Spirit of a Hunter (8 page)

A montage of Scotty moments flashed into her memory like a photo album and not thinking about all the blank pages she’d hoped to fill in the years to come took all of her effort. “Everything about the outdoors interests him. Plants. Animals. Bugs.”

“Like Tommy.”

She nodded.

“Right- or left-handed?”

“Left. Like Tommy. Why?” She turned in her seat to take a better look at the man who knew so much about the man who’d fathered her child, about how to find him and rescue her son. She gave a prayer of thanks that Tommy had such a loyal friend.

“Right-handed people tend to circle to the right,” Sabriel said.

The unfinished thought implied left-handed people would tend to circle left.

“A trail is a string of clues,” Sabriel said. “The more I know, the faster I can follow.”

Without signaling, he turned into the trees. She gasped and grabbed the dashboard, bracing for a collision. Were the Colonel’s men back? Her glance zipped to the missing mirror and met nothing but darkness.

The seat belt jammed into her chest, stealing her breath, but the Jeep kept moving forward—not directly into the trees, but down a narrow lane.

The Jeep bounced along the rutted dirt track barely wide enough for the tires. Tree branches, bushes and weeds scratched along the sides and the undercarriage of the truck in a nails-on-chalkboard grate.

How far had they gone? Far enough to have found Tommy’s starting point? The black landscape gave away none of its secrets.

“Where are we?” she asked as her breath returned.

Sabriel stopped before a primitive gate of weathered planks. A red stop sign, whose phosphorescent paint flared in the headlights’ beams, warned, “Private Property. Keep Out. Trespassers Will Be Shot.”

Sabriel said, “Welcome to your corner of hell.”

Chapter Five

The Jeep’s headlights sliced across a clearing where a ramshackle cabin squatted. The building stooped old-man crooked with its sagging tin roof spine, liver spots of mold and cracked board skin.

A string of questions lashed at Nora’s mind, but she didn’t voice any of them. She let them turn inside her mouth until their knots lost their sharp flavor. But the words
Can I trust you?
kept buzzing in her ear with a bloodthirsty mosquito whine. Was this just another ploy to strand her while Sabriel charged into the wilds alone?

What choice did she have other than to trust him? Going back to the Colonel? Losing Scotty?

Not a chance.

Sabriel powered the Jeep right up to the front steps, then rummaged in the backseat and emerged with a headlamp.

“Why are we stopping?” Nora asked, frantic to keep going.

“Supplies.”

Supplies made sense. They couldn’t go trekking
through the mountains without food or water. But the place looked as if no one had set foot there in decades. “Here?”

He didn’t answer, but unlocked the padlock guarding the door and disappeared inside, leaving her alone in the dark. A restless edge nagged at her that they were wasting time. Each minute they stopped allowed Tommy to take Scotty farther away from her, gave the Colonel another chance to find her son before she could.

Help him. It’ll go faster
.

She scrambled out of the Jeep. The damp scent of night and decaying leaves pressed against her as she headed to the cabin. The wind’s cold fingers chased her inside.

Groping the darkness, Nora stepped into the scrubby building. She’d never seen a dark so deep. In the city, there were always lights. At the Colonel’s, the security spotlights turned midnight into midday. Here nothing, except for the tiny beam attached to Sabriel’s head. Going suddenly blind must feel like this.

How was Scotty handling this black hole of night? Surely, Tommy had thought to bring along flashlights.

Sabriel’s light bounced crazily against the cracked wood of the walls, highlighting snakes of cobwebs, fangs of trusses and skeletons of cupboards.

Nora followed Sabriel to the back of the building. “Is this your place?”

He grunted and stopped.

She bumped into his hard body and rebounded just as quickly, but had to grasp his forearm for balance. The subtle scent of mint and pine struck her now as it had
when they’d hidden in the fissure of rock at the adventure camp. Clean. Pleasant. Masculine. Heat rose to her face. Hanging on to him like that wasn’t the way to prove she could stay on her own two feet, that she wouldn’t get in his way. “Don’t you have electricity?”

“I’ll get the oil lamp in a bit.”

Sabriel crouched before a metal trunk the color of dried blood under the focused beam of his headlamp. His hands gripped the decorative brass corners with a ferocity that turned his knuckles white. He closed his eyes and bent his head forward as if in prayer.

