The Kill (32 page)

The earth was still moving, rocks bumping down. It wasn’t an earthquake, Zack realized; it was the disturbance of people on this steep, unstable slope that was causing the loose ground to fall away.

“Why isn’t she taking the rope?” Zack asked, fear evident in his voice.

“She can’t see it.” Miranda’s lips were tight. She called down. “Olivia! The rope is three feet to your right. You’ll need to let go of the tree.”

“No!” Olivia’s voice was faint, but she sounded petrified.

“You have to!” Miranda called.

“I’ll be okay. Give me a minute.”

“Dammit!” Miranda said, running a hand through her hair and yanking on the dark ponytail hanging down her back. “She doesn’t have a minute,” she mumbled.

Rocks continued to fall, and Olivia cried out.

Zack’s heart beat double time. He shouted, “Olivia St. Martin! Grab the damn rope
now
!”

He saw her hand let go of the tree and for a split second, Zack thought she’d fallen deeper into the crevice. Then he saw both her hands reach up, feeling for the rope.

“Six inches,” Miranda called. “Right there. Yes! Pull it over your head, under your arms, right now. Now. Okay. Good.”

She turned to Quinn and Zack. “Get her up. Fast.”

As they pulled, a huge chunk of ground gave way, and they scrambled for a foothold. They felt additional weight on the rope, and Miranda grabbed the end and helped pull. Hand over hand. Hand over hand.

Olivia scrambled up the last twenty feet herself. A huge gash had sliced her forehead open, and blood was dripping down her face. Zack pulled the rope off her and looked down the slope.

He wished he hadn’t.

The rock slide had widened the crevice. He couldn’t see the bottom, even with the industrial lighting. The thought that Olivia could have fallen to her death terrified him.

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. She breathed heavily in his arms, her entire body shaking violently.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” Zack repeated. “You’re okay.”

He murmured words of reassurance in her ear, for himself as well as Olivia. He didn’t want to let her go.

He kissed her hair, her cheek, her neck. She held him tightly, her arms wrapped around his back, under his jacket, trying to be as close to him as possible. Her shaking subsided and he tilted her face to look at him, wincing at the gash on her head.

“You need to let the EMT take a look at your head.”

“Later.” She leaned up and kissed him.

He returned the kiss with fervor. Needing to taste her, to feel her response, that she was fully alive and breathing in his arms. “Liv,” he whispered into her lips. “I was so scared.”

“Me too,” she murmured. He pulled back and looked at her, wanting to understand where they were going because these intense feelings scared him, almost as much as her falling. The thought of Olivia walking away at the end of the case filled him with a terrible sense of loss.

In her eyes he saw relief and desire, the same yearning he had for her.

She buried her face in his chest. “Hold me. Just for another minute.”

He would have been happy to hold her forever.

But Chris Driscoll was still on the loose.

In the military, Chris Driscoll had learned that a backup plan was necessary for survival. Without a plan, you die.

The little bitch got away. She wasn’t an angel at all, but a demon sent to trap him. He hadn’t been thinking when he pursued her. If he had waited, she would have returned. If he had listened better, he would have found her.

He was so angry and surprised when she attacked him that he’d chased her, then lost her. She eluded him. She sent that deer into his path and he crashed.

But he’d prepared for failure, like any good soldier. He just needed a car.

He knew exactly where to get one.

Zack and Quinn spread open the map of the Cascades on the desk in Zack’s room at the North Fork Lodge.

The lodge owners, middle-aged sisters Kristy and Beth Krause, had opened their bed-and-breakfast to the police earlier in the evening, so when Zack and the others arrived at two in the morning, they already had several rooms prepared.

“The fog was too thick for the sheriff’s search teams to attempt a manhunt tonight,” Quinn said. He pointed to an area near the base of the mountain and the Anchor River. “They’ll be starting here at daybreak with dogs and at least a dozen men. We’ll have men with dogs coming from the other side.” He pointed to the place near the Boy Scout camp where Driscoll had crashed the truck.

“He could elude our men at night,” Zack said. “If he goes at a steady pace, he’ll be at the base of the mountain by morning.”

