Dangerous Refuge

chapter Forty-eight



Ace watched Shaye and Tanner as he had once watched them from a ridge behind Tony Rua’s house. The difference now was simple: tonight he would kill both of them. The only reason they were alive now was that he hadn’t wanted to rush out and replace his .38 pistol so soon after he killed Rua. People might wonder why Ace needed a new handgun. It was a question he hadn’t wanted to answer.

Some people would say he was too cautious, but some people were stupid. Ace wasn’t.

No more long shots with a short pistol. I’ll get up close and real personal before I put a bullet in them.

Besides, he hadn’t decided whether it would be more satisfying to rape Shaye in front of her boyfriend, or kill Tanner in front of her and then rape her. And kill her, of course. He’d buried more than one body in an abandoned mine. Saved so many questions.

The top of his head still burned from the pepper spray, feeling like it was scraped raw, but his eyes had stopped watering uncontrollably. Now they just sort of dripped. He probably looked like he’d been bawling, when that was the furthest thing from his mind.

Shaye would pay and then pay again. He’d take a long time with her. A long, long time.

No. Something else might go wrong. Just finish it and move on. Especially with Davis here, even though he was moving like he hurt pretty bad.

Maybe he’s already dead.

If not, he will be.

The thought of more work made Ace swear. It would be bad enough rounding up the stupid females and dumping them down a mine shaft, but Tanner Davis weighed as much as the two women together.

There’s lots of room in the mine. It will all work out. I’ve got enough ammo.

Still, it irritated the hell out of Ace having his plans bumped off track at the last minute. But that was the way luck came—good and bad. He had his alibi. With a few nudges, Conrad would decide that the fool women had gone looking for mustangs or land or whatever, and when they hadn’t returned, Davis had gone looking for them in a roaring hurry, wrecked, and ended up lost somewhere.

As for Ace, he’d have a mess of trout as proof of where he’d been—and there weren’t any trout in these hills where he was right now.

He eased past the still-steaming truck. No one inside, but it never hurt to be sure. His vision wasn’t really clear yet, because his eyes kept watering and he kept having to strangle coughs. His ears worked just fine, though. He could hear sounds ahead and upslope.

They aren’t very far away at all. If I had my .38, I could kill or wound them from here.

But I can wait. The longer they head the way they’re going, the closer they get to the mine shafts.

He didn’t want to drag any bodies a foot farther than he had to.

For an instant he stopped, gun up, automatically tracking the motion he thought he’d seen. Then trees got in the way of any possible shot. But he was closer to them than he’d thought.

He picked up the pace, carefully closing the distance between himself and his prey.

It wouldn’t be long now.





Forty-nine



Tanner leaned hard against a slender tree trunk. It shivered from his weight. These were not huge, sturdy pines like the ones on the west side of Refuge. Most of the trees here were barely twenty feet high. The soil was so rocky there just wasn’t enough to nurture big trees. Where the land leveled out farther up, or in the creases of ravines, the trees were thicker and taller.

He couldn’t see much, but occasional sounds from upslope told him Shaye was getting farther ahead.

Got to move faster. I’m slowing her down.

Doggedly he forced himself to pick up the pace, but the ringing in his ears and tunneling of his vision told him he wasn’t going to be on his feet real long.

He nearly ran into her when she came back to see why he had slowed down. One look at his pale, sweating face and hearing his heavy breathing told her what Tanner refused to admit—he was too hurt to keep on.

He gave her a brief smile that turned into a grimace as pain stabbed behind his eyes. And he leaned on the tree way too hard.

Hurriedly she looked around, picking the deepest pool of darkness she could find.

There, where that thicket of pines is growing right beside the big boulder. Not enough cover for both of us, but plenty for Tanner.

She pointed and he heaved himself upright, stumbling behind her, forcing his way through pines until she stopped him and pushed him down into a sitting position. His skin was too cool, despite the exercise, which told her that he was balanced on the crumbling edge of shock.

“Stay here,” she said very softly.

The night would provide cover, but that wouldn’t last forever. He was going to need more help than she could give him right now, and he needed it fast. As battered as his face was, she didn’t know how he’d come this far. He was physically strong, yes, but it was toughness of mind that got him out of the truck and up the slope.

I don’t want to leave him.

But if either of them was going to survive, she had to stop Ace and activate the radio function on the locater. She couldn’t do that from where she was. She’d need a decoy.

“Get to Bronco . . . get help,” Tanner said, his voice barely a thread of sound. “Leave . . . me.”

“Would you leave me?” she said, equally softly.

He breathed a curse. “You have to.”

“If it’s you or me, I choose us.”

He didn’t waste time or effort arguing. He just leaned and waited for the night to stop spinning.

Through wind-tossed branches, she could see the flickering of the Bronco’s headlights. Night distances were too tricky to judge with any certainty, but she had a gut feeling Tanner couldn’t go that far. She had to get to the Bronco and call for help.

“Rest here for a few minutes,” Shaye said against Tanner’s ear.

“What are you . . . going to do?” His voice was dry, rasping.

“Decoy.”

He moved his head very slowly in a negative motion. “Don’t like . . . sound of it.”

But she wasn’t waiting around to argue. Flashlight in her left hand, gun in her right, she worked her way through the thicket more quickly than Tanner could follow her.

Much more quickly.

I don’t want to leave him.

So make damn sure you get back to him.

The wind rushed around her, covering the sounds she made, and any Ace might make as well. Branches clutched at her hair and raked her face. She ignored the scratches, her whole being fixed on getting far enough away from that thicket so that Ace wouldn’t see Tanner and shoot him like an animal in a trap.

Shaye was breathing hard and sweating in the chill before she decided it was time to spring her own trap. She flicked on the powerful flashlight, sending a bright cone of radiance knifing through the dark. The beam didn’t reach the Bronco, but it would be close enough to spook Ace into running back to cut off whoever was trying to get away.

Unless he knows that the Bronco could be out of gas.

Doesn’t matter. It’s the best chance I have.