ONCE TUCKER HAD reached his pickup, he’d started to climb behind the wheel when he saw the new note tucked under his windshield wiper. Like the other time, he looked around but saw no one. Carefully he pulled it out, unfolded it and held it up to the light. As he did, he caught the scent of jasmine. His belly roiled.
It was the same handwriting as the other notes.
You should have left, but since you didn’t...I’m waiting for you. Remember our second date? Come alone if you ever want to see Kate again.
His chest aching with a fear that had plagued him for hours, he climbed behind the wheel and drove out of town, headed for the old hot spring. The place had been abandoned years ago, the road up to it privative at best. The original building had burned down in a lightning storm years before he was born.
While still private property and posted with no-trespassing signs, he and his friends had gone up there, anyway. That it might be dangerous had been part of the thrill. It was where he’d taken Madeline on what she called their second date.
The water coming out of the ground was boiling hot, but the pool that formed where it ran into the creek below the waterfall was the perfect temperature, especially on a winter night.
Before he might lose cell phone coverage, Tucker put in a call to Flint. He didn’t doubt that Madeline would kill Kate if the sheriff’s department showed up in force. But he was no fool.
His brother answered on the second ring. “Tucker?”
“I got another note from Madeline. She says she has Kate. Please, find out if that is true and call me right back.”
“Where are you?” Flint asked suspiciously.
“Please hurry.” He disconnected and tried Kate again. The phone rang four times before going to voice mail. He’d already left messages but decided to leave another.
“Kate, you’re starting to really worry me. Text me just to let me know you’re all right. Please. It’s urgent.”
A text came in right away.
He picked up his phone, praying it was Kate and Madeline was lying. He almost ran off the road as he read it.
How sweet. But your precious Kate doesn’t have much time. You’d better hurry.
He started to put the phone down when it rang.
“No one has seen Kate since she left the hospital alone earlier. Her car is still in the lot. Where are you?”
Tucker could see the road to the old hot spring ahead.
“She’ll kill you both. Where are you, Tuck?”
It would take his brother at least twenty minutes to get out here. “I’m at the old hot spring.” He disconnected as he pulled into the parking area. There were no other vehicles, but that didn’t mean that Madeline hadn’t hidden hers somewhere and was waiting for him.
He climbed out, telling himself he wished he had a weapon. But Madeline would expect that. Madeline already had the perfect weapon to use against him—Kate. Somehow she either knew or suspected how he felt about Kate. Which meant she’d been watching him this whole time. Or someone close to him had been watching him.
Tucker realized that he had no idea who he could trust. Or what he was about to walk into as he got out of the truck and started up the mountain to where the boiling water spewed from the ground and joined the creek. He could hear the roar of the water as he hurried up the trail.
Everything he’d learned about Madeline told him that she was a cold-blooded killer. He’d known deep in his soul that she wasn’t through with him. She hadn’t tormented him quite enough. Now she had the perfect weapon against him—and she knew it.
Kate. Just the thought of her in Madeline’s hands nearly killed him. He thought of all the things that made him crazy about Kate, all the things that he loved. Loved. His heart ached at the thought of her completely disappearing from his life as abruptly as she had come into it. He couldn’t let that happen. He’d die before he would let Madeline take Kate from him.
Kate was exasperating, infuriating, stubborn to a fault, opinionated and impossible. But he loved that about her. Just as he loved her laugh, her smile, the way she cocked her head when she studied him and those bottomless green eyes... He could lose himself in them for the rest of his life. But mostly it was the things that drove him crazy about her that had made him fall for the woman.
How had Madeline gotten Kate up here—if it was true and she had her here? She’d had help. Rip. Or someone who’d been closer to Tucker? He couldn’t imagine Lonny or Cal hurting anyone. Well, at least not Cal. And Jayce. Was Jayce capable of murder?
He remembered Jayce’s take-no-prisoners attitude in football games. The man was tough when he needed to be. But Tucker couldn’t imagine him killing anyone. Not Misty. Not Madeline’s father. Not Rip. But he feared that one or all of them were up to their necks in this.
