Instead she held her ground, dredged deep and forced professional coolness into her voice when she said, “I didn’t come to Big Sky so you could fuss over me, Jacob. I came because your bounty took my protectees. You told your boss you could handle working with me. If you can’t…”
She trailed off, letting the implication dangle. If you can’t handle working with me, I’ll go someplace else.
Except there wasn’t anyone else she could turn to. She’d be well and truly alone. But would that really be any worse that working with Jacob?
He cursed, dropped his hand from her neck and stepped back, farther into the darkness. “Don’t tell me what I can and can’t handle. And don’t you dare question my professionalism.”
She hadn’t, which left her wondering whether he was questioning it himself.
The air between then shivered with chill and emotion, an uncertain combination that left her feeling unstable and hating it. She hated that she’d been forced to ask him for help, hated that she’d failed her protectees and allowed Hope and the girls to be taken.
Hated most of all that she felt unstable, teetering between heat and anger, between relief that the bounty hunters were helping her and resentment that she needed their help.
Unstable. Just like her mother had been.
Banishing that thought, she lifted her chin and fisted her hands at her sides. He might not be able to see the defiant gestures, but they helped settle her. Center her. She said, “If you’re such a professional, then where is the guy you were fighting with? We’ll need to question him.”
She thought he muttered something, but when he answered, his voice was calm, nearly blank with its lack of inflection. “He’s back in the woods. I knocked him out and strapped him to a tree with his belt and mine before I came after you.”
“Oh. Good thinking.” Isabella’s mouth dried to dust as a completely unnecessary, unwanted memory flared to life in her brain, a Technicolor image of a younger Jacob sliding his belt free of his jeans, looping it around her wrists, and pulling it tight over the metal frame of the bed in her off-campus rental.
She didn’t allow herself to follow the sensory image further, but her body remembered, and she cursed the rush of warm wetness that pulsed through her even as she turned away and marched back toward the woods.
It was all an illusion, she reminded herself. What she’d thought of as love had been nothing more than sex.
When Jacob didn’t follow, she turned back and squinted to make out his large shadow against the lighter gleam of the road. “Come on. Let’s see what this bastard knows.”
He stared at her for a moment, then finally nodded, passed her without a word and led the way back to the scene of the fight.
Isabella followed him through featureless woods, glad for the gleam of moonlight that sliced through the cloud cover and provided a welcome sliver of light. Please let this guy know where Cooper’s family has been taken. The words beat in her head like a mantra, in time to her uneven footfalls and the growing pulse of a headache. Please let him tell us.
Then Jacob halted ahead of her. His shoulders went stiff. And a low, vicious oath filtered back to her on the night air.
She knew it even before she rushed forward to see.
Their captive was gone.
DAMN IT. How could he have been so stupid?
Jacob cursed himself as he drove out to the copper mining area, going too fast and purposely hitting every bump. The Jeep slewed and swerved and rattled him nearly hard enough to chase away the reality of what had happened at the Golf Resort.
He’d messed up, that was what had happened. He’d had the bastard and lost him because he’d lost his focus. He’d been so worried about Isabella—a trained operative—that he’d done a crummy job securing his captive, and they’d wound up with nothing more than a generic leather belt crumpled at the base of a pine tree.
Which left them with nothing. No captive. No new leads. Not even clear proof that Boone and his men were involved. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed like the letters written on Secretary Cooper’s chest could be a false lead. The MMFAFA had never worked internationally before. Why start now?
People didn’t change that drastically over time.
He gritted his teeth and gripped the steering wheel harder when the Jeep slid to the side of the overgrown track. Once a main road to the copper mines high on a mountainside, the trail was now little more than a fire access road, and a poor one at that. With the late dawn just beginning to stain the sky red, and the trees closed in around him, Jacob had to rely on the bouncing headlight beams and focus on his driving.
Which was a relief, as it deflected his mind away from other things, such as the men who’d been watching them search the chalet, and the near-crazy fear he’d felt when he’d realized Isabella was gone. The blinding anger that had flared when he’d seen she was safe.
His foot pressed down on the gas and the Jeep leaped forward, nearly slewing off the road. He corrected with a curse, but didn’t let up, instead driving faster, halfway thinking he could outrun the burn of anger in his gut, the flare of heat everywhere else.
He hadn’t managed it by the time he parked among the pickup trucks the other bounty hunters had driven. Instead he shoved the too intense emotions aside, locked them away so he could deal with them—and their auburn-haired source—later.
Or not.
He found the others outside the first mine, waiting for him in front of a barred gate they’d clearly picked and relocked. Tony and Mike had called in four others to help search for the source of the green-tinted dirt. Jacob was startled to see Big Sky’s leader among them.
Then again, by history and right, Boone Fowler was Cameron’s bounty. His prize. And anything that got them closer to capturing the MMFAFA fugitives brought them closer to Cameron’s final reckoning with Fowler.
Jacob nodded at the others. “Find anything?”
“Nothing obvious.” Tony gestured with the fifty-pound rucksack he held over his shoulder as though it weighed five. “We’ve taken samples for comparison.” Then he narrowed his eyes at Jacob’s face. “What happened to you?”
