Bitter Truth Page 14

  The important thing was to put as much distance between them and Davenport as fast as possible. Another reason she’d chosen the bear trap. Because of the way the roads and the creek bed curved, their trail overland was almost perpendicular to the path Davenport would take if he followed the road.

  That didn’t make it easy, though. Their path grew steep, the foliage so thick that they both tripped and stumbled several times, but they were able to catch each other before anyone could fall. Lucy kept her right arm wrapped around Nick, her Beretta in her left. She had five bullets left, plus her second Beretta in her ankle holster had another ten.

  Since they’d lost their packs, they had no food or water or equipment other than what was on them. Which came down to two folding knives, two pistols, one cell phone—Nick’s was in his pocket but she’d left hers on the charger in Bill’s truck—a notepad, a permanent marker, one tiny MagLite, a compass, two bandanas, and a small roll of duct tape.

  Once they’d placed some distance between them and Davenport, Lucy used one of the bandanas as a pressure dressing on Nick’s scalp wound, securing it with a strip of duct tape.

  “Just a little bit farther.”

  Nick wasn’t doing much talking, saving his energy. He simply nodded, pushed off the boulder he’d been sitting on with the walking stick, and continued to trudge along the narrow game trail they’d been following.

  They climbed up a small hill, and she saw the blind canyon with the waterfall at its far end. “That’s it.” She motioned to Nick to wait while she scouted the area. Once they went down to the trap, they were committed; there was only one path out. And she couldn’t help but remember the wolf tracks they’d seen that morning.

  Nick finally realized the bear trap was their destination. “In there? Are you crazy?”

  “It’s secure. You’ll be safe.” She glanced up at the sun—down in the ravine like this, they were already losing light fast, even though it was a few hours before official sunset. Gleason had said he’d be coming to shut down the other bear trap sometime this afternoon. Would he stop by this one again?

  She glanced around searching for one of Gleason’s trail cameras—she needed to warn him. Otherwise he’d be walking right into Davenport and his men.

  Then she froze. There was movement on the ridge opposite. Not human; a wolf. The silver alpha.

  Nick spotted it as well. “Lucy, this is too dangerous. We need to find another way.”

  “We just need to get to the trap.”

  “How?”

  She was working on that. Trying to remember what little she knew of wolves and pack animals. Thank goodness Megan had gone through a phase where she’d only been interested in the animal documentaries on NatGeo and Animal Planet.

  “Is that a satellite on top of the bear cage?” Nick asked.

  “Yes, they have Wi-Fi, and a webcam inside.” Maybe they were already close enough to use it. “I lost my phone. Let’s try yours.”

  He unbuttoned his shirt pocket, winced, and pulled out a mangled block of shattered glass and bent metal. “When I hit the dash.”

  “Try it anyway, maybe it’s just the screen.”

  He flipped it over—the dent went through to the back and had partially popped the battery out. Gingerly, he tried to replace the it. When he had to stop to wipe the blood oozing from his scalp into his eyes, Lucy took over. Shards of glass broke free from the screen as she tried to reshape the phone back to its normal configuration. She was able to straighten it enough that she got the battery into place, but no matter what she did, she couldn’t get the phone to power on. “It’s dead.”

  “The webcam in the trap,” Nick said, obviously warming to her plan. “We can alert Gleason. He’ll bring help.”

  But the wolves. They had to get past them first. Then she could worry about predators on two feet. On the video Gleason had shown them earlier, the wolves had come from all directions, but their main fighting force had attacked from up on the ridge, taking advantage of the higher ground.

  She peered at the area around the trap. There was no sign of any other wolves. Maybe the alpha was alone? On a scouting mission?

  The wolf hadn’t moved, and was still staring at them—at her, it felt like—from across the ravine. As Lucy watched, it dipped his head as if nodding, making a promise. And then it vanished.

  “Now,” she urged Nick.

