Chapter Nineteen
Jane hated to admit it, but Lydia Swann—or whatever her name was—could hold her own in the outdoors. Which totally annihilated Jane’s feeble hopes that she could somehow get away from the woman while on their trek to find the phone.
Escape had seemed possible—and necessary—when a menacing black pistol was aimed at her chest and the no-nonsense FBI agent showed a deadly intent to use it. In seconds, Jane had realized there was no way she was an FBI agent…and no way to run from the woman or the question she wouldn’t stop asking: Where was the phone?
Saying she’d lost it just got that gun raised a little higher toward Jane’s head. Admitting she knew where it was got Jane pushed back into the truck with an order to drive. Learning that getting it meant rapids, waterfalls, danger, and a muddy hike didn’t deter Lydia one single bit.
Jane had sped back to A To Z, managing to drive despite the heavy silence and heavier revolver still aimed at her. But, sadly, no Eagle’s Ridge police officer pulled her over. She prayed Adam or someone would be at the office, but Adam and Zane were still out on their mission and the office looked deserted. She hoped against hope that the rapids would take Lydia, that the Middle Finger rock formation would spill their kayak, or that a bad ride down the Nakanushee Falls would end this nightmare.
None of that happened, since Lydia was clearly versed in the art of giving orders, handling an oar, and never putting that damn gun down.
Now they were sloshing their way up a mud-covered path, and the skies were as threatening as her hiking partner. A flash of lightning in the distance announced that this band of rain included thunderstorms.
Trust me, you do not want to be up here in a thunderstorm.
The problem was, she had trusted him. And he’d shared her secret with someone, and…now Lydia Swann was ready to kill her for a phone?
“What if the phone’s gone?” Jane asked as she tried to cling to a branch to keep her boot from sliding and taking her down the side of the mountain.
“Then you will be, too.”
Jane slipped and lost hold of the branch, falling into Lydia, who kept her balance. “If it’s so important to you, why did you let me cart it across the country?”
“I had to get it out of Miami by someone who wasn’t me. You fit into the plan perfectly.”
The plan? “You planned this?”
“The day I saw you, I knew you were my ticket.”
Jane’s steps slowed as she tried to catch her breath and make sense of what the woman said. “To what?”
Lydia gave her a hard nudge forward. “Just move. Fast.”
Jane tripped again, using her hands to break the fall, covering her palms in cold, sticky, unforgiving mud. “Why are you doing this?” she cried as she attempted and failed to get her footing. “What are you trying to accomplish?”
“How much farther?” Lydia demanded, looking past Jane and up the mountain.
Jane followed her gaze, seeing the boulder she knew marked the end of the “safe” trail and the beginning of the last treacherous section of the path before reaching the ridge. “After we climb that,” she said, gasping for a breath. “Around…then…we’ll be there.”
“Good. Good. We’re almost done.”
“Done with what?” Jane demanded.
Lydia threw her a vile look, then reached down and grabbed the collar of the down vest Jane had put on hours ago, not far from here, at the campsite.
“Get moving or die.”
“I’m not much good to you dead,” she muttered, pushing herself up in the world’s most graceless rise. “But I sure was good to you alive. Why me, for God’s sake? I’m an interior designer. Why?”
“Look at you,” she said. “Same hair and eye color. Even the same height. The ID switch was easy.”
Jane tried to process that as they neared the boulder, remembering how generous the offer had seemed at the time. Take my ID, Lydia had said that hectic night at the airport. We look enough alike. You can’t have yours on you anyway.
And Jane, like a trusting idiot, handed over everything she had that said Jane Anne McAllen on it.
“So you targeted me to switch ID’s and sent me off with a phone that you’d kill for?” Her voice rose in wild frustration. “Why would you do that?”
She jabbed Jane with the gun. “Don’t even try to yell for help.”
As if anyone would hear. As if Adam would come after her. The knowledge that he wouldn’t, that by now he surely believed the worst about her, believed that…what had that man said on the phone? She’s double-crossing the whole Sergio Valverde operation for one of her own, and the feds want her. Bad.
“So you’re screwing Sergio,” Jane said.
“Not technically,” she replied dryly. “I draw the line at sex with the scumbag bastard who killed my father.”
“But…professionally?” she guessed, earning a look of begrudging respect from her nemesis.
“I’m doing what I have to do to put Sergio Valverde out of business and take everything owed to me.”
“And the phone?”
“It has what I need to do that.”
They reached the boulder and stopped cold, and even Lydia was a little winded. Or maybe emotional.
Sergio killed her father? Jane filed that away as a possible weapon.
“Climb it.” She shoved the pistol into Jane’s kidney.
Of course, emotional currency was hardly as effective as that gun. “It’s hard,” she said. “Especially in muddy boots.”
