Loe raamatut: «Lone Survivor»

ONE

Karissa Landon gnawed her lower lip as she guided her compact sedan up the steep gravel driveway toward her cousin Nikki’s home in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon. As excited as she’d been to reconnect with this long-lost relative—pretty much the last one on the bare branches of her family tree—now that she was at the moment of truth, her palms were sweating and her heart rate stuttered like she was about to undergo a particularly grueling job interview. Karissa and her cousin had both recently crossed the threshold of thirty years old, and it had been twenty-two years since they’d last seen each other. Would they like the adults the other had become?

Karissa and her twin sister, Anissa, had been inseparable with Nikki when their families lived next door to each other during their early grade school years, but after their families moved far apart, they’d gradually fallen out of touch. Now, this reunion meant a lot to Karissa—probably too much—which led to her arriving at her cousin’s place a good half hour earlier than their agreed-upon time. But with her parents and her twin sister gone from this world, she longed for connection with someone who shared her DNA.

She stopped the car at the edge of a circular drive in front of a log house. The structure was considerably bigger and more elaborate than Nikki’s reference to it as a “cabin” would have implied during their initial telephone conversation several days ago. Her cousin had sounded delighted to hear from her and fascinated to learn that Karissa had joined an ancestry website specifically to find any remaining relatives. Nikki had been excited to share about her three-month-old son, Kyle, but sad over her husband’s recent death due to prostate cancer.

Karissa’s insides knotted. Was it unrealistic of her to hope that she and Nikki would rebond after all these years? Regardless, she had to try.

Sucking in a fortifying breath, Karissa stepped out of her car and walked up the three steps onto a wide front porch populated by small tables and chairs, as well as a swing at the far end. The large front door was a unique blend of ornate and rustic. Massive, floor-to-ceiling picture windows to the right of the door suggested a great room that would offer a panoramic vista of the wooded valley below. No wonder her cousin delighted in the place.

Resolute, she knocked on the solid wood and waited...and waited. Not a sound carried to her from the interior. Had her cousin forgotten she was coming? Or maybe Nikki had run out on an errand and would soon be back at the time they’d agreed to meet. Probably that was it. So much for her puppylike eagerness to get this reunion underway.

However, with this view to admire and fresh pine air to invigorate her senses, waiting on the front porch would be no hardship. Karissa stepped toward a chair but halted in front of the windows. The curtains were wide-open, revealing a great room with a vaulted ceiling. The room was tastefully furnished with high-end, rustic-chic furniture. However, it wasn’t the loveliness of the space that snared her attention. Her gaze locked onto a pair of bare, feminine feet and legs poking out from behind the brown leather sofa.

Something was wrong. Had her cousin fallen? Was she hurt?

Karissa whirled and raced back to the door. She turned the knob. Thankfully, the door was not locked. She burst inside and rushed toward the woman on the floor then pulled up short with a thin shriek. Nikki lay sprawled on her back, slender arms flung above her head. Her long brown hair fanned out across the cabin floor, the color nearly blending with the medium-toned wood.

“Nikki?” The cry came out hoarse and strangled as Karissa dropped to her knees and felt for a pulse in her cousin’s neck. Stupid, futile gesture. There was no life to be found.

Swallowing hard, Karissa squeezed her eyes shut. Surely, this moment was a dream—or rather, a nightmare. Would she wake up soon? She opened her eyes, but the grim reality remained the same. Worse, if there was a worse in such a situation, it wasn’t even possible to believe that the death was due to natural causes—not with the neat, round bullet hole in the middle of Nikki’s forehead. Her cousin had been shot!

Who did this to you, Nikki? Is the killer still in the house?

Karissa’s stomach lurched, and she froze in place. Her gaze darted around the vast space. All appeared to be benignly normal—except for a real estate flyer on the floor nearby. With her senses in heightened awareness, the bold black words smacked her between the eyes: Buying or Selling, You Need Marshall Siebender and Associates on Your Team. Strange. Nicki hadn’t mentioned letting go of the place. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Focus, girl! Karissa snarled at herself.

