Epilogue

Nina was tired. It felt as if grains of sand had embedded themselves in her eyeballs and no amount of rubbing helped ease the discomfort. She’d been up for two days straight. Fear and adrenaline continuously punched through any attempt at rest, not allowing her a respite. She’d gone through Ranger training and not had this much difficulty staying on top of things.

And now the car she’d purloined in Anchorage, the Honda she’d thought would run for miles and miles and miles due to its Japanese engineering, had met its match—Alaska.

She groaned as she shoved the car door open and stepped out. Steam rose from the front of her vehicle, the ghostly tendrils of gray mist startling against the backdrop of a brilliant pink-orange sunset. The sight held her attention for a long moment. It really was pretty in a this-sucks-ass kind of way.

Somewhere, a tree limb cracked and fell to the snow-shrouded ground, disturbing the sudden silence. At least, she hoped that’s what the noise had been. She didn’t know if she could protect herself from anything other than a stick right now.

The car must have become motivated by the sound of the limb falling because it chose that moment to creak ominously, the engine coughing and hissing before the whole body shifted, sinking into an impressive gangster lean.

Then, right before her eyes, one of the wheels fell off and rolled down the road. “Well…damn,” she whispered.

She had driven the wheels off the car. Literally. Apparently not finished with its sighing and groaning, the Honda shuddered violently and gave up the ghost. The steam billowing out from under the hood stopped, and she was left once more with silence.

Losing the tire must have broken its heart.

She had no idea where the first laugh came from. It startled her, made her question her sanity. Because sure as hell, none of this was funny. Her gaze caught on the animal moving over the snow ahead of her. The cause of her current trouble trotted up a steep hillside as if it hadn’t a care in the world.

Stupid elk. The animal didn’t look any the worse for wear after meeting her borrowed Honda ass to fender. The Honda?

Yeah…it was hurt. It was hurt real bad.

With the rapidly falling snow and not a soul in sight she knew, real bad was a death sentence for the car. Probably for her too. She was so close to her destination. Even though she felt like she’d traveled to the end of the earth, she had to be close.

The frigid breeze reached under her knit top and sank fangs into her skin. She blew roughly on her hands as her toes curled inside her fur-lined hiking boots. She had to get moving. Too long out in this weather, and she’d die. She hadn’t survived hell to die frozen in Alaska. Contemplation made her angry, so she shoveled that energy into pulling on whatever she could find from the backseat of her car. Layers for warmth because it was damn cold here, and it appeared she had a long walk in her near future.

“You just couldn’t pick Tahiti, could you? Had to pick Alaska,” she grumbled aloud. “Who picks Alaska to set up their retirement home? You had to be crazy before Ricker got hold of you. That’s got to be it.”

She rubbed her chest because the pain that settled in her heart when she thought about Micah had the ability to take her to her knees. She breathed through it. He was gone. She was going to have to make peace with that eventually. But not before she destroyed the man who’d taken him from her.

After putting on every last bit of the clothing in her go bag, she decided she resembled a vagrant marshmallow woman. She shrugged. It was irrelevant. She gathered together as much of her stuff as she could, cramming her laptop, satellite phone, and a small notebook into her go bag before she punched the key fob lock. She shook her head, sighing loudly as the car alarm snort-wheezed and then let out a last mournful wail. Why she was attempting to lock it was a mystery.

The car she’d appropriated—okay, fine, the car she’d stolen in Anchorage—was over fifteen years old. The beating it endured during her cross-Alaska flight, followed by being smacked upside the head by that damned elk’s behind, had relegated it to toast status. It wasn’t salvageable and would probably be consumed by the forest surrounding her. The car mimicked her sigh and then deflated, the other front tire going flat with a pop and hiss.

If cars had a soul, this one’s had just crossed over. She stared at the gray hunk of metal, and tears pricked her eyes. If she could make it to Micah’s hideaway, she’d buy herself some time to research and plan. She’d waited for a year to make this move. Making it to his place would allow her safety and access to the high-tech systems she knew he had hidden in his war room.

She’d never been here. But he’d promised that one day he would bring her.

Wiping away a tear, she wanted to scream at the agony racing through her. He should be here with her.

Goddamn Dresden! Goddamn Ricker! Goddamn the Piper!

She glanced up at the sky again and forced air through her lungs. She could do this. She’d baited the hook for Endgame. She’d used burner credit cards and shown her face on closed-circuit television. They’d come looking for her as she wanted, but they’d struggle to find her so she’d bought herself some time. Micah had given no one the location of his house. Not even Jude, his best friend. Eventually, they’d find her, but she estimated she had at least a month or two before that happened. And that was plenty of time to plan.

She gazed around at the majestic beauty of the scene before her. No doubt, Alaska was gorgeous, but she could not, for the life of her, figure out why a man born and bred surfing in the waves of the Pacific off the Southern California coast had wanted to live in the vast, cold wilderness that was Alaska.

Then again, once upon a time she’d wanted to hide as far away from civilization as she could get. Become lost in a tourist town and not come up for air. Instead, she’d entered the CIA and found herself smack-dab in the middle of international espionage and intrigue.