Jacob shoved his hands in his pockets. “Two men were watching Cooper’s chalet.”
There were no exclamations of shock or disbelief from the other hunters. Instead they went silent. Still. Intense. Then Cameron ordered, “Tell us.”
Jacob sketched the incident, including all the details he could remember. He didn’t gloss over the part where he’d had one of the guys and lost him, but he omitted the roaring fear that had dogged him through the woods on Isabella’s trail and how it scared him to the bone to think she might actually have caught the other guy, and what then?
Abduction.
If she was lucky.
With an almost physical effort, he pulled his thoughts back on track. “The guys—well, at least the one I fought with—had night-vision goggles. I have to guess they pulled them on once I doused the lights in the chalet. It sure gave them a heck of an advantage.”
“Night vision!” Cameron said thoughtfully. “How did Boone get his hands on technology like that only a few weeks out of The Fortress?”
Dull surprise rattled through Jacob when he realized he’d never even considered the question. He’d been too caught up in Isabella, in the confusion. It was proof positive that they weren’t good for each other.
Correction—it was proof positive that he couldn’t handle seeing her. So far she’d been nothing but professional, which galled him on a too personal level.
“The MMFAFA is a tight-knit group,” Mike offered. “Maybe he’s called some of his old contacts.” The body language expert glanced over at Jacob, who stiffened, awaiting a comment about him running to Isabella’s rescue. But Mike merely continued. “Besides, you can buy just about anything on the Internet these days.”
“Not like these you can’t. They were state-of-the-art.” Jacob shifted from foot to foot, wanting to move rather than stand aro
und talking while the clock ran down on their bounty. On the abductees.
“But you said yourself it was dark.” Cameron shrugged. “They could’ve been mail order.”
“Or they could’ve come from Lunkinburg,” Jacob snapped. His fingers tapped a complicated rhythm against his leg. “For all we know, the letters on Cooper’s chest meant something else, or were planted to throw suspicion onto Boone’s people. This could have absolutely nothing to do with our bounty.”
“It could have everything to do with them.” Cameron’s eyes went flat, the way they did when he was mad and trying not to show it. “And what does it really matter? Secretary Cooper’s family is missing and Agent Gray has asked us to help. So what’s your point?”
Anger tangled with resentment and Jacob felt suddenly crowded. He cracked his knuckles and walked away, then back. Then he shrugged and shot his boss a look. “Hell. I don’t know what my point is anymore.”
Cam’s eyes softened a hint, though he turned away so the others couldn’t see. “Yeah. I figured as much.” His gesture sent the others to their vehicles, leaving him and Jacob alone on the rocky incline. “How is she?”
“Isabella?” Jacob asked, more to buy himself time than because there was any question who Cam meant. “She’s okay. She’s tough.” More than tough, she was dedicated and professional, and he wasn’t sure why that ticked him off so badly. “I left her back at the headquarters and told her she could crash in your guest room. I hope that was okay.”
Cam and his wife Mia lived in the big, rustic cabin with their daughter and the housekeeper, Trudy, so there was always someone minding the headquarters—and the expensive high-tech gadgetry on the lower levels.
The other hunters all rented or owned homes down the mountain, in town. Jacob had briefly thought about bringing Isabella back to his place, but it hadn’t felt right, so he’d taken her to the cabin.
“Of course that’s okay. Trudy can look after her,” Cam said as though Isabella needed looking after.
The very idea would probably make her furious, Jacob thought, but the sentiment didn’t bring a grin. Instead it made him feel worse, as though he should have stayed.
God, he was a mess.
“Come on.” Cam jerked his head toward the vehicles. “Tony says there are a half dozen copper mines for us to check, only two of which have good roads leading in. If we don’t find anything conclusive, it could be a long day.”
“On the heels of a long night,” Jacob agreed. But as he followed Cam to his truck, figuring they could pick up the Jeep later, Jacob found himself partway hoping it would be a long day.
The more tired he was, the less Isabella would get to him.
He hoped.
EXHAUSTED, frustrated and hosting the headache that just wouldn’t quit, Isabella tried not to snap when there was yet another knock at the guest room door. She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Yes?”
The door opened and the Big Sky housekeeper entered, bearing a small tray. “I brought you some soup and tea.”
Isabella didn’t bother reminding Trudy that she’d already said she wasn’t hungry. The silver-haired housekeeper had proven a formidable opponent, taking zero heed of Isabella’s wish to be left alone. Trudy had bul lied her into the shower, stolen her clothes and replaced them with borrowed sweats in a soft peach color, no doubt the property of the dark-haired woman in the photographs adorning the far wing of the cabin, where the boss and his family lived.
When Isabella had gone looking for a phone, she’d been neatly rerouted to her room. Now she was being fed, whether she liked it or not.
The worst part was that she actually felt a little better than she had when she arrived, fresh on the heels of a long, silent drive with Jacob.
Aware that Trudy stood, looking down at her with an expectant expression underlain with a hint of steel, Isabella sighed and gestured at the small desk beside the pin-neat bed. “Fine. I’ll eat.”
