Hunted, A Romantic Suspence Novel (30 page)

“If I set this down, Gideon, you’ll kill me.”

He tilted his head to one side, almost innocently. “My dear girl, I’m afraid I’m going to kill you anyway.”

“Why? Why are you following his orders without question and without hope of any reward?” If she could keep him talking, maybe she could think of a way out of here. She wished Matt was nearby.

He’s not here. You stranded him ten miles down the road.
Where he’d be safe.

“My life belongs to the Prophet.” Gideon’s voice sounded so natural, as if they were discussing the weather, not her death.

“I never understood your loyalty to the Devil. You aren’t one of those mindless people who believed the crap he dished out any more than I did. What made you so loyal to him?”

“I really do owe him my life. He dragged me out of a Viet Cong trap in the middle of a South Vietnam jungle when everyone else would’ve left me to be tortured to death.” Gideon took a long drag off his cigarette. “No one had ever cared if I lived or died, but he did. If he wants me to wipe out half the East Coast I intend to do so.”

“Is that what he wants you to do? Kill all the people on the East Coast?” Maybe she could get him to tell her about Strict’s big plans. Anything to keep him talking and not shooting.

“It’s a brilliant plan, little girl. Only we aren’t going to kill a few people. This is a gift that keeps on giving. You might say the power we have will be nuclear in devastation.” He put out his cigarette. “Now put down the box.”

“What you want isn’t in this box.” Even to her own ears she sounded desperate, but he didn’t know she spoke the truth.

“Katie, Katie. There’s no use trying to fool me. You wouldn’t have hidden that box all these years then scaled the side of a mountain again to retrieve it if what I wanted wasn’t inside. The sooner we get this over with, the better it’ll be for both of us. Let’s not make this harder than necessary.”

He sounded like he was planning to pull out a splinter, not shoot her. His quiet, calm voice didn’t ease her nerves one bit. The instant the box hit the ground he’d take her out. As long as she held on to the container, he couldn’t shoot. The bullet’s impact might send her and the box into the ravine and river below.

She also knew he’d take the chance if he had to. His patience would only last so long. If she didn’t think of something quick, she was a dead woman.

Matt listened to the conversation in the clearing ahead as he inched his way closer. She was stalling.

Attagirl, Katie, keep him talking.
They just needed a few more minutes to get into position. He’d taken point, heading down the center, while Luke circled to the left and Castello to the right.

At the tree line’s edge, Matt hunkered down behind a tree trunk, his gun aimed right at Gideon’s head. Matt dragged in a slow deep breath. Katie stood twenty feet in front of the man, a few steps from the edge of a cliff, a metal strongbox in her hands and a rope around her body.

In his whole life he’d never been as glad or as scared to see someone.

A movement to his right told him Castello was in position.

“Just put the box on the ground, Katie,” Gideon ordered.

Where the hell was Luke? They needed to make their move.

Light flashed to his left. Luke lay on the ground. The only thing visible was the scope of his rifle. Gideon was not leaving this clearing alive.

Now, how to get Katie out of the line of fire?

For a moment he studied her beautiful face, listening to her ask Gideon why he was so loyal to Strict. God, she was magnificent. So calm, so strong, even though he knew how frightened she must be. Then his gaze traveled lower, to the rope harness she’d made for the trek down the cliff. Then he followed the rope to the tree she’d secured it on.

“Katie,” he called to her.

Startled, she looked toward the woods. “Matt?”

Gideon never took his eyes off her. “Nice of you to join us, Patrolman. You’re just a little late.”

“Katie, do as he says, take a leap of faith, sweetheart.” He hoped she understood what he wanted her to do.

Without hesitation or questioning, she dropped the box and dove over the cliff’s side.

Gunfire erupted from every area of the clearing. Gideon managed a second shot before bullets ripped into his body. Matt fired twice, both shots finding their target. The hit man’s body lifted off the ground then slammed back down, limp and still.

An eerie silence fell as the three lawmen ceased firing. The air around them smelled of gunpowder and blood.

Then Matt scrambled to his feet and ran through the snow to the spot where Katie had disappeared. “Katie?”

