Northern Deception (Northern Rescue Book 2), page 7
The agent’s expression was unreadable. Impossible to tell whether he bought the lie.
Tage pocketed his phone. “So, Agent—I’m sorry, I forgot your name.” He hadn’t really. He just didn’t like the guy’s holier-than-thou attitude and wanted to take him down a peg.
“Coburn.”
“Right. Agent Coburn. Care to explain to me how you think these murders connect to my missing veterinarian?”
Coburn continued to stare at him with that inscrutable expression.
“We’ve found three bodies between Fairbanks and Anchorage. Do you consider William Hunter a suspect?”
“No,” Coburn said after another stubborn moment.
“But he’s connected?”
“We have suspicions.”
“That you don’t see fit to share.”
“Not at the moment, no. Where is your partner, Sergeant Strickland?”
Tage stared down at Agent Coburn, who was almost a foot shorter than him and skinny as a ski pole. He was used to being the biggest guy in the room—the only time he’d ever felt small was when he interviewed Nathaniel Hunter, who was a fucking giant—and he often used his size to his advantage in interrogations. Rarely took more than a glare to get someone talking, but the agent remained stone-faced.
A crackle from his radio broke the stand-off.
“Look,” Tage said and lowered the radio’s volume as a call for SAR went out. “You want my help? You gotta let me in. It’s a two-way street.”
Coburn sniffed and glanced over at the forensic techs examining the body. His wind-chapped lips thinned into a frown.
Tage shook his head and headed toward his SUV. “I have to answer this call.”
Coburn waited until he opened the driver’s side door before speaking again. “Our killer is in his late twenties or early thirties. He’s strong, smart, and knows the mountains.”
Tage froze halfway into the driver’s seat. He knew where this was going and wished like hell he hadn’t asked.
“He’s a loner, and we think he has or had a stutter or some other physical or mental impairment that isolated him from his peers. He was likely bullied relentlessly for that impairment by boys similar to our victims.” Coburn glanced over at the body again. He looked like the type of guy who knew a thing or two about being bullied. “Our victims are the ‘cool’ kids all grown up, but our killer is finally bigger than them and wants revenge. He’s fascinated by death, enthralled by it, and likely has a job in an industry that allows him easy access to the dead.”
Tage swallowed hard to keep his heart from jumping out of his throat. “You’re talking about Nathaniel Hunter.”
Coburn closed the distance between them and met his gaze evenly. “I ask again, Sergeant, where is Freya Ashby?”
The radio let out a burst of conversational noise again, but he’d turned the volume down too far to hear what dispatch said. “I have to go,” he told Coburn, and didn’t wait for a response. He climbed into his SUV and took a moment to breathe once he was behind the wheel. The heater blasted ice as the engine struggled to warm up.
They thought Nate Hunter was a killer.
The same Nate Hunter that Freya had slept with during one of her ill-advised one-night stands.
The man she’d been in love with since that night. She denied it, of course, but she went gooey every time the guy came anywhere near her orbit.
And he was potentially a killer.
It made horrible sense. Nate lived in Fairbanks, but his dad lived in Anchorage, so he probably traveled the highway between the two cities often. He’d had very little parental guidance while growing up—he and his brothers had all but run wild in the mountains. As a veterinary pathologist, he studied death for a living. He ticked all the right boxes.
Had Dr. Hunter known about his son’s deadly extracurricular activities? Had he threatened to turn Nate in? Was that why he was missing?
Brielle Ives claimed to have seen Dr. Hunter after a hired killer shot her last month. She said he’d saved her life, but there had been no concrete evidence of his presence in the cabin where they’d found her bleeding out. Tage was about 98% sure the old man was dead, and Ms. Ives just hallucinated from blood loss, seeing what she wanted to see.
Until today, Tage had assumed Dr. Hunter killed himself. The man was already dying of cancer, after all. If he had to go out, why not go on his own terms in the mountains he loved? But now, given this new info, would they instead find Dr. William Hunter’s dissected body somewhere along this stretch of road?
Had his son killed him?
Worry prickled along the back of Tage’s neck, raising goosebumps despite the heater finally spitting warm air.
Where the hell was Freya?
More radio chatter. Frantic. The kind that only happened when it was a bad one.
Fucking hell. He didn’t have time for a rescue call right now.
He cranked the volume and listened. A personal locator beacon had been triggered deep in the mountains and the thing’s ID number belonged to the state troopers.
The prickle of worry solidified into an icy dread that hit his stomach like a rock. He cranked the wheel north and stomped the gas, snow tires spinning on ice before finding traction on the pavement.
Freya.
11
Nate was limping badly. He was trying not to show it, powering ahead even as the cavern shrank, and they lost daylight. Maybe that was why he kept pushing on despite the pain, given his dislike of the dark. He glanced back every time the lantern flickered. It was impossible to miss the bright panic in his eyes even though he tried to hide that, too.
As for her, she was hungry and exhausted and felt like she’d rolled down a mountainside—
Oh, wait. She had.
Her head pounded with each slogging step forward.
