The Line of Duty

by Nichole Severn

Her body stiffened beneath his touch, and he instantly backed off. Right. They didn’t know each other, not really, but it was the way her eyes narrowed on a single point over his shoulder that triggered his internal warning system. She nodded, his name on her lips barely a whisper over the wall of wind howling through the trees. “Vincent.”

  He turned to see what she’d locked onto.

  The plane’s hull had been cleared, leaving it bare to the elements.

  “Is that...?” Disbelief tinted her voice as she fought to catch her breath and stumbled into him. “How is that possible?”

  Vincent released her and unholstered his weapon from beneath his coat. Thick trees impeded his view of the surrounding area, and his instincts prickled with awareness due to the fact that they were clearly out in the open. Vulnerable. “Because someone’s already been here.”

  * * *

  THEY WEREN’T ALONE.

  “The pilot could’ve survived.” Shea ducked deeper into her coat that wasn’t nearly as thick as it should’ve been out here. She’d added a few more layers beneath, but the wind chill had dropped temperatures well below freezing. Her ears burned without anything to stop the cold from seeping in, the numbness in her toes and cheeks spreading. Her fingers tingled with pins and needles as Vincent released her hand, and she flexed them into the center of her palms inside her gloves. They’d made it back to the crash site, survived the night. Only they weren’t the only ones. “He could still be out here. Maybe hurt.”

  There’d been so much blood on the windshield, she couldn’t imagine their pilot would last long out here on his own, but there was a chance. If he was able to get to what was left of the plane’s supplies, he could’ve staved off hypothermia for a little while longer. But then why not stay with the plane and wait for help?

  Vincent shook his head as he circled around the plane’s remains, attention on the ground. He kept a wide perimeter as though studying a scene and was trying to keep evidence contamination to a minimum. Out here, though, it wouldn’t be long until the winds and the fresh snow buried it all over again. “I count at least four sets of footprints here.”

  “A rescue team then.” Shea didn’t dare let the hope blossoming in her chest settle. No one from the tower had answered their Mayday call, and they would’ve heard a chopper or another plane searching the area by now. Wouldn’t they?

  “No one brings down a passenger plane without good reason. Wouldn’t get as much attention as a commercial flight, and there’s no guarantee anyone would see the crash or find us out here.” He reached through the shattered front window into the cockpit and tugged something free, and her stomach wrenched. The handheld radio wire had been cleanly severed from the device. Not a rescue team. Which meant... “Whoever unburied the plane was looking for something. Or someone.” His massive shoulders rolled beneath his coat, snow sticking to his dark beard. “Which means one of us, including our missing pilot, could be a target for the people who did this.”

  No. No, no, no, no. Shea stumbled back a few feet, snow working into the tops of her boots. This was crazy. The adrenaline from the crash had worn off and now her wild theory about Logan didn’t make sense. Her ex wouldn’t hire a team of men to ensure she never made it to New York. They hadn’t ended their marriage on the best of terms, but to outright want her dead because she hadn’t signed her parental rights away crossed a line. There was no way he’d do that to Wells. Despite the bitterness she’d held on to for the past few months for Logan leaving her, for moving Wells across the country, she had no doubt he loved their son. Her ex wouldn’t risk losing the one thing that mattered to them both. “Logan wouldn’t do this. He doesn’t have the funds to hire anyone to sabotage a plane or a motive to want me dead. I’m not trying to take Wells from him. I just want to see my son.”

  Vincent dropped his duffel into the snow and ducked into the side door of the plane, where one of the wings had been torn clean off by the rocks during their descent. “I’ve known people to kill for a lot less.”

  Unfortunately, so had she. More recently, while working a case with Blackhawk’s private investigator, Elliot Dunham, and a woman Shea believed to be a murderer. In the end, the real killer had left a trail of bodies for fear he’d lose everything if news he carried the warrior gene found in his genetic makeup went public. She’d been the arresting officer on that case, forced to work beside Vincent Kalani at the chief’s orders, to prove Elliot’s client had been framed. So many lives taken for the sake of holding on to a reputation.