His hands shot across the lid, then hesitated above the brass clasp. With an explosion of breath that sounded as if someone was peeling his skin, he ripped the clasp open and threw back the cover. The crack was like a seal breaking, releasing the scent of cedar into the air. He pawed through the contents, though she could swear he saw nothing, then shoved pants, fleece and long underwear at her.

“These should fit.” He shut the lid with a decisive snap. “You look about the same size.”

Anna. Nora’s throat dammed. He was giving her Anna’s things. He’d kept them all this time, and now he was handing over his treasure. Her heart went out to him. She hadn’t realized that helping her would force him to rip open so many wounds.

From what Tommy had told her, the Colonel had ruined Sabriel’s promising Army career after he’d eloped with Anna. Sabriel had barely survived the Colonel’s vengeance. And helping her was pitting him
once again against the Colonel. She would have a lot to make up to him once Scotty was safe.

She gave a small nod. “Thank you.”

Sabriel grunted and strode toward the front of the cabin.

She trotted after him. “No, I mean it. I appreciate…everything.”

“If I’m going to drag you through the mountains, I don’t want you holding me back because you’re cold and your fancy boots are slipping all over the place.”

“You’re right.” The words rushed out, afraid she’d made another mistake, afraid he’d leave her behind. “I’m sorry.”

Sabriel located the oil lamp on the lone shelf flanked by two cupboards. The flame from his lighter sparked the wick to life, throwing the single room into a soft light that erased the sharp corners and wrapped them in a cocoon that felt too intimate.

“Dress in layers,” he said, his voice strangely thick, and headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?” A quick march of panic trampled her chest.
Don’t leave me alone
.

He slanted her a wry smile. “Want me to stay for the striptease?”

Heat rushed up her neck and pooled in her cheeks. “Uh, no, that’s okay.”

“I’ll go chase the skunks out of the outhouse while you change.”

Skunks? He had to be joking. “It’s not going to work.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Scaring me. I’m not going back. Not without Scotty.”

He shook his head, the tilt of a smile and the gleam of approval quickly hidden as he turned the headlamp back on before heading out. “Tommy always said nothing could scare you.”

He had? Wow, she’d put up a really good front then, because everything scared her. More than she’d like to admit. Not even sleep could guarantee her a respite—not with the recurring nightmares chasing her awake, drenched in sweat. In them, she’d find herself alone, cowered in a dark corner, shivering as the sordid sounds of the night echoed in her skull, in her bones, in her blood, waiting, praying, begging for her mother to come back.

But she’d survived. She’d found a way. And for Scotty she would again.

“Tommy’s right.” Her chin kicked up. “Nothing you can say or do will scare me.”

The click of the door closing was her only answer.

She stacked the borrowed clothes on the table and took off her leather boots, wool slacks and cashmere sweater—peeling away the layers of Nora Camden until all that was left was Nora Picard, who had survived the streets of Boston and fought to make a life for herself. Even though she’d lived surrounded by comfort at the Camden estate, part of her could never quite silence the insecurity of her childhood. She didn’t want that fate for Scotty.

She wanted this over. She wanted Scotty safe. She wanted her quiet life back—imperfect as it was.

But things could never be the same. She could never let the Colonel have that much control over Scotty—or
her—again. She didn’t know how she would do it, but she had to take her son away from the prison of the mansion.

Sabriel had survived his attack. She could, too.

The bracing air of this cold October night licked at her bare skin. She reached for Anna’s things and thrust into them as if they were armor. The arms and legs were an inch too long, and the top and long johns fit a tad too snugly.

Anna had been tall and wafer-thin—like her mother. Nora had never quite managed to attain the Camden-perfect figure. She liked food too much. Another tick against her in the Colonel’s eyes.

Nora slipped on a pair of thick gray socks. She’d never met Anna. Her sister-in-law had died three weeks before Nora had met Tommy. Tommy had admired his sister’s strength to turn her back on family expectations and do what she wanted to do, damn the Colonel and the consequences. The Colonel had cut her off without a penny, disowned her, and refused to let any of the family attend her funeral.

