Smoky Mountains Ranger. Lena Diaz
the cuffs on the man’s wrists, then sat back, drawing deep breaths as adrenaline pumped through him. A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face in spite of the mild, springlike temps this high up in the mountains. From the moment he’d seen the gunman to the moment he’d cuffed him had probably only been five minutes. But it had felt like an eternity.
He stood and pulled his prisoner up with him. After patting the man down to make sure he wasn’t hiding more weapons, he grabbed the man’s pistol and popped out the magazine. After ejecting the chambered round and verifying that the weapon was now empty, he pocketed the gun and the magazine. Then he slid the man’s wallet out of his back jeans pocket, jumping back when the man jerked around, glowering at him.
“Give that back.” The man’s tone communicated a deadly, unmistakable threat.
“After I check your ID.”
A smug look crossed the man’s face, a look Adam understood when he opened the wallet. Tucked inside was a hefty amount of cash: twenties, tens, a few ones—a thousand dollars, easy. A heck of a lot of money for someone wandering through the mountains. But that was it. No driver’s license, no credit cards, nothing that could shed any light on his identity.
He forced the man to face the rock wall again and returned the wallet with its cache of money to the man’s pocket. “What’s your name?”
Silence met his question.
“What were you doing up here on a closed trail with a pistol? Why were you pointing it at Miss Ingram?”
Tattoo Guy turned his head to the side, watching Adam over his shoulder. Still, he said nothing. He just studied Adam intently, his eyes dark and cold, like a serpent.
Adam glanced toward the woman, then stiffened. During the altercation between him and the gunman, instead of moving down the trail or ducking for cover behind a tree, she’d backed up close to the edge again.
“Miss Ingram.” He kept his voice low and soothing so he wouldn’t startle her. “Jody, right?”
She swallowed, then nodded.
“Jody, I’d feel a whole lot better if you’d step away from that sharp drop-off.”
She glanced over her shoulder. A visible shudder ran through her as she hurried forward and to the side. She’d been mere inches from falling off the cliff and was exceedingly lucky the unstable edge hadn’t given way.
“How about you move over there?” He directed her closer to the wall of rock, a little farther up the path and out of reach of his prisoner if the man decided to launch himself at either of them.
She did as he’d directed. But instead of looking relieved that she no longer had a pistol pointing at her, she seemed even more anxious than before. Her face was chalk white, making her green eyes and matching glasses stand out in stark contrast. Even her lips had lost their color, and her whole body was shaking.
Why?
“Everything’s okay now,” he reassured her. “You’re safe. What’s this guy’s name?”
She exchanged an uneasy glance with the handcuffed man, then shook her head. “I...I don’t know. We, ah, ran into each other on the trail.”
Adam glanced back and forth between them, beginning to wonder whether he should put her in handcuffs, too. They were hiding something. What was going on here?
“You’re strangers? You’ve never met before?”
She swallowed. “We’ve never met. I’d just rounded the curve and he was...there. I...ah...startled him, which is why he drew his gun.” She gave a nervous laugh. “I guess he thought I was a bear.” Again, she gave a nervous laugh that was anything but convincing.
A smile creased Tattoo Guy’s lips as he watched the exchange over his shoulder.
“You don’t know each other’s names?” Adam asked, giving her another chance to answer him truthfully.
“No.”
He shook his head, not even trying to hide his disbelief. “You have a habit of getting into heated arguments with strangers?”
Her face flushed guiltily. “He drew a gun on me. I wasn’t happy about that. Things did get a bit...heated...with him demanding to know why I’d snuck up on him. Which, of course, I hadn’t. But looking back, I can see how it appeared that way to him.” She wouldn’t meet his gaze. Subterfuge obviously didn’t come naturally to her. So why was she covering for this guy? Or was she covering for both of them?
He tried again, working hard to inject patience into his tone. “You were arguing with each other over him putting the gun down?”
She cleared her throat. “Yes, pretty much.” Another nervous laugh.
Her story had more holes in it than a white-tailed fawn had spots. Instead of rescuing her from a domestic dispute between a couple, had he interrupted a disagreement between a couple of criminals? Were they out here doing something illegal and they’d turned on each other? Or maybe whatever they’d planned was still to come, something far worse than trespassing on a closed trail or carrying a gun into a national park. Adam backed up the path several feet so he could keep Jody—if that was her real name—in his line of sight at a safer distance, just in case she and Tattoo Guy decided to join forces against him.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You don’t have ID on you, either?”
She cleared her throat again. “Actually, no. I don’t. I left my purse in my car, at the trailhead. All I have with me are my keys and my phone.”
“Empty your pockets.”
Her brow furrowed, and she finally looked at him. “Excuse me?”
“Would you prefer that I pat you down like I did your friend?”
Twin spots of color darkened her cheeks, making her freckles stand out in stark contrast to her pale complexion. Her eyes flashed with anger. “I assure you, he’s not my friend.”
That statement, at least, appeared to be true. But he could tell she immediately regretted her outburst by the way her teeth tugged at her full lower lip.
His prisoner’s eyes narrowed at her, as if in warning. Something was definitely rotten in the state of Denmark, or in this case, the Smoky Mountains. And Adam was determined to get to the bottom of it.
“Your pockets, ma’am?”
Without a word, she pulled her phone out of one pocket, a set of keys out of the other. Clutching them both in one hand, she turned out the lining of her pockets to show they were empty. “That’s it. There’s nothing else.”
“Back pockets, too.”
Her mouth tightened but she turned around and turned those pockets inside out.
“All right,” Adam conceded. “You can turn around.” To perform a complete search, he should pat down her bra. But his years of reading people told him that wasn’t necessary. She wasn’t carrying.
“Where do you live?”
Again, another look at the handcuffed man as she shoved her keys and phone back into her pockets. “Not far from here. I’ve got an apartment in town.”
“Gatlinburg?”
Again, she hesitated. “Yes.”
“Why were you two up here today?”
She chewed her bottom lip.
Tattoo Guy simply stared at him, eyes narrowed with the promise of retribution over Adam’s interference in whatever was going on.
“Maybe my question wasn’t clear,” Adam said. “Why were you both on a closed trail?”
“Closed?” The man sounded shocked. “Really? Miss Ingram, did you see any signs saying the trail was closed?” Laughter