Broken Trust (2 page)

Eric bellied down in the sand and
tried to inch to a safer spot. Spatters of gunfire forced him back. He crouched
low, prepared to run. He’d be cut to ribbons.

Mac fired again. “No!”

Eric jerked hard and fell face
down. He didn’t move.

Mac froze, and felt the blood drain
from his face.

Get up, buddy. Get up!

Rage billowed inside Mac and he
roared with fury as he pounded the cliffs with bullets. Enemy fire buffeted him
and white hot pain seared his leg. In a haze of agony, he fought off the
dizzying nausea that followed and kept firing. He had to get to Eric. He’d
promised to bring him home safe. He couldn’t face Toni and her family if he
failed.

Exploding shrapnel forced Mac to
seek cover. He scrambled amongst the rocks and reached for his medic bag. Where
were his men? He couldn’t see Silvestri. He must have changed position.

The whirring of the chopper and the
stuttering of its gunfire sounded overhead, a welcome relief. A smatter of
bullets shattered the rocks above, driving the insurgents back.

Mac’s vision blurred and he shook
it off. He had to find his men. Had to help them. “Silvestri! Gordon!”

No response.

He brushed sweat out of his eyes
and realized it was blood. He changed his magazine, having reloaded the gun so
many times he could do it by touch alone. His hands trembled as pain permeated
his entire body. But he still refused to quit.

“Major! Andrus!”

Nothing. Just the spray of gunfire
along the ridge that left his ears ringing.

Mac shuddered as he jerked open his
medic bag and tied a tourniquet around his calf. Blood poured down his leg,
filling his boot. He groaned, his throat raw from yelling. The wound burned
like fire.

He struggled to rise and stumbled.
His injured leg refused to hold him. With his medic bag in tow, he crawled into
the open, trying to reach Eric. Bullets spat sand in his eyes and terror
prickled his skin. He kept going, using his elbows to inch forward. The shrill
smatter of a Gatling gun high along the ridge told him the chopper had him
covered. Just one thought pounded his mind.

He had to reach Eric. He wouldn’t
leave without him.

Thorne Mountain, Nevada

Five Weeks Later

Chapter Two

“Get off my tail!”

The brown pickup truck behind Toni
Hamilton rode her bumper too close, driving too fast. She slowed her green
compact car and pulled to one side of the dirt road circling Crystal Lake.
Branches from the stand of timber edging the road scraped the side of her car.
Maybe the other driver would take the hint and pass by. She wasn’t normally a
Type A personality, but this was ridiculous.

As expected, the man accelerated
his truck. Rocks and dust peppered Toni’s car as he zipped past. She cringed,
hoping she didn’t end up with a broken windshield.

He gave her a sneer of disgust and
she waited for him to move on. Instead, he pulled up short and cut her off with
a squeal of breaks and gravel.

“Hey! What are you doing?” She
spoke out loud, knowing he couldn’t hear her. But he could surely see her
irritated glare.

She would have driven around, but
he stopped in the middle of the road, blocking her route on the narrow path.

A gun! The man waved it as he threw
open the door of his truck and stepped out. Was this for real?

Toni wasn’t going to wait around to
find out. In a blaze of panic, she fumbled with the gear shift, trying to throw
it into reverse. Instead, she jerked the car into neutral and it stalled. As he
came around the side of his truck, she grabbed her purse and shoved open the
door. The man yelled at her in a foreign language, his long black ponytail
whipping across his angry face. In a single glance, Toni envisioned herself
lying dead on the abandoned mountain road, far from civilization and anyone who
might hear her screams.

A victim of road rage.

She sprang toward the sheltering
trees of the forest. A shot rang out. The bullet whizzed past her face and she
ducked her head.

Fear choked off her air supply. Her
three-inch Italian heels sank deep into the soft soil like fingernails clawing
wet cement. She should have worn blue jeans and tennis shoes. How had this
simple task turned into a nightmare?

“Stop!” A bullet spattered into the
bark of a tree trunk to her right. Another one zinged high overhead.

He meant to kill her.