  It hadn’t been her and Vincent’s first case together, but she’d done everything in her power since then to ensure it’d be their last. The way her breathing changed when he studied her, the way her heart rate picked up pace when he neared, even how every muscle down her spine seemed to relax when she caught his clean, masculine scent... Working cases with him had helped her break through the fog that’d cut her off from her family, friends and coworkers, made her feel things she hadn’t felt since before giving birth to her son. But it wasn’t enough to convince her he and his team were above the law.

  A hunk of metal landed beside her boot, pulling her back into the present. Her ears rang. Terrifying memories seared across her brain as Vincent tossed more debris into the snow, and she focused on pushing one foot in front of the other to aid in whatever search he was navigating. Didn’t matter they’d been stranded together or that they’d be partnered together on future cases between the department and Blackhawk. She wouldn’t give in to the desirable impulses carving at the hollowness inside. Not with him. “What are you looking for?”

  “The black box is gone.” Vincent pulled free of the hull and dusted snow and dirt from his jacket before turning to her. Solid exhales formed in front of his mouth as he ran a hand down his beard. He slammed his fist into the side of the plane, and she flinched as the sound bounced off the peaks around them. “All the emergency supplies are missing, too. Probably sucked out the back with the rest of the cargo when the tail ripped off.” His shoulders heaved with his overexaggerated breathing before he locked dark brown eyes on her. “What we have won’t last more than a day, two at most.”

  “Then we need to try to get out of here on foot. West.” Her gaze slid to the black duffel bag at his feet, and she threaded her arms through her pack, bringing it around to her front. Shea dropped to her knees and consolidated everything into the one bag. Easier to carry than the duffel but would leave one person without supplies if they were separated. In less than a minute, she slung it back into place, fingers gripped around the straps, and faced him. They could switch off carrying the supplies to conserve energy and camp for the night when it got dark. Leaving the plane was a risk. What if someone in the tower had heard their distress call? What if the footprints did actually belong to a rescue team? What if they were making a mistake? They were lost someone where in the middle of the Chugach Mountain range, with mountains surrounding them in every direction. Any attempt to head out of here on foot increased their chances of hypothermia, frostbite, starvation, getting lost, any number of possibilities that could end with their deaths. But Shea had to get to her son. And she wasn’t going to let anything—anyone—else stand in her way. “The only way we’re getting out of here is if we work together.”

  One step. Two. Vincent closed the distance between them, and she swallowed the urge to back away. To prove he didn’t affect her. He brought his gloved hand up, setting his fingers at the back of her neck. Ice clung to where his gloves touched her exposed skin, but in that moment, she could only focus on the pressure building behind her sternum. “And here I thought you’ve been avoiding having to work with me.”

  She could still smell him on her. A mixture of something spicy and wild. Every time she moved, she resurrected the scent, but it was even more powerful now that he’d breached her personal space. An overwhelming sense of calm spread down her back and across her shoulders. Shea opened her mouth, not really sure how to r
espond—

  A gunshot exploded from above.

  The reaction was automatic. Her vision blurred as she slammed into him, and they fell into more than three feet of snow together. His hands wrapped around her arms to pull her off him as reality set in. They were out in the open. Vincent brought his head up, scanning the surrounding area a split second before he tugged her to her feet. Adrenaline surged through her as they headed for the closest patch of trees, his injury making him limp, her lungs on fire. The pack slowed her down, but she wouldn’t ditch it with the possibility they’d have to keep running.

  She skimmed her gloves over rough bark and doubled over to catch her breath. Searching up through the branches of the large pine, Shea watched for movement, listened for another shot—anything—that would give them an idea of what they were up against. She swiped her hand across her runny nose. “These mountains carry sound for miles.”

