Chapter Four
Gio prodded Mia with his gun. “Get in. You ride in back with me.”
Her guess was that Raj was Dipshit, which made this joker Sidekick. She met his gaze and hoped like hell none of the panic she was feeling was showing in her face. She opened the driver’s side door and reached for the food she’d picked up from the dinner.
The gun was suddenly jammed in her ribs. “I said—” There was a rush of air and a muffled thud, and Hudson was there using the duffel she’d packed to pin Gio to the side of her SUV. “She rides in the back with me. My deal, oui? And put the gun away, idiot. You’re not gonna shoot no one before Cain gets his stuff back.”
Spittle flecked Gio’s lips as he shoved uselessly at the bag. Raj banged impatiently on the top of the truck. “Knock it off, morons. Gio, get in the truck, now.”
Hudson moved away and Gio glared at Mia before stashing the gun in his pocket and moving to the passenger side. Mia let Nev into the backseat before climbing in herself. Hudson slammed the back glass on the cargo area then attempted to wedge his six-foot-two frame into the backseat on the passenger side. He tapped Gio on the shoulder. “Taber—move the seat forward, eh?”
“Nah. I’m comfortable, dude.” Mia could see the man’s smug grin in the rear view mirror.
“Is that right?” Hudson managed to get the door closed then twisted legs forward so his knees were jamming into the back of Gio’s seat. “Okay, now I am com-for-table, too.”
Gio’s posture stiffened and he tried to arrange himself to avoid the hard bumps against his spine, but after a few seconds, an electric motor purred and the seat slid forward a few inches.
Hudson angled himself so his legs stretched into Mia’s space and the reek of testosterone eased in the SUV. Mia reached into the bag the waitress at the diner had given her and passed the top box to Hudson. He frowned slightly when he popped open the lid. “This is what you got me? I told you I want meat.” He shoved the box at her, nudging Nev’s head out of the way. “Give me the other.”
Her skin prickled at the disdain in his voice, and she glared at his unconcerned profile as she passed over the second box.
Raj’s eyes were on her in the rear view mirror. “Sent her on a little errand this morning, Remy?”
Hudson swallowed a mouthful of the sandwich he’d put together with pancakes and strips of bacon. “Ya, she goes, dog stays, she comes back.” He shrugged. “And here she is.”
He was putting on the act to protect them both, but it was unsettling, the way he was able to disappear so completely into character. She could never really trust what came out of his mouth. Gio turned in the passenger seat and reached his hand back. “I’ll have the other one. Hand it over.”
Mia nudged Nev with her elbow and the dog dropped his head and growled. Drool fell onto Gio’s hand, and he made an expression of disgust and wiped his hand on his leg.
Mia shrugged and rooted through the bag for a fork. “Dog says no.”
Anxiety was tying her stomach in knots, but there was no way to know when their next meal was coming, and she was damned if she was going to give either of the idiots a bite.
#
Several precious hours of their allotted twenty-four disappeared before the truck finally pulled to a halt on a rough logging road. More slides had peppered this section of the mountain range and this route was the only one Mia could think of that would get them even close to where she thought the helicopter might have gone down.
Gio let himself out of the truck and squinted around suspiciously. “This don’t look right.” He pointed the gun at Mia’s forehead. “You tryin’ to pull a fast one?”
Mia sighed. “It ‘don’t look right’ because you were on the wrong slope yesterday. Your whirly bird went down on Simpson Peak. You were on Chieftain’s.”
Gio pressed the gun into her skin. “The GPS said we was close to the place the pilot told us, and that road was the closest we could find.”
“And what? You thought you’d just walk across thin air to the next mountain? There’s no peak-to-peak gondola here.” She took a chance and shoved his hand to the side. “Besides, now you’ve found this road and we’re that much closer to the site. Go ahead. Check your GPS.”
He glanced at Raj, who triggered the app on his phone and nodded slowly at Gio. He cursed and put his gun in his pocket before turning his back on her.
She took in deep lungsful of the crisp mountain air to quell the queasiness that had started when the truck slogged up a steep series of switchbacks. Neville was bounding around the small clearing, marking trees and stretching his legs. Mia called him and he sprang into the back of the truck to bury his nose in the bowl of food she offered. The thugs were talking with Hudson near the front of the truck, and Mia quietly slid open the zip on her duffel bag and slipped a few more items into the pockets of her cargo pants. She repositioned Nev so she could reach his panniers and repacked the sides with the high-calorie patties Martha at the pet store had said were the latest, greatest thing for camping and endurance. They were, she’d said, human-grade food, but Mia was fervently hoping things didn’t reach the point she needed to eat them herself.