She needed to know she was alone in this house. Emptiness and silence met Karissa’s senses, but that didn’t mean a murderer wasn’t lurking somewhere on the premises. The hairs on her arms and the back of her neck stood to attention. She needed to get out of here.

Gripping the back of the couch, Karissa wobbled to her feet. On jellied legs, she managed only a lurching stagger in the direction of the door.

She needed to call the police or the sheriff or whoever handled crime this deep in the boonies. Karissa pulled her cell phone from her handbag and frowned at the screen. No signal. Great!

Gazing around, she spotted a landline telephone on the wall above the kitchen peninsula. Karissa rushed to it and snatch up the handset. No dial tone. Her insides went hollow. Now what?

Next best thing—get out of here right now, jump into her car and drive as fast as she could to the nearest law enforcement office. The physical paralysis ebbed, and she accelerated toward the front door. But as her hand closed around the doorknob, a sound arrested her. A soft, mewling cry came from somewhere up the hallway toward the back of the house. The sound escalated into an infant’s distinctive wail.

Baby Kyle. How could she have forgotten the child?

Karissa dropped her handbag on a small table next to the door and charged up the hallway. She would get that baby and go. It wasn’t like she could leave him here unattended for an indefinite period of time. Besides, as scary as this whole situation was, common sense suggested that the murderer was likely as far away from here as he or she could get by now. What killer shot someone then waited around to get caught? Karissa was going to have to lean into that thought, because a child needed her to be brave right now.

Guided by the infant’s howls, Karissa opened the door at the end of the hallway. Late-afternoon sunlight trickled between slight gaps in the curtain panels that covered two windows, allowing her a twilit view of a crib along the left-hand wall and its fussing, kicking occupant. A pang gripped Karissa’s middle. Poor, sweet baby. The little guy would never get to know his mother. Or his father, for that matter. Tears stung the backs of Karissa’s eyes, but she swallowed them away and marched toward the crib.

Forcing a smile, contrary to her knotted insides, she gazed down at the flailing infant. Did the child somehow sense that pitching a fit was appropriate behavior at the moment? Of course not. Karissa’s imagination was running away with her. She picked up the child and cuddled the squirming bundle close. The howling instantly toned down to a thin whine.

“I’ve got you, sweetie,” Karissa murmured as she whirled and headed out of the room.

Her foot kicked something soft, and she looked down to spot the infant’s diaper bag. Without a second thought, she bent, hooked the strap over her arm and continued her retreat with barely a hitch in her stride. When she got herself and Kyle to safety, it would be good to have a few of his things along.

Nearly to the front door, a sound halted her—a vehicle approaching up the driveway. Friend or foe? Barely daring to breathe, Karissa darted to the picture window and peered out. A black, four-door pickup truck crunched gravel beneath its tires. Suddenly the vehicle accelerated. No doubt the driver had noticed her little Toyota sitting under the shade of a maple tree that flanked the drive. The extreme reaction didn’t bode well. Was the killer returning to the scene of the crime? Why? To grab Kyle or do him harm?

Over her dead body! A possible outcome if this was the killer returning for some nefarious reason. Karissa’s breathing hitched.

The truck skidded to a halt, the driver’s door sprang open and a male figure jumped out. He had black hair and a sharp beak of a nose, but Karissa’s attention was caught by something else. The rays of the westering sun gleamed from the metal object in his hand. A gun! Her mouth went stone dry. Her dead-body vow might soon come true if she didn’t get out of this house right now. Making a break for her car was out of the question. The only route left open was out the back door and into the woods.