The sky was lightening to the east, he realized as he topped the mountain. It wouldn’t be long before the sun came up on another spring day in Montana. His heart clutched at the thought that Kate could already be dead. Madeline could have killed her. He could be walking into a deadly trap with no chance to save Kate—or himself.
In the growing light, he could make out what was left of the old hot spring buildings and pool. Nothing moved below him as he started down the rocky trail. The roar of the creek was deafening. If someone wanted to surprise him at any point, he would be a sitting duck.
Still, nothing could stop him. Madeline would know that. She’d be waiting.
* * *
KATE WORKED THE screwdriver into the concrete around the doorjamb. She could see light through the space she’d carved in the crumbling concrete. It surprised her that the sun was coming up. She breathed in the fresh air through the good-size hole she’d made.
She tested the door again. It moved some. Just a little more weakening around the jamb and she thought she could force her way out of here. She kept working harder, afraid that whoever had brought her here would come back once it was daylight.
Still, it made no sense why they’d brought her all the way back to Gilt Edge and left her in the mountains at some old hot spring unless, as she’d suspected earlier, she was bait for Tucker.
She tried not to think about it as she worked. Just a little more, she told herself even though her arms and back ached. Her knuckles were skinned and bleeding from coming in contact with the concrete, but she couldn’t stop. She was going to get out of here. She was going to save herself. Once she escaped.
Kate heard a noise and froze. Over the roar of the nearby waterfall and creek, she heard someone at the door fiddling with the padlock. It was still dark enough that they might not have noticed the hole beside the door frame that she’d carved out. It wasn’t large enough to crawl through, so it would probably go unnoticed. At least she hoped that was the case.
But what if it was someone come to rescue her?
She started to scream for help, but something stopped her. It sounded like someone was putting a key into the lock. No one who’d come to rescue her would have a key.
The screwdriver clutched in her hand, she quickly stepped back, waiting for the person to come through the door.
But to her surprise, the sound stopped. She listened, holding her breath, except the door didn’t open.
* * *
TUCKER SLOWED AS he neared what was left of the resort. The place had been a dream. When hot water was discovered up here on the side of the mountain, an energetic entrepreneur bought the land and built one large building that housed the main pool and several smaller ones. He’d planned to turn it into a destination resort.
Instead, that dream went up in flames. After lightning struck the main building and burned it to the ground, all that was left was the concrete pool, which was now filled with green slime and weeds, and the few outbuildings.
Broke and disheartened, the entrepreneur hadn’t been able to rebuild and had died a few years later. The place had been tied up in an estate for years, the property near worthless in its present state.
He slowed as he neared a clump of thick pines. Down the mountain ahead, he could make out the old concrete pump house. Someone had carried off all the pipe works, but the building was still standing off to one side against the mountain. Farther down, where the water pooled, were several more small buildings that had once been the dressing rooms. If Kate was being held here...
As the sun crested the horizon, Madeline stepped out from behind the thick pines, blocking his way. The initial shock of seeing her in the flesh brought him to a halt just yards away. The sound of the creek roared in his ears as Madeline smiled and took a few steps toward him.
The years hadn’t been kind to her. While still striking, she looked more like fifty than a woman in her early forties. But there was a fearless confidence about her, something he realized had attracted him from the beginning.
He thought about rushing her in the hopes of taking away the gun she was holding, but he first had to know what she’d done with Kate—and if she was alone. In his pocket, he pushed the button that would call Flint as the last number dialed but worried that his brother couldn’t hear their conversation over the roar of the creek.
“I talked to K.O. recently,” he said, glancing around.
Surprise registered in her expression before she laughed. “Like I care. My family turned on me. They can all go to hell for all I care. You see anyone else here but you and me?”
“I love your choice of a meeting place. This old hot spring brings back all kinds of memories. Or was it even you I was with?” he asked.
She smiled a smile he remembered too well. A mocking, crooked smile. “You don’t know, do you?”
“I was hoping it was your bones in that creek. At least I would have known that you didn’t pull this shit on anyone else after me.”
