Prey (16 page)

Just as he was thinking that, the huge sheets of rain lessened—not
by a lot, but the next lightning flash revealed some rock formations ahead. With any luck, there would be some overhang that he could shelter under. He’d tie the horses to something and they could tough it out. It wasn’t as if they didn’t stand around in pastures all the time getting rained on, anyway.

With a goal in view and his panic lessened, he turned his reluctant horse’s head toward the rocks and nudged him into moving forward. The other three horses didn’t like being bunched together the way they were, they didn’t like the weather, and they almost pulled him backward off the horse before reluctantly getting with the plan. Chad cursed and considered just turning them loose now, but he hadn’t had time to think things through yet, and he didn’t want to jump the gun on anything else. He might let them go, he might not. Right now he couldn’t think of any reason why he’d need all four of them, but that didn’t mean something wouldn’t occur to him once he’d calmed down and had time to assess the situation.

He reached the rocks, examining them as best he could whenever the heavens flashed. At first he thought there was nothing, just a lot of really huge rocks that looked as if they’d been dumped there, but he kept working his way forward and eventually the lightning revealed a dark slash that, when he got closer, was indeed an overhang—tall, shallow, but even meager shelter was better than none.

He got out the flashlight and turned it on, sweeping the beam from one end of the overhang to the other, making certain nothing else had also sheltered beneath the rock. The powerful LED beam seemed weak in comparison to the massive show of light and noise Mother Nature had been throwing at him, but it did the job, reassuring him that the overhang was his alone.

Cautiously he dismounted, making certain he kept a tight hold on the leather leads as he walked the horses forward. They followed obediently enough, for a change. The area beneath the overhang wasn’t clean and barren; it was dotted with bushes, littered
with rocks and probably sheep shit and things like that. The bushes, at least, were a good thing, because they gave him something to tie the horses to. It was also a bad thing, because he didn’t have enough hands to hold all four horses, the flashlight, and lead them from bush to bush until he had them all secured.

What if they all ran away when he dropped the reins?

Fuck ’em
.

The answer let him breathe easier. He kept a grip on his mount’s reins, and dropped the three other sets. He led his horse to a bush and quickly tied it off.

Wonder of wonders, the other three horses just stood there. Maybe they were tired. Maybe they were as glad as he was to be out of the constant bombardment of the rain. Maybe they were so used to humans taking care of them they didn’t know what else to do. For whatever reason, they didn’t run. Chad led each horse to a bush and secured it, then kicked some rocks and debris to the side to make himself a place to sit, and sank to the ground with his back braced against the rough rock.

This wasn’t exactly a cozy spot; lightning still lit the world like a maniacal disco ball, thunder still boomed and rolled, making the earth shudder, and he was soaking wet and shivering with cold, but he was out of the rain and he no longer felt as exposed as a lightning rod. He could rest. He could gather his thoughts.

At first, all he did was sit there and breathe; panic was more exhausting than physical labor. He’d done all right at first, shooting Davis the way he’d planned even if the timing and location weren’t exactly what he’d wanted, but then the damn storm had hit and he hadn’t been able to find Angie, didn’t know if he’d wounded her, killed her, or missed her entirely. She’d had that damn rifle in her hand, though, and he’d been drawn in a knot expecting to get shot at any second, then that freakin’
bear
had shown up and started snacking on Davis, and—

His breathing was getting too fast again, just remembering
those nightmarish moments. Chad deliberately slowed it down, forced the gruesome pictures away. He had to
think
.

Angie hadn’t shot at him. That meant he’d hit her after all, that she was either dead or wounded, right? And if she was dead or wounded, the bear would likely have moved on to her as soon as it finished with Davis—unless she wasn’t hurt very bad and was able to run, but if she wasn’t hurt much then it followed that she’d have shot him
and
the bear. He hadn’t heard any shots at all, which meant he likely didn’t have to worry about Angie.