“Miranda said this area is almost impossible to navigate. He either has to follow Road 56—and we have men discreetly stationed at several places along the road—or wind around to the river and follow it out.

“There is a chance,” Quinn continued, “that he could cross Road 56 at one point, and that would put him on this side of the mountain. There are several vacation homes and public campgrounds. It’s a little late in the season, but the sheriff’s department is sending deputies to each residence to first warn anyone there, as well as inspect any vacant houses. They’ve called in support from neighboring counties as well as the forest rangers.”

“This lodge is in that area. If Driscoll crosses Road 56 he could end up here.”

“That’s why the sheriff assigned two deputies to these grounds.”

Zack ran a hand over his face. “I should have been doing all this.”

“Why? That’s why you have a good team around you. You’ve been going practically 24/7 for the last week.” Quinn slapped his hand on Zack’s back. “Get some sleep. Everything that can be covered in the four hours between now and dawn has been.”

Quinn’s cell phone rang and Zack tensed. Bad news? Or had they captured Driscoll?

“Agent Peterson,” Quinn answered. He visibly relaxed. “I’ll be right there. Love you too.” He shut his phone. “Miranda told me to come to bed.”

“She’s a good woman.”

“You don’t know the half of it. To think of all the time I wasted . . . “ his voice trailed off. “Um, I’ve known Olivia for a long time. She’s very important to Miranda and me.”

What was that supposed to mean? Zack frowned.

Quinn held his hand up to stop whatever he thought Zack was going to say. Hell, Zack didn’t know what he was going to say, but he felt distinctly uncomfortable, as if he were a teenager facing his girlfriend’s father after breaking curfew.

“What I should say is, Olivia has taken the world on her shoulders and doesn’t leave much time for herself. She deserves a little happiness. Especially after this.”

Zack agreed. “After we wrap this up, we’re going away for a few days.”

“Good.” Quinn nodded. He looked like he wanted to say something else, then, “You know when you’re on a tough case and you’re faced with an ultimatum and no decision is perfect? That no matter what you choose to do, there are consequences?”

“There are always consequences, Peterson. You have to do what is the most right.”

“Exactly. Good. Well. Get some rest. Tomorrow is going to be another long day.”

Quinn left and Zack frowned. What was that all about? He yawned and rubbed his face. He was exhausted, but there was no way he could sleep right now. His mind was working overtime. They’d rescued Nina, but Driscoll was still out there.

He needed a shower, so he turned on the water, stripped, and stepped under the spray.

When Olivia had slipped down the crevice, he’d thought she’d fallen to her death. He’d been terrified he’d lost her. When Zack saw her alive he could at least breathe again. When he held her in his arms, he didn’t ever want to let her go. Cold fear had turned into something hot and needy. He’d never felt so close, so connected, with anyone.

She’d reached out for him, her adrenaline-induced passion pulling him over the edge. He had wanted to make love to her, right then. The fact that they were in the middle of the woods with an audience hadn’t entered his mind.

Now he wanted her twice as bad.

What was Olivia doing right now? Was she sleeping? Or, like his, was her mind too active to shut down?

He shut off the water and dried off, pulling on his boxers and pacing. He was semi-hard thinking about Olivia and her lips. Remembering her full breasts under the damp robe she’d worn in the hotel room the other morning. Remembering the way her long, soft fingers drew trails of electricity wherever they touched his skin.

He wasn’t going to get any sleep tonight until he kissed her again.

He pulled on his jeans, grabbed his holster, and left.

Olivia couldn’t sleep either.

For the first time in her life, she wanted to go to a man. She wanted to slide into bed next to Zack Travis and ask him to make love to her.

When she’d been married, not once had she initiated sex. Greg had always suggested they have a romantic dinner, which was his way of starting a romantic evening that ended in bed.

She knew why—it was being touched. It had taken a long time to get comfortable with Greg, a long time to accept his touch. But already, after mere days, she didn’t flinch at the thought of Zack touching her. She didn’t hesitate to reach out for him, even to just casually pat his arm.