  “The shot sounded like it came from close by.” His weapon was in his hand. His lighthearted expression she’d gotten used to since they’d crashed faded into a stone-cold wall of unreadability, as though he’d tear any threat apart with his bare hands. Vincent Kalani had served New York City as one of the best forensic investigators in the country, but in that moment, he’d become one of Blackhawk’s vigilantes. Powerful. Dark. Dangerous. “But that doesn’t make me feel any better, either.”

  “We need to go.” They couldn’t stay here. No telling if the team who’d unburied the plane had fired that shot or if they were here to help at all. Whatever the case, Shea wasn’t interested in finding out.

  A twig snapped from behind, and she spun, unholstering her weapon in the same move. She took aim as Vincent maneuvered in front of her, as though he intended to use himself as a shield to protect her. Her breath shuddered through her, the cold stiffening her trigger finger as they studied the shadows in the thick line of pines. Branches dipped and swayed, and the tension Vincent had chased back a moment ago climbed into her shoulders once again.

  A man stumbled from the tree line, and she tightened her grip on her weapon. Black slacks, graying hair, white button-down shirt. Blood spread from the injury in the center of his chest and from a deep laceration on his head. Locking his gaze on Shea, the man collapsed to his knees and reached for her as he fell forward.

  She lunged, catching their missing pilot before he hit the snow. Her gun fell from her hand as she laid his head back and studied the fresh bullet wound in his chest. She tugged her glove free with her teeth and set her fingers at the base of his neck. The breath rushed out of her. She looked up at Vincent, at a loss for words. It was too late. “He’s dead.”

  Chapter Four

  Their pilot was dead, they didn’t have any way to contact the Blackhawk Security team, and there was at least one gunman closing in. He and Shea had to get the hell out of here.

  They trudged through knee-deep snow as fast as they could between the trees, but the downward angle of the mountain threatened to trip them up with every step. His boot slid against hardened ice beneath the powder, but Shea kept him from rolling down the hill, one hand wrapped around his arm and the other around the tree closest to them. They’d had to leave the pilot where he fell. No time for a proper burial. Not with a killer possibly on their trail. He’d had basic medical training on the job, but it’d been too late. Someone out here had sabotaged their plane, cut their chances of communicating with the outside world, and already killed a man. Hell, he didn’t even catch their pilot’s name. The longer they stayed in one spot out here without moving, the higher the chance the cold would seep into them. Hypothermia was real. And it was deadly.

  “Are we going to talk about what happened back there or pretend someone didn’t just kill our pilot?” Her voice cut through the deafening silence around them. “At the crash site you said one of us might be the target of whoever took down the plane.” The mountain blocked most of the wind, but an attractive red coloring spread over the freckles speckling her cheeks all the same. Her shallow breathing made her words breathy. “Why was that your first theory? Why not a terrorist attack or simple engine failure?”

  “Our focus needs to be on surviving right now. Not theories.” Vincent slowed his pace to give her a chance to catch her breath and take some weight off his injured leg. Scooping a handful of fresh snow into his mouth, he cleared the stickiness building under his tongue. A headache pulsed above his eyebrow where he’d swiped dried blood away. Must’ve gotten hit by something during the crash. Although he couldn’t remember what it was. There were any number of reasons someone would’ve wanted to take down their plane. Any number of reasons they could be targets. In reality, too many to count. But none of them mattered out here. They’d left the safety of the cave out of necessity, but they wouldn’t last long once night fell. They had to keep moving. He continued down the incline, but the lack of her familiar breathing said Shea hadn’t followed.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

  Vincent turned back toward her, gravity pulling at one side. Pressure built from her intense questioning gaze, as though she were trying to read his mind to get the answers she deserved, and damn, he found himself powerless to the fire in her eyes in that moment. Powerless to her. “There’s a chance this has to do something with the last case I was working for the NYPD.”

  She kicked up loose powder as she closed in, those mesmerizing green eyes still locked on him. “What case?”

  Sense returned in small increments. He hadn’t told anyone—not even his team—what’d happened that night. For good reason. The more people he got involved, the higher the risk to their lives. Then again, maybe he’d already sentenced Shea to death by getting on that plane.

