Dead Man's Curve

by Paula Graves

  She followed him back into the now-crowded shelter. Gabe remained on his side, his chest rising and falling in a steady cadence.

  “I guess he needed rest more than he realized,” she whispered.

  “You better get some sleep, too,” Sinclair answered quietly. “I have a feeling whatever’s waiting for us out there is going to be twice as dangerous as before.”

  * * *

  THE DRUMBEAT OF rain on the tent put Ava right to sleep, and Sinclair didn’t have the heart to wake her. He knew she’d be angry that he let her drift off again, but she needed the rest as much as Gabe Cooper did.

  And he needed to think about what he should do next.

  Almost a full day had passed since they’d left Cabrera’s camp behind, and while Sinclair wanted to believe the terrorist was going to stay put while he and Ava brought in reinforcements, he couldn’t shake the niggling feeling that time was running out for them.

  They should have reached civilization by now, if they hadn’t been forced to go in circles for a while to be sure they hadn’t picked up a tail. Running into Gabe Cooper had only slowed them further, and considering the man’s physical condition, he wasn’t exactly going to help them pick up any speed.

  Meanwhile, Cabrera could be moving Alicia to God only knew where, and Sinclair might never pick up his trail again.

  He eased out of the tent, taking care not to wake Ava and Gabe. The heavy rain that had begun falling earlier had eased off to a drizzle again, tempting him from beneath the Ghillie net.

  Thanks to the rain, the temperature had dropped several degrees. The air had a clean, earthy smell that reminded him of the mountains of Sanselmo after the afternoon rains. He walked farther from the tent, skirting trees to provide himself some cover, in case someone was out there in the woods watching him.

  But he saw no sign of movement. No sounds beyond the steady cadence of rain in the trees overhead. He raised the hood of his camouflage jacket to cover his head and hiked deeper into the woods, away from the tent.

  He should have left a note, he realized belatedly. Let Ava know what he was planning. But maybe it was better that he hadn’t. She’d just try to follow him. After all, he thought with a quirk of a smile, he was her prisoner.

  Alone, taking a chance on a less convoluted path through the woods, he made much better time than he and Ava had made that morning, though he took care to mark his trail with notches in the trees he passed. The last thing he wanted to do was lose the trail back to Ava and Gabe Cooper.

  Within an hour, he had reached the bluff overlooking the hidden cove where he and Ava had spotted Cabrera’s camp below. He eased to the edge and sneaked a peek over the side. The camp was still there, hunkered silently in the rain. There were two men standing guard outside the tents, their postures tense.

  They must have already realized several of their men had gone missing. They would be on high alert now.

  He edged away from the bluff and rolled into a sitting position, preparing to rise to his feet now that he was far enough from the edge that no one below could see him.

  But as he put his hand down to push to his feet, a flash of movement in the woods to his right froze him in place.

  Moving only his eyes, he slowly turned his gaze toward the patch of woods where he’d seen something moving. All was still at the moment, but as he held his gaze steady, a dark figure detached itself from the tree where it had been standing a moment earlier and glided toward the bluff.

  One of Cabrera’s men, Sinclair decided after studying the camouflage pattern the man wore. It was old-school jungle camouflage, nothing an American hunter would wear here in the Smoky Mountains, especially out of season. And if he were law enforcement, the camo pattern might be even more sophisticated.

  The man slipped out of sight, and Sinclair allowed himself a long, slow breath. But before he’d had a chance to do more than exhale, another dark figure moved smoothly into view.

  Same camouflage pattern. The man was a few yards closer than the previous one had been, close enough for Sinclair to get a decent look at his face beneath the streaks of camouflage paint. The shape of the man’s nose and the craggy brow gave him away—Antonio Cabrera, cousin to Alberto. As ruthless a bastard as El Cambio could offer, and El Cambio’s enforcers had been notorious for their brutality.

  Sinclair froze in place, closing his eyes to slits as Antonio’s gaze slid his way. He held his breath and waited.