They were moving too slow. Losing daylight—again. If they were even headed in the right direction, which she doubted. It seemed to her Nate had just picked a direction and started walking. He said they were going north toward Solitaire, and therefore his dad’s cabin, but it felt like they were only going deeper into the earth. At least it was warmer here than in the ice cave, so hypothermia wasn’t an immediate threat anymore. But if they kept wandering around blindly like this, they were in for a far worse fate than freezing to death.
“Nate—”
He paused, and she nearly collided with his back.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
She peeked around his arm and saw what had him swearing. The cave dead-ended directly in front of him. Again. It was the fourth one they’d come to.
Freya sighed and leaned against the wall to take some pressure off her aching feet. “Maybe we should go back to the ice cave. We were closer to the surface there.” Her personal locator beacon had a chance— however slim— of connecting to a satellite there. Here, buried under all this rock, there was no way in hell.
Nate shook his head. “There was no way out of there. The hole in the ice was too high to reach without the proper equipment.”
She motioned to the solid wall ahead of them. “There’s no way out here, either.”
“Fuck!” He hit the wall with the side of his fist. A rock broke free and clattered to the ground, sending up a small puff of dust. Freya watched the dust swirl into the air and get sucked away, back into the wall.
“You’re right,” Nate said with resignation. “We should go back and—”
“Wait.” She edged past him in the narrow space and ran a hand along the wall.
He watched in silence for several seconds. “What—”
“Shh.” She pressed her ear to the wall and heard the faint whistle of airflow. “There’s a breeze.”
“What?” He closed the distance between them and leaned over her to press his ear to the wall. His big presence made the tight space even smaller, but she didn’t feel claustrophobic. She should have. Any sane person in her situation would’ve told him to back the hell up. Instead, she closed her eyes for a moment and reveled in the heat of him pressed against her back.
It was hypothermia talking. And dehydration. And the concussion. Couldn’t forget the concussion.
“I hear it,” he said and backed away. “Where’s it coming from?”
She refused to mourn the lost connection. Refused to. She straightened away from the wall and examined the cavern. It was only about five feet wide and seven feet tall, judging by how close Nate’s six-foot-five frame was to the ceiling. She bent down to scoop up a handful of dirt, tossed it into the air. Again, it swirled before disappearing through the bottom corner of the wall. She knelt and pushed at the rocks piled there. They moved easily and air rushed by her hand.
“It’s here! Help me.”
Working together, they removed as many of the boulders as possible. The air current was a constant exhale now. She laid down on her belly and peered through the hole. “There’s a tunnel and light on the other side!” She shoved another basketball sized rock aside. “I think we can squeeze through.”
Before she could crawl into the opening, Nate caught her leg. “No.”
She scowled over her shoulder at him. “What do you mean, no?” Then she noticed the absolute lack of color in his face. His hand trembled where he gripped her ankle. She glanced back through the passage to the light on the other side and cursed at herself.
Of course, he’d say no.
She sat up and faced him. “It might be our only chance.”
He was already shaking his head before she even finished speaking. “We can find another way.”
“Why should we when freedom is right there?” When he didn’t respond, she added, “You’re a logical guy, Red. Think about it. We don’t have the time, energy, or equipment. We can’t survive much longer down here.”
He looked at the opening. She didn’t think it possible given his enormous size, but he shrank before her eyes. He was that trapped eight-year-old again.
“Hey,” she whispered, and took his face between her hands. “You can do this.”
He wouldn’t meet her gaze. He was still staring at their one chance of escape like it was a death sentence.
Hell, maybe it was. But so was staying here. She was already dangerously cold. Another night would almost certainly kill her.
“Please.”
“I… can’t.” At the admission, his ears turned bright red with embarrassment. She imagined his cheeks were too under that wild beard. “You go. I’ll… I don’t know. Find another way. There has to be another way.”
“If you think I’m leaving you down here, you’re crazier than I thought.”
Again, he didn’t respond. He still held her leg like he was afraid to let it go, and it gave her an idea. “Look, I’ll go first. You follow right behind me and hang on to my ankle. It’s not very far. We’ll have the lantern on the whole time and keep it between us. You won’t be in the dark or alone. We’ll do it together. Nate?” She waited until he finally met her gaze. “Together, okay? You are not alone. You have me now and we’re a pretty good team. We can get through this together.”
He stared at her for a long time, his eyes devouring every dirt-smeared curve of her face as if he’d never seen her before. Then he shut his eyes, drew a breath, and gave a quick, decisive nod. “T-t-together.”
She noticed the return of his stutter but ignored it. He was already embarrassed and terrified beyond reason. No need to add to his discomfort by pointing it out.
She laid down on her belly and examined the passage again. It was tight, but not impossibly so. They’d have to flatten themselves and army crawl forward about three car lengths. There, the passage opened up vertically, but narrowed. Nate could stand and turn himself sideways to fit through. Other than that, she saw nothing blocking their way. It was a straight shot to the other side, and no more than a hundred feet long.
She relayed her observations back to him in a matter-of-fact way. If she made it sound easy, maybe he wouldn’t be as frightened.
He grunted. “Let’s just get this over with.”