“You’ll eat in bed,” the housekeeper corrected, setting the tray on a narrow lap desk. She shooed Isabella between the sheets.
“Bossy, aren’t you?” But Isabella stretched out. Then she tried not to groan as the soft mattress cupped her tired, aching bones.
“Only with those who deserve it,” Trudy replied, but her hands were gentle when she settled the tray across Isabella’s lap and set a cordless phone, notebook and pen within easy reach. “Now eat. If you’re still awake when you’re done, you can make those calls.”
If Isabella hadn’t been so tired and beat up, she might have resented Trudy’s coddling. But at that moment she found the woman soothing. Comforting.
So she forced a smirk. “And what if I’m asleep? Will you tuck me in?”
“If you like.” Trudy headed for the door, so Isabella couldn’t see the woman’s expression, but the set of her shoulders spoke of amusement rather than ire, and the bump beneath her sweatshirt warned that she carried a gun at the small of her back.
The sight shouldn’t have been as reassuring as it was.
The door closed behind Trudy and Isabella glanced at the phone, notebook and pen. She had calls to make. She had few friends within the Service, but one or two people owed her favors, and she wasn’t above collecting. Even better, at least one of the people she had in mind wasn’t jacked into the gossip mill—he might not yet know she’d failed her protectees and been suspended.
Pending a psych eval.
The thoughts soured her already uncertain stomach. What if everyone already knew she’d been suspended? What if they all believed she’d cracked?
“Let them believe what they want,” she said out loud. “It’s not important.”
But instead of reaching for the phone, she reached for the food Trudy had left for her.
She’d eat first, then make the calls.
“ANYTHING?” JACOB ASKED a grungy Tony as the other man emerged from the depths of yet another green-tainted, half-unsteady mineshaft. The geologist still carried the heavy sample knapsack as though it weighed nothing, even though it now contained samples from various spots within four abandoned mines.
“Nothing.” Tony grunted. Six hours into their search, nearing high noon after a sleepless night, they had lapsed into monosyllables and single word answers.
Without speaking, the bounty hunters—down to Jacob, Tony, Mike and Cameron, the others having left for other tasks—climbed into the truck and headed for the fifth mine.
They’d left this one and one other until last, because the access roads were nearly impassable. In fact, the old road was so bad they were forced to park their vehicle near a washout and hike the last half mile, which did nothing to help Jacob’s temper.
The mine, when they reached it, proved to be the shabbiest-looking of the bunch. It wasn’t gated or locked as the others had been—and were required to be by law—and part of the main opening had fallen in, giving the cavern a lopsided, sneering look. There was no sign of life, no evidence that any human had been here since it had been abandoned decades earlier.
“Another bust,” Mike mumbled. The normally cheerful body language expert had gotten progressively more sour as the search wore on.
“Let’s check it out anyway.” Jacob led the way inside and immediately pulled his jacket closed against the dampness. The cold was natural this time of year and at this elevation, but the moisture seemed strange, even a little warmer than it ought to be. He flipped up his collar. “Yeesh. Weird air.”
“Maybe there’s a hot spring at the back,” Tony suggested, shifting his shoulders to settle the heavy pack more comfortably. “Maybe that’s why the mine closed so much earlier than the others.”
Cameron frowned. “And maybe that accounts for the smell.”
But the fine buzz that ran through Jacob told him that the tendril of that sickly scent didn’t come from any hot spring.
It was the smell of death.
Chapter Five
“Damn it, woman, I said, Get me another ice pack!” Lyle Nelson’s voice
carried into the mobile home, where Hope sat with her daughters, trying to keep them quiet, trying not to let them know she was afraid. Through the greasy front window, she saw her whip-thin, brown-haired captor prop himself higher in his lawn chair and crane his neck to see where she’d gone.
She stood and leaned down to place a kiss on each of the girls’s cheeks. “Stay here a moment. Mommy will be right back.”
Their answering silence deafened her, tightened the ball of dread in her stomach. They were too quiet. Too still. Too pliant. In the day since they’d been taken from the chalet, shoved into a dark SUV and driven to this godforsaken place high in the hills, the girls had slipped into a trancelike state, barely responding to anything she said or did.
Just now, they clung to each other, their only movement the track of their identical blue eyes as she walked two steps into the kitchen area, grabbed a clinic-brand instant ice pack and smashed it against the counter to start the cooling chemical reaction.
What was this experience doing to them? she wondered, focusing on the long-term consequences because the short-term questions and answers were too terrifying to consider.
Like the main question: what had they done to Louis?
Was he dead? Alive? What horrors must he be going through? Hope’s heart cried for him, because she knew her husband well. So while she knew that Secretary of Defense Cooper would never negotiate with hostage takers, Louis Cooper the man would move heaven and earth to save his wife and family.
If he was able to.
The thought brought gut-wrenching tears, and she turned away from the girls on the pretext of rummaging in one of the cheap cabinets, though she’d already determined there was nothing in the kitchen she could use as a weapon.
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