Gone Too Deep (13 page)

“Anderson?”

“What?”

“How much longer are we going to be stuck out here?” Huddled in his thin sleeping bag with only his pale face showing, Wilson looked miserably cold.

“Depends.” The word was almost drowned out by the wind shaking the walls of their cheap three-season tent. When his source had told him that Baxter Price's daughter was in town, looking for her dad, Anderson hadn't thought it'd lead to winter camping, especially when he got a look at the glossy and citified Miss Price. By the time he'd figured out Holloway was taking her into Blue Hook, there hadn't been time to buy supplies. They were stuck with what they could steal out of Holloway's neighbor's storage shed. Anderson didn't have a sleeping bag. Instead, he was making do with a couple of blankets. It was fine. He'd been cold before, and he'd be cold again. Wilson, though, didn't do well with cold. He'd get bronchitis again if he had to spend many more nights outside.

“On what?”

“On how long it takes for them to lead us to Price.”

Wilson turned onto his side, his bony knees pushing into the fabric, pulling it tight. “Then, once we kill him, we can go home?”

“Once we kill him, we can go home.”

Wilson's sigh shuddered through chattering teeth. “Wish they'd hurry up.”

Studying a loose thread on the tent's ceiling seam, Anderson thought about that. Rich satisfaction spread through him at the thought of giving Holloway a glimpse of what Anderson King was capable of. “Maybe we can give them some incentive.”

The light was strange when Ellie woke, dim and eerie. Her face was once again tucked between George's shoulder and chin, and she flushed but didn't move. The desire for heat won over embarrassment, and George was wonderfully warm. His chest moved with slow, even breaths, but she knew he was awake.

“Is it morning?” she mumbled, burrowing more tightly against him before she realized what she was doing.

His chin bumped lightly against her head when he nodded—at least, she assumed he was nodding. It was hard to tell with her face mashed into his neck. With a great effort, she rolled onto her back. Yawning, she worked her sleeping-bag zipper down a little bit so she could move her arms more easily.

The silence suddenly caught her attention. “The wind stopped.”

Now she could actually see George nod. He'd freed his arms from the mummy bag and had pushed himself to a seated position.

“Did it stop snowing?”

“Think so. Need to look outside.”

That reminded her that he couldn't have gone outside before, because she'd been
lying
on him. Ellie blushed and busied herself with adding her second sock layer and gathering her clothes while keeping the sleeping bag wrapped around her.

“Tea?” His question brought her attention back to George.

“Sure.” Taking a deep breath, she let the sleeping bag drop and scrambled into her fleece layer, followed by her coat. “Give me a minute to dress my bottom half, and I'll get snow for water while I'm outside.” Her flush returned. “From a
different
spot than where I…um.”

His teeth flashed in the grayish light as he grinned. It stunned Ellie for a second, so rare and unexpected. Blinking, she returned to yanking on her pants. Shoving her feet into her boots, she loosened the laces before tying them. George gave a grunt of approval.

When she glanced over at him, she saw he'd almost finished dressing already. The man was
fast
.

Once she crawled out of the tent, early morning sunlight made her squint. Standing, she saw the reason for the weird light—a thick layer of snow covered everything, including the tent. Carefully stepping over the guy wires, she swept an arm over the rounded top, knocking off the snow. George joined her.

Looking around, Ellie smiled. “It wasn't fun to walk through last night, but it sure is pretty this morning.” Fresh snow was piled on every tree branch and rock, so white it had a bluish tint. “It looks like a Christmas card.” Just as she said the words, a deer stepped between a pair of trees across the clearing from them. Its enormous ears swiveled toward them before it bounded through the snow to the safety of another stand of pines.

“
Release the deer
,” Ellie murmured under her breath, and then laughed at George's raised eyebrow. “Movie reference. Never mind. Were that deer's ears really huge, or was it just me?”

“Mule deer.”

“Oh. I see where that name came from.” Her bladder started sending her the message to quit lingering over the scenery and get down to business. “I'll just head over there.” She waved at the boulder next to their tent.

Her feet sank into the snow until her boots disappeared completely. She was tempted to go back for her snowshoes, but she was already halfway to her destination, so she kept going.

When she slogged through the snow on her return trip, she pondered something. “George,” she called, and he looked up from where he was scooping snow into the pot. “Why was the moose so scary when the mule deer was just cute? What's the difference?”