But he didn’t know for certain, and he’d have to make sure. He’d taken the horses and run like hell. With all the noise of the storm, the drumming of the horses’ feet, his own heartbeat pounding in his ears, plus the distance he’d put between himself and the camp, would he have heard a shot that came several minutes later, especially if it came during one of those deafening blasts of lightning? The answer was no. Angie could be hurt, but still able to kill the bear.

She was a huge loose end that he couldn’t afford to leave dangling. He needed time, time to get away and time to disappear. That was all he asked. He felt very bitter that she was interfering with his plans. His life depended on things working out the way he wanted.

He wasn’t worried about the cops, except that he needed to get to Mexico as fast as possible, before his name was put on the watch list. The cops were nothing. Davis’s associates were the real danger. That’s why he’d have to completely disappear, change his name, but that wasn’t a bad thing. He didn’t want the life he’d built as Chad Krugman to follow him; it had been a useful tool, and perversely gratifying that no one saw beneath the facade, which was simply more proof of his skill, but he was ready to start fresh. Chad Krugman had to cease to exist. He’d start new, with a name that didn’t scream
dork
, but nothing over-the-top cool, either. Something quiet and masculine would get the job done.
Maybe he’d have some plastic surgery, too. In fact, that was a damn good idea: chin and cheekbone implants, a more assertive nose. He wouldn’t need to be the invisible twerp any longer. And with his talent for handling money, the sky was the limit.

Never underestimate the accountant.

Davis had. Everyone had. They all did, even Angie Powell, and she’d been nicer to him than anyone else, which almost made him feel bad that he had to make certain she was dead, but what the hell, it wasn’t as if she’d ever have given him the real time of day. She’d been nice to him because he was a client, not because she liked him.

He’d made a slight miscalculation with Davis, and that galled him. Even with everything he knew about the murderous bastard he’d
still
underestimated him. A man didn’t rise to Davis’s position without having at least some intelligence and a lot of cunning to go with the inherent ruthlessness; Chad should have been prepared for the possibility that events could actually happen faster than he’d estimated.

That was what Davis had been doing on the Internet at Angie’s house, searching through all his accounts, comparing numbers—and he’d been smart enough, when Angie kicked him out of the house after dinner, to simply sit on the porch where he could still access her wifi, and continue his electronic poking.

A big question was whether or not Davis had alerted anyone else—namely the people
he
dealt with—or if he had wanted to handle the problem himself and never let them know. After all, he was the one who’d chosen Chad. He wouldn’t want to make himself look bad. But if he’d already spotted the problem and taken care of it, then no harm no foul. Chad thought the odds were in his favor that Davis had kept the problem to himself, that first he’d wanted to verify the money was missing.

Oh, the core of Chad’s plan—killing Davis—had still been executed, but the location and circumstances were off, and that
bothered him. The storm had been a wild card. Angie finding that body had been a wild card. He couldn’t have controlled or changed any of that, but he hadn’t been prepared for such an upheaval of his plan, and as a result Angie was still unaccounted for. He’d have to do better.

In the end, though, he was gratified that his crafted persona had saved his life. Davis had so completely dismissed him as a threat that he’d been prepared to wait until the hunt was finished before taking care of business, probably because Angie’s presence was a complicating factor he figured he could do without. Chad had felt no such limitation. Taken down to the bottom level, once Angie had made plain her intention to report the body she’d found, thereby throwing Chad’s whole timeline off, he had to meet with Davis right away and kill him, and then take care of Angie.

Maybe Davis had believed in his own reputation, which had in the end been a fatal weakness. No one stole from Davis and walked away unscathed. Unscathed, hell; you didn’t steal from Mitchell Davis and
survive
—unless you were smarter than he expected, unless you could catch him with his guard down. Davis hadn’t expected Chad to be armed; he hadn’t expected the accountant to be faster to commit murder than he himself was, which had been a serious, serious miscalculation.

Krugman one, Davis zero. Final score.

Now all Chad needed was to make sure Angie was taken care of, then get a five- or six-day head start. He’d be safe—he’d be someone else entirely—before anyone thought to look for the bumbling accountant.

