Mountain Investigation. Jessica Andersen

      Chapter Two

      Gray stayed very still. He was wearing camouflage and stood hidden behind a screening layer of trees and underbrush; as long as he didn’t move, Mawadi shouldn’t be able to see him. Gray wasn’t totally motionless, though: his blood raced through his veins and his heart pumped furiously, beating in his ears on a rhythm that said he was right, the ex-wife was part of it, after all.

      And Lee Mawadi had very definitely not fled the country, as all the reports had indicated.

      The bastard stood there—blond and Nordic, looselimbed and relaxed, cradling a Remington shotgun in the crook of one arm as he scanned the forest. Then he headed for the corner of the porch, shouldered the shotgun, unzipped and urinated, all the while scanning the forest. He seemed to be looking for something, but what? Had he seen Gray skulking in the trees? Was he expecting company?

      Mawadi finished and rezipped, then turned toward the still-open door, calling, “You said they’d be here at five, right?”

      Gray didn’t hear the answer, couldn’t tell if the responding voice belonged to a man or a woman. His brain raced, trying to parse the tiny nugget of information. It was just past four o’clock, which meant the meeting was an hour away. And if he could figure out who was coming for the meeting, it could be a huge break in the case, allowing them to identify more of the terrorists, maybe even the traitors they suspected might be working within the Bear Claw Police Department, and maybe even the FBI itself. For half a second, excitement zinged through him at the thought of al-Jihad himself showing up. Gray would give anything to be the one to subdue all of them, the terrorists and the ex-wife, and put them where they belonged—in the ARX Supermax or a grave, either way was fine with him.

      Then Gray cursed, realizing that if the newcomers were driving up the mountain, he could be in serious trouble. The only way up the ridgeline to the cabin was the narrow track he’d come up, or the fire-access road that merged with the track just below where he’d parked. His four-by-four was off the road and somewhat hidden, but the concealment was far from foolproof. A driver coming up the lane might see the vehicle, even in the gathering dusk.

      Which meant he had two choices. One, he could retrace his path, pronto, in hopes of making it down the ridge and hiding the truck before the other vehicle turned up the road. Then he could boogie down the mountain, get into cell range and call for backup. Or two, he could stay put and hope his four-by-four escaped detection while he cobbled together some sort of a plan to subdue Mawadi and whoever else was in the cabin, then capture the others when they arrived.

      Gray wasn’t a glory seeker by a long shot, but for both personal and professional reasons, he liked the image of dragging in the murdering bastards himself. Not to mention that there was a good chance that even if he made it to cell range, SAC Johnson and the others would give him a less than enthusiastic response. Gray had cried “wolf” before and it had come to nothing, and then he’d dropped the ball on that damn message during the festival, with the result that al-Jihad and the others had very nearly succeeded in their aim of destroying a stadium filled with tens of thousands of city residents awaiting a benefit concert. Which meant that Gray wasn’t exactly the go-to guy for anything these days. For all he knew, Johnson would ignore his report and put him back on administrative leave for going near the cabin in the first place.

      All of which is one big, fat rationalization, Gray admitted inwardly, staying quiet because Mawadi was still on the porch. But spoken aloud or not, it was the truth. He was making up excuses for doing what he fully intended to do, whether or not it was reasonable. He was going in now and alone, not just because he didn’t trust Johnson and the other special agents in the Denver office, but because he didn’t trust the system itself. Not anymore.

      The system hadn’t stopped pampered rich-boy Lee Chisholm from taking his love of violence and his knee-jerk hatred of his father’s politics and turning it into terrorism. The system hadn’t been able to pin any one of a half-dozen other crimes on al-Jihad in the years between the 9/11 terror attacks and the Santa Bombings. The system had let down all the men, women and children who’d died in the attacks; it had failed them and their families twice over—once by not preventing the bombings and again by not keeping the terrorists behind bars. All of which meant the system couldn’t be trusted this time, either.

      That was why Gray had taken his day off to hike up the ridgeline, and it was why, even though he knew he should focus on returning Mawadi and the others to prison, in reality he wanted a far more permanent solution, and eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Justice.

      An image flashed in his head, a baby in a PICU incubator, her tiny hands clinging to her breathing tube just as tenaciously as she’d clung to life for twenty-two endless hours.

      Keeping her memory in the forefront of his mind, Gray unclipped his holster and withdrew the 9 mm he’d carried on this little “hunting” trip, and started working his way through the trees, skirting the electric fence and the range of the motion detectors, heading for the back of the cabin.

      The last of the surveillance reports, filed a few months earlier, had noted a rear exit, one that looked new, as though Mariah had put it in after she’d bought the cabin. Sure enough, there was a door at one end of the back of the building, with two windows beside it, blinds drawn to the sills. The rear exit was definitely a point in his favor, Gray decided. Mawadi and the others would have to power down the motion sensors when their company arrived. In that small window of opportunity, Gray planned to slip in through the back.

      If he could take Lee and his ex-wife alive, he would. If not, dead was fine. He’d take his revenge however he could get it.

      MARIAH FOUGHT HER WAY through fuzzy, drugged layers of consciousness and awoke to heart-pounding panic. Twisting wildly against her bonds, she looked around and found herself where she’d been the last time she’d awakened: tied to her own bed in her otherwise stripped-down bedroom. The nightstand and bureau were gone, as were all her books and personal things. That wasn’t the worst of it, though. The worst was knowing that although she’d woken up this time, it didn’t guarantee that she’d wake up the next.

      Whenever she’d regained blurry consciousness over the past few days, she’d seen Lee’s face crowding close. And she’d seen the murder in his eyes.

      When the time came for her to die, she knew, he would kill her himself, and he’d relish the process. He’d delight in punishing her for having testified against him, for helping break his alibi and for divorcing him while he’d sat in jail. No doubt he would’ve already killed her by now if it’d been up to him. It apparently wasn’t up to him, though. A second man had stood behind him each time she’d awakened, his figure blurry with distance and the drugs they had pumped into her to keep her sedated for hours, maybe days.

      Broad-shouldered and muscular, the second man had dark, vaguely reptilian eyes. Lee had called him Brisbane, though she didn’t know if that was a first or last name, didn’t think it mattered. The big man had arrived sometime between when Lee had drugged her unconscious and when she’d awakened the first time, lying on the floor in a pool of her own filth, still wearing the heavy layers and parka she’d had on when Lee attacked her. She must’ve made some noise when she’d regained consciousness, because she’d heard voices soon after, and Brisbane had come into the room.

      At first she’d been terrified of the dark-eyed stranger with the faint accent, sure he was there to kill her. Instead, he’d been the one to keep Lee away from her—mostly, anyway—and he’d been the one who, when she’d begged, had untied her and let her shower and change her clothes. He’d watched her, cradling her shotgun in clear threat, but she’d forced herself through the process, shaking and crying, and weak with the drugs as she’d gulped shower water in a painful effort to slake her thirst.

      She’d been almost grateful to collapse back onto her bed, have him retie her hands and feet, and let herself sink back into oblivion. She’d surfaced a few