She studied the pack then removed some of the patties and slipped in protein bars and snacks from the emergency pack she kept strapped in the cargo compartment. There was a way hut on the route to what she thought was the crash site, but there was no way to know what supplies still remained in the small shelter after the long season. Far better to have enough of their own.
She’d just slipped her arms through her daypack when a rough jerk on the bag sent her onto her ass on the soaked ground. The rear hatch slammed shut. Gio stood over her with his gun out again. “The dog stays with us.”
Mia pushed herself to her feet and wiped her hands down her pants. The light water-resistant coating couldn’t compete with full immersion, and mud and rainwater was seeping into her underpants. “Not an option. The dog comes with me or you get nothing.”
That stupid smirk was back on Gio’s face and he pointed the gun and her, bouncing it slightly with his words to exaggerate his point. “Uh uh uh. You don’t make the rules here. I say the dog stays, so the dog stays.”
“And I say, stop it wit’ the gun.” Hudson snatched the weapon away from Gio and released the magazine in one smooth movement. He tossed the gun in one direction and the magazine in another.
Gio swore and took a swing. Hudson leaned clear of the punch, then planted an elbow in the back of Gio’s neck as he lurched forward, off balance. The thug face-planted in the mud with a thick splat.
“Enough.” Raj stood on the other side of Mia’s SUV with his gun braced on the roof. “The dog stays. You can thank Remy for the idea. Now get going.”
Mia glared at him, then pointed at Hudson. “You want an insurance policy, keep him. I don’t trust you with my dog.”
Raj laughed. It would have been a pleasant sound in other circumstances, but the gun never wavered. “Unfortunately for you, the boss feels the same about Frenchy.” He shrugged and raised his free hand. “Now, he comes back with the missing cargo that might change. But for now…” He adjusted the angle of the barrel and his face dropped into stern lines. “The dog stays, and Frenchy goes. Now move your ass.”
Mia opened her mouth to argue some more, but a tiny movement from Hudson—she wasn’t sure what—captured her attention. When she turned to look at him, his expression was completely flat, but he grabbed her elbow and started walking.
#
Hudson kept his hand at Mia’s waist as they walked into the tree line. His heart was pounding and the part of his brain that specialized in survival was begging him to turn around, or at least run like hell from the bullet it suspected was destined to end his life.
“Frenchy!” The call came over the increasingly frantic barking echoing against the rocks. He turned and surreptitiously pushed Mia behind him. If there was a bullet coming, it would have to go through him. “Be ready to run,” he murmured out of the side of his mouth.
“Make her shut this thing up. No way I’m drivin’ all the way down the hill with that noise.” Raj had his gun out again and Hudson wished he’d gotten it away from him when he’d grabbed Gio’s. He could see the other man at the edge of the embankment searching for the magazine Hudson had tossed. He wouldn’t find it. It was resting comfortably in the inside pocket of Hudson’s borrowed jacket. He’d pitched a stone and palmed the magazine and Gio had never even noticed.
Mia stepped out from behind him.
Raj backed away from the vehicle so they could see he’d changed the angle of the gun to aim inside the SUV. “And before she tries to tell me she can’t, understand that the thing is quiet or the thing is dead, and also, therefore, quiet. Quiet being the key word.”
Anger was coming off Mia like heat from a campfire, but her hands didn’t so much as shake as she clapped them twice, then moved her left palm swiftly through the air to an abrupt stop with her palm parallel to the ground. She then raised her index finger and silence blanketed the forest, sudden and heavy in his ears. Mia turned and walked away without a word, and Gio sauntered back toward the passenger side door, grinning at Hudson. He pulled open the door and closed one eye as he raised his hand and sighted down the finger at Hudson. He made a plosive sound with his mouth and mimicked the recoil of a shot, then dropped into the seat.
The forest had swallowed Mia. Hudson stopped and waited for the tell-tale sound of her movements. The heavy rain had turned the ground boggy, and it was only when she broke a branch that he could pinpoint her direction and find the faintest tracks of her passing.
“Mia!” His voice came out as a growl as he tried to balance getting her attention with the risk of alerting the goons that he and Mia had separated.
She didn’t respond, and he jogged as fast as he dared through the underbrush to keep her rapidly disappearing prints in sight. The faster he moved, the farther away she seemed to get until he had to double back and look again for signs of her passage. He found the last clear print, now full of water with disintegrated edges.
When he pulled his soaked cap off to smack it against his leg, he noticed a broken branch at eye level. He heaved a sigh of relief and changed direction. She wasn’t trying to lose him after all, she was just trying to…what? If his sense of direction could be trusted, her new course had her moving back toward the road.
He doubled his speed. He could only think of one reason she’d want to get back to the road, and that reason could very well get her killed.
