Angel Fire, page 2
He pulled her back outside and pushed her down to the ground. She looked over at Leslie, who still hadn’t moved.
“On your knees,” he said. “Cross your ankles. Hands behind your head.”
She did as she was told, her body trembling from fear as she raised her hands over her head and locked her fingers together. Was he going to execute her? No. He’d had her change clothes for a reason. He ripped down the rope they’d strung up to hang their towels on to dry. A sheath on his leg produced a large knife, and he cut the rope in half. He walked over to her, then jerked her up.
“Hold your hands out.”
Her eyes were locked on the knife, and she did as she was told, knowing once she was tied up any thought of escape would be gone. Her bound hands were tied to a nearby tree.
He took the remaining rope and tied Leslie’s hands to those of the girl’s. Sam stared helplessly as Leslie was tied up.
“Is she…is she dead?”
“The girl? Yeah. Your friend here, no.” He held his knife up. “Should I finish her off?”
“Please…don’t,” Sam whispered.
“And if I spare her, what do I get in return?”
“What…what do you want?”
He said nothing. He walked back toward the road from where he’d come. For a moment, Sam thought he was leaving. But he bent down, pulling out a large backpack from behind a tree. He slipped it over his shoulders and headed back toward her. He paused at the water spigot, moving his hands under the stream of water. Washing off blood. When he looked at her, Sam averted her eyes. She heard him walk near and he untied the rope from the tree.
“Lift your arms.”
She did, trying to decide if she was strong enough to fight him. He took the excess rope that dangled from her wrists and pulled it up roughly, halting her thoughts. He wrapped it around her waist, then tied to around his own.
“There. Now we’re attached. No escape.” He tightened the rope a little more. “And in case you’re wondering, I can kill as quickly with my bare hands as I can with my gun or knife.”
Sam met his eyes fully for the first time. She expected evil. She expected insanity. Instead, she found neither. Intelligent brown eyes looked back at her.
“What…what is it that you want?”
“A hostage.” He held up his knife again. “In exchange, I won’t cut your friend’s throat.”
Chapter Three
Tori ran her hands through her hair, noting that they were trembling. Her stomach was in knots and her chest hurt. Sam…please.
“Tori?”
She turned, meeting Casey’s concerned eyes. She nodded. “How’s Les?”
“They’re going to take her to the hospital,” Casey said. “She said a man came out of the woods dragging the girl. They didn’t know she was dead. When they went to help, he hit her with something. When she came to, she was tied to the girl.” She paused. “Sam was gone.”
“Yeah. Okay.”
“You called your people, right?”
“Yeah. I’m supposed to wait for a call from some guy named Murdock.” She let her frustration show. “Goddamn, O’Connor. The bastard took Sam and I’m supposed to wait? What the hell?”
“What else can you do?”
“What can I do?” she asked loudly. “I can fucking go after her, that’s what.” She headed to the motorhome as if to do just that, but Casey grabbed her arm.
“It’s dark, Tori. Come on. Where you gonna go, huh? Head north?” Then she pointed into the woods. “Or maybe head out there into the woods somewhere? I think that’s west. Hell, Hunter, or go south. Maybe he went that way. Or maybe he had a car and took the highway. Nobody knows where he went. The sheriff’s department is up to their eyeballs in crime scenes. They’ve got the house here. They’ve got the accident on the highway where four people were shot. I heard one of them say they found a car south of Taos with two bodies, both shot at close range. They’re thinking that may be linked to the accident. So you’ve got to wait, Hunter.”
“Goddamn, O’Connor,” she muttered, knowing Casey was right.
“You can’t just head out into the woods like a crazy woman, Tori,” Casey said. “We wait for a team to get here.”
“He killed that family like it was nothing,” she said, snapping her fingers. “What the hell do you think he’ll do to Sam?”
“He took her because he needs her. If he wanted her dead, she would be. So would Leslie.” Casey released her arm. “Now, anything disturbed inside?” she asked, motioning to the motorhome.