  They scrambled down the side of the ravine, bracing themselves with hands, feet, whatever they could find. Lucy’s ankle protested, but she ignored it. With each step, doubt overwhelmed her. What did she know about wolves? How reliable was the webcam in the trap?

  They reached the trap. Lucy used the button Gleason had shown her to raise the heavy door and hoisted Nick inside. She scribbled a note warning to Gleason. “Hold this up to the camera after I close the door.”

  “Wait—you’re coming inside as well. Lucy, I’m not staying here without you.”

  “The camera is only activated when the door is shut. I need to stay out here to open it again.” It was a lie. Lucy had no intention staying there. She had prey of her own to hunt. She lowered the door, and it fell so fast Nick had to jump back. The sound of the metal on metal clang echoed through the woods, alien and intrusive.

  “Is the camera working?” she asked, hating that their lives depended on a single piece of technology. Not just theirs—Gus’s, Amy’s, and Gleason’s as well.

  “Yeah, the light came on. I’m holding the note up. There’s not much light in here, though.”

  “Here.” She pushed her tiny MagLite through one of the air holes. She watched Nick through it. She should just leave. Now. While she knew he was safe. Maybe Davenport would never find him; maybe she didn’t have to worry. But all she could envision was Davenport and his men taking potshots through the air holes in the bear trap—talk about fish in a barrel.

  “Lucy, it’s done. Now open the door and come inside.”

  Still she hesitated.

  “Wait. You said you’ll be safe.” Nick finally caught up with an argument she’d already won five minutes ago. Not at all like him. Concussion—one more thing to worry about. “You meant we, right? We’ll be safe in the bear trap. We will be safe. Together.”

  “They’ll come at night.”

  “The wolves?”

  God, she hoped not. Maybe they’d get lucky and the wolves wouldn’t be interested in two puny injured humans reeking of adrenaline and blood. Maybe the wolves around here only liked big, strong targets like bears.

  “The men. At least one of them has a rifle with a thermal scope. So one or more with night vision capabilities. Darkness isn’t going to stop them hunting us.”

  Movement on the hill to the east caught her eye. A glint of silver among the green bushes. The alpha had returned. Right. No time left.

  But then she spotted a rustling in brush on the other side of the ravine, back the way she and Nick had come. Damn—they were trying to outflank them, like they had the bear.

  Black and gray and brown shadows rippled across both sides of the ravine as the wolves gathered. The blood. They smelled Nick’s blood. Once they were inside the trap, would the wolves tire of the wait and leave? She remembered what Gleason had said about the patience of wolves, how even if a moose or elk made it to relative safety in deep water, the wolves would take turns harassing their prey until the larger animal succumbed to exhaustion.

  Except Lucy wasn’t worried about exhaustion. She was more worried about being trapped by one predator only to give the more dangerous humans time to catch up to them. But she’d run out of time, and her hesitation may have damned them both.

  She hit the switch to open the trap’s door and climbed in.

  “About time you came to your senses,” Nick told her.

  She ignored him, grabbing the walking stick and pressing the button that would collapse it to an eight-inch cylinder. “Wedge this under the door when it comes down.”

  Without waiting for an answer, she crawled to the re
ar of the culvert where the bait would hang from a lever. She looked back. Nick had the walking stick braced at the door. She yanked on the lever, triggering the trap.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  As soon as the trap door hit the walking stick it stopped. Nick wasn’t sure how the safety mechanism worked, but he was happy it did—Lucy wasn’t claustrophobic, but she’d go nuts if she was trapped with no way out. Not that that excused her for even thinking of abandoning him here and heading off into danger.

  “Any sign that Gleason got the message?” she asked Nick as she leaned down and peered through the narrow gap below the trap door.

  “No idea,” Nick answered. He sounded pissed off and knew it, but he didn’t apologize—from the stiffening of her shoulders, Lucy had heard the emotion in his voice.

  “The wolves are gone. Maybe the noise of the trap door clanging scared them off?”

  Nick could only hope it hadn’t carried far enough to invite human predators.