Please let her be on the other end of that rope.

“Matt?”

Yes!
“I’m here, sweetheart.”

He stretched out on the clifftop and peered over the edge. About twenty feet below she’d pressed herself against the mountainside, her hands clinging to the rock crevices, the rope taut as it secured her from falling farther.

“Is it finished?” She let go and grabbed the rope with both hands, her beautiful face looking at him.

“It will be when you get up here.” He grinned at her, willing his heart to slow.

Grabbing the rope, he pulled her up as she scaled the wall one more time. When she reached the top edge, he released the rope and latched onto her hands, dragging her onto the top.

Once she was beside him, he pulled her away from the precipice and into his arms.

“Oh God, Katie. You scared the hell out of me.” He kissed her hard, as much to reassure himself that she truly was safe in his arms, as to let her know how he felt.

She clung to him, matching his kiss with as much fervor. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard your voice,” she said when he lifted his head to stare at her. “Then you asked me to take a leap of faith. For a second I didn’t know what you meant.”

“But you did what I asked. You trusted me.” He smoothed her hair off her face, and rubbed his thumb across a smudge of dirt on her cheek. “You trusted me.”

“With all my heart.”

“Katie, is this all there was in the box?” Castello asked from his position by the box as he rifled through the papers. “I don’t see anything they could’ve used in here.”

“I wasn’t taking any chances.” She reached behind her and pulled out a packet of folded papers from inside her jeans and handed them to the Marshal. “These are codes for surface-to-air missiles that went missing right before the bombing took place.”

“Damn.” Luke said, securing Gideon’s weapon before coming to read over Castello’s shoulder.

“Is he really dead?” Her voice broke over the question.

Matt moved between Katie and the gruesome sight. She didn’t need to see that. She had enough fodder for her nightmares already. “He and Strict can’t hurt you anymore, sweetheart.”

“Can we leave now?” Tears glistened in her eyes.
She probably had a thread’s width of emotional control left after nearly dying.

“We’ll go anywhere you want.”

“Anywhere?” She dashed her hands over her eyes, wiping away the tears. Her jaw tightened, and that distant, wary expression filled her face once more.

Matt’s heart sank. He knew where she wanted to go. He didn’t think he could stand to watch her go there.

But he loved her, and he wouldn’t stand in her way.

“Just name it.”

“I need to go to the Lewisburg Penitentiary.” She headed into the woods again, determination in her stride as she retraced her path. “I’m going to an execution.”

* * * * *

Katie sat in the SUV waiting for Matt. As soon as they’d gotten back to the compound’s main gate, several government vehicles had pulled up behind them, surrounding the cars.

They’d been searched, interviewed and their weapons confiscated for ballistics testing. She’d watched from a window in the meeting house as Gideon’s lifeless body, wrapped in a gray government issue blanket, was carted off on a stretcher to a waiting van. Now that the threat was completely gone, it was hard to believe Gideon had been the one trying to kill her.

Then federal agents had questioned her about the box’s contents, where she’d hidden it, and any other details she could remember about Strict’s plans that might help the FBI find them.

“All Gideon said to me was if Strict wanted him to take out half the East Coast, he’d do it,” she’d told them. “And that whatever they had planned would be nuclear in its devastation.”

That news started a flurry of phone calls and activity. She didn’t know if they’d ever find the missiles, but she’d done her part by finding and handing over the codes to them.

Forgotten, now that all her information had been passed on, she’d come out to the SUV to wait and stay out of the way. She had one more thing to do before she could put this place behind her forever. One last monster from her past to confront.

Matt broke away from the group of men clad in blue jackets. His lips were pressed into a thin hard line. The muscle in his jaw flexed and relaxed as he stalked toward the car.

“Can we leave now?” she asked when he was in the driver’s seat.

“They’re done questioning us. Castello took the heat on this,” he answered without looking at her.

Oh yeah, Matt was pissed.

Too bad. She’d done what she believed necessary to protect him. Given the choice, she’d do it again, a thousand times if necessary.