The baby let out a squawk and kicked her in the ribs. Karissa looked down. She was squeezing him too tightly. Loosening her hold a bit, she dashed for the rear door. Hand on the knob, she looked back over her shoulder. Her handbag sat on the table next to the door. A heavy footfall on the front porch boards alerted her that she had no time to go back for it. She darted outside with her precious cargo and closed it after her in rapid silence. Tiptoe running, she headed down the deck stairs onto the lawn. If the killer thought she was still in the house, he might waste time looking for her. They would need every second to make the cover of the woods.

Clutching Kyle to her chest, praying he would not cry out, she took off across the lawn. Good thing she was wearing cross-trainers and casual capris, not the skirt she’d almost put on this morning. Even so, her legs couldn’t seem to move fast enough. If only they pumped as rapidly as her heart. Or if only Nikki had a smaller backyard.

When she was two-thirds of the way across the grass, a masculine shout from the direction of the house let her know she’d been discovered. Electricity spurted through Karissa’s body, and her legs suddenly found new speed. Her breathing rasped in her lungs, and the diaper bag beat a tattoo against her thigh. A sound like a coughing spit rang out, and heat seared her right arm. Crouching low, Karissa burst through a loose-knit set of bushes and scuttled into the shelter of the trees. Another spit sounded, and a small branch next to her head snapped in two.

The killer was using a silencer on his pistol? Did that mean there were neighbors nearby that the shooter didn’t want to alert?

Oh, please, God, let it be so...and help me find them.

Karissa kept running, dodging tree trunks, leaping over roots and fallen branches. Her arms wrapped the baby close to her chest, shielding him with her body. But if the shooter knew his way around these woods, she and this infant who depended upon her would be easy prey.

Hunter Raines swung the ax toward the chunk of wood perched atop the chopping block. Beneath his light T-shirt, the muscles along his shoulders, arms and back bunched and flexed with only mild discomfort from the burn scars that ran down the left side of his torso. Thunk! The satisfying sound echoed deep in his gut. His lungs sucked in a pine-laden breath as he brought the ax high again and swung it downward. Thunk!

A light wind sighed through the branches of the Douglas firs hugging the forest service’s two-room cabin he’d occupied for many months now. Birdsong tickled his ears, soothing his senses. No sight or sound of human habitation intruded on the serenity—well, except for the rhythmic thud of his own ax, but he’d soon be done with the humble chore.

How thankful he was for this secluded retreat in the Cascade Mountains offered to him by his forest-ranger brother, Jace. He couldn’t think of a better spot to hunker down after his eleven months of torturous skin grafts and therapy and give his wounds—both inner and outer—time to heal. Even now, after more than a year here in the wild, the thought of returning to the claustrophobic beehive of city life in Portland turned him cold.

Yep, he owed Jace big-time for pulling strings to allow him to hole up for a while in this ranger cabin on the edge of Umpqua National Forest. Officially, Hunter was a temporary forest service volunteer tasked with fire watching from the nearby fire tower. Unofficially but more genuinely, he was a heartsick, wounded ex-firefighter struggling to make peace with senseless tragedy.

“Help!”

The plaintive female cry halted Hunter’s ax in midswing. His heart rate kicked into overdrive. Quivering, he lowered the ax, which then slipped from sweat-slicked palms. Another flashback from the woman’s death. Auditory this time. He gulped as blackness edged his vision. Easy now. Just breathe. He would not give in to another panic attack.

“Help me!”

The cry came again. Closer this time. Not a trick of his wounded mind.

Hunter whirled toward the northern tree line. A slight figure, laden with a bundle hugged to her chest and a large bag dangling from the crook of her arm, staggered toward him. The woman was dressed in casual clothes and sneakers, not hiking garb appropriate to this outdoor recreation area. Long, flame-red hair fluttered around her face, obscuring her features. A wail suddenly erupted from the bundle in the woman’s arms.