She kept going. Limbs and branches
snatched at her as she passed, yanking at her long hair, ripping her new silk
blouse. Beneath the shadows of pine and juniper, she lost sight of the
afternoon sun. Veering in the direction of the lake, she prayed she found Mac’s
cabin soon. It must be close.

Why?

The single word pounded her brain.
Why would someone want to kill her?

As she raced through the trees, she
clasped her stylish leather handbag to her chest, protecting its precious
contents. She prayed Mac would know what to do and who to trust.

She gasped for breath, her lungs
burning. She scrambled over fallen tree trunks and rocks, wrenching her ankle,
skinning her knees and hands. An angry yell came from behind. The stranger was
gaining fast.

She kicked off her shoes and
splashed through a stream. Blood pounded against her temples.

Please, God! Help me get away. Help
me find Mac.

She scrambled into the deepest
shadows and held still. Frozen with fear. The man passed by, his angry yells
fading. But where was she?

She glanced at the thick treetops
swaying overhead. No help there. The dense foliage shrouded her in gloom. The
evening breeze stirred the heavy branches, causing them to tremble like hulking
beasts. She couldn’t get her bearings.

Lost on Thorne Mountain. The last
place on earth she wanted to be.

She shuffled onward, cringing when
her bare feet came down too hard on sharp stones or stickers littering the
ground. The trees thinned and she emerged from the forest. The edge of a cliff
bordered the lake. When she peered over the ledge at the gaping maw below,
nothing but jagged rocks stared back at her.

She was trapped. Nowhere to go but
down. Panic washed over her in shattering waves. Now, what?

She gasped air into her lungs, her
sides aching. She scanned the area, looking for a way down.

A vision of sparkling diamonds
glimmered on the inky waters of Crystal Lake. Short, frothy waves pounded the
jagged cliffs below. From her vantage point, several pine trees pierced the
evening sky. With a burst of fading sunlight as a backdrop, their branches
swayed in the gentle breeze like elegant dancers. Soon, it’d be dark and she’d
be alone on this mountain with a madman.

Toni shuddered.

“Over here. I heard three shots.” A
deep, male voice came from the forest.

She whirled around. More voices
sounded from the woods, drawing near. Two men, maybe more. She hesitated,
wondering if they were friend or foe. She didn’t dare call out to them and had
only moments before they discovered her.

Think! What would Eric do? Oh, how
she wished her older brother was here with her now.

Please, God. Please protect me.
Cara and Grandma need me.

The man with the gun broke from the
stand of timber. Pine needles and leaves clung to his long, black hair. When he
saw her, his thin lips curved into a cruel smile.

“Now, I got you. You not get away
again.” He spoke in broken English, his accent heavy and foreign.

Standing fifteen feet away, he
lifted the gun and pointed it at her head. Her breath froze in her throat.
Ripples of horror rushed over her as she awaited the burn of the bullet.

A menacing growl came from the
forest. Toni watched in shock as a huge beast lunged from the underbrush and
attacked the man. The bear…no, a dog…bit down on the man’s gun arm and he
yelped in pain.

Toni turned and ran, hoping to slip
past while she had the chance. In her haste, she tottered on the ledge. Loose
rocks rolled beneath her feet. She felt herself go and threw out her arms,
dropping her purse.

“No!” Her scream echoed off the
surrounding mountains. She flailed about, grabbing for something, anything to
stop her fall.

Pain tore at her fingers, then
slammed against her side and up her arms. She fell, down…down…

Please, God, don’t let me die.

* * *

“Over here, Dad. I heard a woman
scream.” Mac MacKenzie called to his father as he hobbled through the trees.
His injured leg burned like fire. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to
ignore it. Eight more weeks of medical leave, then he’d report back for light
duty with the MARSOC team, short for Marine Corps Special Operations Command.
He couldn’t wait to get back to work, and yet a heavy emptiness filled his
chest.

All his buddies were gone. No one
left, but him.

“Yeah, I heard it, too. Where’d that
dog go?” Dad asked.

Shouldering his daypack, Mac limped
through the trees edging the lake at Dawson’s Cliff. “He’s here somewhere. I
heard him growl.”

“I hope some lady hiker didn’t have
a run-in with a bear or mountain lion.”

Mac agreed. Too often, backpackers
came to these mountains ill-prepared for the wildlife and fierce elements.

