Christmas Confidential (22 page)

Well, not if he reached her first.

Time had gotten away from him somehow this morning. Almost 8:00 a.m. Already? People were sitting in the lobby, drinking coffee from a bar and waiting for the restaurant to open. Most of the boutique shops were beginning to open their doors, too, hoping the tourists would want to do some last-minute Christmas shopping before heading to the slopes.

Too many people and too much commotion. He couldn’t tell where the threat would be coming from.

Acting casual, Gage wound through the lounge area. About midway to the front desk, he came across a man reading a newspaper who seemed out of place. With his hair in a ponytail, a diamond stud winking from one ear and a wireless phone receiver attached to the other, the guy could’ve easily passed as one of the other holiday skiers. But this one wasn’t dressed in ski attire. Or in after-ski attire, for that matter. The heavy-set man wore a dark suit, white shirt and tie.

No question. He did not belong in this picture.

Gage picked up his pace. By the time he reached the front desk, Elana was on the phone and Ponytail Guy was getting to his feet and speaking a mile a minute into his earpiece. Uh-oh.

Snagging her elbow with one hand, Gage ripped the phone away from her with the other and then slammed the receiver back in its cradle. “Time to go. Your past has caught up to you.”

Elana jerked back and glared up at him. “What do you...?” The words died in her mouth when he nodded his head toward the man in a dark suit who by now was headed their way.

Fighting her own agitation, Elana sized up the situation in an instant and quickly realized the parking area and front door lay on the other side of the Russian coming toward them.

Now there was no choice but to help Gage find a way out of here. It was too late to split up again. Like it or not, they were in this together.

She remembered Gage’s trick from yesterday of leaving through the restaurant’s back entrance. But this restaurant’s doors weren’t open yet. That way would be a dead end.

Just then the glass doors to the high-end jewelry and gift shop opened and she saw their route to salvation. “Come on,” she whispered as she grabbed his arm. “This way.”

Hanging on to him with a death grip, she barged into a crowd and dodged her way past a dozen people lining up for breakfast. “Sorry,” she mumbled as she plowed right into the back of a woman and knocked her off balance.

Gage said nothing but managed to keep up with her antics. “Where the devil are we headed?” he finally growled as they cleared the bulk of the crowd.

“Here.” She raced into the tight space of the gift store and sought out the man heading behind a counter. “Earl, can you help us out?”

“Well, morning, Elana. What can I do for you?”

Gasping for a breath, she answered on a wispy thread. “I can’t explain right now, but we need a way out of here without being seen. Is there an employee entrance?”

“Someone after you?” Earl’s million-dollar smile reminded her of what a jokester he was.

“Sort of. But we didn’t do anything wrong.” She gritted her teeth and tried to remain calm. “Please, Earl. I’ll tell you all about it later. I promise.”

Something in the tone of her voice must’ve convinced him that this was an emergency because he moved to the front door, shut it and locked it with the keys still in his hand. “I’ll show you. This way.”

Three minutes later he unlocked the back door to the hotel and let them outside into a delivery zone. “You owe me answers, Elana.” Earl muttered his goodbyes as they stepped out into one of the worst snowstorms she could remember.

“Join the crowd, buddy,” Gage grumbled, shaking his hand.

The next thing she knew, Gage had her arm again and they were sliding at breakneck speed over icy asphalt toward the guest parking. Her brain was racing, too, trying to figure out a way for them to escape. Where to go?

It looked like wherever they went, they were going together. Not the smartest move, but it seemed their only choice from this point.

Gage dug into his jeans pocket and pulled out the rental keys. “Glad we didn’t valet last night. Get in.”

Climbing into the passenger seat and throwing her duffel into the back, she’d barely closed the door when he roared off. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“Down the mountain,” he ground out. “Away from this storm and those goons. We’ll head back toward L.A. and the airport.”

It hit her then. “We can’t. There’s only one road down. It’s a four-lane highway, but they can easily stake it out and lie in wait for us.”

“We can’t stay in Piñon Lake. There’s no place left to hide.” They’d reached the edge of the resort property and he had to make a left or a right.