Hunter’s jaw dropped. What was a woman with a baby doing in the back side of nowhere yelling to him for help? If any road but a dirt track led to this area of the forest, he’d guess maybe a vehicle breakdown. Sure, a couple of miles away, beyond the perimeter of federal land, stood a few private houses owned by the elite who could afford fancy mountain getaway homes, but if that’s where she originated and she was for some reason without a vehicle, why had she headed deeper into the forest rather than toward the nearest highway? Whatever the reason, it couldn’t be good.

The woman tottered nearer. Her heaving breaths and whimpers betrayed stark terror. But it was the redness dripping down the woman’s arm and plinking in drops from her bent elbow that jolted Hunter out of inertia—a paralysis that would never have gripped him in the face of emergency in his Before Incident days. Mentally slapping himself, Hunter strode toward the woman and child.

“What’s going on?” He reached her just as her knees buckled.

With an exclamation, he caught her and her tiny cargo and lowered them both to the ground. The woman sat blinking at him through a veil of pine needle–strewn hair that blocked him from getting a good look at her face. Her mouth worked like she wanted to speak but couldn’t find the words. His hand around her upper arm was sticky with her blood.

“You’re hurt. Let’s get a look at the wound.”

“N-no.” She inhaled a loud, raspy breath. “I—I think it’s just a scratch.”

“A lot of blood for just a scratch.”

“Call the sheriff!” Her voice came out a thin screech. “That’s all I want you to do. Get someone up here. My cousin’s been murdered.” Her voice lowered to a hoarse whisper. “I meant to surprise her by arriving earlier than expected. I thought it would be so much fun.” She choked on a sob. “But I found her shot d-dead. Then the baby started crying, and I grabbed him and then the killer came back before I could leave in my car, so I ran away, but the killer shot at us, and I’ve been running for miles, and...” Her flood of words trailed away between quivering lips.

A soft wail from the infant punctuated the sudden silence.

Hunter’s jaw hardened. The tale was completely wild, but if that was truly a bullet wound in her arm then he needed to believe her and take action. “Let’s get you inside first.” In the relative safety of the cabin, he could examine her injury and verify or disprove her story.

She nodded wordlessly.

“Can I take the child?”

She stiffened and pulled away from him, clutching her bundle. The little one kicked and fussed.

Hunter raised his hands, palms out, in a nonthreatening gesture. “Easy there. You’re safe now.”

She slumped toward him, and with a gentleness that contradicted the knots around his insides, Hunter helped her up. With him lending significant support, they made it onto the wooden porch. She was a petite thing, dwarfed by him, but she had an athletic build, evidently no couch potato, based on her ability to run miles while wounded and carrying a baby. First thing would be to triage that wound. Then he’d know whether to call for help or treat the injury first.

His training was starting to kick in, for whatever meager satisfaction that knowledge offered. It hadn’t saved the woman who’d depended on him before... No. He couldn’t go there. Not now. Not when he was once again thrust into a situation where lives depended on him. If a killer really was on the trail of this woman and her baby, he had to keep them safe or he might as well die trying. He’d never survive another failure.

Inside the cabin, Hunter guided her to the cushioned sofa. She sank onto it and began cooing to the baby and tickling his plump cheeks, which dialed the fussing back to a thin whine. Of course, the child could be a girl, but the blue sleeper with a train embroidered over the right breast suggested a boy. From this vantage point, gazing down at the top of the woman’s head as she focused on the child, he still couldn’t see her face, but he made out an angry red streak oozing blood on her upper bicep area where the short sleeve of her blouse was ripped. Could have been caused by a branch while running through the forest, but that sort of wound would likely be more ragged and contain debris. This wound was clean and straight—just like a bullet graze sustained from a distance. A burn settled deep in his belly. Some lowlife took a shot at a woman holding a baby.

The wound could wait a few more minutes. He turned on the heels of his hiking boots and tromped across the plank flooring to the two-way radio on his desk at the far side of the room.

“Let’s call for help,” he said. “Then we’ll get that wound cleaned and bandaged.”