  After a chest-burning interval, Antonio turned away and headed back into the woods, away from the bluff.

  Sinclair allowed himself another deep breath, the only movement he dared. So much for hurrying back to the tent before Ava missed him.

  He was well and truly trapped.

  Chapter Nine

  An early twilight had descended on the woods by the time Ava woke with a start from a dead sleep. She sat up in a rush, her heart pounding in her ears, chased from slumber by a dream she couldn’t remember. All that lingered was a sense of imminent danger, as if the fear that had invaded her dreams had retreated only as far as the shadows outside the tent.

  “Sinclair,” she whispered, trying to calm her breathing, which sounded fast and ragged in the tight confines of the tent.

  There was no answer.

  She peered around the gloomy interior of the darkened tent. A few feet away, Gabe Cooper was still asleep, his breathing slow and regular. There was no one else inside.

  Grimacing as her muscles protested the movement, she crawled to the tent flap and stuck her head outside. The Ghillie net extended another five feet past the door of the tent, but Sinclair wasn’t inside the netting.

  She rose to a crouch and edged her way to the side of the net, trying to see beyond the camouflage to the rain-darkened woods beyond. She saw no sign of movement other than the steady drumbeat of rain slanting through the canopy of trees.

  She had a creeping sense of déjà vu. Here she was, again, left behind while Sinclair Solano went his own way without telling her what he was planning to do. But this time, there was no plane ticket home, no exciting new career path to take her mind off her woes.

  Only dark, perilous woods as far as she could see, full of hidden places where dangerous, well-armed men might be lying in wait.

  She slipped back into the tent and edged closer to Gabe, checking the pulse in his wrist. His heartbeat was only slightly faster than it should have been, not fast enough to make her worry that he was losing blood internally.

  He stirred at her touch, groaning.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to wake you,” she whispered.

  He rolled onto his back, blinking up at her. “Are we moving?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He pushed himself up on his elbow, grimacing with pain. “Where’s Solano?”

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I woke up and he wasn’t here.”

  Gabe looked at her a long moment, then muttered a succinct curse.

  “Maybe he went out to see if he could find something to eat?” she suggested, wishing she didn’t sound quite so pathetically hopeful. She knew damned well that wasn’t why he’d left the tent.

  He’d decided to go it alone. Just like before. Hell, his mind had already been made up before he’d ever tried to coax her into taking a nap.

  Sinclair Solano had a bad habit of doing things his own way, the rest of the world be damned. Clearly, the past eight years had taught him nothing.

  “He’s not coming back, is he?” Gabe asked quietly.

  “I don’t think he is,” she admitted. His backpack was gone, although a quick scan of the tent revealed that he’d left two bottles of water with her and Gabe. It might get them back to civilization if they didn’t drink too much at a time.

  She pushed the thought aside and looked at Gabe. “How’re you feeling?”

  “Like I ran into a bus.”

  She rather felt that way herself. “Think you could walk some more before dark?”

  He looked around the dim tent.
“This isn’t dark?”

  She checked her watch. “Half past four. We probably have a couple of hours before nightfall.”

  He stretched carefully, testing his flexibility. From her perspective, he looked as creaky as an old man, but after a moment, he looked up at her and nodded. “I’m game.”

  Without the backpack, she wasn’t sure she would be able to carry the tent and Ghillie net. But Gabe helped her break the tent down and fold it into a compact square. They folded the Ghillie net around the tent and shoved both pieces down the back of Gabe’s shirt, holding them in place by tucking in the hem of his T-shirt. He walked hunched over but he reassured her the tent and net were lightweight enough for him to handle.

  She put the extra waters in the pockets of her jacket, handed Gabe the MK2 Sinclair had taken off one of the dead Cabrera henchmen, and they started heading west, into a light, damp breeze.

  They hadn’t gone far, however, before she saw the first sign of a trail through the woods—a nick in the wood of a white birch, clearly a knife mark.

