Gone Too Deep (34 page)

Ellie scrambled to her feet, turning to run in the same motion, but he lunged forward to catch the back of her sweatshirt, stopping her forward momentum with a rough jerk. Instead of keeping his grip on her, he swung his arm and released her, making her stumble against a low-hanging aspen branch. The unyielding wood slammed into her back, but she didn't feel any pain. Too much adrenaline was coursing through her.

Ellie couldn't take her eyes off the gun Anderson was pointing at her. The weapon was less than ten feet away from her vulnerable chest, and she knew he wouldn't hesitate to pull the trigger. A rapid-fire list of escape plans ran through her head, each one more likely to get her killed than the last. It was a moot point, anyway, since the only thing she seemed capable of doing was staring at the gun and trying to breathe.

“Caught you,” Anderson sneered. His hands were unnervingly steady around the pistol grip. “Murdering bitch.”

“I'm sorry.” No sound actually emerged from her throat on the first try. Anderson scowled at her, so she tried again, slightly more successfully. “I didn't want to kill him.”

“Lying bitch.” She could see his knuckles whiten as his fingers tightened, and her panting breaths came quicker. “You pointed a gun at him and shot him in the chest. Did you hear him scream? Because I did. And I'm going to make sure your screams make his seem like nothing.”

“He tried to kill my dad!” Her words were coming more loudly now, but her voice had raised a few octaves in pitch. “He shot first. I had to protect my dad—protect both of us.”

“Where is Baxter?”

Thrown off by the abrupt subject change, she stayed quiet.

“Bitch, I asked you a question.”

“I don't know.”

“Liar.”

“I'm not lying!” She almost shouted the words, her nerves stretched beyond endurance. “He checked himself out and disappeared. I don't even know where to start looking. He's just…gone.” Even with a gun aimed at her heart, she felt a pang at saying the words.

Several heavy seconds dragged by while King studied her as if he was trying to decide whether he believed her. “He has proof I need.”

“I don't know where he is.”

“Did he tell you? About who killed the floater?”

It took a while to process what King had said. “No. Do you know?”

With a harsh crack of laughter, King said, “Yeah, I do, and that's going to be my ticket out once I deal with the bitch who killed my brother.”

“Who did it? And what proof does Dad have?” Talking was calming her slightly, allowing her to think more than
Oh my God, oh my God!
and she tried to keep her voice calm and quiet. Maybe she could talk him down and get King to leave peacefully. It worked on bears, why not on killers? Her cell phone was sitting uselessly in her pocket. Even if she could've reached for it without him shooting her, it wouldn't have gotten a signal.

“That's what I need to talk to Baxter about,” King said with insulting slowness. It didn't seem fair that the guy holding a gun on her should get to be condescending, too.

“I don't know where he is,” she repeated.

“Then you're not much use to me, are you?” The gun rose just a fraction of an inch, but it was enough to catch and hold Ellie's full attention. “As much as I want to make you suffer, your joke of a tracker boyfriend will be here soon, and I promised my brother I'd kill the bitch who shot him.”

He pulled the trigger.

When George finally turned into his driveway, he was unable to control the grin that had taken over his face. He knew he probably looked like a crazy mountain man, smiling at nothing, but he couldn't help it. It was Ellie's fault.

Memories of the previous night made his grin widen until it was creeping into manic territory. It wasn't just the sex, either, although he hadn't known pleasure like that existed. Just having her in the cabin had changed his world. Singing with her, lying with his head on her bare stomach, watching her trace the shape of a metal leaf on the headboard of his bed… She'd made it impossible for him to live alone anymore now that he'd gotten a glimpse of what a life with El would be like. When he'd gone into the bathroom after she'd left it steamy and smelling like fruity shampoo, he'd just stood there, breathing it in and desperately wanting to keep her.

He'd plowed the city streets faster than he ever had before. At the same time he'd been mocking himself for acting like a love-struck fool, his foot had been pushing harder on the accelerator.

As he rounded the curve and his house came into view, the bottom dropped out of his stomach. Flashing emergency lights lit up his yard. When he saw the ambulance, he stopped breathing. He jumped out of the truck almost before his vehicle slid to a complete stop.