“Such bitterness. It was just a game,” Madeline said. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”
“But Misty got hurt.”
She shrugged. “Unavoidable as it turned out.”
“Let me guess. She almost drowned that night. I could tell she was scared standing on that bridge. I’m betting she wanted to quit.”
Madeline pointed the gun at him as if dotting an i. “Give the man a prize. Misty thought she could just walk away. I had already realized she was going to be a problem I would have to deal with sooner or later. She’d fallen in love with Clay Rothschild. Unfortunately, he’d killed himself, but she hadn’t known that—yet. So I decided to end it at the creek and blackmail you the rest of your life.”
“So you just killed your own sister—one identical to you—in cold blood.”
“She tried to grab the gun. I was stronger than she expected.” Madeline raised her brows as he took a step toward her. “A lesson you might want to remember.” She motioned for him to stop.
He had no choice. “Come on, I don’t believe it was a game or you could have stopped. I think it was about the money, the presents, the control over men.”
She laughed, also a familiar sound that clawed at his heart.
He wanted to ask about Kate, but he knew that was a mistake. He’d glimpsed Madeline’s ego. If she thought the only reason he was here was for Kate...
“Maybe you knew me better than I thought. You were always my favorite.”
It was his turn to laugh. “Still trying to con me, huh?” He wondered if the pistol was getting heavy in her hand. He could only hope. But he reminded himself that she’d already killed at least two people with a gun. He doubted she would miss at this range.
“It was just a game at first, but you’re right. I liked the trinkets men gave me. I would still have that silver bracelet with the bells that you gave me, but I didn’t realize Misty had taken it that night I was to meet you on the bridge. I was otherwise involved so I sent her.”
He shook his head. “And she did what you said.”
“I might have let her think it would be the last time. Maybe I was hoping she drowned. I don’t know. Things had gotten complicated.”
“Really?”
“Haven’t you figured it out yet? Rip had become our...manager. We began to make a lot of money. Things were picking up, but then Misty fell in love with Clay Rothschild and wanted out. I kept telling her to do me one more favor and then she could run off with Clay.”
“You know he killed himself over your...game,” Tucker said, thinking of Kate.
“Like I said, things got complicated.”
“How could I have ever been fooled by someone like you?” Tucker asked, not expecting an answer.
“I wasn’t born that way,” Madeline snapped. “Given my parents, I’m surprised I didn’t turn into a serial killer.”
“Who says you aren’t? Misty. Your father. Rip.” He said a silent prayer that he wouldn’t have to add Kate’s name to that list.
* * *
KATE LISTENED, BUT no one came to the door again. She was so close to freeing herself. She knew she was taking a terrible chance, but she had to try. If someone were waiting out there for her, she’d be playing right into their hands.
She began to work frantically with the screwdriver, stopping only once to listen and hearing nothing but the creek. The hole around the door was wide now that the doorjamb was being held only on the one side.
Sticking the screwdriver into the waist of her pants, she gave the door a shove. It moved, making a cracking sound as the wood gave. She shoved again, harder. If the door completely gave way and someone was out there, they might be able to hear it over the roar of the creek.
But it was a chance she was going to have to take. She got a run at it, putting her body into it. The door keeled out but didn’t fall. She realized she could slip through it if she kept it pried open by putting her back against the rough concrete.
Her clothing was already ruined, as if that was a worry. She was scraped up and bleeding and ached all over. But she was going to get out of here. Where she was going to go and what she was going to do, she had no idea. She didn’t even know how far she was from Gilt Edge.
But at least she wouldn’t be caught here when the men came back.
She shoved the door and, using her back against the rough concrete edge, pried it open enough to slip through. The ragged concrete edge scraped her back, drawing blood. She could feel it dampening her blouse, but at the last moment, she managed to free herself.
The door swung back in, almost taking her arm with it. But she was out. She stood for a moment in the dim morning light trying to catch her breath from the exertion and trying to figure out what to do next.
That’s when she saw the two figures on the trail up the mountainside next to the roaring creek. A woman holding a gun on a cowboy. Not just any cowboy. Her cowboy, Kate thought. Tucker.