“About eight hundred pounds and an extra fifty feet of space between it and us.” He returned to his snow gathering.

She thought about that for a moment. “Makes sense.”

Just in the short time they'd been out of the tent, the temperature felt as if it had warmed. Ellie scooped up a double handful of snow and was delighted that she could actually pack it into a ball. Normally, the snow was either frozen like a brick of ice or dry and powdery. This was snow she could play with.

Grinning, she launched the snowball at George, catching him on the shoulder. His befuddled expression made her giggle so hard that she almost fell. When she saw him put the pan down and start heading her way, she gave a laughing shriek and tried to run in the other direction. The deep snow made her feel like she was running in slow motion, and she was laughing so hard that it made her even less coordinated. A glance over her shoulder showed George was quickly gaining on her, his longer legs easily catching up with her much shorter ones. It was strange to think that, if he'd chased her just a few days ago, she would've run out of true fear. Now, though, after he'd warmed her feet with huge, gentle hands and sacrificed his stocking hat to mop up her tears, she couldn't even remember what she'd found so intimidating about George.

She made a sharp turn to the side, hoping that, if not faster, she was at least more maneuverable than him. On her third stride, she hit a deeper drift and floundered in snow up to her thighs, erasing the last of her lead. She didn't mind when he closed the gap between them, though—being caught by George was not a bad thing.

Grabbing her around the waist, he tossed her over his shoulder with an ease that made her breathless for several reasons she didn't want to ponder. Instead, she concentrated on clinging to the back of his coat as he spun her around.

“Okay!” Her stomach hurt from laughing so hard, which wasn't helped by her current position. “Okay! Sorry! Uncle! I'm going to puke!” The last one was the winner. As soon as it left her mouth, she was turned right side up, and her feet sank into the snow again. She panted for air, breathless from laughter. “Sorry, but I couldn't resist. The snow is just so…throwable.”

Although George shook his head at her, his eyes were glinting with playful humor. “Save that energy for walking.”

“But it's not nearly as much fun.”

His stern look melted into a grin. Reaching toward her, he brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek. Almost immediately, his smile fell away, and he jerked his hand back. He appeared almost stricken. “Sorry.”

“Please.” She rolled her eyes, trying to keep it light despite the way her cheek still burned in the best way where he'd touched it. “That was nothing. I basically flattened you in your sleep so I could use you as a face warmer. Twice.”

To her relief, the tense lines of his face softened again. “I don't mind.”

When she realized she was gazing at him like a soppy idiot, she dragged her eyes away from his. Clearing her throat, she asked, “So, oatmeal for breakfast?”

After a pause, he confirmed, “Oatmeal.”

They moved quickly after that, working together to prepare breakfast and break camp with an efficiency that made Ellie feel like they'd been hiking together for weeks rather than days. As she hoisted her pack onto her shoulders, she paused in the middle of buckling the strap across her chest.

George looked over at her with an inquiring expression.

“I thought I heard voices.” Turning her head, she strained her ears. “There wouldn't be any other hikers around here, would there?”

“Could be.” She could tell he was listening, as well.

After several moments of listening to the drip of melting snow and a trilling birdsong, she returned to fastening her pack straps. “Guess I imagined it. Unless bears have developed a human call to lure us to them.” George snorted, and she grinned, loving that she'd almost made him laugh.

They set off on the trail, and Ellie moved quickly, determined to cover more ground than she had over the past two days. Her soreness had eased, although the blisters still hurt. George adjusted his pace to hers, keeping a few feet ahead of her, and she wondered how quickly he'd move if she weren't along. That thought was depressing, so she banished it and focused on walking.

The trail narrowed and grew steeper. On their right, a wall of rock towered over them. Snow gathered in the nooks and crannies, but the sun was quickly melting it, and water streaked the rock face.

Despite Ellie's determination, she groaned with relief when George called for the first break.

“It'll level out soon,” he promised as he offered her the trail mix.

With that to look forward to, she kept the break short. True to his word, the trail flattened and widened five minutes later. The snow cover was shallow, so they stopped again to remove their snowshoes and attach them to their packs.

After they resumed walking, the scenery changed again, and they passed through a sparsely wooded area. The sun filtered through the evergreen needles, giving the space a greenish glow. New, blindingly white snow covered everything in a blanket that sparkled when it caught the light. Small animal prints were the only patterns marring the pristine snow, and Ellie hated to ruin the perfection with her boots. The trees and snow muffled all sound, and she found that she was holding her breath at the beauty of it.

