“You got one, you got one!” she said, clapping her hands.

“He’s not on shore yet,” Angel warned as he backed away from the water, pulling the twine with him.

Finally, the fish was securely out of the water and it was a nice big one. Sam felt sorry for it as it flipped back and forth on the rocky shore. But only for a moment. All she had to do was remember the meals she’d had the last two nights.

Angel held him up, offering him to Sam. Sam held up her hands and shook her head as she took a step backward.

“Oh, no. No, no,” she said. “I don’t actually clean them,” she said. “I cook them.”

“But I caught him,” Angel said. “Seems fair that you should clean him.”

Sam grinned. “That logic doesn’t work for Tori, it’s certainly not going to work for you.” Then she laughed. “Of course, if you want to give me your knife…”

“No. On second thought, I should probably clean him.”

“Thought that would be your answer.” She glanced over to their campsite. “So, you do have something to cook him in, right?”

He motioned to his pack with a toss of his head. “There’s some cooking gear. Not much. Help yourself.”

As she sorted through the stuff in his pack, it occurred to her that they were not exactly acting like hostage and captor. Had they really ever? Of course, for her, that was a good thing. She’d taken enough psychology classes, had sat through enough training seminars on hostage situations to know that the more the abductor thought of the hostage as a person and not a prisoner, the better the chance for a positive outcome.

She turned her head, watching for a moment as he knelt by the stream, cleaning the fish. It would be a lot less stressful if she thought of this as a backpacking trip and not a forced march on the mountain with a killer. But then, there was the girl. Sam could still see her bloody face, her stained clothes. She could still see Leslie lying on the ground from a wound he inflicted. She closed her eyes for a moment and shook those thoughts away. He was Angel and she was Sam, and she was going to cook them dinner.

“Find what you need?”

“I think…I think I can use this,” she said, holding up a small pan. She looked at the trout he held. It wouldn’t fit.

As if reading her mind, he said, “I can cut it up.”

“Okay. That’ll work.” She moved other stuff around in his pack. “Seasonings?” she asked hopefully. “And a side dish?”

“A side dish?”

“Something with rice or potatoes?”

“Yeah, there’s some instant mashed potatoes,” he said.

She smiled. “Then we’ll practically have a feast.”

* * *

“This is where we’ll sleep?” Tori looked around at the slope. “On the side of a goddamn mountain?”

“You were the one who wanted to push on,” Cameron reminded her.

That was true. Tori blew out her breath as she let her pack fall to the ground. Andrea was already collecting firewood. Cameron was assembling their tent. Yeah, their tent. Tori looked at her pack, then untied her own tent. God, what she wouldn’t give to have Sam with her right now. She’d been able to push her loneliness away for the most part. She was a part of the rescue mission, that was the important thing. Only this rescue mission wasn’t like anything she’d been a part of before. Cameron Ross was calling the shots and her sense of urgency was lacking, in Tori’s opinion. But hell, they were in the middle of goddamn nowhere.

On the side of a mountain.

She shook out her tent and went about assembling it. They were on a rocky slope, and she moved as many rocks out of the way as she could. Cameron had taken their tent into the woods although the slope seemed even more drastic there than on the edge. Well, maybe they wanted privacy.

“If we don’t come to a stream soon, we’re going to be in trouble,” Andrea said as she shook her water bottle. “I have one more full one. How are you two?”

“Yeah, me too,” Cameron said. “Enough for dinner and coffee.”

Great.

“But we’ll find water,” Cameron said. “Angel’s in the same situation we are.”

Tori was too tired to comment. She walked over to the fire ring Andrea had assembled, then glanced around, looking for downed wood to add to the pile. She walked alone into the woods, picking up small limbs as she went. Loneliness settled on her shoulders, and she tried to shake it off. It was almost surreal—this trek through the woods that she’d been on. One minute they’d been resting comfortably at the RV, enjoying the evening. If Casey had ever gotten a fire going, they’d have sat around it while dinner was cooking. They’d have beer. Or wine. Most likely Sam and Leslie would have brought out a bottle of wine and she and Casey would have pretended to enjoy it more than the beer. Then they would have wanted something with a bit more substance…like that nice bottle of scotch she’d brought.

