Scorched (20 page)

Kelsey glanced around at their surroundings. The ridge to one side of them was a dark line, but other than that, she couldn’t discern a single landmark.

“Shouldn’t we have hit a town by now? I thought the map showed the town of Spur about five miles away from where we started.”

“We’re northwest of there. And anyway, we’re heading to Copperville.”

“But that’s got to be another five miles.”

“More like seven. But it’s our best bet. We should be there by sunrise.”

She felt a twinge of frustration. Seven more miles in the pitch dark? She wasn’t sure she could do seven more
minutes. Just the thought made her want to collapse into a heap on the desert floor.

“Spur is too obvious,” Gage stated.

“Never go where the enemy expects you to be.”

“Exactly.”

“The only easy day was yesterday.”

He laughed softly in the darkness. “Where’d you hear that one?”

“Something Joe used to say.”

Kelsey closed her eyes and swallowed down all the whiny, self-pitying things she wanted to say. She hugged her arms around herself and tried to count her blessings. First and foremost, they were alive. Also, she had a skilled guide and a lightweight jacket to fight the chill. But she was hungrier than she’d ever been in her life and the thought of walking another seven miles seemed utterly impossible.

Gage sighed. “I’d trade my left nut for a slice of that pizza we ordered.”

Kelsey whimpered.

“How about a PowerBar?”

“Gage! You have food and you didn’t tell me?”

“It’s a little squished.” Paper crinkled as he tore open a package. “Here.”

“You first.”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“You were ready to castrate yourself for a slice of pizza.” She broke the bar in half and handed him what felt like the bigger chunk. She downed her share in two bites, then shook the water bottle. It sounded nearly empty. “We should probably save the rest of this.”

“Go ahead. I’ve got enough sweat in my socks to last us for days.”

His tone was joking, but she knew he wasn’t completely kidding. He’d been through some intensive survival training.

“Seriously, drink up.” He nudged her arm. “I’ve got another bottle in my pocket.”

“Where’d you get that?”

“While you were busy arguing with me, I cleaned out the car.”

She shared the last of the water with him and pushed off the rock. He seemed to understand that sitting around for very much longer was going to make it impossible for her to keep going. Her legs still felt noodly, but the food had already started to hit her bloodstream.

He took her arm again, and they resumed the trek.

“That stuff you collected from the dead guy. What’s that for?”

She was glad for something to think about besides sore muscles.

“The insect casings will help us determine PMI. And the dirt sample includes dried blood, which gives us DNA. Maybe he’s in a database somewhere.”

“PMI?”

“Postmortem interval. Time elapsed since death. Also, on my way through the kitchen I swiped a crumpled beer can. It might yield prints or biological material.”

Gage sighed.

“What?”

“You can take the girl out of the crime lab, but you can’t take the crime lab out of the girl.”

“It’s my job.”

“I’m aware of that. So, what are you going to do with that stuff?”

“Take it to someone at Delphi who can run the analysis for me.”

“
Take
it?”

“Or send it. Depends on how the rest of tonight goes. We could be dead by morning. And even if we’re not, what if we stagger into town and get arrested by the local sheriff?” Her stomach churned thinking about the degree of trouble they were in now.

“I’m thinking the body might be Charles Weber,” she said.

“I’m thinking that’s a strong possibility.”

She waited, sensing there was more on his mind.

“Blake’s plane trip last weekend,” he said. “You think it was a murder mission?”

She tensed at the prospect. “The timing doesn’t work. That body was in a more advanced stage of decomp.” She kept the rest to herself—that no matter what Gage thought of him, Blake wasn’t a murderer. Kelsey simply didn’t believe, deep down, that the man she’d known for years could do something like that.

And yet a week ago, she would have said the same thing about Trent Lohman. As long as she’d known him, he’d seemed like a model federal agent. And yet he was a murderer who consorted with terrorists. Kelsey never would have believed it if she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes.