“Go left. The road narrows about a mile up there, but it winds through the mountains and eventually goes back to civilization the long way around.”

“You’re out of your mind.” He gestured toward the windshield. “Look out the window. It’s snowing. A flipping blizzard. We’ll be stuck before we get five miles out of town.”

“Maybe someone will be plowing.” She was grasping for an answer but figured anything was better than staying here much longer. “Brendan and his brothers own a cabin up there, just in case we need it. I’ve been there before.”

Gage glanced into his rearview mirror. “I think we’re about to have company.” Turning left, he eased on the gas and struggled to keep the tires on the road.

He straightened out the car and turned on the windshield wipers for all the good they would do. “I sure hope you know how to pray. ’Cause, smart or not, here we go. Hang on.”

Chapter 8

T
he headlights following behind them grew dimmer in the blinding snow. But after fifteen minutes of carefully negotiating the two-lane road, Gage knew the “good” part of their journey was almost over.

“I’m positive the highway patrol will be closing this road soon,” he said without turning his eyes toward Elana. “We haven’t seen many vehicles coming down past us since we left the hotel. In fact the only other cars on the road seem to be state troopers going up the mountain, probably to close the roads. Got any other ideas?”

“Just a few more miles and we’ll turn off toward the cabin.” Elana sat as still as a mouse.

“And what will
that
road look like?”

She shook her head. “I’ve only been there once before. I can’t really remember, but I’m guessing it must be pretty decent ’cause the cabin’s rented out during the winter sometimes. I do know it’s only one lane, though.”

“Terrific.” He stopped talking to concentrate on his
driving.

Then the tires slipped and the nose of the SUV headed toward the edge of what he figured would be a deep canyon. Fighting his impulse to swing the wheel the other way, he turned into the skid until the tires caught again.

Whew. That was close. He refused to think about how far down that canyon floor might be. But he was pretty sure those were the tops of evergreens he’d been seeing as they’d driven close to the edge. And judging by the trees on the other side of the road, they could reach heights of eighty to a hundred feet.

Checking his rear mirror, he spotted headlights rounding the curve he’d just made. Before he could say anything about it, those lights disappeared once again and all he could see behind them was a blur of white. He sure hoped that was the state troopers again. Otherwise they were definitely in a world of trouble.

He should’ve known better than to let Elana talk him into going up the mountain instead of down. The road would be closed at any moment.

“The turnoff to the cabin should be right up ahead.” Elana leaned forward, straining against the seat belt, in order to see out the windshield.

He slowed to a crawl, praying whoever followed behind would notice he’d slowed and not run right over the top of the SUV.

“Oh, there’s a sign.” Elana pointed toward the side of the road.

“Who can read that in this messy weather?”

“Well, not me. But I remember seeing a road signpost a few feet from the turnoff. There. Turn here!”

If the tires would grab traction, he’d be happy to turn. Holding his breath, he eased the vehicle to the right, hoping to hell a cabin in the mountains could be their ticket out of this trouble.

The road suddenly narrowed down to what he’d call a lane while giant pines growing along both sides made it feel like they were driving through a tunnel. “You know, we don’t get weather like this very often in west Texas.” And he wished to hell he knew how to negotiate it better.

“We don’t get anything this bad up here very often, either,” she told him with a hollow voice. “Most years the ski slopes have to resort to making snow. I’d guess this must be the storm of the decade.”

“Figures,” he grumbled.

Dark as pitch, he couldn’t be sure where the road went. His headlights only illuminated about ten feet ahead. So at a snail’s pace, they crawled along inch by inch.

“How are we going to know when we get there?” Elana’s tense voice crawled down his spine and gave him the chills.

“Let’s hope the road ends at the cabin and doesn’t lead on into a lake or over a cliff.” Now why did he have to say that?

“Yeah,” she agreed in a shaky whisper.

“Look, it’ll be okay.” He needed to say something to calm her. “I haven’t seen any headlights behind us since we turned off the mountain road. That’s one good thing. And we’ll find the cabin. If it’s on this lane, we’ll find it.”