  Had Sinclair left a trail for her to follow if they got separated?

  She shook her head at first, berating herself for such a hopeless case of wishful thinking. Sinclair didn’t want her to follow him. The whole point of leaving while she was asleep was to make sure he got a head start.

  Gabe spotted the next notch. “He left a trail,” he said quietly.

  She paused by the mark on the fir trunk and looked around. What if it hadn’t been Sinclair who’d left the trail? What if Cabrera’s men were trying to lure them into a trap?

  Reaching behind her back, she pulled her Glock from the holster and edged closer to the tree trunk. Gabe Cooper joined her there, the MK2 in hand, his breathing soft but labored.

  “You think it might be El Cambio instead?” he whispered.

  “I don’t know.”

  He looked around, his brow furrowed. “I wish I had a way to reach my family.”

  “They’re probably already out here somewhere, looking for you.” She looked at the notch on the tree again. “Could one of them have left this mark?”

  He shook his head. “That’s not the way we do things.”

  “Not the way you do things?”

  “We learned not to leave any trace of ourselves. No Cooper would leave a trail like this.”

  So maybe it was Sinclair, she thought, mildly disgusted by how much she wanted to believe it was true. Just how stupid was she, anyway? Was she so susceptible to a pair of chocolate-brown eyes and a lean, cut body that she’d forget eight years of fugitive status?

  Oh, God, she thought, don’t answer that. Don’t depress yourself further.

  “Had my family arrived before you came out here?” Gabe asked.

  “Not yet. They had farther to come, and I got here pretty soon after your abduction.”

  Gabe growled at her words. “Ambush is more like it. They caught us when I was in the shower. I came out naked and unarmed to find four men with guns pointed at Alicia’s head.”

  Ava felt a shudder of sympathy at the picture he painted. “I’m surprised they didn’t just shoot you,” she said bluntly. “Clearly that was always the plan—to get you out of the way.”

  “They didn’t want to chance it right there in the motel. And after they got us out into the woods, I think they realized Alicia would cooperate more easily if I was still in the picture. So they took us to their camp before they dragged me off.”

  “How did you get away?”

  “I overpowered the guy with the gun. He pulled a knife, so I shot him.” Gabe’s answer was flat and unemotional. “What I did will hit me sooner or later, but right now, I don’t feel anything but damned glad to be alive.”

  “You should be,” she answered just as bluntly. She’d killed a man herself the day before, and all she felt right now was relieved to be the one still breathing and walking around.

  Well, relieved and completely pissed off that Sinclair had gone off on his own, leaving her behind.

  He was her prisoner, damn it. What the hell did he think he was doing?

  “There’s another one,” Gabe said, nodding toward a tree about ten yards to the northeast. She made out the notch in the side of the tree trunk.

  So far, the trail Sinclair had left them followed a straight northeasterly path. Toward Cabrera’s campsite, she realized. They’d taken a twisty, backtracking path away from the bluff the day before, worried about Cabrera scouts following them in the woods, but apparently, Sinclair hadn’t been nearly so cautious alone.

  “I think he’s heading for Cabrera’s camp,” she said aloud.

  Beside her, Gabe’s breath hitched. “You know where the camp is?”

  She eyed him cautiously. “We know where it was last night. That doesn’t mean it’s still there.”

  “The man who took me away to kill me put a blindfold on me.” He leaned his head back against the tree trunk, closing his eyes. “I didn’t get it loose until we were at least a half mile away from the camp, so I couldn’t get my bearings to find my way back to her.” He opened his eyes, meeting her sympathetic gaze. “Tell me you saw her last night. Tell me she’s okay.”

  “We saw her. She was alive and very worried about you.”

  He closed his eyes again. “We’ve been through so much together. When we met, she was already in danger, and we survived that case. Then she had to go and join my cousin’s security agency.”

  “More danger?”