She doubted anyone else would believe it, either. At least not without evidence. She patted the pocket of her jacket to make sure the items she’d collected at Weber’s were still there. And then there was the hair that had been recovered from Blake’s clothing at autopsy. Did it belong to Trent? His accomplice? One thing she knew for sure: It didn’t belong to Gage. If nothing else, its existence should raise doubts about the circumstantial evidence pointing to Gage as a suspect.

Kelsey trudged through the darkness. All of this felt so surreal—Blake’s death, Trent’s involvement, Gage’s presence next to her in the middle of the desert.

What, exactly, was this about? She kept trying to put the pieces together, but her brain didn’t seem to want to work tonight. Exhaustion was taking a toll.

So was Gage. For the past three hours he’d been touching her, guiding her through the darkness. What had started out as something purely helpful now felt charged with meaning. With every shift of his grip or brush of his body, she felt a jolt of sexual awareness. She knew he felt it, too.

Wind gusted around them, and she blinked dust from her eyes. She was beginning to get the shivers. It had to be at least fifty degrees out, but for some reason she couldn’t stop shaking.

She distracted herself by letting her mind wander to another place. She thought of her house back in San Marcos. She thought of her stocked pantry and her comfy sofa and the baskets of unwashed laundry that a few days ago had seemed like such a problem.

She thought of the unmarked car that was probably
parked on her street right now, and the pair of agents inside it who were probably downing gallons of coffee to stay awake.

She was a fugitive now. So was Gage. They had the world’s top law-enforcement agency searching for them, not to mention a pair of heavily armed men.

Kelsey shuddered. Thinking about her quiet little house under surveillance made her sad, so she reached for another image.

Joe’s cabin. She didn’t focus on the flying bullets or shattered glass, but rather the cabin as she’d first known it, back when she was a kid. It had been a cozy, happy place, and she remembered sitting around the kitchen table with her parents as Joe lectured her on the basics of Texas Hold ’Em. Joe had been an accomplished poker player, and he’d taught Kelsey everything he knew—enough tricks, in fact, that she had whipped Gage’s butt the very first night they’d played together.

She hadn’t beaten him since, though, and looking back, she’d often wondered whether Gage had given the game away to put her in a good mood so he’d get lucky in other areas.

She hadn’t caved into temptation that night, but it hadn’t taken long. The chemistry had been there from the very beginning. In some ways, Gage was like an addiction. It had taken multiple lonely deployments followed by a gut-wrenching rejection to cure her of the habit.

“Let’s take a break,” he said, startling her out of her thoughts.

“I’m okay.”

“No you’re not—you’re shaking.” His hand slid around her waist and pulled her against him. His warmth seeped into her and she realized she was freezing.

“I don’t know why I’m so cold.”

He led her to a large boulder at the base of the ridge they’d been following. “There’s a wind. And you’re probably dehydrated, too. Here.” He handed her the flashlight. “Check the area.”

She thumbed on the switch and darted the narrow beam around. They were at the base of a low cliff, where a pile of large rocks formed a windbreak. The desert floor was hard and gravelly, which explained her sore feet. She moved the light around, looking for snakes or scorpions or whatever else might be lurking in the vicinity. Then she aimed the light at Gage, who was shrugging out of his loose-fitting shirt.

“Sit on that for a minute.”

Kelsey wanted to protest. She was pretty sure that if she stopped now she’d have a hard time starting again, but her legs needed a rest. She lowered herself onto the soft fabric and leaned gratefully against the rock.

Gage handed her the water.

“Thanks.” She took a swig and passed it back.

He sat down beside her and pulled her onto his lap.

“Hey.”

“Get warm.” He moved his legs apart and settled her into the space between them. She resisted for all of three seconds and then the heat of him was too much. She leaned against the solid warmth of his chest and sighed.

“Drink some more.”

He passed her the bottle, and when she lifted it to her lips, he slid his arms around her waist.

She offered him the bottle, and he took a small gulp before passing it back.

“More,” he said. “You’re dehydrated.”

“We should save it.”

“Do you ever do anything without an argument?”

“Not if it means wringing water out of your socks in the morning.” She took a small sip and then screwed the lid back on. The warmth of his arms flowed into her, melting away the chills but also making her heart beat faster. He rested his palms on her knees.