He leaned heavily on the crutch
tucked beneath his left arm. The throbbing in his calf warned that he’d pushed
himself too hard today. The last thing he wanted now was to search and rescue
another hiker. He wanted to return to his quiet cabin, prop up his leg, and eat
a heaping bowl of Mom’s homemade stew.

He took a step, trying not to put
much weight on his left leg. The pain reminded him of the failed black ops
mission in Afghanistan five weeks earlier. The memory of that night tore at his
conscience like meat hooks ripping through flesh. While he had escaped with a
simple bullet wound in his leg, every other man on his team had died. Including
Eric, his best friend.

Crushed beneath the boot heel of
war.

Mac thrust aside his grief and
focused on the problem at hand. Night came quickly to these mountains, and
somewhere out here a woman was lost or wounded.

Or worse.

A chill breeze stirred the air.
Scattered stars winked high in the evening sky. Soon it’d be pitch black, but
he knew Thorne Mountain like the back of his hand. He and Dad wouldn’t go home
until they found her.

Dad walked beside him, cradling a
rifle. A dead shot, Hank MacKenzie carried the weapon for protection against
wild animals. As a decorated veteran of Viet Nam, he knew how to use the weapon
very well.

“You okay?” Dad’s bushy gray brows
lifted with concern. He eyed the heavy woolen sock Mac wore over his injured
leg to protect the white bandages from dirt and grime. It contrasted sharply
with the ankle-length hiking boot he wore on his good foot.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” As the growing
darkness swept over the mountain, Mac dug two flashlights out of his pack
before handing one to his father. They clicked them on and Mac limped along to
the top of the cliff.

Woof! Woof!

Grunt bounded from the stand of
timber and greeted Mac and Dad. An English mastiff the size of a barn, the dog
panted and growled.

Mac crinkled his nose. “Whew, boy.
You stink.”

“He’s been rolling around in deer
turds again,” Hank observed.

“I’ll give him a bath in the lake
tomorrow.”

The dog’s tan coat stood out in the
shadows. His small, black eyes gleamed with intelligence, his pink tongue
lolling over rows of sharp teeth. One of the best search and rescue dogs Mac
had ever raised. He scratched the mutt’s neck, but the dog sidled away.
Agitated. A sure sign he’d found something.

Or someone.

“Okay, take us to her.” Mac lifted
an arm, signaling the dog to show what he’d found.

The dog bounded toward the cliff.
In the fading sunlight, Dad searched the ground for tracks. Hank MacKenzie
frequently trained special forces recruits in survival techniques. He’d taught
Mac most of what he knew. “I see signs of two people. The size and indentation
of the prints tells me it’s a man and a woman.”

Mac peered closer at the path. “You
reckon some husband brought his wife out here to bump her off?”

“Could be. We’ve seen it happen
once before.”

“Looks like Grunt chased the man
off.” Mac pointed toward the trees. “His trail leads back into the forest. He
might return.”

Dad shrugged. “Grunt will warn us
if he does.”

The mastiff padded over to the far
left edge of the cliff. With his paws braced against the lip of rock, he tilted
his massive black head. The dog snuffed at the earth, blowing dust from his
nostrils. Ribbons of drool ran from his jowls as he peered down below and gave
a low growl that raised the hair on the back of Mac’s neck.

Mac tensed, not liking this
situation at all. He gestured toward Grunt. “I think we can guess where the
woman ended up.”

Dad approached and looked over the
ledge, shining the beam of his flashlight over the wall of ebony rocks. Mac
hesitated, hanging back. The last thing he needed was another memory of a
crushed and bleeding body. He’d seen plenty of that during four tours of duty
in Iraq and two in Afghanistan.

“You think she could survive a fall
like that?” Dad rubbed a gnarled hand against his gray beard.

“No, I don’t.” Mac swallowed hard.
Clumps of anguish tightened his gut, causing him to breathe in short, quick
bursts. Symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder, his doctor had told him.
“It’ll be morning before we can see to bring her body up. We may have to
approach from down below with the boat.”

Grunt whined in the back of his
throat and gave another low bark. The dog glanced at Mac, pacing restlessly.