“Shhhhh.” Mia reached up and yanked on his sleeve, and he dropped to his haunches beside her.
“Mia, I know how you feel about Neville, but we can’t take the risk.”
Her mouth was tight, white around the edges, but her eyes were suspiciously shiny. “I have to try. And this is the one place it might work.”
Hudson parted the screen of brush blocking his view of the road and immediately picked up on her logic. It was the last switchback they’d hit coming up. This was a new logging road and this bend had just been cleared and not yet expanded or graded into a proper curve. Raj had had to slow dramatically to make it round the bend and likely would again.
Hudson let go of the brush and held his breath. He could just hear the engine of the truck.
Mia’s hands swept down her thighs, over and over, pressing the wet material into her legs. His gut clenched. It was true he’d fully intended to convince her to help him find the helicopter, but she didn’t deserve this. Didn’t deserve to get caught up in his crazy web of lies. Didn’t deserve to lose her best friend in a wager they had no hope of winning.
He leaned close to her and got a whiff of the shampoo-and-rain scent of her hair. He breathed it in, stored it in his memory. “Okay. You stay here. As soon as he slows down, I’ll run up to the truck. If they left the doors unlocked, I should be able to let Nev out. As soon as his paws hit ground, you start running, okay? And don’t stop, no matter what.”
He started to crab walk to the right where he could shelter behind a tree. She grabbed him and he wobbled back into place. He could feel her lips brushing the curve of his ear. “It’s too risky.”
He turned to face her, and her eyes widened. His eyes flicked to her mouth then back to her eyes. Her hand tightened around his arm and she tapped a finger against his bicep. The same finger she’d held up to Neville. The penny dropped.
He smiled and her lips jumped in response. “You didn’t just tell him to hush, did you?”
Her smile spread and she shook her head. Damn, she was good. Without a doubt, this wildlife biologist had some secrets and skills in her pocket. Their overdue conversation was going to be interesting, to say the least.
“Okay, what do you need?”
She leaned into him. “I taught Nev how to open the back hatch in case I ever got stuck on a job and couldn’t come back for him. As soon as they slow on that curve, I’ll whistle for him and he should be able to let himself out.” The faint tapping on his arm betrayed her nerves. “I just hope he can hear me over the engine.”
He pressed his hand over hers, and the fidgeting stopped. “What’s the whistle?”
Her eyes came back to his. “Are you loud?”
“Far too loud, according to my aunt.” The engine was clearer now and Mia’s pressure increased until he was sure he’d find her prints among his tats.
“Two short, one long, rising pitch.” She demonstrated softly.
He nodded once then started to make his way toward a large boulder that bulged outward over the rough road. From the vehicle it would look like it was part of the rock face behind, but from his vantage point he could see the small gap between the two. He took off the ball cap and jammed it into his pocket, and pressed himself sideways into the void. He was able to move all the way through the crevice. He reversed and settled himself into the middle, and reached an arm back to give Mia a thumbs-up. He couldn’t have asked for a better concealment.
Mia’s SUV was chugging efficiently toward him, and he wiped rain off his lips and blew a soundless stream of air through them to make sure he was whistle-ready. He and his cousins used to have whistling competitions in the summer, until his aunt would stuff them with crackers to gain a moment of peace. It’d come in handy now—if Mia’s plan worked.
The truck geared down to a crawl. Now or never. He took in a deep breath. Or tried to. His ribs hit rock before his chest could fully inflate. Sweat popped out along his hairline and he wiggled himself to the very edge of the gap. Any farther and he’d run the risk of being seen from the road.
He pulled in air. His lungs expanded like bellows and he tipped his head back against the rock and closed his eyes. Two short. One long. Rising pitch. He let it blast.
The SUV shifted into reverse. Raj had overshot the angle. Then he heard the squeak of a hinge and the unmistakable sound of metal on rock. Hudson’s breakfast flipped in his stomach. What if he’d called Neville when the truck was too close to the face? And then he heard fluent cursing from the road and knew the dog was free. He stayed put, barely breathing, and hoped Neville wouldn’t lead the goons directly to Mia. Hudson started to inch his way back to her, but stopped when he heard more doors opening.
“Forget this! I’m not running through the woods looking for a damn dog. It’ll never find her anyway.” Gio’s voice bounced off the trees.
“Right, because dogs are terrible at finding things.” Sarcasm dripped from Raj’s words.
“Hey man, you want to be Cain’s boy so bad, you go looking for the dog. I’ll meet you at the bottom of the mountain.”