Tori swallowed down the lump in her throat. “She changed into jeans. Her shorts were on the floor. Hiking boots missing.” She closed her eyes. “And my sweatshirt.”
“Her weapon?”
Tori shook her head. “It’s still in the drawer. So is her cell.” She flicked her gaze to the approaching paramedic.
“Excuse me, but we’re heading out,” he said to Casey. “Did you want to go?”
Casey looked at her and Tori nodded. “Go on, O’Connor. Be with Leslie.”
Casey walked over to her and hugged her quickly. “Don’t do anything stupid, Hunter. Wait for the team.”
Tori managed a small smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Casey left and Tori turned her gaze back to the ever-darkening forest. She closed her eyes. Sam…please be okay. She had never felt so helpless as she did in that moment. She wasn’t used to feeling helpless and she wasn’t used to waiting. She was used to doing.
She returned her gaze to the trees beyond the motorhome. That was where he took her. She didn’t know how she knew, but she felt it in her gut, in her heart. That was where he took Sam. She took a few steps in that direction, then stopped. She knew it would be futile to set out alone.
And alone was what she was. She stared up into the night sky, feeling as lonely at that moment as she had when her family was killed when she was a child. Maybe more so. She knew Sam meant everything to her, knew Sam was the most important thing in her life. She knew that. But she didn’t count on the complete emptiness she felt at her absence.
She heard a twig snap, and she turned, surprised to see Casey heading toward her.
“What the hell, O’Connor?”
Casey shrugged and stepped close to her, their shoulders touching.
“You’re supposed to be with Les.”
Casey shook her head. “Right now, I think you need me more than she does.”
“Oh, hell, Casey. You need to be with her.”
“I need to be with you.” Casey bumped her shoulder. “Besides, she made me stay.”
Tori nodded. Yeah, Leslie would do that. “Okay.”
“Come on,” Casey said. “We got that bottle of scotch. I think we need a drink.”
Tori’s gaze drifted back toward the forest. “Yeah. Okay.” She looked at Casey. “But I don’t want to talk, O’Connor.”
“Hell, we’re not going to talk. We’re going to drink and wait for your people to call you.”
Chapter Four
Andrea held her tight as Cameron collapsed on top of her. Their skin was damp and they both struggled to catch their breath.
“Making love in the afternoon…it’s the best thing ever,” Cameron murmured against her neck.
Andrea laughed quietly. “I thought pizza was,” she teased, referring to the frozen treat she’d fixed for a late lunch. They hadn’t been anywhere near a pizza place for eight days. Cameron’s love of the pie brought out the only frozen one they had left.
“It was pretty good for frozen.” Cameron rolled off her and took a deep breath. “I love you, Andi.”
Andrea smiled as she leaned up on an elbow. Those words came easily to Cameron now. “I love you too.” She reached out and lightly traced the scar that slashed across Cameron’s breast. She watched as Cameron’s nipple turned rigid. “And you’re right. Making love in the afternoon is kinda nice. Although I think the afternoon is well behind us,” she said as she glanced out the window, seeing nothing but darkness.
Cameron rolled her head toward her. “Are you tired of this life yet?”
Andrea shook her head. “No. I love all the traveling that we do.”
“And being cramped in this motorhome?”
“I don’t feel cramped.” Andrea studied her. Yes, they’d done a lot of traveling in the last year. Murdock had kept them plenty busy, and they’d hit nearly every western state except New Mexico. She didn’t mind the constant movement. And she knew Cameron was used to it, not only from growing up in a military family but being in the military herself. But there was a look on Cameron’s face that Andrea had not seen before. “Are you tired of it?”
Cameron took her hand and brought it to her lips, kissing it softly. “I sometimes think it would be nice to settle somewhere. Maybe do something normal.”
“Tired of the FBI?”
Cameron met her eyes. “We see so much…so much crap, Andi. Death. Heartache. Tears.” She looked away. “We don’t see laughter very often.”