“If?” Elana began fidgeting in her seat. “What if I was wrong and this isn’t the right way?”

“Easy there. We’ll be okay. If nothing else...” The beam of his headlights lit up a mailbox a few feet away. “Is this it?”

The breath whooshed out of her lungs. “Oh, thank God. Yes. This is it. Pull up the driveway next to that mailbox and park close to the front door.”

Gage couldn’t imagine who would deliver mail to this godforsaken out-of-the-way place. Civilized Texans placed their mailboxes on the nearest main highway. Or they picked up their mail in town.

But he was relieved to think that in a few more minutes they would be out of the weather. “Okay, we’re here,” he said as he parked and looked through the windshield at what he could see of the cabin.

“The key should be under the pot next to the front door.”

“That’s imaginative. You ready? I’ll leave the headlights on until we’re inside.”

Without answering, she took a big breath of air, unbuckled and opened the door.

Gage turned off the engine and just sat there watching her at the front door, wondering how the holy hell he had ever gone so far down this rabbit hole. So far, in fact, that he might never be able to climb back out.

* * *

Andrei Krayev stepped up into the driver’s seat of the four-wheel drive rental pickup truck, glad to be out of the storm and worried about facing his father with this news. “The state trooper says the road is closed. We must go back.”

“Have they seen any sign of the man and that woman?” Dimitri Krayev sat sweating in front of the hot air blasting from the truck’s heater.

“No. They claim no one has come this way.”

“And?” He narrowed his eyes and Andrei felt the scorn down to his toes.

“I asked, Father. The authorities said perhaps the other vehicle turned off before coming this far. Apparently there are several cabins located along this route but they’re situated off the road in deep woods.”

“Is it possible their vehicle went over the side in the storm?”

Andrei didn’t like thinking about that. As much as Amara Coppersmith had treated him like a piece of garbage stuck to the bottom of her shoe, he still wouldn’t want to see her die.

At least not quickly.

“If their vehicle went over the side, the authorities won’t begin a search until the weather clears.” He thought back to the winters of his youth in the Ukraine. “They might not be found until the spring thaw.” People, dead bodies, were lost in snowdrifts for months, sometimes for years.

“We will go back and search each cabin until I am satisfied,” Dimitri announced.

Andrei didn’t mind the extra work. He was every bit as eager to locate the traitorous woman as his father.

He backed up the pickup and began to turn around just as the state trooper had directed. “We’ll find them, Father. Ivan and his men will be joining us any minute. With so many looking, it shouldn’t take too long to locate one foolish couple.”

Chapter 9

E
lana banged through the cabin’s door, hardly noticing the cold or her frozen fingers. But after turning on a light and glancing around, the frosty look of everything inside reminded her how numb she felt. Two minutes later she found the propane generator switch out back and flipped on the heat. It would take a few minutes but at least they’d be warm soon.

“This is cozy.” With his arms full of their bags, Gage plowed into the room as he kicked the front door shut with his foot.

“It will be. Shouldn’t take long to warm up.” But in the meantime, she wasn’t going to sit anywhere.

He didn’t seem inclined to rest his bottom on any of the ice-cold looking furniture, either. After he dropped the bags near the door, he paced the front room while clapping his hands together to stay warm.

She had a better idea of how to keep warm. Body temperature. It was all she could do not to step into his arms and beg him to hold her close. But that was probably a thing of the past. Their time as lovers was over.

Still, visions of making love to him while she whispered all her secrets and told him again how much she loved him crept into her numb mind and began to warm her thoughts. An intimate and compelling image, it made her pulse pound and her mouth water with wanting.

She knew better. Knew that Gage was too wounded at this point to give her an inch. In fact, he might never come around. Might always hate her. Hate was the opposite side of love, and right now Gage balanced on the edge.

All that they’d ever meant to each other had been destroyed or soon would be. And she’d been the one to murder those feelings.

Since that scary ride up the mountain, she’d come to the conclusion that it was time to give up the whole story. Soon. Tonight. Because she had an overwhelming feeling they might not live to see tomorrow.