Operation: Midnight Tango (6 page)

“They were shooting at you,” she said. “In case you’re wondering, that’s standard operating procedure when an inmate takes an officer hostage and escapes.”

He glanced away from her and looked up at the sky as if gauging the storm. He had a strong profile with a straight nose and chiseled mouth. Emily wasn’t sure why, but the sight of his lips made her think of the kiss in the prison locker room. Remembering it right now was ridiculously inappropriate considering the situation. But neither of those things changed what the kiss had done to her….

Tearing her gaze away from him, Emily brushed the last of the snow from her coat and slacks and looked around. Under different circumstances she might have enjoyed the beauty of the night. The heavy snowfall was lovely against the backdrop of the mountain forest and night sky. But standing out in the middle of nowhere with an escaped convict who’d nearly gotten her killed removed any discernible pleasure.

“We lucked out,” he said. “The chopper must have been grounded because of the storm.”

“Oh, yes, I’m feeling luckier by the second,” she said dryly. “If we’re really lucky, we’ll be buried alive with snow by morning.”

The look he gave her caused the hairs on her arms to prickle. A different kind of uneasiness rose inside her. Emily wasn’t familiar with his background or what he’d done. It had to be brutal, savage, for him to end up in the Bitterroot Super Max.
She didn’t want to think about what he was capable of. Or what he might do to her…

Refusing to let the thought spook her, she stuck out her chin and gave him a hard look. “So what do you propose we do now, Einstein?”

“First and foremost, we stay alive.”

That might be very difficult under the circumstances. Emily refused to go there.

He sighed, motioned toward the tear in the sleeve of her coat. “At some point I’ll need to take a look at that bullet wound.”

Between dodging bullets and crashing the snowmobile, she’d pushed the pain in her arm to the back of her mind. But now that he’d mentioned it, she could feel the stinging and burning of the bullet wound, the wet stickiness of the blood.

“Why don’t you just make a run for it while you can?” she said.

Her heart sped up when he stepped close to her. “Because I didn’t risk my life breaking out of that hellhole to run.”

“You don’t need me,” she said. “Just go and leave me here.”

“If they find you here or anywhere else, you’re as good as dead.”

“They wouldn’t—”

“They would,” he said sharply. “Do you think that bullet wound in your arm was an accident?”

“I think the SORT team marksman was trying to stop you. I got in the way.”

“In case you’ve forgotten what happened in the
locker room, let me refresh your memory. Three men. One of them had a syringe with your name on it. He was going to shoot you up with some kind of truth serum, for God’s sake. Then who knows what was next on the agenda.”

Emily wanted to deny it but couldn’t. She’d seen the syringe. She’d seen the looks on the men’s faces. And she’d known what they’d been about to do. But why?

“They think I helped you escape,” she said dully.

“They think you know something you shouldn’t.”

“Like what?” she asked.

“Like why inmates at the Bitterroot Super Max have been dying under mysterious circumstances for the last six months.”

Something
was going on at the prison. In the last six months, she’d personally known of at least two inmates dying unexpectedly. That was why she’d been asking questions. That was why she’d been in the infirmary that morning to begin with.

But to believe the people she’d worked with for the last three years were capable of murder was unthinkable. How did Devlin know about it? There appeared to be a lot more to Zack Devlin than met the eye.

“How do you know inmates have been dying?” she asked.

“I know because for the last four months I’ve watched men systematically disappear. Healthy men who are sent to the infirmary. Most come back to their cells deathly ill. Some of them don’t come back at all.”

Was Devlin just a smooth-talking liar whose very freedom hinged on manipulating her into helping him?

But in her heart Emily knew
something
was going on at the prison. She just didn’t know what.

Things aren’t always what they appear….

“What’s happening to them?” she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper.

He turned his gaze to hers. She saw a weariness that hadn’t been there before and wondered about its source. “Horrors you can only imagine in your worst nightmares,” he said.

