Dream Shadow (29 page)

With her hands still bound by the handcuffs, the leash was effective to a point. Grace’s neck was raw from the rope cutting into the flesh, but she continued her struggle. By forcing Fredricks to pull her along, she had cut their speed by more than half. Grace just hoped it was enough. She could dig her heels in, but the pain from the noose became unbearable at a point and she would stumble forward. It was a fight that she continued to wage.

Brice stooped down to get a closer look at the blood that was smeared against a rough-looking granite rock. Rudy pitched back on his hind legs and let out a whine. He shook his face and pulled Allen forward.

“He’s got her now, Sheriff.” Allen jumped forward with his dog as Rudy applied his nose to the trail.

Brice nodded, gritting his teeth against the surge of emotion seeing her blood set loose inside him. He wasn’t worth shit if he couldn’t keep his feelings on a leash. It was Grace, but he had to apply himself to the case in a logical manner. They would make Mirror Lake by sundown. He just hoped that it wasn’t too late. He needed Jacobs to back him up. He pulled out his phone and dialed the man.

“We’ve got a blood trail heading to Mirror Lake.”

“I’m on my way.”

Jacobs snapped his phone shut. The blood trail that Brice had was both good and bad news. If they got to Mirror Lake and Grace was gone, then they might as well go home. The kind of people who could afford to buy someone like Grace would be untraceable once they got her into the air.

And Grace knew that too. It was very possible that she would make a last stand that would result in her death.

Mirror Lake sat at an elevation of almost ten thousand feet. The crumbling granite cliffs that made up the slope that allowed the lake to form rose up one hundred feet from the surface of the lake on all sides. There was only one way to descend into the lake.

From the east side there was a steep but useable trail that ran down to the water’s edge. Reaching the crest of the trail was almost a straight-up climb among granite rocks that ranged in size from pebbles to boulders. It
was
a climb that only the strong could make. It required that the person scale the larger rocks while being very sure of their footing among the smaller pebbles that could easily undermine a person’s footing.

Grace could have made the climb in an hour without a pack on. It was an almost two-hundred-foot climb in high elevation. Grace made it last an entire day. By the time they got her to the top of that embankment, she had almost reached her limit.

Her gaze fell on the stark beauty of the lake. It was currently marred by the presence of three helicopters that sat on the smooth surface of the water. They weren’t as modern as her unit used, but Grace recognized the models all the same. They were combat aircraft, heavily armed and very good at avoiding radar. The three craft sat bobbing in the smooth water like a bunch of crocodiles just waiting for prey to swim too close.

“Well now. Say hello to your new unit, bitch,” Fredricks sneered in her ear. “I’m going to enjoy spending every last dollar I’m getting for you. It’s just an added bonus knowing your life is going to suck.”

There was a great deal of cover around the lake, provided by the large boulders that made up the valley. Two black-clad men came forward as they noticed them standing at the top of the ridge. The men motioned them down, but Fredricks hung back and pulled his phone out of his pocket first. He waited.

One of the men below pulled something from his hip. Fredricks’s phone buzzed. A few brief code words were exchanged before the phone was closed and replaced into the front of his shirt pocket. He turned a self-satisfied smile to Grace.

“Time to meet your future.” One hand gripped her upper arm and pushed her forward to begin the descent into the valley.

“Wait!” That had come from one of the five remaining men. His eyes were scanning the crafts that bobbed on the surface of the lake. “I’m staying here. I’ve finished the job. I’m not walking into a death trap. Once they have her they could turn those guns on us from the air and cut us to ribbons.”

“They just transferred the money. They wouldn’t have done that if they intended to kill us,” Fredricks insisted.

“Good, you can transfer our share right here and now.”

Fredricks tried to stare the man down, but the sun was starting to set and he wanted to get this finished before it was dark. If Grace managed to get free in the dark it would be very difficult to recover her in this area. He pulled the phone back out and did as the man requested.

Grace looked all the men over. She was pleased to discover that every last one of them was sporting a bruise or some other mark from her. She herself must be a sight, but she had kept six men at a child’s pace for an entire day. She had also freed Beth. Grace sincerely hoped her friend made it to safety and remembered what to tell Jacobs. If Grace didn’t come out of this alive, she could at least console herself with the thought that Jacobs and Beth could be together.

The time had come. It was do or die. Hairpins could come in handy. With one secured in her palm, she slipped the end into the lock on her cuffs. Her eyes scanned the trail. She would let Fredricks get her a quarter of the way down it. She needed the distance from the five men that had just turned and started back down the trail they had spent the day climbing. At the same time, she didn’t want to get too close to the men down by the water’s edge.

Her chances were slim, which was better than none.

The light was fading, and that meant her best chance for escape was quickly approaching. Grace hung back, making Fredricks once again drag her down the slope. She wanted him off-balance. The footing was uncertain, and her greatest fear was that she would lose her own balance and go tumbling down the trail. That could have deadly results. It was exactly the fate Grace was planning for Fredricks.

“You know something, I don’t believe I’ve ever told you just what a pathetic excuse for an officer I think you are.”

Fredricks stopped for a moment and his eyes narrowed in anger. Grace watched as he renewed his grip on the rope leash and leaned back to put all of his weight into the next pull. His muscles tightened and Grace struck. She whipped her hands around, gripping the rope while jumping into a front kick. Her attack connected solidly, sending his body down the trail.

Fredricks got off a shot at her and the bullet only hit the dirt because he was aiming low. Pressing her back to a large boulder, Grace watched in horror as several of the recently paid-off soldiers crested the top of the rise to add their weapons to the hunt. Gunfire filled the air, but Grace didn’t wait to discover who was shooting at her. Forcing her body forward, she sought cover from the men on the rise.