She’d have to be comatose not to recognize the change happening within. And it had as much to do with the way Zack had treated her, talked to her, respected and pushed her, as with her own internal growth.

But would she have become as strong and accepting of the past, putting it behind her, if Zack hadn’t come into her life? The two events were linked.

She slid out of bed and crossed to the large picture window that overlooked a valley. She couldn’t see much except shadows and the suggestion of a meadow. She wore a long flannel gown Kristy Krause had loaned her when the kind woman had taken her soiled clothes to wash. She’d showered and her short hair was still damp, but she wasn’t cold.

What should she do? Should she simply walk across the hall and knock on Zack’s door and throw herself into his arms? That’s what she wanted. Needed.

But what if she was mistaken about him? She
thought
he had some feelings for her beyond professional interest, but considering she hadn’t dated since Greg, she didn’t know if she was reading things right. And considering they had spent the last five days on the edge, working this case nonstop, maybe it was that intensity she was picking up on and not any personal feelings between them.

Still, it wasn’t just the embrace tonight after rescuing Nina. What about the kiss in the car when they were in California? He’d opened up her heart in a way she hadn’t believed possible.

She hadn’t told him the complete truth. She bit her lip, battling with herself. She had to tell him; he deserved to know she wasn’t who she’d been pretending to be. But that could wait. It had to. As soon as Driscoll was caught, the case wrapped up, she would tell him. Explain exactly what she’d done and why.

Certainly he would understand. He had to.

The knock on her door made her jump, but she knew it was Zack. She almost tripped over her feet to open the door, feeling like a foolish teenager.

“Hi,” she said, taking a step back.

“Hi.” He took a step toward her and closed the door behind him.

He was shirtless, his bare, hard chest at her eye level. Her mouth went dry, her lips parted. She licked them, took a step forward and put her mouth on his pectoral, breathed in his clean, damp skin.

His arms wrapped around her, pulling her up to his mouth.

The kiss wasn’t light or even kind. It was powerful, hungry, and Olivia responded with just as much passion and hunger for Zack as he showed her.

He moaned into her lips, kissing her with such urgency she almost lost her breath.

“Olivia, I was so scared I’d lost you. Lost you before I really found you.”

“Zack—”

Suddenly her feet were off the ground as he swooped her up into his arms. Her head felt light and amazingly empty. All her senses prickled with the need to be touched.

She’d never wanted to be touched, intimately touched, by anyone. Now she couldn’t imagine his hands anywhere but on her body, his eyes anywhere but locked with hers, his breath anywhere but on her neck.

Zack’s skin was hot to the touch. She was amazed at how much heat he generated. She’d never need a flannel nightgown again, let alone a blanket, if Zack slept next to her every night.

He laid her on the bed and removed his jeans, leaving him in boxers, his large, firm body hovering over hers. She swallowed, reached for him, and he came to her.

His hands reached under her nightgown and clasped her breasts, his thumbs circling her nipples, teasing them into hard nubs. The cold that had filled her soul most of her life melted away at his insistent, probing caress.

She gasped and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his face to hers. She lost herself in his searching kiss.

The fire building within was unlike anything she’d ever experienced. No leisurely kisses and patient seduction. Zack focused on her entire body at once, every pore of her skin craving his attention. She rubbed her body against him, wanton and free like she’d never been before.

Zack brought out a passion within her that she’d never thought she was capable of achieving.

His mouth scorched her where his lips trod. His tongue trailed hot paths down her neck, behind her ear, teasing her lobe. She’d never known her neck, her ears, her shoulders were so sensitive, that hot kisses and urgent moans could send little shock waves of pulsing heat throughout her body.

The gown was frustrating her. She wanted to feel Zack’s hot body against her bare skin. She fumbled to rid herself of the gown.

When Zack noticed Olivia was trying to remove her flannel nightgown, he reached down and with one swift movement pulled it over her head.

He stared at her body in the dim night light. She wore nothing underneath, and he found her perfect.

She was petite but curvy, with full breasts and wide hips. Her hourglass figure had been merely hinted at beneath those functional business suits. Naked, Olivia was a sexy dream.