“El!” he shouted even as his eyes searched the scene, trying to find her. There was something—
someone—
lying on the ground, surrounded by bright yellow police tape. His vision narrowed to the blanket-covered form as he ran toward it.

“George!” Someone grabbed his arm. George shook him off, determined to get to that body, to see if it was her. More hands grabbed and held. Balling his fist, he swung blindly, but there were too many holding him back.

“George!” Firefighter Ian Walsh grabbed both sides of his coat collar, forcing George to look at him. “It's not her. It's Joseph Acconcio. It's not your Ellie.”

It took several seconds for his words to sink in. When they finally registered, he sucked in a shaking breath.

“It's not Ellie,” Ian repeated.

“Where is she?” The words grated painfully against his throat.

Ian pressed his lips together, glancing to the side.

“Where is she?” George roared, trying to grab Ian, to shake the answer out of him, but the multiple hands tightened, holding him back.

“We don't know,” Ian said. “It looks like she went out one of the windows and ran into the woods, but her trail ended when she got to the trees. Rob and a bunch of his guys are searching for her, but we can't send out anyone who's not armed until we know it's safe.”

Safe.
If Ellie had to go through a window and run into the woods, then someone was after her. Someone was
still
after her. His blood ran cold and then exploded with heat. Twisting around, he shook off the four men holding him as if they were nothing. George ran for the woods.

How had the others managed to lose her trail? To him, her sign was obvious. So was the fact that she was in socks. Ellie had been fleeing in terror in only her socks. Rage like he'd never felt began to build as he ran, following her trail. He dodged tree branches and protruding roots, each sign that she'd slid or tripped feeding his blinding anger. The only thing allowing him to keep from losing it completely was that he didn't see any sign of Anderson following her.

George had just glimpsed a clearing through the trees when he heard the gunshot.

He froze, stumbling to a halt at the sound, so foreign in this snowy fairyland of a forest.

It had only been a fraction of a second as his thoughts tumbled through his brain before his body was moving, dodging through the trees until they thinned at the edge of the meadow. His boots plunged into the drifts covering the clearing, closing the distance between him and the man holding the gun. As George got closer, he took in the scene in one horrifying second.

El was on the snowy ground, her body curled away from him. Anderson King turned his head, saw George barreling toward him, and twisted his body so he could swing the gun toward him. Before Anderson could aim, George tackled him, both men hitting the ground hard. The gun flew from Anderson's hand, flying end over end before landing and immediately sinking into a drift. A small portion of George's brain automatically noted the gun's position before he had to duck Anderson's swinging fist.

George grabbed for Anderson's arm. Even as he managed to pin one of the other man's hands against the ground, Anderson twisted his lower body and kneed George in the thigh. Ignoring the numbness that spread over his outer quad, George lifted his free hand and brought it down. Anderson jerked his head to the side, and George's fist merely grazed his cheekbone.

Using his non-pinned arm, Anderson rotated his body and sent an elbow into George's gut, forcing out all his air in a pained grunt. Barely dodging the next blow, George lost his grip on Anderson's arm and the two men rolled over and over across the snow until George's back slammed into an aspen trunk.

His head snapping back, George bit his tongue as Anderson's next punch connected solidly. “Useless,” Anderson grunted as he swung again. “Pathetic piece of shit. Couldn't even save your city girl, could you,
Tracker
?” His voice was thick with sarcasm and scorn. “Got here too late to stop me from putting a bullet through her heart. What happened? Couldn't you follow her trail?” Cocking his fist, Anderson launched another swing toward George's face.

The image of El lying on the ground, so tiny and still, had burned itself into his brain. He'd barely had her, and now she was gone. Horror and grief and guilt hit him, but everything was drowned out by the blinding fury that surged through him. He'd never experienced such rage, never felt such a bone-deep urge to hurt, never wanted to kill someone until that moment.

With a fleshy smack, Anderson's punch landed in George's palm. A red haze settled over his vision as George pushed the other man's hand back. Anderson's smirk wavered and then disappeared completely as his fist was forced away from George's face and toward the ground. Despite the way Anderson's entire body shook with effort, he couldn't stop the inexorable retreat of his clenched fist.