“I’m proud of you.”

She turned to look at him, although she could barely see him in the darkness. “You’re
proud
of me?”

“You did good tonight.”

“I left the window open.”

“True, but you also found some valuable evidence.”

She turned around again and settled back against his chest. “We hope.”

“This trip was your idea. You brought us one step closer to figuring out who framed me for Blake’s murder.”

“That’s an interesting take on it, because I don’t feel like I’ve figured out anything. I’m more confused than ever.”

“It’s not that confusing. I’ve been thinking about it.” He settled his arms more snugly around her body, and she felt a niggle of suspicion that this whole conversation was an elaborate distraction. “It’s clear that this Weber—whether he’s the dead guy or the one we saw walking around—is mixed up in something illegal.
Blake knew about it and somehow it got him killed. Trent Lohman knows about it, too.”

“The question is
what
is the something illegal?”

“That’s only part of the question,” he said. “The bigger question for you and me is, who can we trust enough to tell about all this without getting arrested?”

Kelsey stared glumly into the darkness. It was the same dilemma she’d had before, only now the stakes were higher. Gage was involved, which automatically put his career at stake. Her career was at stake, too, if she didn’t figure out a way to keep this whole debacle from destroying her reputation in law-enforcement circles.

And then there was the victim in the barn. Who killed him? Why did he die? Was he some innocent homeowner caught in the wrong place at the wrong time? Had he seen something he shouldn’t, as Kelsey had? Or was he involved in something illegal that had caused him to be decapitated with a shotgun?

“I’m proud of you,” Gage said again, but this time his voice was warm against her ear. “Joe would have been proud of you, too.”

Tears sprang into her eyes at the words. She turned her face upward and gazed up at the thin sliver of moon.

“I miss him.”

His arms tightened. “I do, too.”

She stroked her hands over his muscular forearms and cupped them over his big fingers. His entire body was big, and she’d always loved that about him. She wasn’t self-conscious around him because he’d always made her feel feminine.

She looked out and listened to the desert. “You
know, when I first got the call—when I was in the Philippines—I thought it was about you.”

He didn’t say anything as she traced her finger over his knuckles. Did he have any idea how hard it was always expecting a call like that? Joe’s death had been so awful, and throughout the funeral she’d kept thinking that at least he hadn’t been married. At least he hadn’t left behind a wife and kids. She’d looked at all those strong young men in the pews and thought about
their
families—their wives and girlfriends and parents and siblings, all dreading phone calls like the one she’d received. The potential for heartbreak was immeasurable.

Gage shifted her closer. She looked up at the sky. She tried to focus on the faint, barely perceptible sounds of the night rather than the low buzz of warning in her head.

His hands slid down her thighs, and she tensed.

“Relax,” he whispered, and his breath tickled the back of her neck.

She didn’t relax. Her pulse sped up as his hands moved slowly over her thighs, gently kneading them through the denim of her jeans.

“You know what we’ve never done together?”

She turned to look at him. “What?”

“Gone camping.”

She settled back against his chest. “Well, if tonight is your effort to convince me, I’m not sold.”

“It’d be fun. There’re a lot of things we haven’t done together.”

She didn’t respond, wanting to hear what he’d say next.

“Skydiving, for instance.”

“Actually, that I might like.”

“Really? You’d try it?”

“Maybe,” she said. “If we were strapped together or something.”

“That can be arranged.”

She gazed up at the stars and pretended they were somewhere else. Beneath the redwoods, maybe. Or camping on the beach.

Anywhere but lost in the desert, running for their lives. Only they weren’t running anymore. She was acutely aware of the fact that he thought they were safe enough to take a break.

And she was acutely aware of his hands stroking over her legs, warming her skin. Warming her everything.

“Kelsey.” He kissed her neck. “Let me make you feel good.”

Her pulse skittered. She should be resisting this, telling him no. But she didn’t make a sound. The only sound she could hear now was the wind whistling around the rocks and the thump of her own heartbeat.