Lydia’s dark eyes narrowed to cold, black slits. “It’ll be really hard when you’re dead.”
Jane turned and found the crevice she’d used the first time she’d climbed this particular obstacle. Back when she was falling for Adam. Trusting him. Counting on him. Actually letting herself fall in love with him.
And he sure as hell wasn’t going to come and save her, so she damn well better do it herself.
At the fury of that thought, she swung herself up, making it easily in one move, turning quickly to see Lydia, who had stuck the gun in her pants and, for one second, was looking down to find her footing.
Now. Now was her chance. There was only one place Lydia could put her hand. One stone to use as a grip. Taking a deep breath, she stole a glance to her left, where Adam had blocked any chance of her falling. Not a particularly steep fall, but it was mud, and Lydia would go tumbling at least fifty feet. Enough time for Jane to run.
Bracing for support, she stared at Lydia’s hand rising, moving as if in slow motion, higher, higher, over her head and away from that pistol, and landing on the stone.
Jane lifted her muddy boot and slammed it down so hard she could have sworn she heard bones crack but for Lydia’s howl in pain. Instantly, Lydia lost her balance and Jane jumped right back down and pushed with all her might, knocking the other woman to the side, but not over the edge.
Damn it!
Lydia swung around, using her leg, but Jane got a hold of that and thrust her whole body into a push. Lydia screamed, reached for her pistol, but fell backward. Jane took one last swipe, and down Lydia went, ass first, hands and feet in the air, screaming and sliding down the muddy side of the mountain.
Jane froze for one second in shock, then turned and ran, falling and slipping and swearing as she made her way back down. She heard Lydia’s screams echo off the mountain and the cliff, and then a single, heart-stopping gunshot told her the woman hadn’t lost her weapon.
Fastest way. Fastest way. By boat, of course, without a life jacket and only one person in the boat.
Jane ran, fell, rolled, scraped her face, but pushed right back up and fought her way to the bottom of the path.
She heard the rushing water and knew she was one step closer to safety. She could hide, of course, but Lydia would find her. She had to strand Lydia with no boat. Only a local would know the footpath out of there.
A huge bolt of lightning made her stumble again, followed by thunder and…another gunshot. Did Lydia already have her in her sights?
Jane reached the two-man kayak they’d stolen and dived toward it, scrambling inside and grabbing one of the oars, nearly dropping it as she tried to push off from the rocky shore.
The rain pelted and the skies lit up with another bolt of lightning, but Jane ignored nature’s fury and pushed with all the strength she had, finally getting the boat off the shore.
The white, rushing, wild water suddenly seemed a thousand times more dangerous than on the way here, when her focus had been on that gun aimed at her back.
The kayak rocked and swayed and bounced along on the water, icy spray pricking her face and body like little knife tips. A wave crested over the tip of the kayak, making Jane scream as she bounced down so hard her teeth knocked together.
Another flash of lightning, followed by a much-too-close thunderclap, stole what breath she had left, firing her with the strength to use the oar and remember the most basic things Adam had taught her to stay alive.
Aim the boat at the V in the rapid. Keep the paddle in water. Lean into the current. Don’t panic.
Too late.
At the pop of a gunshot, she ducked instinctively and stole a glance over her shoulder, catching sight of Lydia on the riverbank, her pistol aimed dead ahead at Jane.
The only thing keeping her alive was the wild waves, bouncing her so crazily she was a moving target. Peering through the rain, she spied the vertical jut of a distinct rock formation.
The Middle Finger. If she could just get by that, around those rocks without flipping, she’d be out of sight.
Find the V. Paddle in water. Don’t panic.
She stabbed the rapids with the oar and thrust her body forward, trying to force the kayak into the V of the two converging rapids, gasping for air as another chilling splash hit her face. Bracing for the next bullet, she stayed as low as she could, her gaze locked on that rock.
If she could just get to it, get past it. She heard a shriek, followed by another gunshot, making her duck again.
A sudden wave rose up and lifted the kayak, balancing it high, then the kayak leaned left and…more left…and then she was completely sideways, suspended in air for one split second. She opened her mouth to scream in horror, but she hit the water so hard it was like crashing onto ice, then instantly there was darkness and the roar of water and a freezing wet force that dragged her and bounced her and refused to let her go.
The water was stronger than she’d ever dreamed. More vicious and powerful than her worst nightmare. It grabbed her and flung her and choked her.
No, that wasn’t water. It was an arm, clamped around her neck, pulling her up, dragging her.
Lydia got her!
She fought wildly, kicked, and took in a lungful of water. She couldn’t get to the surface. She couldn’t breathe. The force pulling her was stronger and more determined and completely in charge. She fought with everything she had, kicking, pulling, refusing to be overpowered.
But water filled her lungs and she was absolutely no match for the strength of her attacker. Blackness closed in, dragging her into oblivion and certain death.