Emily stared at him, aware that she was frightened. And that the fear didn’t have anything to do with the man standing so close she could see the stubble on his cheek. Deep inside she knew that despite whatever this man might have done, he was not lying about Lockdown, Inc.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m the man who’s going to try to save your life, if you’ll let me.”

“You’re a dangerous fugitive. You’ve taken me hostage—”

“And you’d be dead right now if I hadn’t gotten you out of there.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“They would have killed you the same way they’ve killed countless others in the last six months.”

Looking suddenly tired, he raised his hand and touched the cut on his temple. His lips pulled into a frown when his fingertips came away red. He wiped
it on his slacks and looked around. “Look, we need to put some distance between us and that prison. Then we need to find shelter. I have a feeling the weather is going to get worse before it gets any better.”

“I deserve an explanation.”

“You deserve to stay alive.” He turned to her, his expression tense. “They’re probably putting together a search team as we speak.”

“No professional in his right mind would send out search teams in this storm.”

“No, but a madman would. The people at Lockdown, Inc. have too much at stake to let us get away.”

“You keep using the term
us,
” Emily choked out. “Unless you have a mouse in your pock—”

“Like it or not, you are now on Lockdown, Inc.’s most-wanted list. Your only chance of coming out of this alive is to stick with me. If the storm doesn’t get too much worse, we might be able to outdistance them. Then maybe I can get us some help.”

“Help from whom?”

He looked away, his jaw flexing, as if her question had more ramifications than she’d intended. “We’ve got to go,” he said. “In another hour there may not be any visibility at all.” He shot her a look that made the hair at her nape prickle. “That’s the best-case scenario, Emily. If the weather improves, this area is going to be crawling with heavily armed
cops with itchy trigger fingers. If they get their hands on us, we’re going to wish we hadn’t survived the plunge off that cliff.”

Chapter Five

Zack tried to restart the snowmobile, but the tumble down the cliff had damaged both the track shoes and the engine. After wasting precious minutes, he abandoned the idea and he and Emily set off on foot.

It didn’t take long for him to realize that neither of them was dressed for hiking in severe weather conditions. No hats. No gloves. No waterproof boots. It would be only a matter of time before the cold took its toll in the form of frostbite or hypothermia. Two problems Zack figured they could do without considering the mountain was swarming with armed men bent on killing them.

“What the hell else can possibly go wrong?” he muttered as he trudged through knee-deep snow.

“Mother Nature could always make things a little more interesting.”

Zack shot Emily a sour look, annoyed because she was right. In the last hour the wind had picked up, whistling through the treetops like a thousand teakettles. The snow was coming down sideways.
His ears were cold. His feet were numb. And as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he was pretty sure they were lost.

He’d memorized the map given to him by his superior at MIDNIGHT as he’d prepared for the mission. Avery Shaw had made certain Zack had had everything he needed for the operation. Maps of the prison. Terrain maps of the surrounding area. Background reports on Lockdown, Inc.’s employees and inmates.

A bloody lot of good those things were doing him when he couldn’t see but a few feet in front of his face.

But Zack knew most storms in this part of Idaho blew in from the northwest. He and Emily were heading into the wind, so he could assume they were heading northwest. He recalled seeing a notation on the map that there was an abandoned ski lodge somewhere in the area. It had been popular back in the 1960s but later abandoned. Hopefully the old place was still standing. If he and Emily were really lucky, there would be no welcoming committee from Lockdown, Inc. waiting to gun them down.

A few feet away he could see Emily struggling through the wind and deep snow. Even though she seemed to be in relatively good physical condition, she was smaller and suffering from a bullet wound. He could only imagine how grueling this was for her.

“I think there’s an old ski lodge ahead,” he shouted to be heard above the roar of the wind.

Through the driving snow he saw her glance his way. “You mean the old Capello Hills Lodge?”

“Is it still standing?”

“Barely. I’ve never seen it, but a couple of the other corrections officers hiked up there last summer while on a rock-climbing excursion.”