  “Doesn’t matter.” He stared out over the expanse of trees, rock and snow—miles of it—to escape the sickening clench in his gut every time those memories rushed to the surface. Vincent had fled to Anchorage and joined Blackhawk a year ago for one reason: to move on and to forget. Only now, with the discovery of a partial fingerprint from Internal Affairs Bureau Officer Ashton Walter’s death scene, he couldn’t hide from the truth any longer. Someone had killed two members of his forensic unit the day of the fire in an attempt to cover up the evidence left behind, but he’d survived. Now he was going to find out why. In any other circumstance, he would’ve had a lead on who’d tampered with the plane by now and possibly been able to connect the dots, but out here, with nothing but a day’s worth of food, a first aid kit and a handgun, he was useless. “Unless we find shelter for the night, none of this is going to matter.”

  Shea moved into him, never breaking eye contact, so close he could count the freckles across the bridge of her nose. A bruise marred perfectly light olive skin across her left cheek, one he hadn’t seen before now, as she drew her eyebrows inward. It was a small price compared to what could’ve happened when they’d crashed but still twisted his insides. If the people he’d suspected of killing that IAB officer had found him, Shea would be nothing but collateral damage to them. His fingers tingled with the urge to trace the dark outline of the bruise. Or was it frostbite finally settling in? She set her hand over his coat, directly over his heart, and his body temperature spiked. “Whatever you’re hiding, it might’ve already tried to kill us.” Her hand fell to her side, and he went cold as she pushed past him. “Just remember that in case we don’t make it through the night.”

  He spun after her. “Shea, I—”

  Bark splintered off the tree he was holding on to with a crack as loud as thunder, and Vincent fell forward. Her eyes widened a split second before he collided with her, then they were both falling. The gunman had caught up with them. Their surroundings blurred as they rolled down the incline, each clinging to the other. Momentum and gravity ripped her from his hands. Ice worked beneath his coat as he rolled, and all he could do was wait for the ride to end. Pain cracked down his spinal column what felt like hours later as he slammed into a large bould
er. His head snapped back into rock, his ears ringing, but he forced himself to push to his feet. Couldn’t stop. His vision wavered as Vincent stumbled forward. “Shea.”

  Where was she? Had she been hit?

  The world righted itself, shouts echoing off the cliffs around them. He reached into his coat for his weapon but found only an empty shoulder holster. Damn it. He must’ve lost the gun when he’d rolled down the mountain. He’d tumbled at least one hundred feet. It could be anywhere. Snow clung to his hair and beard, and he shook his head to clear the haze holding tight. His heart threatened to beat out of his chest. “Shea!”

  “I’m here. I’m okay.” Movement caught his attention through the thick branches of a tree a few yards to his left seconds before her five-foot-three frame filled his vision. Relief swept through him at the sight of her, drawing him closer. Shooting her hands to his arms, Shea leaned on him, hiking his blood pressure higher, but he didn’t have more than a few seconds to revel in the sensation. Her attention shot up the hill as shouts echoed down, and she sank a bit deeper on her back foot. She unholstered her weapon, fixing her index finger over the trigger through her gloves. Snow fell from the backpack of supplies and the ends of her hair as they took cover. “They’re coming.”

  Determination and something he couldn’t quite put his finger on pulled her shoulders back as she took aim. She was prepared to fight, but she couldn’t hide the fear in her eyes.

  “Listen to me. I need you to run. Don’t look back. Don’t wait for me.” He’d hold them off. At least until she found cover. Crouching, Vincent scanned the trees, senses on alert. They didn’t have much time before the shooter or shooters caught up with them. “I’ll distract them as long as I can.”

  “From the sound of those voices, we’re outnumbered and outgunned.” Shea widened her stance as the shouts grew closer. Brilliant emerald-green eyes narrowed on him, and his breathing slowed, as though his body had been specifically tuned to hers over the past twelve hours. “I’m not leaving you to face them by yourself. Survive together or die alone, remember? We’re going to figure this out, but right now, we need to live until we can get that chance.”