  “I wish I understood why this was all happening,” Lucy continued, as she spun around the narrow space to sit beside him, between him and the door. “I thought maybe Davenport had found the buried gold Gus told me about, but then why target Bill? Plus, Davenport didn’t even get here until a day after Bill went missing. And if his men who were here first found the gold, why bring the GPR unit? Why not just dig for it?” He could barely make out her features in the dim light. She touched his hand, and he pulled his away. “Nothing makes sense.”

  Did she really expect him to sit here in a freakin’ stinkin’ bear trap and discuss the intricacies of her freakin’ stinkin’ case?

  “We’re sitting in a bear trap, surrounded by wolves—real life wolves, wolves who have no compunction against going after grizzly bears—being hunted by men with guns, and you’re worried about not understanding exactly what motivated our friendly neighborhood psychopathic killers?” Nick couldn’t help his laugh; it was either that or break down altogether. Because he didn’t see a way out of this, not with both of them still alive. Given that he couldn’t move fast or fight, given who Lucy was, he knew she had a plan, one that might save his life but would probably end up with her dead.

  “Shhh…the wolves will hear you. Besides, I get Davenport’s motivation—greed. I just don’t understand anything else.”

  “Great time for an existential crisis,” he snapped.

  Lucy turned and pressed her lips to his. He responded to her touch—how could he not?—but her cavalier attitude only cemented his dread.

  “You’re getting ready to do something stupid, aren’t you?” he asked, when they finally parted.

  She sat quiet, thinking. She took a long time before answering, and when she did, she surprised him by talking not about the case but instead about what they’d been tiptoeing around for months.

  “Existential crisis. That’s a good name for it. I feel like all my life I’ve been defined by my job. It sure as hell defined our marriage: where we lived, what jobs you could take knowing that you might not be there more than a few years before the Bureau reassigned me. It even defined how we raised Megan: teaching her gun safety and then how to shoot and how to defend herself so she wouldn’t be scared when I was gone—what did she call it?”

  “Chasing the Death Eaters. Blame that one on your mom for letting her watch Harry Potter movies when she was way too young. I told her to stick to the books. She was up for weeks with nightmares.”

  “And I wasn’t there. I was down in Alabama negotiating that hostage situation at the prison.”

  “I never resented your job, Lucy.”

  “Sure you did. Megan did when we moved from Virginia to Pittsburgh.”

  “But now she loves it,” he interrupted her.

  “And you were so patient with the hours and crazy assignments that sent me far from home. But something changed after we moved. You changed—the way you saw me, and my job. You were glad when I left the Bureau—were you tired of being controlled by them, by my assignments?”

  If they weren’t being held captive by steel walls and a pack of wild wolves—yeah, he was man enough to admit it, the wolves were freaking him out even if it was much more likely that the men with guns would be the ones to kill them—if they were having this conversation anywhere else, this was when Nick would have walked away. Let things simmer and die down, hopefully to never be spoken of again. Usually he didn’t avoid tough topics—Lord knew, Lucy never did until recently—but this one, this could break them if things went wrong.

  “I supported your decision to leave,” he began in a cautious tone.

  “It wasn’t really my decision, and you know it. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Even before then, before the dog and my mom—” Her voice broke, and he wrapped his arms around her, leaning his back against the curved steel wall to make room to draw her closer.

  “Lucy. We don’t need to talk about this. Not now.”

  She shook her head, her hair brushing against his face in the near-darkness. “Yes, now. Because I never meant to put you and Megan second—but I know you feel that way. That my job came first, that I was willing to risk my life for a job when I could be home with the people I love.”

  “I don’t—” He stopped. His throat tightened, choking his words to dust. Because if he was honest with himself, he had felt that way; she was right about the anger and resentment at the way she so easily put herself in the line of fire for total strangers. When the FBI had forced her to leave, he’d felt relief, but now this new job… “Okay, I do. Maybe. Sometimes. But I also know that’s what makes you the woman I love. That need to run toward danger while the rest of us are running away.” He kissed the top of her head, wished he could see her face. “Sometimes it’s just hard being married to a freakin’ superhero. Being the one always left behind.”