But no. They’d answered the call. Like they were trained to do. When someone was in distress, you went. No questions asked. And she and Casey had gone. And now Sam was missing. Abducted by the same man who’d killed that family, the same man who had taken three million dollars, the same man who had killed his accomplices.

And that same man had Sam.

And she couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it.




Chapter Twelve



Andrea shifted again, trying to get comfortable. It had been an awful night’s sleep. She swore there was a rock the size of a softball under her back. She lifted her arm out of the sleeping bag and touched her watch, illuminating the face. Thank God. It was nearly time to get up. She rolled over closer to Cameron and snaked her arm around her waist. Cameron appeared to still be sleeping soundly and didn’t wake.

Andrea had to admit that she missed the motorhome, missed Lola. She missed their normal routine when on a case. Because even then, at the end of the day, they went home to their bed, their kitchen, their life. Here? No. Nothing about this was familiar. For Cameron, maybe so. She’d done this type of thing for years in the military. But Andrea missed taking a shower, missed having hot coffee in the morning, missed cooking them breakfast. And she missed having a bathroom.

“What are you thinking about?” Cameron whispered.

“I thought you were sleeping.”

Cameron rolled toward her. “Who could sleep? God, I miss our bed.” She leaned closer and kissed Andrea gently.

“I miss our shower.”

“Yeah. I miss Lola.”

Andrea laughed quietly. “I know. I hope she’s okay.”

“I threatened to kill him if anything happened to her. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“You did?”

“Yeah. Right after I threatened to kill him if he wrecked the rig or touched the computers.” Cameron sat up and rubbed her face. “And I miss our shower too.”

“At least we have toiletries. I keep thinking about Samantha. Has he given her anything? I mean, is he even feeding her?”

“If he wants her to hike and keep up with him, he is.”

“You know him,” she said. “Does she have a chance?” It was too dark to see Cameron’s expression, but she could imagine it.

“He’s a bastard, that’s for sure,” Cameron said. “One of the requirements to being a sniper is to not show remorse after a kill. And I never once saw him show any emotion.”

“I wish we could offer Tori some hope.”

“I wish we could too.” Cameron tossed off her sleeping bag. “Let’s try to get an early start. Since we’re on the ledge like this, we’ll get the morning light. That should give us an extra half hour, at least.” She paused. “I’m going to call Murdock.”

Andrea finally sat up, knowing it was time to start the day. Cameron had already unzipped their tent and was putting on her boots. She heard rustling outside and assumed Tori was up too. Each morning so far, Tori had been up and waiting for them. Andrea felt a twinge of guilt each time too, but knew they had to wait on the sun before starting out.

She let out a heavy sigh. “God, I miss my shower.”

But she put her boots on too, noting that her feet were a little sore. As she stood up, she realized that her back was sore too. And her shoulders. Guess she wasn’t in as good of shape as she thought.

Tori already had the fire going, and she walked up to it, holding her hands out to its warmth.

“Good morning,” she said. “How did you sleep?”

“Probably about as well as you did.”

“Rocks under your back too?”

“Rocks and a damn tree root.”

Andrea looked around. “Where’s Cameron?”

Tori motioned with her head. “She headed up the trail. Had a flashlight out.”

“She said she was going to call Murdock,” Andrea said. “I guess to check in and give him our GPS coordinates.”

Hunter was quiet for a moment, then looked up at her. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“How did you get her to let me come along?”

Andrea smiled. “I told her if I was the one who had been taken hostage, I hoped that she would not let anyone stand in her way when it came to finding me.”

Tori nodded. “Thank you.” She looked down at the fire. “I just keep thinking we’re going too slow.” She looked up again. “And I keep thinking…if something happens to Sam, I’m not going to make it out of here with my sanity. Like I said, she’s my whole life.” Tori shook her head. “Before I met her, I was…well, I wasn’t a very nice person. And I didn’t have anybody in my life. No friends.” She shrugged. “Even the job, I wasn’t in any kind of a relationship with anyone. I did my job, that’s all. And everyone tolerated me, I guess. Then Sam came along and I…God, she was dating this guy. Robert.” Tori smiled. “What a jerk he was.”

“You said you and Sam were partners on the force?”