  “We didn’t think it would be so much. She works in a consultant capacity. Profiling and forensic psychology. Very behind-the-scenes. I thought it would be okay. I didn’t have to be afraid of that kind of job.”

  “What happened at the motel had nothing to do with her job.”

  He pushed away from the tree and gazed into the gloomy woods. “No. It had to do with her damned brother.”

  Despite his injuries, when he moved, there was a gliding grace to his gait, like a wraith floating through the woods. She tried to mimic his stealth as she followed him from marked tree to marked tree, moving closer and closer to the hidden cove where Cabrera had set up camp.

  She was the first to see the camouflaged scout about fifty yards ahead. She caught Gabe’s arm, wincing in sympathy as he released a soft hiss of pain between his clenched teeth. Nodding toward the man in camouflage, she pulled Gabe back against the wide trunk of a tall Fraser fir.

  The man moved in slow, steady circles amid the thick stand of evergreens to their north. He looked more bored than alert, but the AR-15 rifle he carried would make up for any inattention. In comparison, her Glock, with its large-capacity magazine, was outgunned by a long shot. Even the MK2 couldn’t compete.

  “Look about fifty yards west,” Gabe whispered in her ear.

  She followed his gaze and saw nothing but trees. It took a moment to realize the clump of bushes near the edge of the bluff was actually a man in a camouflage coat, hunkered down and utterly still. Only the slow blink of his eyes betrayed his presence at all.

  And those dark eyes were looking straight at her.

  Oh, Sinclair, she thought, her heart contracting with a combination of guilt and empathy. You came out here to check on your sister.

  His gaze locked with hers for a long moment before his eyes slid half-closed. In that moment, however, a world of communication passed between them. Unspoken words like Be very, very still. Don’t do anything to betray your position.

  “Don’t move,” Gabe whispered in her ear, his whole body tight with alarm. She froze her position in response, though her eyes slid toward him, trying to figure out what had sparked his sudden tension.

  He was no longer looking at Sinclair. Instead, his gaze was locked on to the camouflage-clad scout moving slowly toward their position.

  The scout stopped midstep, his head swiveling toward the east. Moving only her eyes, Ava looked where he was looking and saw, with dismay, that Sinclair had moved his position.

  He was edging, slowly, stealthily, toward t
he bluff and the hidden encampment.

  Expecting the scout to open fire immediately, she was surprised when he quietly changed directions, heading after Sinclair. If Sinclair realized he was being followed, he showed no sign of it.

  “We have to warn him,” she whispered to Gabe, already taking a step toward the scout’s position.

  “No!” Gabe caught her arm, holding her still. “He’s leading the guy away from us. He knows what he’s doing.”

  She stared at Gabe, horrified. “He’s going to get captured!”

  “I think that’s his plan.”

  Stupid man! If Cabrera got his hands on Sinclair, he wouldn’t hesitate to kill him where he stood.

  “We have to stop this!” she said urgently.

  “If we do something now, all three of us will end up dead. We’re outgunned and outnumbered.”

  “So he just sacrifices himself? Do you really think Cabrera will just let your wife go once he’s killed Sinclair?”

  The bleak look Gabe shot her way answered the question for her.

  “We have to stop this,” she repeated.

  “Are you a good shot with that thing?” He nodded toward the Glock still clutched in her right hand.

  “Not from this distance.”

  “So we have to get closer,” he said, already starting to move, his bruised and bloodied hand tightening around the MK2.

  She followed, keeping an eye out for other scouts in the woods. Between her, Gabe and Sinclair, they’d taken out four of Cabrera’s contingent of armed soldiers, but there were plenty of henchmen left to worry about. If they weren’t careful, they’d all three end up in Cabrera’s grasp.

  “Solano’s heading away from the bluff,” Gabe whispered a few minutes later, after their path had wound almost a half mile to the west, away from the encampment. They were about three hundred yards behind Sinclair and the man tracking him, moving more slowly and deliberately to be sure they weren’t setting themselves up for an ambush of their own.