There was the sound of fists pounding on metal and then a wearier-sounding Raj. “Get in. The dog’s not the one Cain’s interested in anyway. Doesn’t matter to him if goes to live with the wolves. And we’ll leave him a little snack if Remy comes back down without the drugs. French is good eating, right?” The sound of Gio’s laughter was suddenly muffled by the slamming of a door.
The tendons in Hudson’s jaw creaked from strain. So he hadn’t been entirely successful in convincing them he was loyal. This was a test, and if he showed his face without accomplishing his task, he and Mia wouldn’t make if off the mountain alive. The SUV rolled slowly around the hairpin and then revved. There was the gloopy sound of mud spraying from tires and more muted laughter, like a TV show soundtrack.
He waited another few seconds, then started to press his way back to Mia, but found his way blocked by Mia herself. “Move, move!” she whispered.
“Mia, we have to go.”
“I know, but that way.” She shoved his shoulder and he obligingly moved through the gap. Rustling in the grass on the other side told him Neville was waiting for them, and the dog launched himself at Mia before she was even free of the rock. She squeezed him tight for a split second and then shoved him off and started patting at the pockets of his pack. “Got it! Okay, we need to get downhill, fast.”
She started running at an angle that would take them back through the heavy underbrush and deposit them at a lower part of the road. Hudson followed on her heels. “Mia, we’ve already overshot our luck. We can’t risk them seeing us.”
“We won’t.” She held up a small remote in her hand and spoke over her shoulder while still moving at full tilt. “If we can get close enough, I can disable the engine. We can’t let them take our only means of transportation off this mountain.”
He pushed air past the tension in his chest. Two more strides and he’d made a decision. This was his mess. He shouldered past Mia and plucked the remote from her hand like it was a baton in a relay.
He heard her slow down and call to Neville as he powered on. The ground was littered with roots and rocks that could trip him up and take him down, but he kept his eyes up and hoped for the best. He looked right as the cover thinned, and saw the spot he wanted. He put on a burst of speed and slid behind a spindly tree before dropping to his belly and worming his way into the shrub that lined the road. There was no way to know how good the range on the remote was, but closer had to be better.
The SUV took the curve above his vantage point in a four-wheel slide, and Hudson could hear the distorted whine of a badly tuned radio cranked high. He waited until they slowed to make the sharp turn directly to his right and lifted the remote slightly. The button sank in with a reassuring weight and he flattened himself into the muck.
The engine cut out. There was a second, maybe two, of only the patter of rain, and then the precise, metallic clicking of a starter motor, followed by the distinctive sounds of an absolute shit fit from inside the vehicle. Hudson couldn’t help the grin that broke across his face. He dug his nails into his palm to keep from laughing out loud and giving himself away. The clicking came again. And after a pause, again. Then there was the clunking of doors opening and anger spilling into the open.
“No signal. I got no goddamn signal. Try yours, Raj.”
“We have the same phone with the same provider, idiot. If you don’t have a signal, I don’t have a signal.”
Hands slapped wet metal and there was a barrage of foul language.
A door slammed and splashing and sucking noises followed. “Enough with the tantrum, Gio. Let’s go.”
“You want me to walk outta here? You crazy mo-fo. You know how far that is?”
A shot rang out, and Hudson felt his heart lodge at the back of his tongue. Had they seen Mia? Neville?
“I. Am. SICK. Of your whiny-ass crying, Gio. You see another way to get back to town? You gotta pair of fairy wings I don’t know about? Or you just gonna flap them huge ears you got? Move your ass.”
“Fine. Okay, man, no need to waste a bullet. We cool, we cool.”
“‘We cool,’” Raj mimicked. “You watch too many movies.”
“And you low, man. Makin’ fun of a man’s ears. Not like I can do nothin’ ’bout ’em.”
The splashing started up again, and the voices diminished as the two bickered their way down the muddy track.
Hudson lay still for a moment, body shaking with the giddiness of terror turned to relief. He rolled onto his back and let the rain wash the mud from his face. They had a choice now. He could give Dipshit and Sidekick a head start, then collect Mia and Neville and get the hell off this mountain. Or he could make contact with his handler and let him know the op was blown and let Mia get back to her mysterious gypsy life. But if he did that, he was kissing their only chance at taking down this ring goodbye. Even Raj and Gio would be able to put together Mia’s missing truck and their failure to appear with the drugs and know they’d been had.
But didn’t Mia deserve to make the choice for herself? Truth was, he just didn’t know. The wildlife biologist lived like an undercover operative and had better instincts in a crisis than anyone he’d ever worked with. Her secrets ran deep, but he’d need to bring them to the surface to know what to do.
He sighed and pushed himself to a low squat. He checked the sight lines from his position, decided the two men couldn’t see him from the road, and started the long haul back up hill to Mia.
If her name actually was Mia.