“No, we don’t.” Andrea squeezed her hand. “But if you’re ready to settle down somewhere, we should start thinking about it. Although I wouldn’t even know where to land. I loved Sedona and the sheriff’s department,” she said. “I don’t think I’d ever want to go back to a large city and a large police force. Talk about no laughter.”
“So maybe we’ll settle in a little mountain town where they need a couple of very experienced and highly trained ex-FBI agents,” Cameron said with a grin.
Andrea matched her smile. “We seem to land in Colorado a lot, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we tend to come back here between cases. Maybe—”
But Cameron’s phone interrupted her and they recognized Murdock’s ringtone.
“Haven’t heard from him in a week,” Andrea said.
Cameron nodded as she fumbled for the phone. “Ross,” she said in her most professional tone, causing Andrea to smile. If he’d called five minutes earlier, she’d have been breathless as she answered.
Andrea’s smile faded as Cameron looked at her.
“I’ll log on right now. Give me a second,” Cameron said. “We’re…outside.”
Andrea got out of bed, trying to find her jeans. Cameron had pulled on her T-shirt, not bothering with her bra.
“What’s up?” Andrea asked as she found her shirt.
“He wants us on video. All he said was ‘a hell of a situation,’” Cameron said as she pulled her jeans on. “I’m going to log in.” She paused. “How do I look?”
Andrea walked closer, running her fingers through Cameron’s hair to tame it. “You need a cut.”
Cameron leaned closer and kissed her. “You should probably check the mirror before you come out.”
Andrea hurried into the small bathroom, smiling. Her hair was a tangled mess. She splashed water on her face, then took a brush and brought some semblance of order to it. She took a moment to finger it, wondering what Cameron would say if she got it cut shorter. Well, now wasn’t the time to think about it. She scooped Lola up as she walked into the living area of the motorhome. Lola purred loudly as Andrea nuzzled her black fur.
She sat the cat down when Murdock’s face came up on Cameron’s laptop. He didn’t bother with pleasantries.
“Have you had a chance to catch the news today?”
Cameron looked at Andrea and they shook their heads. “I try to avoid it as much as possible,” Cameron said.
“Well, it’s been a whirlwind of a day. We’re just now piecing everything together,” he said. He looked at a sheet of paper he held in his hand. “We had an armored-car heist in Santa Fe, New Mexico, late morning. Four men, armed with assault rifles. This company stocked ATMs. Estimated net haul is three million,” he said. “Two guards killed. The armored car was abandoned about a mile away. Money gone. Three hours later, two of the men were found shot dead. Their bodies were found in what we assume was the getaway car, south of Taos, New Mexico. Midafternoon, there was a traffic accident east of Taos on Highway 64. Five vehicles involved. Drivers in two of the vehicles had been shot. Four shooting victims total at that scene.”
He put the paper down. “And that’s only the beginning. A family of four was murdered in their home, off Highway 64, going toward Eagle Nest. That’s about thirty miles or so from Taos. The family was that of a Forest Service personnel. With the sheriff’s department tied up with the accident, the ranger who took the initial call from the wife commandeered the service of an FBI agent who happened to be camping near there. They found the husband, wife and one daughter dead at the scene. The other daughter was taken, presumably already dead, as a decoy. She was used to summon help from nearby campers.” He paused. “And now we have a hostage situation. Or at least we think we do.”
“That’s a lot going on, Murdock. I’m assuming everything is related. Got IDs yet?” Cameron asked.
He nodded. “Video surveillance at the armored car company caught all four men. That’s how we identified the two dead outside of Taos. Another man is believed to be one of the victims in the accident on 64. That leaves one of the four remaining. Identified as Angel Figueroa. Ring a bell?”
Cameron’s eyes widened. “Angel?” She slowly shook her head. “He’s not a bank robber, Murdock. He’s a goddamn sniper.”
“I know who he is, but I’m telling you what we know so far. Ballistics isn’t back yet, but we’re pretty certain everything is linked.”