She hitched her go bag over her shoulder. The last sign she’d passed had said the big city of Nikolai, Alaska, population ninety-four, was approximately ten miles ahead. Somewhere on the periphery of Nikolai was where she was headed. It was as remote as anyone could get, and right now her target location seemed farther than the moon.

She had a hell of a walk in front of her. She recalled the coordinates on the handheld GPS she’d purchased in Anchorage and cursed when the battery went dead.

“Keeps getting better and better,” she groused.

She raised her sleeve, hit a button on her watch, and waited as the tiny electronic marvel calculated her location and gave her directions to the coordinates Micah had loaded into it fourteen months ago.

He alone had known her secrets and done everything he could to protect her from her mistakes. He’d done it selflessly, not realizing the price he’d have to pay. She angrily swiped at another tear.

She needed to get her shit together.

A hawk’s cry pierced the air, and she glanced skyward. Soft, bitterly cold flakes fell on her cheeks. She’d be in heaven if she were twenty years younger. She’d make snow angels and snowballs. She’d make slushies and snowmen, really live it up like she had back in Vermont. But she wasn’t six, and right now this looked like a frozen version of hell.

She patted the dented hood of the Honda. “You were a good car. I appreciate all you’ve done.”

With one last glance at the car, she blew out a rough breath and turned away from the road, heading just into the edge of the forest. One minute she was walking on snow-covered dirt; the next she was slipping on snow-covered pine needles. Uphill she trod, passing boulders as she put one foot in front of the other.

Her feet were like ice blocks. She wiggled her toes experimentally, wishing she’d thought to purchase warming packets. Her breath sawed in and out of her lungs. It was a loud sound in an otherwise silent forest. She laid a hand on her chest, pressing as if she could make her heart settle just by that action. It pounded so hard she had to stop, sit down, and catch her breath. She’d not been the same since the poisoning.

The snow fell heavier, coasting to the ground with a whisper that spoke of all things not related to warmth. She rubbed her eyes, wincing when the roughness of her driving gloves scraped her cheek.

Night was upon her, and as she sat there trying to determine if she should just make camp, a strange knowing slid down her spine. Someone, or something, was watching her.

The knowledge she’d become prey settled in her mind even as it danced on her skin. She allowed her gaze to go unfocused, searching her periphery for signs of any movement. If it was a wild animal, she could only hope she had time to shoot. She lowered her hand, reaching for her sidearm. A branch snapped, and the shushing of falling snow reverberated like a bomb in the sudden silence.

Nina couldn’t shake the sudden feeling that branch snapping had been intentional.

She stood and turned in a complete circle as she withdrew her gun. She backed up, her back hitting a tree, and she went still, waiting.

The feeling persisted, but nothing jumped out or made a sound. If it were a bear, she’d hear its grunting and chuffing. A wolf would be too silent to anticipate. Maybe she was just paranoid?

Surely it wasn’t a person. This place was entirely too isolated to have people running around in a threatening blizzard.

She picked up her go bag and secured the strap onto her shoulder. She turned, keeping her gun out, and then she walked again.

Periodically, she’d stop and listen, but upon hearing nothing, she kept on. One foot in front of the other. Then the canopy emptied of birds. A screech, a caw, and they were airborne, lifting as one into a darkening sky. It startled her so much that she instinctively picked up speed—her walk nearly a run now.

She was tired though, and as a small hill gave way in front of her, she miscalculated her steps and slipped on a rock. Then she was down, rolling and tumbling along a snowbank before she landed heavily against a boulder.

“Oomph!” Her breath left her, her back slapping against the rock and sending pain down her spine.

From somewhere behind her, another twig snapped. She was being hunted. And still the damn snow fell. She rolled to her side and pushed to her knees, tiny frozen crystals pelting her from a darkening sky. She was so cold. And now her back hurt.

One more twig snapped, and with it, her tentative hold on anger. She searched for her gun and located it about ten feet to her left. She hadn’t survived poisoning to die in this forsaken wilderness.

Snow crunched beneath heavy steps, and Nina knew that whoever, or whatever, was chasing her was too close for her to make it to her weapon.

She threw back her head to scream at the sky, to curse the enormity of this task she’d set for herself, and stopped when the barrel of a gun pressed against her temple.

Her eyes shifted sideways as she prayed. She needed retribution. Micah deserved redemption, and by God, she was going to get it for them both. It would damn well not end this way.

Then the smell of the ocean permeated her senses. The ocean was hundreds of miles away. Micah’s smell had always reminded her of the ocean—salt, sand, and sweet air. It was as if she’d conjured him.

But it wasn’t possible. She must’ve hit her head in the fall, because surely she’d lost her mind. He was buried in the only Christian cemetery in Beirut.

The gun didn’t move, the air didn’t shift, and the damn snow sure didn’t stop falling. Tingles shot up her spine now, replacing the pain with a bittersweet ache. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard.

But in that second, as the steel of the gun pressed into her temple, Nina swore everything in her calmed. The peace she’d not had in fourteen months stole over her as she looked up and up and up into eyes so blue that they were the color of a cloudless sky at midday.

The refrain repeated: it just wasn’t possible.

And then he spoke.

“Who the hell are you, and what are you doing on my property?”