Fredricks took advantage of the backup and launched himself at her. They wrestled for a moment, and then the ground seemed to slide out from underneath their struggling bodies. Grace had made it too far off the trail. The force of impact tossed them onto the unstable granite slope that slid into the lake below. Covered by coarse eroded pebbles, it grated the exposed surface of both Fredricks’s and Grace’s skin as they tumbled down the side of the canyon.

Fredricks hooked his hands onto her arms and held with brutal strength as they slid down the rock face. The momentum of their trip increased as the rock face became steeper. The friction caused by their slide tore and scraped at their clothing exposing the skin underneath. Despite her own distress, Grace could hear the sound of gunfire erupting from every corner of the valley. She briefly wondered at its cause before she was launched into the freezing depth of Mirror Lake.

The water had to be just above the freezing point. It sucked the breath from her lungs. The water was completely mind numbing. They both broke the surface, gasping for breath. Grace felt herself being brutally shoved under again. She struggled with Fredricks, but he was strong and panic was lending him more strength.

If she blacked out she was as good as dead. In desperation, she used the only weapon she had—her psychic abilities. Grace had never used them as a weapon, but she refused to let her life go without every effort. She halted her body’s struggle and hooked her hands onto the bare flesh of his arms. Forcing herself to focus with the last of her conscious thought, Grace tried to pull a vision from Fredricks’s mind.

Fredricks’s body convulsed with pain. He jackknifed up and away from her. The force of it pulled her above the surface of the lake, allowing her burning lungs to gasp for air. Her numb fingers lost their grasp as Fredricks’s momentum put several feet between them.

Brice and Grant topped the rise just as the first round of gunfire erupted.

“Sheriff’s department! Freeze!”

Brice’s command sent panic through the unit of men. Two turned to face the threat and Brice fired before they got those high-powered rifles aimed at him. Grant backed him up. The other men dove for cover as more shots rang out.

The three men just below the ridge were shooting at anything that moved. Brice and Grant had slowly cut around them to try and get a clear shot. Someone beat them to it. A short silence was followed by the sound of automatic gunfire. The identity of the shooters was revealed by the
clear!
that was shouted afterward.

“Nice of Jacobs to be on time,” Grant muttered.

The all clear was short lived. Weapons fire echoed up the valley from multiple locations. The Rangers dove for cover even as they returned fire. Brice found cover just in time to watch as Grace and Fredricks slid into the water. At this elevation the lake was just above freezing and hypothermia would set in fast.

The fight continued as they picked off the occupants of the helicopters. One of the pilots was still aboard one of the crafts and the machine swiftly lifted off the surface of the lake. The pilot of the craft held no loyalty to the men that frantically waved at it from the ground. It lifted straight out of the valley and into the night. Because they’d exposed themselves in their attempt to contact the helicopter it was simple for the sheriff’s personnel to secure those foolish enough to leave their cover. Some surrendered, the Rangers shot the rest.

Between the Rangers and his deputies, a second
clear!
was called. This time it was a good one. Brice traversed the trail that led to the shoreline of the lake in record time. Fredricks’s body was floating on the surface of the lake. Jacobs had the man covered, but he wasn’t responding to any commands. Lights came on and lit up the area.

Jacobs slowly relaxed his stance. Fredricks was dead.

“That will save me the trouble of making sure someone doesn’t snap his neck on the way back to base.”

Brice scanned the surface of the lake for any sign of Grace. The water was smooth just like a mirror. Not a single ripple disturbed it.

“Grace!”

“Search the shoreline!” Jacobs roared into his radio.

Thirty men descended to the lakeshore and systematically followed the water’s edge looking for Grace. Not a single rock was overlooked. They didn’t even find a footprint.

Almost a half hour had passed and Brice knew she couldn’t survive the temperature of the lake water for that amount of time. He just couldn’t believe that she had come so far to end up a victim of the icy depths. He paced the shoreline, willing her to surface even while logic told him it was impossible.

Grace heard her name being shouted. It was rather far off, making it simple to ignore. There was far too much pain in that same place. It was so nice right here. She could sleep and rest. She very much wanted to rest.

Someone shouted her name again. Grace pulled herself a little closer to the sound. Who was that? Brice? A slight smile touched her face. The movement caused pain, which enabled her to come closer to the sound. Her entire body started to complain as she approached full wakefulness. She couldn’t remember ever hurting so much. Her very skin felt like it had been peeled away.

The intense pain cleared her mind from sleep, and she ground her teeth together to keep from crying out with it. It was
so
cold. The kind of cold that tore into a person’s flesh and even ate at their bones. She looked at the shoreline of the lake. There was light now and she could see the men as they searched. Just what were they looking for? She couldn’t remember the assignment, and she didn’t care. It was too cold, and her body was filled with too much pain.

Lifting her head, Grace looked at the underside of the helicopter that she was lying under. She was draped along the landing platoon on the bottom of the craft. The lights from the shore didn’t reach out this far. Her gaze fell on Brice as he paced the shoreline. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t understand what. Her brain felt very fuzzy.

“Brice!” Her voice didn’t want to cooperate with her command. The word came out between chattering teeth and not nearly loud enough to be heard some fifty feet away.

“Grace!”

This time it was louder, because both Brice and Jacobs had shouted her name together. In a single moment of clarity, Grace realized that she was slowly freezing to death. Hypothermia had set in. That was the reason she couldn’t think. She had to get their attention before she slipped into the water and drowned.

Her brain started to blur again, but she fought it, welcoming the pain to keep her coherent. She had to wake up. Her body was shaking just like a dog did when it was wet. Grace used every last bit of strength that she had to clear the cobwebs from her mind.