He had to figure out how to make that happen. He had no doubt that he could, he just had to settle down and let his brain start working. He could still make this happen to his advantage. Wounded or not, Angie wouldn’t be riding off the mountain, because he had all the horses. He’d like to think that taking the animals
was enough to ensure his safety, but he knew it wasn’t. No, he had to make sure she was dead before he made his escape. He needed that head start.

It was a shame, in a way. He liked her. Angie Powell was a nice person. She’d treated him well even when she’d thought he was a world-class schmuck. She hadn’t flirted with him—women didn’t flirt with men like him, unless they were desperate—or put on a fake smile and a false front; she’d been decent to him, which was more than he got from a lot of people. Unfortunately, nice people ran to the cops, which was why he couldn’t let her live.

Too bad, but he wasn’t going to let her interfere with years of planning. He had a fortune socked away, and he’d be damned if he’d let Angie Powell or anyone else get in his way now. He’d lived on the edge, dealing with murderers, torturers, drug dealers, the scum of the earth, to get that money, and he deserved to spend the rest of his life enjoying it.

So. What were his options? What were the possibilities? Best-case scenario, and worst-case scenario?

That last one was easy. The best-case scenario was if the bear had killed Angie. Not only would it mean there was no evidence linking her death to him, but that would also throw a lot of doubt on what had happened to Davis. Add that to the body Angie had found, and any investigation would focus so sharply on the bear that they might completely overlook whatever evidence remained showing Davis had been shot. He guessed it depended on how much of Davis the bear ate. If they hunted the bear down and killed it, would they analyze its digestive system? If the bear ate a bullet, how long would it take for it to crap it out?

For that matter, would the bullet still be in Davis anyway, or would it have gone straight through? Chad’s pistol was a 9mm, but all he knew about it was how to use it; he hadn’t studied damn ballistics. Point and shoot, and hit what you aim at. What more did he need to know?

Worst-case scenario was if Angie wasn’t wounded, she’d gotten
away from the bear, and she was heading back toward the rancher’s place as fast as she could.

Chad listened to the god-awful storm roaring around him, and calculated the odds. No, she probably wouldn’t try making that trip in the dark, in this weather. She had the rifle, so she probably wasn’t worried all that much about the bear, and in fact, the bear might already be dead. Would she then stay at the camp?

No, because she wouldn’t know where
he
was.

An edge of excitement curled in his stomach. If not for his pressing need to get out of the country, he liked the idea of pitting his wits against Angie’s in a real man, or woman, hunt. She was way more savvy about these mountains and this kind of life, but a big plus for him was that she’d underestimated him the way everyone else did.

Back to the scenario: She’d hole up somewhere, then, when the weather improved, she’d head down the mountain. His advantage was that he knew where she was going.

But his disadvantage right now was that he didn’t know where he was, exactly. He sat there and concentrated, forced himself to tune out the storm, the restless horses. He wasn’t a great outdoorsman, but he did have a general sense of direction. He and Davis had been to the left of and behind the camp; the bear had come from that direction. When he’d fled the camp he’d raced to the right, away from the bear, which had taken him generally north. He needed to go back south, then east. He had no idea how long he’d ridden, driven by panic, but he figured he couldn’t be more than a couple of miles from the camp.

He’d oriented himself with some visual landmarks when they’d arrived, so he was pretty sure he could find the campsite again if he needed to. Did he need to? Did he really need to make sure Angie was dead, or should he just get to Lattimore’s as fast as he could and get out of the country? He was riding, she was on foot. He’d be at least a day ahead of her, right?

Was a day long enough?

Maybe, maybe not. He’d rather have that week he’d planned on.

Then suddenly a horrifying thought occurred to him, and he groaned aloud.
Fuck!
How could he have been so stupid? He’d lost his head, panicked, and now … double fuck! He had to go back to the camp, and this had nothing to do with Angie and tying up loose ends.

He didn’t have the keys to the SUV.

Davis had had them. They might have been in his pocket, or they might be somewhere in his tent, but one way or another Chad had to get those keys or his whole plan evaporated beneath him and left him sitting in a big pile of shit.