Into the Night(82)
She kissed him, and this time, the kiss was different. Something...softer.
Something sweeter.
A connection was there, she could feel it between them.
A link that had bonded them.
Her heartbeat stopped thundering in her ears. She eased back down, moving to lay beside him. His arms curled around her.
And she knew, with utter certainty...
This is where I belong. With him.
*
HIS PHONE WAS RINGING. Bowen slowly turned his head and saw the phone vibrating as it slid across the top of the nightstand. His hand flew out and he grabbed the phone.
Four a.m. No way this call is good.
“Murphy,” he said, voice gruff. Beside him, Macey stirred in the bed.
“I need...help...”
Bowen sat up, fast.
“I’m...” A rough rasp of breath. “At the ranger station...only one here with me is Zack...D-Douglas...”
“Jonah?” Bowen snapped. “Is that you?”
“N-need help,” he rasped again. “Bastard...held me...tied up...no food...”
Macey jumped out of bed and flashed on the lights.
“Jonah, I’ll call the rest of the team.” He didn’t mention anything about the team’s growing suspicions or what they’d found at Jonah’s home. “You’re at the ranger station with Zack Douglas, right? That’s what you said?”
“Y-yes...”
“Stay there. We’re coming to get you.”
Macey was at the foot of the bed.
Jonah had hung up.
“What’s happening?” she demanded.
“Jonah’s at Ranger Douglas’s station. He wants help.” He dialed Samantha and, despite the insane hour, she answered on the second ring. “Samantha, Jonah just called.” And he rattled off the details as fast as he could.
His gut was clenched, his hand too tight around the phone, and he still wondered...
What the fuck is really going on here?
“Tucker and I will get a team from the PD and get en route,” Samantha said, her voice sharp. “You and Macey get there, too. I want all hands on deck for this one.” Her words were grim. Tight. “I don’t like this... Be on guard...every moment, got me?”
He understood exactly what she meant.
He and Macey had mistaken Curtis Zale for a victim. But he hadn’t been. As for Jonah...
“Understood,” Bowen replied quietly. Then he was jumping from the bed and grabbing his clothes as quickly as he could. Macey had already dressed and gotten her gun from the other room. They hauled ass out of that lodge and jumped into the SUV. It was dark outside, but a thousand stars seemed to glitter overhead.
They rushed down the winding roads, heading for the mountains, easing toward the ranger station, and Bowen’s hands were fisted around the wheel as he tried to navigate those tight, twisting roads in the dark.
“Victim or killer?” The words burst from him.
Macey had gone dead silent.
“He called for help,” Bowen said, “but everything we’ve learned since Jonah’s disappearance... Damn it! Damn it!” Everything makes him look like a suspect and not one of our own.
“We go in and we treat him as both.” Macey’s voice was soft. “Victim and killer, that’s what we have to do, until we learn more.”
The road branched up ahead. It was so dark that he almost missed the right turn. He slammed on the brake and jerked the wheel, and then they started heading up, up the mountain. Reflectors were on the side of the road, warning of a steep drop-off as they glinted on an old guardrail. It was barely a two-lane road. More like just one, and he was damn glad no other cars were headed his way. His headlights cut through the darkness.
Higher, higher they went. He could feel his ears popping.
The earth seemed to have fallen away on the right...on Macey’s side of the car.
It was the only path to take in order to reach the ranger’s station. It was— He heard the growl of an engine, and then bright lights were suddenly right in front of him. He could see the frame of an oversize truck, one with tires that were too big and headlights mounted on the roof of the vehicle. That truck came right for him, swerving to hit him.
“Bowen!” Macey screamed.
But there wasn’t any time to stop. There was nowhere to turn, the road was too narrow, and that truck...it was as if it had been waiting for them.
The truck slammed into him, as hard as it could, and Bowen’s SUV flew toward the reflectors—the reflectors that had warned of danger, the weak guardrail that wouldn’t keep them safe.
The SUV crashed right through that flimsy old railing.
His head turned, not toward that fucking truck, but toward Macey. She’d screamed his name. She’d sounded so afraid. He tried to reach for her.
But the SUV was rolling, tumbling down that mountain, over and over and the screams he heard then...they were the screams of metal as the SUV crashed.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE LIGHT WAS in her eyes, blinding her. Macey couldn’t see past that too bright light. She squinted, trying to see the man behind the light, because she knew he was there.
The monster was always there.
She was trapped, strapped onto the operating room table—
No, no, I’m not fucking on that table.