They drove in silence until they reached the interstate. When he headed east, she turned to study him. “Are you ever going to speak to me again?”

The silence stretched for another ten miles. Finally, she couldn’t stand it.

“I’m not going to apologize for leaving you.”

“If Castello and Luke hadn’t come along, you’d be dead now, and it would be your body instead of Gideon’s they just took to the county morgue, sweetheart.” He rolled his head from side to side, exhaling hard. “I’ve seen one too many women I cared for end like that.”

“I’m not your girlfriend Christina, Matt. I can take care of myself.”

“Believe me, I don’t have you confused with Chris. She was an impulsive teenager who simply borrowed a car for a joyride, then had the misfortune of getting in the path of a drunk driver.” He glared at her then focused on the highway once more. “No, you decide to step in front of a hit man determined to kill you. Take care of yourself? I don’t think so. You don’t think before you act. You just do.”

“I’m sorry your male ego is bent out of shape. I wanted to protect you as best I could from dying because of something in my past.” She stared out the window, nibbling on her lower lip. “I’d do it again, if I thought you’d be safe.”

Suddenly, he pulled the car off the road and onto the shoulder. He shoved it into park.

Katie grabbed onto the door handle. “What’re you doing?”

He turned to her, cupping her face in his hands. Anguish and pain filled his eyes. “When I woke up and you were gone, I panicked. I knew you’d gone after the papers alone. You’d left me no way to follow you, and no directions if I had a vehicle. All I could think was, you would die and never know how much I love you.”

“You love me?” She shook her head. She couldn’t be hearing him correctly.

“Sweetheart, believe me I do. I love the way you fight your fears, no matter how real they are. When you learned to trust the Boxers back at Craig’s house, I knew you could learn to trust me. When you threw yourself in front of that shotgun ambush, I knew you’d never let someone take a punishment meant for you.” He leaned in and slowly kissed her, deep and slow. “But when you let me see your scars, your pain, your nightmares, I knew just how strong a woman you are and I’ve fallen for you hard, Katie Myers.”

“But you can’t love me,” she whispered behind her tears.

“Why do you say that, baby? Can’t you feel how much I love you?” He lay one hand against her heart. “Here? Inside? Can’t you feel it for yourself?”

The tears ran unchecked down her cheeks. “No one’s ever loved me, Matt. No one since my dad died.”

A soft smile spread over his face and he pulled her into his arms. Cradling her head against his shoulder, he whispered in her ear. “I love you so much I’m doing something I hate.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m taking you to visit the monster in your nightmares.”

* * * * *

Once again Matt looked at his watch as he paced outside the back gate to the prison. Almost midnight. Was Katie okay? Was she scared? Even though she made him promise not to follow, he knew he never should’ve let her go in there by herself.

He’d wanted to go with her. She’d refused.

“I need to do this alone, Matt,” she’d said, kissing him for the hundredth time on their trip east. “Did you ever believe in the boogeyman when you were a little kid?”

He nodded.

“This is my own personal boogeyman. Until I prove to him and myself I can stand up to him, unafraid, then I can never have a future free of him.”

“Does that future include me? Because I want it to.” He tried to make her understand what he wanted.

She kissed him then climbed from the car. “I hope so, Matt. I hope so.”

For the past week he’d watched her face one nightmare after another. Every time she put one behind her, she came out stronger.
This was different. This was the demon that’d tortured her and humiliated her. Seeing him face to face, after reliving all her other memories, might be the one test of mental strength she couldn’t win. What if she went into that mental cave and never came out?

How long would it take to end Strict’s life?

In the cold, crisp air the anti-death-penalty protestors’ voices sang Silent Night on the penitentiary wall’s other side. If Strict could hear them, he’d scoff at their choice of words. If he’d succeeded, pandemonium and wails would’ve filled this night, not silence and peace.

They protested for a life that wasn’t worth the oxygen used to say the words. If Strict had his way, the very freedom they used to gather and speak their minds would’ve been forfeit.

Matt wished Katie had never gone inside. How long would she have to stay? How long until she was back in his arms once more?

He glanced at his watch for the millionth time. Just a few more minutes.