Cameron turned quickly to Andrea. “Angel and I, we were in the military together. He was on my team for a while. He was the second best sniper in the group,” she explained.
Andrea didn’t need to ask who the best was.
“The last I heard of Angel, he was a mercenary of sorts, still in the Middle East,” Cameron said to Murdock. “He was paid well, I assume. Why come back here, to a small city in New Mexico and pull a heist?”
“Maybe he was low on cash. We’re putting together a profile on him now, tracking his whereabouts since he got out of the military.”
Cameron shook her head. “He’s a hired killer, nothing more. There’s got to be something to it other than just a robbery.”
“Well, I do have more, actually,” he said. “The FBI agent who was at the scene, she’s from Dallas. She was camping with three others, all three are with Dallas PD. They were camping in the Santa Fe National Forest at one of the campgrounds there. The woman missing is Samantha Kennedy, one of the three cops.”
“Why do you think it’s a hostage situation? That’s not Angel’s style.”
“He brought a dead girl with him as a decoy, got the women to help him. He coldcocked one of them. When she came to, she was bound at the wrists, tied to the dead girl. The other woman, Kennedy, was missing.”
“What about the fourth one?” Andrea asked.
“She was with the FBI agent.” Murdock looking slightly uncomfortable. “I believe the four of them were…well, I assume they are two…couples. Well, I know they are. Agent Tori Hunter—Kennedy is her partner, as I hear it.”
“Manhunt underway?”
“No. The local authorities had their hands full trying to process everything. They’ve kept the area secure from where we assume Kennedy was taken. He’d taken the family’s car there and stashed it in the woods. Knowing what we know about Angel, my gut tells me he’s on foot. The deputies there don’t seem to be in agreement. They think he may be on the highway.”
“No. Angel would have headed into the woods,” she said. “That was his training.”
“Yeah, I know. But because he’s pretty much shot up their county down there, the locals want him bad. I don’t even have the final death count. Ten or eleven,” he said. “They’ve got roadblocks setup on the highway in both directions. They’re planning on bringing in dogs in the morning to the campsite there. Unless I can convince them you’d do a better job of it.”
“You want me to track Angel Figueroa?” Cameron asked. “He’s good. He’s very good.”
“Yes. He’s a survivalist. Who better to go after him than you?”
“I’ve been out of the military a few years now, Murdock.”
“I’m well aware, Agent Ross. But you’re it. Pack your bags.”
“I’ve got backcountry gear for me, but not Andrea,” she said. “And we’ll need rations.”
“I’ll have gear there for you when you land.”
“Land? What about the rig? What about our truck? What about Lola?”
“Lola? Your cat is not my concern. The rig and your fancy truck are my concern. Someone is on the way right now to your location. He’ll drive the rig and pull your truck to New Mexico. Get to Durango. There’ll be a plane waiting. There won’t be much time to rest, I’m afraid. I want you on-site at daybreak. As you said, Angel is nothing more than a killer. When he no longer needs his hostage, he’ll eliminate her.”
“So where’s the money? Three million is a lot of cash,” Andrea said.
“We’re going over surveillance cameras in Santa Fe and Taos. Since he’s on foot and the vehicles are clean, we assume he stashed the money somewhere in the area.”
“Have you ID’d the accomplices?”
“We’ve ID’d the two bodies found in Taos. Both ex-military, although there’s no obvious link to Angel. Their paths didn’t cross while deployed. Both were honorably discharged last year.” He paused. “Find him, Cameron. Dead or alive, I don’t care. What I do care about is that you bring Samantha Kennedy back safely. This is a rescue mission, first and foremost.”
“Okay, Murdock. We’re on it,” Cameron said.
“I’ll be in touch.”
When the screen went blank, Cameron closed up the laptop. “Not much warning.” She shook her head. “And a hell of a lot happening.”
“Tori Hunter? That name is familiar. Wasn’t she on the Patrick Doe case back in Dallas?”