So much for easing his discomfort. She wished she possessed his optimism gene since his seemed to be missing right now.
And she was stalling. She wasn’t entirely comfortable with this plan of hers, either.
The lantern flickered again, reminding her they would run out of battery power sooner rather than later. She sucked in a breath, pulled off her backpack, and shoved it into the passage ahead of her. “You take the lantern.”
With that, she wiggled under the rock. It was a lot tighter than she expected and she experience a zing of panic before she quashed it down. Nate was going to hate this. She pulled herself forward enough to make room for him and heard a lot of cursing behind her as he squeezed in. His hand was a vice on her ankle, which made crawling difficult, but if it kept him anchored, she was happy to sacrifice the mobility.
“Okay?”
He was breathing too hard, and his voice was so strangled it was barely recognizable as his. “Go.”
Yeah, he wasn’t okay at all. They had to get out of here ASAP. She pulled herself forward as fast as possible, pausing only to shove her bag ahead. Her arm muscles burned. Sweat dripped into her eyes despite the deep cold that had settled into her bones. If this wasn’t the way out, she was in big trouble for letting herself sweat like this. She was going to freeze to death.
The ceiling got higher with each foot forward until it was high enough that she could pull herself upright. She stopped there, waiting until Nate joined her. He had to crouch, but he seemed steadier now that he was upright. She paused for a second to catch her breath and study him. They were both coated head-to-toe in dust. It clung to his beard and eyebrows and had turned his strawberry hair gray. He looked like he’d never seen a bathtub in his life. She imagined she was even less attractive.
But his breathing had slowed to a normal level rather than the gasps of a man trying not to panic. He’d even let go of her ankle a few times to adjust the lantern.
Now that they were standing, he held her hand. She wondered if he even realized it.
“Halfway,” she told him and gave his fingers a squeeze.
He looked down at their joined hands with wide eyes. Nope, he hadn’t realized it.
He met her gaze again and gave a crooked half-smile. “It’s not... too bad.”
“There’s Mr. Brightside. I wondered where he went.” Another quick squeeze. “Hang on to him a bit longer. We’re almost out.”
She took a step forward, twisting her body to fit through the narrowing passage—
And the light went out.
12
Nate’s hand locked around hers. He didn’t make a sound, but his fear was so palpable he might as well have. It echoed around them like a scream, and for a moment the riptide of his terror swept her up, too.
Air whistled past her face, reminding her to unlock her lungs and breathe. There was a way out. She angled her body toward the literal light at the end of the tunnel. As her eyes adjusted, she noticed the light glinted off specks of something in the rock walls.
The cave wasn’t dark at all.
It sparkled.
How strange and beautiful.
“Nate, look.” He had such a tight grip on her hand she couldn’t feel her fingers. She shifted around to glance back at him, but it was darker behind her, and she could only make out his faint outline. “Nate?”
His breath sawed in and out, too fast, too harsh.
“Nate, breathe.”
If he heard her, he didn’t acknowledge it. She didn’t even think he remembered she was beside him. She dropped her backpack and edged backwards until she could touch his chest with her free hand. Even through all his layers, his heart pounded erratically against her palm. If he didn’t calm down, he was going to hyperventilate and pass out.
She had to distract him somehow, and only one thing came to mind.
“Hey, Red. Remember the bar?” She kept her voice low and seductive. “That back hallway was dark like this, the lights all burnt out. I wanted you to touch me the moment I walked in and saw you. Remember how you touched me?”
She wasn’t sure he could hear her, but she kept going. She had no other ideas on how to get through his fear. Turning him on was all she had.
“Remember how we couldn’t wait? I’ve never been that desperate to have a man’s hands on me. What was it about you? All you had to do was look at me with those blue eyes and I was wet.”
His breath hitched. Okay, she was getting through his panic.
“You pinned me against that wall, and I lost all sense. You scare me and thrill me because I can’t think straight with you. All I do is feel. You remember what it felt like?”
His vice grip loosened on her hand. He made a low, indistinct sound in his throat.
“You do. I can tell.” As she spoke, she started inching forward, dragging him along by their joined hands. “You felt amazing, filling me up until I could barely breathe. I wrapped my legs around you and rode you right there by the bar’s back door while you squeezed my ass in those enormous hands. I love your hands on me. I’ve thought about them often since that night. I touch myself and imagine it’s you.”
God, the cave had become uncomfortably hot. She was turning herself on. So not what she’d intended, but every word was the truth. Nathaniel Hunter lit her flame like no man ever had.
But, dammit, she couldn’t distract herself. She meant the distraction for him while she maneuvered them to safety. Only a little farther. She could smell fresh air, feel the cold kiss of it on her exposed skin. She’d never been so happy about the potential for frostbite.
“We couldn’t keep our hands off each other that night. The hallway wasn’t enough. I rode you again in your truck right there in the parking lot. And then at the motel—”
They were out! The passage spit them out into a wide cavern with an opening to the swirling snow outside.
“Nate!” Freya spun toward him with a grin and instantly took a step back in shock at the predatory look on his face. His eyes sparked with lust, a startling blue flame against his filthy skin.
