Kevin’s finger jabbed at Jacob’s screen as a second larger figure stepped into the frame. “She’s not alone.”
Yeah, and judging by the way she was creeping along the rock face, that wasn’t a good thing. The second heat signature was large, heavyset and barging through the trees. The outline of his jacket did little to hide the telltale shape of a baggy prison jumpsuit or the handgun in his grasp.
“We’ve got to get down there!” Jacob said.
“There’s nowhere to land!” Kevin’s voice rose.
“It’s one of them!” Jacob said. “It’s a lifer. He’s going to kill her!”
“I know! I just can’t land!”
They watched, helpless, as the man chased after her, tackled her and brought her to the ground. Something lurched in Jacob’s core as if he were somehow viscerally able to hear her terrified screams. She thrashed and fought back hard. And Jacob realized, for the first time in his life, he was about to watch a woman’s murder. He yanked his seat belt off, pushed himself out of his seat and climbed into the back of the helicopter. “Warren, get into the front and take over for me. I’m going to rappel down.”
“From this height?” Warren asked. “In the rain? Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Yes, yes and hopefully not. Jacob slid his arms through a safety harness and didn’t answer. He glanced back at the screen and his heart soared momentarily to see the figures had broken apart. Lord, just help her stay alive until I can get there.
“I’m going to need you to lower me down,” Jacob said. He double-checked his walkie-talkie, phone and his service gun were all on his belt. “Rappel rope is fine. Though I’m suggesting you use the rescue ladder or basket to pull us back up. For now, just get me as close as you can, stay in my ear and point me in the right direction.”
“It should be me,” Warren started. “You’re the one on infrared.”
Maybe, but Jacob was also the one who’d gotten his harness on first.
“There’s still a storm coming—” Kevin’s face was awash with fear “—and I’m still really low on fuel.”
Right. That twenty minutes was probably closer to fifteen by now.
“We’ll figure it out!” Jacob double-checked his clasps and opened the door. Wind and rain lashed at him. A deep breath of confidence filled his lungs. Nobody was ever going to die at a criminal’s hands as long as he had something to say about it. He cast one final glance at the outline of the woman below, now pelting through the trees with her attacker close on her heels.
Stay strong. Don’t give up. I’m coming for you.
* * *
The blow from behind came so hard and suddenly that Grace Finch felt the air knocked from her lungs even before she hit the ground. For a moment, her body’s own natural instinct to freeze threatened to overwhelm her. Then she reared, kicking up hard with both legs and felt herself break free. She rolled and tried to get her feet beneath her before a swift punch to the temple knocked her back against the ground.
The blunt and scarred face of Barry Cutter glared down at her, and Grace felt his entire rap sheet flash through her mind, just as clearly as if she’d been sitting at her crime reporter desk at Torchlight News, reading his bio in her news files. Bartholomew “Barry” Cutter, age fifty-four, convicted to fifty years in prison for the brutal murders of five women.
Help me! Someone! Anyone! Please!
A large hand with thick fingers grabbed her by the throat and pushed her down. The semi-automatic SIG he waved between her eyes looked police-issued. And suddenly she felt the journalist inside her wanting to ask him how he’d gotten there, what he was doing out of prison and if it had anything to do with the Search and Rescue helicopter she’d seen flying overhead. There was a major news story here, if she got out of here alive to tell it. She swallowed a breath and reminded herself that if Cutter wanted her dead, he’d have killed her by now. Then slowly she began to slide her right hand toward the stun gun in her jacket pocket.
“Where’s your car?” Cutter snapped. She felt her mind filtering out the threats and curses that peppered his voice, listening only for facts. “Take me to your car. Now! You’re driving me out of here!”
Didn’t he know where they were? Night was falling, and she’d spent the better part of the day getting this deep into the woods. Her car was at the entrance to the park, at least six hours of canoeing and portaging away. For that matter, how had he even gotten here?
As for her, she’d been coerced here, lured here, out into the middle of nowhere by another convicted killer, Hal Turner, on the promise of finding information that would clear him of his crimes, prove he’d been set up by some shadowy cabal of senior cops and free Grace of the specter of blackmail he’d been holding over her life. Ever since she had risen as a star crime reporter, Turner had been blackmailing her and threatening to destroy her life and career by telling the world a truth she’d spent her entire life concealing.
That Grace Finch was really Hal Turner’s biological daughter.
That the country’s most prolific and award-winning crime reporter was really the child of the so-called dirty cop turned cop killer.
In her business, reputation was everything. Her biological father was one of the most hated convicted killers in the country, especially as far as those in law enforcement were concerned. What if sources refused to talk to her because of who her father was? What if someone with a grudge against Turner decided to come after her? After all, he’d not only betrayed his badge and worked with organized crime, he’d then besmirched all of law enforcement with wild stories of a deep-seated conspiracy of criminal cops. No evidence had ever been found to back up his claims. What if she was fired from her job at Torchlight News and blackballed from the industry for keeping the truth about her identity secret? Even if Turner was somehow right—he had been set up by someone, and this evidence he’d sent Grace to find would prove it—how would anyone in her life ever trust her again for keeping her identity secret so long?
Let alone forgive her.
No, she’d worked too long and hard to build a life on her own terms to let it all be taken from her now.
Not to mention her incredibly strong mother, and Mom’s kindhearted husband, Frank, who’d raised Grace as his own, both deserved better than to have their lives dragged through the mud.
So she’d hiked and paddled into the woods in search of a secluded cabin where he’d claimed to have left evidence proving his innocence. It was a simple transaction. She’d publish the evidence, his lawyer and the courts would do their thing, Hal Turner would keep his mouth shut about the daughter no one knew he had and he’d disappear from her life for good.
But she hadn’t found the cabin. Instead, a killer had found her.
She’d been desperate. She’d been foolish. And now she was going to die.
Cutter leaned closer, shifting some of his weight off her body. The stench of him filled her nostrils. “Don’t fight. Don’t scream. We’re just going to get in your car and take a nice ride to the American border and then I’m going to let