Her noisy exhale made George turn his head to look at her. His smile froze as his eyes fixed on something over her shoulder. Puzzled, she started to turn, but an arm looping around her neck stopped her midmotion. Something pressed against her temple, and she could feel the metal, hard and cold, even through her hat.

“You move, and she's dead,” a male voice rasped in her ear.

George's hands—one of which had darted to the vent at the side of his coat—raised to shoulder level, palms out, in a gesture of surrender. His gaze was fixed on where the gun met her temple, and his expression was so cold and hard that he didn't even look like himself.

Like a punch to the belly, the reality of the situation hit her, and she stiffened in the stranger's hold. In all her years living in Chicago, she'd never been mugged. The idea that it could happen to her in the middle of nowhere, in this beautiful, serene place, seemed ludicrous. There was no denying the clamp of the ropy forearm against her throat, however, or the gun barrel boring a hole in her temple.

“Don't you try anything, either, pretty girl.” His voice changed when he talked to her. It slid over her, syrupy and sickening, making her shudder. “We're just going to lighten your load a little, and then we'll be on our way. If you don't make a fuss, then no one gets hurt. It's easy, see?”

Her brain locked on the “we,” and her knees went soft at the thought that there was more than just one attacker. Her chin was forced up by the forearm across her throat, but her backpack required him to stand to her left, rather than directly behind her, so she could almost see him. The gun took up most of her field of vision, its looming, black shape enormous. The man was just a fuzzy form behind the gun, but she could tell he was tall. She could smell him, too, a mix of body odor, woodsmoke, and a strange, sharp chemical she didn't recognize.

“Wilson!” The stranger's barked order made her jump and swallow a shriek. “Get their packs. His first.”

A man stepped into her line of sight, surprisingly close, making her jerk back. The barrel of the gun pressed harder against her temple, and pain radiated across the side of her face. The guy walking toward George was average in size and pasty pale, with streaks of red across his cheekbones from the cold. He was wearing camouflage pants and jacket, although both looked too thin to provide much warmth.

All Ellie could think was that she'd seen Wilson's face. She could describe him to the police, pick him out of a lineup. George was getting a good look at the other man. Why didn't the men wear masks? The only reason her frantic brain could come up with was that they planned to kill both her and George. Biting back a groan of terror, she struggled against the man holding her captive, but he all too easily subdued her by tightening his arm across her throat. Her need for air overwhelmed everything, and she stilled in his hold. With a cold chuckle, he loosened his grip just enough for her to breathe again.

After quickly undoing the waist and chest straps of the backpack, Wilson moved behind George and yanked the pack off his back. As the straps slid down his rigid arms, George kept his gaze on Ellie. She'd never seen anyone look so coldly pissed, and she wondered how the men didn't cower in the face of George's fury. If she'd been the object of his deadly anger, she would've immediately dropped the gun and run.

She stared back at George, trying to find reassurance and to reassure in turn, but the gun at her temple kept reminding her that they were both probably going to die. A whimper rose, but it couldn't make it past the forearm crushing her throat.

After hoisting George's pack onto his own shoulders and securing the straps, Wilson moved toward Ellie. Her heart thumped against her ribs until all she could hear was its rapid pounding. Their eyes met, his pale blue and bloodshot. She tried to silently plead with him, but Wilson dropped his gaze quickly, and he started to fumble with the strap across her chest.

When she cringed away from his hands, the arm around her neck tightened again, making bright spots flicker across her vision before the stranger behind her eased the pressure. Her throat hurt as she gasped for air, and she was so focused on sucking in oxygen that she didn't even feel the strap around her waist fall free.

Wilson moved behind her, and she felt her backpack straps sliding down her arms. Without him in the way, she had a clear view of George. His fists were by his sides but extended slightly outward, as if he were an Old West gunslinger right before the draw. His gaze was fixed on her as if he were attempting to silently shove words into her head, and she stared back at him, desperately trying to read his mind.

He wanted her to do something, but her thoughts were on fast-forward, refusing to fall into their usual logical order. Everything in her was screaming for her to run, but the gun and the stranger's hold made that impossible. Terror boiled to the surface, and she barely managed to push it down enough to focus on George again.