“Please, yes.” Her assent carried to him in shaken tones.

The radio frequency was preset to the main park station, where his brother worked. Jace would be able to get law enforcement and emergency services up here ASAP. Hunter keyed the mic and put in the call.

“Umpqua Ranger Station,” a male voice answered. “Remy Nolan speaking.”

Hunter let out a grunt under his breath. Not his brother. A ranger Hunter hadn’t met yet? He thought he’d met them all. Must be a new hire. Hunter identified himself as Jace’s brother, gave his location and then tersely described his issue with the woman and child. Stone silence answered him for several heartbeats.

“Say again?” the man said. “No, never mind. I heard you. I’m just processing this strangeness on top of strangeness.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“There’s been a bomb threat at the North Umpqua Hydroelectric Project. Everyone and their bomb-sniffing dog is there now, including Jace.”

Hunter’s heart lurched. He swallowed against a dry mouth. Jace would be okay. He had to believe that.

“That’s not the kind of danger a forest ranger finds himself in every day,” he told Remy. “I’ll sure be keeping them in my prayers, but right now, we need emergency services to pick up the woman and baby. All I’ve got for transportation is a motorcycle, and that won’t do for them.”

“Understood. I’ll scramble someone as soon as I can.”

“And send investigators to my cousin’s place,” said a soft female voice over Hunter’s shoulder.

“What’s that address?” the ranger answered.

The woman rattled off an address that would put it among the expensive residences just outside the park borders.

“And your name?”

The woman spoke a name Hunter had hoped never to hear again. A chill rippled across his flesh, raising the hairs on his arms and neck. Karissa Landon? Anissa’s twin sister? It couldn’t be!

God, You wouldn’t do that to me, would you?

As if moving through clotted mud, Hunter slowly swiveled, and for the first time, he looked full into the woman’s face, cleared of its veil of hair and forest debris. His heart came to a full stop then stumbled into a gallop. He found himself peering into the same vivid green eyes that haunted his nightmares. Eyes that pleaded with him to save her. Eyes that belonged to a dead woman. This one’s twin. The woman he’d failed to rescue from the fire that ended his career as a Portland firefighter.

How long did he have before Karissa recalled the media coverage, including an unflattering photo of him, and figured out who he was now that she had obviously calmed? Seconds? He braced himself.

But she merely blinked at him, neutral expression morphing into puzzlement. “Are you all right? You suddenly lost half your tan.”

Hunter searched for his voice. Karissa clearly didn’t recognize him. Of course, they’d never met in person, but his picture had been well publicized not long after the horrible tragedy. He’d been clean shaven in those shots, though, and his hair had been short. Now, with a full beard and hair that hadn’t seen scissors in months, not to mention his scars, he probably looked like some kind of holdover from the Gold Rush days. However, he couldn’t count on facial hair to maintain his camouflage indefinitely. At any moment, she would recognize who he was, and she would despise him. Probably as soon as she asked him to introduce himself. He’d put that moment off as long as possible.

“You two still there?” The ranger’s query from the other end of the radio snapped Hunter back into the moment.

“Ten-four, Remy. We’ll be here waiting for the cavalry to show up.” How had his voice come out so upbeat when panic sought to devour him alive?

“Hang tight. Over and out.” The airwaves went dead.

Hunter got up and went for his gun case. He took out the rifle, loaded it, made sure the safety was on and then propped the firearm against his desk. A strangled noise coming from his female houseguest drew his attention. Had she recognized him at last? Stiffening, Hunter forced himself to turn toward Karissa. She wasn’t staring at him, but at his gun.

“How did life suddenly turn so dangerous we might actually have to use that to defend ourselves?” Her hoarse whisper barely carried to him over the fussing of the baby, who was kicking and flailing on the hearth rug.

He lifted one side of his mouth in a grim half smile. “We’ll be ready if we have unwelcome intruders before help arrives.”