Chapter 2. The Burned Raven #2
She stopped.
“What?”
“Medical.”
Grant looked at the tunnel ahead.
“This culvert was part of it twenty years ago?”
“Not exactly. The symbols were added afterward.”
“How can you tell?”
“I made that scratch.”
Grant’s head turned sharply. Maren’s face had gone pale under the flashlight.
“The vertical line?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The night they moved me.”
The confined air seemed to become heavier. Grant saw the culvert differently now. Not an escape route she happened to remember. A place she had occupied while captive, perhaps drugged, frightened, moved by men who believed the landscape itself belonged to them.
“You came through here.”
“Near here. They stopped at the drainage because the upper road washed out. One guard took me down to the culvert while they moved another vehicle.” Her voice remained controlled, but she had begun rubbing her thumb against the side of her index finger, a small repetitive motion Grant remembered from when she was young and trying not to show she was scared.
“I scratched the mark because I thought someone might search the road later.”
Grant could barely make himself ask. “Did you think I would?”
Her hand stopped. For several seconds, only water moved between them.
“I thought everyone would,” she said.
That was worse. A metallic knock sounded behind them. Both turned. Someone had entered the culvert. Grant switched off the light.
Darkness became absolute.
A voice echoed through the pipe. “You’re making this unnecessarily difficult.”
Grant recognized the first speaker. Closer now.
He drew his weapon and leaned toward Maren. “Move.”
They continued through darkness, Grant keeping his left hand against the wall and listening to Maren’s movements ahead. The water deepened slightly. The tube widened again, then reached a concrete junction where a narrower drainage branch cut left beneath the hillside.
Maren stopped long enough to whisper, “Left.”
“Where does it go?”
“Old settling basin.”
“Open?”
“It was.”
Twenty years ago again. Grant hated every route that required trusting the past. They turned left.
The branch forced them down almost to hands and knees.
Grant could hear their pursuer entering the main bend behind them, the distortion of footsteps and gear through the metal making distance difficult to judge. Whoever followed did not rush.
He knew the tunnel. That mattered. Maren moved faster. The concrete branch rose gradually until the water thinned beneath their boots. A square of faint gray appeared ahead—not open sky, but enough diffuse light to suggest an outlet screened by vegetation.
Grant felt a surge of hope he did not trust. Maren reached the end first. Then froze. Grant saw why. A steel cable had been stretched across the outlet at ankle height.
Not old. The cable was clean, the fittings bright. A trip line. Maren crouched and followed it with her eyes toward the right wall. Grant turned the flashlight on for less than a second.
A compact black device was fixed beneath the concrete lip. Not an explosive. Infrared transmitter.
“Alarm,” he whispered.
“They know when someone crosses.”
“Can you get around it?”
“Yes.”
Maren stepped over the cable and flattened herself against the left side of the outlet. Grant followed, careful not to touch the line. They emerged into brush.
The settling basin no longer existed as a pond. It had filled with soil and young trees, leaving a shallow bowl beneath the road grade. Thick salal and fern concealed most of the old infrastructure. Twenty yards east, a narrow game trail climbed toward a ridge saddle. Maren started toward it.
Grant caught her sleeve. She spun, ready to pull free. He released her immediately and pointed instead. Fresh tire tracks crossed the far edge of the basin. ATV or side-by-side.
The men had another vehicle below.
“They covered both exits,” Grant said.
Maren looked at the tracks. “Not both.”
“Meaning?”
“The east saddle doesn’t go to the county road.”
“Where?”
“River shelf.”
Grant felt a sinking recognition. “Transfer point.”
“Yes.”
Exactly where people like this would expect someone familiar with Raven Road to go. Grant looked back toward the culvert. They were being herded. The realization settled with ugly clarity. Not hunted blindly.
Directed. Every apparent escape path led farther from the public road and deeper into the network. Maren understood at the same moment.
“They don’t want to catch me here,” she said.
“They want you somewhere else.”
“Somewhere they control completely.”
Grant scanned the basin.
“That means we stop choosing exits.”
Maren frowned.
“We choose noise.”
Understanding moved across her face.
“County road.”
“Not through the turnout. Straight downslope.”
“That’s steep.”
“Good.”
“There’s a rock shelf halfway down.”
“Better.”
“And a drainage chute that floods hard after rain.”
Grant glanced toward the sound of Raven River. “Less good.”
“But unpredictable.”
He looked at her. For the first time that night, they were thinking together rather than taking turns distrusting each other.
