What Doesn't Kill Her (Cape Charade #2)(49)

She didn’t stir.

Using his foot, he turned her over.

Her head lolled loosely on her neck. Blood smeared her arm and hand. But her chest rose and fell, and she moaned softly.

“Time to finish this thing,” he told her. He released the rifle’s safety and lifted the butt to his shoulder—and paused. From down the path, he heard firm footsteps. Someone large, probably a man, moving fast.

Too many complications here. Too many bodies, too much attention.

He slid into the fog and waited until the footsteps had hurried past, then turned back to finish cleaning up the mess—and the bodies.



25


So many gunshots. Too many gunshots. Max had heard too many to count, drawing him onward, feeding the ugly taste of fear in his mouth.

Then the blast of one...final...rifle shot. A sharp, ugly percussion that spelled death for...who?

Driven by terror, Max ran, bounding up the slope. A bullet had already taken Kellen from him once. Now their baby girl was involved, too.

Four hours ago, he had met the bicycle club. They’d been cautious of him; apparently he had looked desperate, unshaven and disheveled. When he pulled out his wallet and showed them all the photos he kept of Rae during all the years of her life, and the meager few photos he had of Kellen, and begged for help, Wade had given him the message Kellen had directed to Verona. They’d sent him on with information, food and good wishes. He’d been tracking Kellen and Rae ever since.

As he ran, the trees thinned. The air thinned. Lack of oxygen made him slow—and he spotted a body sprawled by the root of an upended hemlock. A man, captured by death in the throes of agony.

But that guy, whoever he was, wasn’t Kellen. He wasn’t Rae.

Max picked up speed again and found the body of another man, chest shattered by a gunshot, one waxy hand pointed the way toward the marble head perched on a rock...

Max stopped. He stopped and stared at that thing, that head that had caused all the trouble.

It stared back.

Had Kellen abandoned it, given it up to the men who would kill to claim it?

Yes. That made sense. Kellen had used it to create a diversion.

Then why was it still here?

He looked around, spotted another body tucked downhill and in the woods.

Three bodies. Had Kellen killed them all? Had someone else killed them and now waited to claim the head...after eliminating Kellen and Rae?

Max snatched up the head, stuffed it in his backpack and sped up the path into the canyon, into the fog, into the damp silence. For a man who didn’t give a damn about priceless antiquities, he sure spent a lot of time dealing with them, and this one—he would ransom it for Kellen and Rae.

As the canyon narrowed, he slowed down. Out here, every little thing enveloped by the encroaching fog took on a menacing shape. Trees were men. Branches were rifles. Rocks were bombs. And there—there was something that glistened in the pale, eerie light. He knelt, touched it lightly. His fingers came away sticky and the liquid smelled like...blood. Droplets of blood on the rocks, fresh and wet.

Who had been hit?

Max wandered back and forth, from canyon wall to canyon wall, looking for signs of Kellen and Rae’s passage, finding it in the occasional spatter and smear. When he got them back...when he got them back, they were never leaving again. He wasn’t letting them out of his sight. He didn’t give a damn whether Kellen needed a fulfilling job. He didn’t care if Rae wanted to go to camp or to school. He was keeping them within the property line and—What was that?

A body, unmoving, prone on the ground. A woman’s body.

“No. No, dear God, no, please.” He dropped to his knees.

Kellen. Kellen was unconscious. But she was breathing. She was alive.

She’d been shot.

He’d been here before, in Philadelphia. She’d been shot in the head. She’d gone into a coma. She’d almost died. And then...she didn’t. She’d had his baby.

He looked around. No sign of Rae. Dear God. Where was Rae?

A deeper, colder fear seized him. Had all his fears come true? Was he too late? Would he find Rae’s body now?

No. She was in the lookout. Rae had to be in the lookout.

Kellen was chilled and growing colder.

He took off his coat, wrapped Kellen in the warmth, his warmth.

She moaned as he lifted her, moved her. Her head lolled on her neck.

“I’m sorry, darling. Please, darling, stay alive while I—” He picked her up with care and haste, put her over his shoulder and sprinted toward the lookout, keeping a pace that was smooth and swift.

He heard voices coming toward him.

A man’s voice, deep and impatient.

And a little girl’s voice, fierce, insistent.

Max stumbled a little, gasping for air, gasping in relief. He’d been so afraid, but Rae was alive.

The fog parted, and coming toward him he saw a tall hairy beast and a little girl.

The little girl shrieked, “Daddy!”, ran toward him and wrapped her arms around his legs.

She was alive and well.

Max hugged her with one hand, so relieved and yet, still so afraid.

“Is Mommy okay?” Rae’s face was stained with tears. She was on the verge of crying again.

“She’s alive.” Max viewed the man before him. Skinny. Black baseball cap. Black curly beard that covered his face and his neck. Thick black-rimmed glasses. A few changes, and Max wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a lineup. “You’re Zone?”