Zack tossed her a furtive glance. She was only a few feet away, but he could barely make out her silhouette in the blinding snow. Dangerous conditions for even the most seasoned outdoorsman. It would take only an instant for them to become separated. Ideally he would tie a rope to her. Since he was fresh out of rope, he opted for the next best thing.

“Give me your hand!” he shouted, walking toward her.

Even with the poor visibility he saw the astonishment on her face. “What?”

“So we don’t get separated.” Without waiting for her to respond, he reached for her.

She initially resisted, then her hand relaxed within his. Her skin was like ice. Lord in heaven, she was nearly frostbitten.

Wishing he could do something to keep her warm, he tugged her along at a faster pace. “Let’s make some time,” he said, praying he could find the lodge before it was too late.

DAWN BROKE AS DARK AND gray as a partial solar eclipse, but the light did little to improve visibility. The snow was still coming down hard, and visibility had dwindled to less than five feet. If it hadn’t been for the shift in the pitch of the whistling wind, Zack would have walked right past the Capello Hills
Lodge without even seeing it. But from twenty yards away, he discerned the change as the wind whipped around the portico. Finally they’d found the shelter they so desperately needed.

“Jackpot,” Zack said.

Emily had been lagging behind for the last hour. Zack hoped her slow pace was due to the punishing conditions and not the bullet wound. He wasn’t particularly fond of corrections officers at the moment, but he didn’t want her hurt. One woman’s death on his conscience was about all he could handle….

Not allowing himself to think of the past, he took her to the open area beneath the portico where the building blocked most of the wind. Capello Hills Lodge had obviously once been magnificent, but no more. The glass in the front windows was long gone, replaced with plywood that had weathered badly. The once-rustic siding was warped and rotted. Some joker had nailed a No Trespassing sign to the front door.

Not bloody likely,
Zack thought and tore the sign from its nails and tossed it into the snow. He tried the door but it didn’t budge. He couldn’t tell if it was locked or warped, but he wasn’t going to let either of those things keep him out.

“Stand back,” he said.

Emily moved away. “We could try the ba—”

Zack landed a single solid kick to the door. It swung open. Dust motes exploded when it banged against the wall. Wishing for his sidearm, he stepped inside and motioned for Emily to follow.

He closed the door behind them, then stood quietly and listened, hoping they were alone. He could still hear the storm raging outside, but the sudden silence of being out of the wind was profound enough to make his ears ring. He turned to Emily to tell her to stay put while he took a look around, but the sight of her stopped him cold. Her hair was wet and she was shaking furiously. Her face was ghastly pale. She probably wouldn’t have lasted much longer out in the cold.

“You’re bloody hypothermic,” he said, his voice coming more roughly than he’d intended.

“I’m j-just c-cold.”

He took her arm to guide her to the massive hearth. She surprised him by shaking off his touch and glaring at him. He found himself staring into eyes the color of aged whiskey. Her mouth was full and sensuously shaped, like a pale ruby set into ivory. The combination of those two things socked him in the gut like a fist, and he found himself wanting to do a hell of a lot more than just touch her….

“In case you haven’t noticed,” she said, “I’m cold and wet and very ticked off. I’ve been shot at and lied to by people I once trusted. I’ve been driven off a cliff. Dragged through a snowstorm by an escaped convict. And I have a bullet wound in my arm.” Eyes flashing, she stepped closer to him and jammed her finger in his chest with enough force to push him back a step. “I want to know what the hell is going on. And I want to know right now.”

Zack stared at her for an interminable moment.
A measure of relief went through him when he saw that some of the color had returned to her cheeks. He wondered how long that would last once he told her what her pals back at Lockdown, Inc. were up to.

She wasn’t going to like it, but she deserved the truth. Thanks to him, Marcus Underwood and his army of goons were trying to kill her, too. Now it was Zack’s responsibility to keep her safe.

The thought twisted his gut, made him feel a little sick. The last time he’d tried to keep a woman safe, she’d ended up dead. Would he fail Emily, too?

“I’m going to build a fire,” he said. “Then we’ll talk.”