“Show me.”
They left the trail. The slope immediately became brutal. Wet ferns hid loose stone. Alder grabbed at their jackets. Grant moved slightly downhill from Maren when the grade steepened, not to control her direction but because a slip from above would carry both of them otherwise.
They made perhaps eighty yards before the first shot came. The round struck a tree five feet to Grant’s right with a hard wooden crack. Maren dropped. Grant was beside her instantly, one knee in mud, weapon up. The second shot hit lower.
Not at them. Between them and the descent. Herding. Grant’s jaw tightened.
“They’re steering us east.”
Maren looked toward the impact marks. “Toward the river shelf.”
A third shot snapped through branches behind them. Again, placement rather than kill. The shooter had elevation and enough visibility to do far worse.
Maren understood it too. “They need me alive.”
“Still doesn’t make the bullets friendly.”
“I noticed.”
Grant pointed toward a cluster of boulders downslope. “There.”
They moved in bursts. The next round struck above them while they crossed open ground, showering Grant with bark. He reached the boulders first and turned to cover Maren’s last ten feet. That was when the slope moved. Not an avalanche.
Mud. A section of saturated ground beneath Grant’s right boot sheared away without warning. His leg dropped, his weight twisted, and the world slammed sideways. He hit granite shoulder-first and felt something tear through his left knee as the slope carried him another six feet. Pain flashed white.
His gun disappeared from his hand.
“Grant!”
Maren slid toward him.
“Stay down.”
She ignored him. Of course she did. Grant pushed himself onto one elbow and immediately knew the knee was wrong. Not shattered, probably, but unstable enough that putting full weight on it would be a mistake. Blood ran from a cut near his temple where he had struck rock.
Maren reached him and crouched behind the boulder.
“Can you move?”
“Yes.”
“Truth.”
“Enough.”
Her mouth tightened. “You always lie badly when injured.”
“You remember?”
“I remember everything.”
Another shot struck the top of the boulder. Grant reached for his holster by instinct and found it empty. The weapon lay somewhere above them in the mud. Maren saw his hand.
“Gone?”
“Yes.”
She looked uphill. Two figures were descending through the trees now. White thermal rain gear over dark clothing. Faces obscured beneath caps and clear eye protection. Professional enough to know weather was camouflage.
Grant pulled a compact folding knife from his belt, aware of how absurdly small it felt compared with a rifle.
“We keep moving.”
“Your knee—”
“Is not the priority.”
Maren’s expression changed. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Turn yourself into the disposable part of the plan.”
The words stopped him. Even now. Even here. She had recognized the instinct more quickly than he had.
Grant forced himself to think past pain. “Fine. Revised plan. We both get out.”
“Better.”
They moved. Grant could bear weight if he kept the knee nearly straight, but every uneven step threatened to buckle it. Maren took the lower position without discussion, offering her shoulder only when the slope required it. He accepted twice. That mattered more than he wanted it to.
The forest thinned ahead. Through the rain, Grant saw the gray strip of an old service road. Not the county highway. Something narrower. Maren cursed.
“What?”
“This road shouldn’t exist anymore.”
Fresh gravel had been laid over sections of the old track. Raven Road active. The phrase from Whiteout Ridge came back with brutal clarity. An engine started somewhere to their left. Close.
Grant looked uphill. The two pursuers had stopped descending. No need. They had delivered them exactly where intended. A dark utility vehicle came around the bend.
No plates. No county markings. Grant pulled Maren back toward the trees, but movement erupted behind them at the same time. A third man stepped from cover with a compact rifle already shouldered.
“Enough.”
Grant positioned himself between the rifle and Maren. The man’s weapon shifted slightly toward Grant’s center mass.
“Sheriff, you have been given more chances than most people get.”
Grant studied him. Broad build. Mid-forties perhaps. No visible insignia. Voice unfamiliar.
“Generous organization.”
“We’re not here for you.”
“That keeps getting said.”
“Because you keep refusing to listen.”
Maren stood slightly behind Grant, but he could feel her moving. Not retreating. Preparing. He did not look back. The utility vehicle stopped twenty feet away.
Its rear door opened. Another man got out holding a syringe case. Maren’s breathing changed. Grant heard it. The reaction was tiny but immediate.
Sedation. Memory. He felt something violent move through him.
“No.”
The rifleman almost looked bored. “This doesn’t require your permission.”
“Federal investigation is already active. Hale is in custody. Vehicle Two was recovered. Whatever you think you’re protecting is finished.”