blue eyes met Cody’s. Cody pulled in a deep breath and then dropped the final sample back into the box. She pulled off her gloves, then patted her friend on the back.

  Ally was fighting tears, wasn’t she?

  “Of course they will. And I’m sure the locals are scouring the mountains looking. And Josh has two guns plus neither are exactly stupid.” But Kelly never carried a weapon, did she? Cody knew her friend didn’t, and they’d discussed it several times before. Forensics agents for PAVAD weren’t required to carry. But Cody had for the past year or so. She wished Kelly would, too.

  ***

  Smokey’s had a pale that Cody wasn’t sure she could handle this afternoon. But when Payton and some of the others who had been working the early shift had told her they were heading out to the local bar to wait for news on Kelly and Josh, and Lucy was already at a picnic with the babysitter’s daughter, Cody really hadn’t felt that she had much choice. She didn’t want to sit around waiting at home alone.

  And Payton and Luc were some of her best friends. It made sense to wait with them. But no one was saying much.

  She looked at the people around the table. “Damn. What on earth could have happened?”

  They’d all heard the news about an hour before their shift had ended. The bodies of a male and female had been found in the woods. It had been a tense few minutes until they’d learned the woman hadn’t had purple and red hair.

  But it confirmed everyone’s fears—something had happened out there. And Kelly and Josh were probably right in the middle of it.

  “I don’t know. But I’m sure they’re ok.” Payton said. “Agent Reynolds will find them.”

  This was the one thing Cody absolutely hated about their job. Since transferring to St. Louis from Indianapolis some of what her team had done had changed. Before they’d be in their lab, processing the samples and working those angles. But with PAVAD they were a lot more up close and personal with everything that was going on. That meant they were far more attached to the people who actually went into the field.

  And they had gone out into the field themselves on many, many occasions.

  She had never truly liked working the field; that’s why she had transferred to forensics. But in PAVAD it was a true team effort with the investigations. But this…this was horrible. And knowing people she cared about were out there somewhere was making her sick to even think about.

  Kelly wasn’t exactly the type of person who was made for grand adventures.

  She had to be terrified out there.

  Chapter 10

  Something was happening with Josh’s friends, wasn’t it?

  The first time she’d heard someone mention Smokey’s Bar she hadn’t wanted to go. Her father had loved alcohol so much—and spent so much of his time and paycheck at Smokey’s years ago—that the idea of setting foot in the dive had made her almost puke even thinking about it. But then someone said he would be there.

  That had made all the difference. And once she’d realized that the younger Smokey—what kind of father named his daughter that, she sounded like a cat!—had made so many changes to the bar that it hadn’t been anything like what she’d expected.

  It was tolerable.

  And the colleagues she worked with on a daily basis had welcomed her with open arms. It had been a nice feeling for a little while. And it made it a great cover for her and Josh to be together.

  Sometimes, when he was truly feeling the emotions between them, he would climb on stage with that friend of his J.T. and sing directly to her. It was the only way he’d communicated with her yet.

  She loved it when he would sing, and would tolerate when he’d do duets with some of those women he worked with.

  He’d never seemed particularly close to them, other than those teammates of his. But they were all married or involved with others. He had no one except his team and J.T.

  That worried her.

  He shouldn’t be alone. If he wasn’t so nervous of a relationship, they would have found a way to be together by now. But…even though she kept orchestrating ways for them to be together, he hadn’t yet made that first move.

  But…the rest of them at that table—they looked worried, didn’t they?

  Had something happened?

  One of the women he worked with, Agent Cody walked by on her way to the restroom. Jonas, one of her colleagues, had a bit of a thing for Agent Cody. He reached out and grabbed her by the arm. “Hey Cody, what’s up? You look like something’s wrong.”

  “Some friends are in a bit of trouble. We’re waiting for word if they’re ok, or not.” Agent Cody was preoccupied, wasn’t she? She didn’t understand it. She’d never had any friends she was that close to; at least not close enough to be so concerned.

  “Who? Anything we can do to help?” Jonas would do anything to get in good with Agent Cody. It must have been the woman’s big breasts. Agent Cody was what men called stacked. Too bad her body overshadowed her brains. She had respected Agent Cody’s work in the past, but a lot of the men they’d worked with didn’t.

  “Josh and Kelly are in Tennessee. They ran into some trouble on a case. But there’s a team out looking for them now. Thanks, Jonas, though.”

  She heard nothing else. All her mind could focus on was the fact that Josh was in trouble. And she didn’t know how to help him.

  Chapter 11

  Josh watched Kelly hug her father and the relief he’d felt at seeing familiar vehicles doubled. Dan would take care of her; he had no doubt about that.

  Hell met them by the Tennessee State patrol car. “Well. I take it this isn’t a CCU case any longer?”

  “They were still alive when last we saw them. We’ve been holed up for the duration of the storm. We’ll need to get her arm looked at. She broke it when we fell.” But at least she was alive. Safe.

  And
no longer dependent on him to keep her that way. At least he hadn’t failed her.

  She looked beautiful, the rain falling lightly around her as she stepped away from her dad. Her hair was wet and hung loose around her shoulders, and the spare shirt he’d given her hours ago was plastered against her skin.

  She wasn’t as flat chested as he’d thought.

  That stray thought had him losing focus on what his boss was saying. “I’m sorry. Can you repeat that?”

  Hell looked at him, and Josh knew the older man had read his mind. “I said, we found the rangers’ bodies. Execution style; it was over quickly. They didn’t even have a chance.”

  “We got lucky.”

  “Very much so. They’ve apparently raped and murdered before. One of the rangers, she was thirty-five years old and a single mother. It wasn’t easy before they killed her.”

  “I want these guys, Hell.” More. He needed to stop them, to help erase the sight of Kelly’s fearful green eyes from his mind. And he’d promised. “I gave her my word I’d stop them.”

  The older man put a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “I understand. Believe me, I do.”

  Josh took one look at Kelly, then turned away. “Let’s get to it, then. I’m not stopping until we have them.”

  “Understood.”

  ***

  Kelly had never been so happy to see her father in her life, but watching Josh walk away with his boss felt wrong for some reason.

  They’d been alone in the woods for an entire night, curled together in the shed while the storm raged around them and something had shifted in their relationship. She wasn’t sure what that shift was, but she felt almost…panicky…at the idea of the two of them separating.

  That would change once she was cleaned up, and her arm tended to. Once she was back home in her nice warm apartment and could figure out how she felt about all of this. How was someone supposed to feel about it?