She couldn’t imagine what it had been like for Sabriel to endure Anna’s death alone, shunned by the family that should have supported him in his grief. Even Tommy hadn’t had the strength to defy the Colonel to go to his best friend’s side or mourn his sister.

Yet Anna was one of the reasons Nora and Tommy had connected so deeply and so fast. Loss had a language of its own, and they’d both understood it.

She zipped up the last layer of fleece and warmth enfolded her for the first time since she’d left the estate. Maybe her sister-in-law’s courage would seep into her
bones and complement Sabriel’s strength to see her through this ordeal.

Hang on, Scotty. I’m coming for you
.

* * *

S
ABRIEL STEPPED
onto the weed-choked path outside old Will Daigle’s shack, glad for a reprieve from Nora. Her stubborn insistence and vulnerability were wearing on him like a fresh blister. Having lived under the Colonel’s influence for so long, he hadn’t expected her to have so much steel left in her spine.

He let habit navigate him around the perimeter of the clearing so he could give Nora privacy and him a chance to arm the early-warning system the paranoid codger had set up years ago.

He’d racked his brain for a safe place to protect Nora until he could bring her son and Tommy back. No place was safe around here. Not while the Colonel was bent on one of his “missions.” Taking her back to the Aerie would eat up too much time. And he couldn’t put anyone else in the path of danger.

He glanced at the jagged outline of old Will’s shack. It was really nothing more than four walls and a roof that barely offered protection against the elements. Yet the memories of Will and what he’d taught two runaway boys were more precious than the rising real estate values, and neither Sabriel nor Tommy could bear the thought of selling the land Will had left them after he’d died.

Still, coming here was hard. Between Will, Tommy and Anna, memories stuffed every crack of those drafty walls. Breathing room for all of them.

Do
not
open that Pandora’s box
.

Keeping a watchful eye on the shack, he whipped out his phone and placed a call to Seekers.

Kingsley answered.

“Shouldn’t you be out dancing with that pretty blonde I saw you eyeing at the church?” Sabriel asked, putting off the inevitable, hating to drag anyone else into his personal business.

“Yeah, I was just getting ready to put on my big move when some jerk called for intelligence.”

Leaning against a tree, Sabriel laughed, taking the jibe in the playful spirit it was meant and gave back in turn. “You know that cool deejay ploy doesn’t work.”

He imagined Kingsley in his court, as they jokingly called the command center. Computers, monitors and a myriad of electronic gadgetry jammed every inch of desk and wall space, and Kingsley conducted them all like an accomplished maestro.

“Ah,” Kingsley said, “but this was a really sick set. She was falling deeper in love with me with every song.”

“You’ve got to get a life, man.”

Kingsley snorted. “Like you’re one to talk.”

“Me, I’ve been places, done things. You’re too young to be a lonely old man spending all your time in basements.”

“I’m not lonely.”

But the prickly tone told Sabriel he’d hit a nerve. “When was the last time you went out with friends?”

“I have friends.” A grunt. “What’s with all the concern, anyway? I didn’t know you had that many
words in you.” Kingsley’s chair squeaked. “Besides, I was just e-mailing a friend in Seattle before you called.”

“Bill Gates?”

The sound of flesh hitting flesh smacked through the line. “Whoa, hold the presses. Mercer told a joke.”

“Ha, ha.” Sabriel’s lips quirked, knowing that the rest of the Seekers saw him as a stone. But his smile fell as a shadow crossed the lone window of the shack. Nora. She’d stacked Anna’s clothes on the dusty table and was now peeling the dirt-smudged sweater from her body.

Turn away, he ordered himself. But mesmerized by the play of mellow light on pale skin, he couldn’t seem to pry his gaze from the sight. She pulled the neck of the sweater over her head, making his palm itch to skate down the inviting slope of her back. The gold in her hair gleamed like pyrite as it cascaded back down her shoulders. He sucked in a breath at the imagined feel of silk against his skin.

“You okay?” Kingsley asked.

“Fine.” Yeah, just great. He was ogling Tommy’s wife like a regular Peeping Tom. Ex-wife, he reminded himself. Not that it mattered. She was the one woman on earth he needed to stay away from.

Biting back a curse, he tore his gaze to the night and focused on the information he needed from Kingsley. “Got anything on the Colonel’s employees?”