With a roar, George shoved away from the tree, rolling Anderson beneath him. His anger fed his strength, and George pinned Anderson easily, his fists pounding into flesh, needing desperately to hurt the fucker who'd killed his El. George didn't even feel anymore when the other man's fists connected. There was no pain, no fear, no anything except for this mad rage. Even when Anderson's strikes started losing their power, George's fury-fueled punches didn't slow. He struck again and again until a low moan from El made him freeze.

He stared at her motionless form, holding his breath, praying that he hadn't imagined the sound. A hard shove knocked him sideways, and Anderson scrambled out from underneath him. George reached for the fugitive, grabbing Anderson's ankle and yanking it so the fleeing man fell face-first into the snow.

Anderson kicked at the same time Ellie released a second tiny groan, making George's head whip around so he could stare at her still-unmoving form. Distracted, George didn't see the boot until it slammed into his temple, dazing him for a moment. He shook his head, blinking away the stars threatening to overwhelm his vision, and saw Anderson shove to his feet and take off toward the trees at a shambling, limping jog.

George started to charge after Anderson, but Ellie's whimper made him turn in midlunge and rush to her, instead, his mad rage shoved aside by hope and fear and a bottomless joy that she was alive. As he knelt next to her crumpled form, George felt all those battling emotions rising to choke him, making his voice even rougher than normal as he said her name.

“El?” He supported her head as he turned her onto her back. Her eyes were open, wide and focused on him, but her breathing was too rapid and shallow. George ran his hands over her arms and jerked up her shirt and sweatshirt, searching desperately for where the bullet had entered her body. There was no hole gushing blood, though, and he moved his search lower, checking her hips and legs. The soft, light-blue fleece of her pants was unmarked, and he moved to check her chest again. There had been a gunshot, and she'd been on the ground. She had to have been hit.

“What's the status?” At Rob's shouted question, George whipped his head around to see the sheriff and Chris running through the snow toward them.

“King shot her at close range with a forty-caliber pistol,” George clipped. “She's conscious but having difficulty breathing.” He glared at them as he shucked his coat, wrapping it around her. “Where were you? You said you'd protect her if I wasn't there. She ran through the snow in her socks! In her fucking socks!”

“There's no radio or cell reception out here.” Chris reached toward Ellie's wrist, as if to take her pulse, but George knocked the other man's hand away. “That granite bluff to the south blocks everything. I had to drive a mile just to check in with dispatch.”

“What are you talking about?” Rob stared at the deputy. “The radios work just fine out here.”

“But—” Chris started.

“We'll discuss this later,” Rob interrupted. “Which way did King go?”

George jerked his head toward the spot where Anderson had disappeared into the trees.

“Chris, get Medical out here and send Lawrence and Macavoy to back me up.” Rob took off running for the trees as Chris hurried toward the cabin.

George refocused on Ellie, trying to keep her as covered as possible while resuming his frantic search for injuries. He still hadn't found a bullet wound, but there was a dark red and purple circle in the center of her upper chest. Frowning, he touched it lightly. El jolted and gasped when his finger barely connected with the spot.

“Hurts,” she panted, tears overflowing her eyes and running down her temples.

George wiped the salty wetness from her chilled skin. “God, El. I thought you were dead. You can't leave me. Don't ever leave me. I love you so much, El.”

Her cold fingers brushed his cheek. “Love…you…too,” she managed between quick, shallow breaths.

Even as the words burrowed into an empty place in his heart, a gleam of brass caught his eye, and George lifted Baxter's compass from where it had slid in the angle between her shoulder and neck. He carefully eased it along the chain until he could flip it over and see the dented, mangled mess that used to be the front of the compass.

Raising his eyes to meet El's panicked gaze, he held up the mutilated brass object so she could see it.

She stared at it for several seconds before giving a wheezing gasp of a laugh. “Dad…had my…back.”

His laugh was just as rough as hers as he pulled down her sweatshirt and tucked his coat more tightly around her. “Yeah, El.” He blinked rapidly as moisture burned his eyes. “He did.”