  “I’m no superhero. Not even a regular hero.” Her shoulders tightened against his chest, but then a chuckle rippled through her body and into his. “Bet you wished I’d left you behind this time.”

  “Yeah, can’t blame your job for this one.” He hugged her tight, his palm pressing against her heart, relishing its sure and steady beat. Unlike his own pulse, spiked by fear and adrenaline. “But there’s no place else I’d rather be. No one else I’d rather be with.”

  “We need to think of Megan.”

  “I know.” It was the only reason he hadn’t continued to argue with her once he realized what her plan was. “But you need to know none of this is your fault.”

  “See? That’s exactly my point. I used to blame my job. But now…it’s not the job. It’s me. It’s who I am, and I don’t know how to change or stop or—”

  “Or what? Sit behind a desk pushing papers while you send others to put themselves in danger? Other people who might not do the job as well as you can? Who might get themselves hurt or someone else hurt because you’re not there?” He didn’t mean to sound clinical, but habit had him dropping into a neutral tone designed to allow clients to reflect on their words. He felt her breath rise through her chest and then empty out again.

  “Hubris,” she finally answered. “Isn’t that what always brought down the wrath of gods in all those Greek tragedies? My need to control—that so-called magical thinking—it controls me, doesn’t it? It’s a no-win situation. Either I lead from the front, putting myself at risk to protect my team, or I send them out in my place, risking their lives, and face the consequences if things go wrong.” She squirmed off his lap, swinging her legs around so she could face him in the narrow space. “Either way, you and Megan lose because you’re left to pick up the pieces. That’s what’s been killing me. I don’t know how to find a solution that doesn’t hurt you two.”

  “I don’t have the answers, but I do know that talking about it is a good first step.”

  She leaned her forehead against his. Close enough that even in the dim light he could see her eyes, dark and serious as they searched out his. “That’s a promise. If we make it out of here, we’re going to ke
ep talking. Together. Me, you, and Megan—she deserves to be a part of this.”

  “Deal.” Before he could say more, her lips were on his again. This time her kiss wasn’t playful or the result of adrenaline; rather it was soul-shaking and more than a little terrifying. As if, despite her words promising them a future, her body was saying goodbye.

  Then she pulled away, leaning against the opposite side of the trap, so far away that she appeared as only a ghostly glow in the waning sunlight.

  “Let’s focus on how we’re going to get out of here.”

  He winced at her businesslike tone. But he also understood that if she was going to survive what came next, she had to keep her emotions out of it.

  She pulled her gun out, dropped the magazine, counted the bullets, replaced the magazine, pulled back the slide, and handed it to him. “The safety’s off and there’s a round in the chamber. Five bullets total.”

  He didn’t argue the point, but wrapped his fingers around the Beretta, taking care to keep from touching the trigger. He was a decent shot on the range but had never had to shoot at a living creature. Hopefully tonight wouldn’t break that winning streak. “How long before Gleason gets the alarm that the trap was activated?”

  “I’m not sure—I guess it depends on where he is.” She clamped her tiny Maglite between her teeth and scribbled another note then tore it from her notepad. “He should’ve gotten a text message when the camera above the door went live. But here’s another—show it along with the first one once the camera goes live again.” She placed the slip of paper in his free hand and wrapped his fingers around it, squeezing them tight.

  “What’s it say?” The first note had warned Gleason about Davenport and his men.

  “Just that I’ll be out there along with Davenport. And to not go to the Holmstead house himself, but to send the police, so he won’t be walking into a trap.”

  Unlike Lucy. Who was not only walking into a trap, she was putting herself out as bait to draw attention away from Nick. He shoved the note into his pocket. Lucy edged her way to the door, peering out into the twilight. Anger and frustration swamped him. He grabbed her arm and pulled her back with an urgency that surprised them both, her eyes going wide.